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New corruption charges surface for Cheney-led Halliburton

La merde is hitting the fan for that warmongering buffoon, Lord Cheney, the Guardian reports. In Paris, the financial crimes squad is investigating $200 million in bribes to Nigerian leaders paid by the French firm Technip and Halliburton subsidiary KBR during Cheney’s watch. French police, according to Le Figaro, believe that the Cheney-led oil services giant was behind a web of offshore bank accounts and front companies designed to evade cross-border corruption laws signed in 1997 by some 35 countries, including the United States.

posted by Groom 3:16 PM

Jerry Garcia's Revenge

"There's nothing good about drug use. We know it. It destroys individuals. It destroys families. Drug use destroys societies. Drug use, some might say, is destroying this country. And we have laws against selling drugs, pushing drugs, using drugs, importing drugs. And the laws are good because we know what happens to people in societies and neighborhoods which become consumed by them. And so if people are violating the law by doing drugs, they ought to be accused and they ought to be convicted and they ought to be sent up.

"What this says to me is that too many whites are getting away with drug use. Too many whites are getting away with drug sales. Too many whites are getting away with trafficking in this stuff. The answer to this disparity is not to start letting people out of jail because we're not putting others in jail who are breaking the law. The answer is to go out and find the ones who are getting away with it, convict them and send them up the river, too. Rush Limbaugh, October 5, 1995

posted by Jerry Bowles 12:41 AM

Friday, October 10, 2003

Culture Wars Claim Another Fat Loudmouth

First Bill Bennett, now Rush. Is nothing sacred?

posted by Jerry Bowles 4:06 PM

Second Thoughts

I'm not sure how CNN allocated time between candidates last night but it seemed to me that Kerry and Gephardt hogged more than their share. Poor not-so-bright Judy Woodruff did her best to keep things moving but often seemed confused and distracted. Big surprise to me is how little discussion there was of the Patriot Act and the other banana republic civil liberity atrocities being committed in the name of the "war on terror." Clark could have distinguished himself by pushing the "New American Patriotism" and tolerance for dissent. Seems to me all the candidates are missing an opportunity by not invoking hot button names like Ashcroft and Rumsfeld. If the Republicans are going to "Dukasasize' Dean then we should be able to "Newtisize" a couple of them.

posted by Jerry Bowles 11:03 AM

Shooting from the Lips, Part 2

Polls are like the weather: We love to complain about them, but there is nothing much we can do to affect the outcome. Besides, some of us like it cool when it's hot, some of like it hot when it's cool, and most of us just settle for what the day brings. The polling-industrial-complex would like us to think that polls are like thermostats, setting the temperature, but in fact they are only thermometers, giving us a reading at a specific point in time, subject to change within days or even within hours.

To continue the analogy, POLLiticans are like weathermen: They stand up in their GQ suits and red or blue ties, in front of those silly maps of the US, gesturing like a coked-up baboon, using the same narcotizing language, expecting us to be sanguine with their forecast of sunny weather, when we can look out our window and see that those foreboding clouds mean a shower, if not a downpour.

Why can't POLLiticans find other role-speak models and put some kind of modifiers or some level of quantification on their pronouncements? When I hear an unquantified expression by anyone, Democrat or Republican, I ignore what follows. Instead of saying "the American People" want this or that, why can't POLLiticans admit to differences and use expressions such as, "While most Americans want this or that," or "While there are differences on this policy, I think this or that is best for the country"? Anything, a nod of any sort to the differences among us. This small change would go a long way to helping the level and quality of discourse in America. As I hear it, Dean and Clark are doing some of this, so there may yet be a change in the weather.

The latest example of this unquantified speak is gov-elect Schwarzenegger soggy expression about "the people of California want change," as though there were a united chorus out there. He used this ubiquitous expression before, during and after the campaign. Yet the exit polls-- which are reliable because they are based on what voters did not on what they said--fly in the face of Ah-nuld's pontification. In the only state where whites are a minority of the population, 76 percent of Black voters and 54 percent of Hispanic voters voted against change, voting NO on the recall and FOR Bustamante. Clearly what Schwarzenegger means is not what he says, which is false, leaving us with only one conclusion, he means white folks want change.

Schwarzenegger needs to toss out the Bush script. Unlike Bush, who never acted on his words about being a uniter, not a divider, Schwarzenegger has a golden opportunity to be what he wants to be--the governor of ALL the people--but he can't do so by ignoring a substantial and significant minority of the people who see clouds on the horizon when he sees only sunshine.

posted by Josh 8:40 AM

It’s still the economy

Why have Voodoo economics when you can have Terminator economics… terminating what’s left of America’s middle class…

With the dollar taking a big dump on world markets the United States is taking on even more of a third world profile. Civil liberties. Constitutional rights. The economy. All in the tank. Witness the languid leadership in the White House glomming on to gauleiter Schwarzenegger’s victory. Even brother Jeb’s on board, jetting his budget director out to the coast to help Arnold create California‘s new “terminator“ economy.

But beyond the shrubs and the turdblossoms the IMF has voiced its concern about the rapidly growing “twin deficits” …you know, government and trade deficits… the kind you see in “economically disadvantaged” countries who don’t have enough domestic savings to finance the super-size government debt the Shrub club is running up.

A growing chorus of international bankers and commentators tired of hearing treasury secretary John Snow yack about this administration’s commitment to a strong dollar have joined the chorus. Like others they wonder who put the Ex-lax in the Snowman’s Godiva chocolate box.

For those of you who need cooling and schooling, analyze this from Donald Ratajczak, regents professor of economics emeritus at Georgia State University.

“Developing countries do not have enough domestic savings to finance large government deficits. Thus, international lenders must help finance those budget shortfalls. Similar international sources must provide credit to importers because exports are not sufficient to create enough international capital to finance those imports…

“If trade deficits and government deficits are rising together, the international borrowing needs of a developing country balloon. Very high interest rates are needed to continue attracting the world’s savings. While an ensuing recession might deflate imports and lower the trade deficit without currency devaluation, most countries choose currency adjustments over job losses.”

If this analysis holds, Shrubby and Snowman are just about at the Rubicon. As Jerry has pointed out in previous posts, watch carefuly the type of "new job creation" information released by the White House and its minions. Moving into the campaign year they can't afford to take any more hits on "job losses."

The dollar is getting whacked on foreign markets so bad you’d think that John Gotti is back from the dead. Already strung out on foreign oil, the US economy is now jonzein’ for foreign capital. Depending on who you talk to, the US economy needs about $1.75 billion in fresh foreign capital each day in its tank just to keep the motor running. And the more the budget deficit grows and the bigger the trade deficit gets the more the value of the dollar will keep going, down, down, down, down, down… down-de-doobie, down.

Didn’t hear any of the candidates raise this issue last night, although John Edwards sense of populist economics brought him closest to the core issue.

posted by Groom 6:06 AM

Thursday, October 09, 2003

The Debate

No clear winner. Clark got a little lost in the crowd although he took some good shots from Joe Lieberman and stayed on his feet. Dean avoided getting snarky and sounded good--especially the part about changing the nature of politics. Sharpton was funny as always and made extremely good sense. So did Madame Braun. Dennis was his usual pass the doobie, dude. Gephardt and Kerry are, by far, the best debaters, with the best grasp of issues and responses but who cares. Best line of the night: Kerry telling a questioner that she had two ways to reduce her drug bills, "See Rush Limbaugh's housekeeper or vote for me for president."

posted by Jerry Bowles 9:48 PM

Move On?

General Clark has posted a kind of mea culpa on his blog which says the right things about how much he appreciates the draft movement and recognizes how important it is to the success of his campaign. The rightwingers (i.e. Instapundit) are trying to cast this as a battle between the webheads, who "get" the Internet and believe in open process, and the old dogs whose effectiveness often depends on knowing something that others don't. I suspect the General is an old dog in this respect but he seems to be listening today to those who advocate more transparency. He's going to need both camps to beat the $200 million man.

posted by Jerry Bowles 6:52 PM

Fair and Balanced

President Bush told Americans today that the situation in Iraq is "a lot better than you probably think," as he sought to rally the flagging support for the U.S. occupation. Washington Post, October 9, 2003

A Spanish diplomat, a U.S. soldier and at least 10 Iraqis died Thursday in a trio of attacks, showing how frail security still is half a year since U.S. troops occupied Baghdad. U.S. efforts to rebuild Iraq faced diplomatic obstacles too.

Doubts rose over prospects for a U.N. resolution to map out Iraq's political future and also over a planned donors' conference, though Washington said the meeting should go ahead.

The United States also found itself embroiled in a dispute with both Ankara and Baghdad over U.S. hopes for a quick deployment of 10,000 Turkish troops in Iraq. Reuters, October 9, 2003

posted by Jerry Bowles 5:45 PM

Arnold drops the other shoe

Gauleiter fuer Kalifornien Schwarzenegger’s offer to get cozy with Shrubby and work the California budget deficit problem only begs the question. With former Bechtel boss George Schulz crunching the numbers and Buffet on board might we see Sacramento become an extension of the real West Wing?

There's plenty of drama to go around. For openers, Rep. David Dreier (R-Ca) is heading up the Schwarzenegger transition team. Yes, the same David Dreier who used Chinese "double agent" Katrina Leung as a fund raiser. Leung ran her little honeypot game out of the FBI's San Francisco office, bedding her controllers while current FBI honcho "Dial M" for Mueller was out there running the shop.

While Californians voted overwhelmingly to sack governor Gray Davis, more voters voted for candidates other than Schwarzenegger. Like his fast friend, el lider Shrubby, Arnold was elected with a minority of the popular vote. (Slick Willie too). According to the Los Angeles Times, only 49 percent of those voting to replace Davis chose Schwarzenegger.

California faces what the media characterize as an $8 billion budget “gap.” But let’s put that in perspective for a state that boast’s the world’s sixth largest economy. It's peanuts. That’s about a month’s worth of occupying Iraq. Roughly half of what Canadian farm boy Bernie Ebbers jacked from Worldcom/MCI. And g-d knows how much of what Enron aspirated from the California cookie jar when Wes Clark campaign shtarke Mickey Cantor was using his White House connections to help them Houston crooks cut sleazy deals during the Clinton administration.

Visualize it now. Believe it later. Action photos of Arnold and Shrubby at Camp David “working the budget issue” in their leather pilot jackets with Shultz and Buffet in the background. Arnold and Shrubby addressing the Commonwealth Club in San Francisco and announcing an end to the California budget crisis.

The bottom line here is continued political marginalization of the folks Sen. John Edwards (D-NC) calls "average Americans" along with voter abandonment. Only 53.8 percent of those who are registered to vote bothered to vote, the Times says. And of those, 72 percent were white. On the iconized chart designed for the 44 percent of us who are functionally illiterate, that falls somewhere between the Breck shampoo girl and Ivory Soap. Hallo Shrubby...Arnold gonna pump you up...

posted by Groom 11:36 AM

That's Show Biz

It is always risky to open a show on Broadway without first trying it out in Chicago or Philadelphia or at least spending a few weeks in "previews" before the official opening. That gives a show’s producers some time to work out the kinks in the big numbers, cut the scenes that don’t work, and quietly change the actors who aren’t jelling with the rest of the cast--before the critics show up.

Wesley Clark is paying a heavy price for coming in the presidential campaign as an expensive and high profile production just as the Presidential race is entering its Broadway phase. The other Democratic candidates have been working on their messages and themes before live audiences and quietly sorting out their personnel problems for months now. Their startup problems were probably as rough as Clark’s but they came at a time when nobody was paying much attention. Everything the General does is under the spotlight.

As far as I can make out from reading the various Clark blogs, the departure of campaign manager Donnie Fowler reflects some hurt feelings (and probably unrealistic expectations) between the Internet-based DraftClark movement people and the Clinton/Gore pros who have now taken over. It’s one of those nerd gets homecoming queen to go with him to the prom but she leaves with the quarterback anyway kind of things.

Six months ago, Fowler’s departure wouldn’t have caused a ripple. Unfortunately, he has not gone quietly and now the incident has the potential to drive a wedge between the webheads and the pros and distract us from our larger, common goal—getting rid of the most dangerous president in American history. I don’t like having the Clintons peeing all over Clark's leg and I agree with Chris Andersen that the General needs to assure us that he’s his own man and tell us why he wants to be president.

But, the campaign is only a month old, none of the mistakes so far are fatal (giving back the speaking fees is an important step). Those of us who believe Clark can be a strong candidate but dislike politics-as-usual need to hold our noses and develop a little tolerance for the DNC/DLC types who are clearly going to play a major role in his campaign. We simply cannot afford to let internal dissension get in the way of regime change in 2004.

posted by Jerry Bowles 10:06 AM

Maple leaf rag

With enforcer Karl Rove toning down his act due to “leakgate” Toronto Star columnist Gordon Barthos caught Shrubby at the blue line a with a mean hit piece just as our fearless leader was trying to put the biscuit in the basket. Like the late, great, Warren Zevon used to sing… “what’s a Canadian farm boy to do… hit somebody.” Too bad Tom Friedman can’t write ‘em like that… eh.

posted by Groom 7:16 AM

Wednesday, October 08, 2003

Declintonize Wes

Chris Andersen's comment on my "Gropinator" post below points out, quite correctly, that Ah-nuld had the help of many GOP insiders in his successful portrayal of an outsider and that it is possible to accomodate both the hacks and the enthusiastic amateurs in a political campaign. Obviously, General Clark needs some pros around to remind him to do little things like register as a Democrat. My concern is that by taking on so many of the Clinton retreads in key positions, the General is giving the Republicans unnecesary ammunition for the charge that he is simply a puppet for a disgraced--properly so--former president and his wife, the first-term junior senator from New York.

posted by Jerry Bowles 5:52 PM

Paging General Anthony Zinni

A couple of weeks ago he was calling out the Bush administration for jacking the intel on Saddam’s WMD. Now the former Centcom honcho is heading for Islamabad as a consultant to promote a $5 billion telecommunications deal for a multinational company. Why put a chicken in every pot when you can put a cell phone in every Islamic terrorist breeding madrassah school. Deputy secretary of state Richard Armitage, assistant secretary of state Christina Rocca and General John Abazaid were just over there helping to run interference for this and other megabuck deals.

posted by Groom 3:40 PM

Say It Isn't So, Wes

It's worse than I thought--Clinton lackey Eli Segal.

posted by Jerry Bowles 3:19 PM

The Gropinator and the General

It's hard to decide whether to just throw up one's hands and say "Forget it, Jake, it's California" or to try to divine some larger message out of the Ah-nuld zeitgeist. If Californians want an over-the-hill action toy whose neck is larger than his IQ as governor that's their business and anyway there was still a Minnesota, last time I checked, despite Jesse Ventura, so how much damage can he do before the real election?

On the bigger picture front, the Schwarzenegger victory suggests to me that voters are really fed up with professional politicians and their retainers. There is a lot of unhappiness out there about the direction of the country. You and I know who and what's driving it; many Republicans are still in denial.

It also suggests to me that General Clark should be wary of assembling a large team of business-as-usual Gore-Clinton retreads to run his campaign. A lot of the energy behind the Dean campaign comes from its genuine appeal to people who think politics is a load of crap but have been radicalized by the Bush administration's criminal incompetence. These people are put off by the DLC types and the Mark Fabiani's of the world. The lesson of Ah-nuld is that it's better to be perceived as an "outsider," even from the movies by way of Austria, than as just another political hack. The general needs to get on top of the staff thing immediately.

posted by Jerry Bowles 2:04 PM

We Wuz Robbed

Rats. Krugman didn't win.

posted by Jerry Bowles 10:47 AM

Is This the End of Rummy?

As Groom points out below, some of Lord Rummy's "friends" in high places may be setting him up to be the fall guy for the administration's failed Iraq adventure. Rumsfeld told the FT yesterday that he had not been told by Shrub or the National Security Council that the White House was planning to restructure the handling of postwar Iraq before the press got the word. He went on to say that the new "Iraq Stabilization Group," which will be run by Condoleezza Rice, sounds pretty much like what she was supposed to be doing all along and he can't imagine why she made such a big deal out of it by going to the media. Condi, who seems a bit truth-challenged at times, said specifically that Rumsfeld had a hand in creating the new plan. Frankly, I think Condi is unwittingly setting herself up to take the fall.

posted by Jerry Bowles 9:07 AM

Executive hubris

“I don’t know whether we are going to find out… there are a lot of senior administration officials…” president George W. Bush

Even before the deadline to turn in all relevant documents- and they all weren’t turned in- the election-jacking, born again White House went public to exculpate Goebbels-in-residence Karl Rove from any wrongdoing in “leakgate” as either an authorizer or a leaker. Ditto Lord Cheney and deputy NSC director Elliot "I used to be a liberal Democrat" Abrams. Clearly, el todopoderoso Shrubby, via mouthpiece McClellan, was offering a guiding light that Elder Ashcroft at Justice and “Dial M” at the Hoover Building should follow when ministering their in-house “investigation.” Never mind that Rove to Novak has been a passing and catching duo as successful as Johnny Unitas to Raymond Berry for over a decade now. It’s time to end the charade and start the full court press for a special counsel.

Soft landing for Lord Rummy?

Across the pond, the cousins at the Guardian are wondering if Rummy and Wolfi are on borrowed time at the Pentagon. I can see the election-year musical chairs game playing out now… Condi to the Pentagon. Contra-thug Eliot Abrams running the NSC. Wolfi as the top talent-scout for Benador & Associates and Rummy out to one of his vacation homes in Taos, New Mexico where he can work on his memoirs and investigate the “Taos hum.”

posted by Groom 6:19 AM

Tuesday, October 07, 2003

First Train from Clarksville

Here's some unsettling news out of the Wesley Clark camp. Campaign manager Donnie Fowler quit today in a dispute over the direction of the campaign, exposing a rift between the former general's Washington-centered advisers and his three-week-old Arkansas campaign team. Fowler told associates he was quitting because the DraftClark people who used the Internet to bring the Clark into the race are not being taken seriously by the Washington pros, especially communications adviser Mark Fabiani and policy adviser Ron Klain. Anybody got any inside skinny on this?

posted by Jerry Bowles 9:09 PM

General Clark and the Death Penalty

It’s kind of strange, isn’t it, how the death penalty has disappeared as an issue in American politics? Nowadays, all serious candidates—Democrats or Republicans—are required to be for it as a kind of litmus test to demonstrate that they are “tough on crime.” Forget the inconvenient facts that the death penalty is “cruel and unusual punishment,” that it does not deter crime, that it puts the U.S. in the company of moral giants like Saudi Arabia, and that its most fervent proponents are closeted white racists who see it as way of keeping “them” in their place.

Fortunately, there is enough statistical evidence to support the suspicion that the death penalty is disproportionately applied to blacks and poor people that it is becoming okay for politicians to oppose the death penalty on the grounds that it is unfairly used. Not that it’s wrong, mind you, but that it’s unfair. Here’s what General Wesley Clark had to say about the subject yesterday:

“I’ll tell you, I’m uneasy about the death penalty. A government like the United States has the right to, in extraordinary cases, take the life of a criminal, but I don’t like the way the death penalty has been applied in America. I think its been applied in an unfair and discriminatory fashion and I think we need to go back and use modern technology and unpack all those cases on death row.”

Now, I realize that is as good a position as we’re going to get from a mainstream candidate in the 2004 campaign. But, I also wonder why I—and so many fellow liberals—are not fighting harder to sell the bigger issue—that the death penalty is nothing more than a form of ritualized revenge killing that leaves us all with bloody hands.

posted by Jerry Bowles 4:31 PM

Just Wondering

Could Ariel Sharon's air raid on Syria be a wag-the-dog effort to escalate tensions between the U.S. and Syria, provide some distraction for Shrub, and light a fire under those radical rightwingers who want to march on to Damascus--despite the continuing disasters in Iraq and Afghanistan? Shrub does not play defense well and I would not be surprised to see American warplanes joining the fray. All we need now is an attack on the U.S. destroyer Maddox and we're in business.

posted by Jerry Bowles 1:15 PM

Warpork

House Republicans have been busy snipping less than 3% from the $87.5 billion Iraq pork bill that has been sent over from the White House just so they can say “we cut it.” Let’s see… they cut out the zip code program for Iraq. But they left in $100 million in baksheesh to get local Iraqis to rat out Saddam and others in his clique calling it “witness protection. And a billion in lunch money to improve Iraq's oil producing infrastructure, an infrastructure whose profits are not linked to the repayments to offset the cost to the American people who are financing this war. Then there are the juicy private police contracts. Boss Tweed and Ulysses S. Grant couldn't have done a better job.

The charade of trimming the warpork does not mask the contempt toward the American people that resides in the current oval office. Consider that here at home there’s only $3 million floating around to pay off anybody who wants to finger the anthrax perps who shut down the US Congress (mailing the stuff only to Democrats) and scared our lawmakers shitless enough to say yes to this whole mess (including the Patriot Act). And the White House continues to avoid releasing Federal Election Commission money to the states so they can get their voting systems up to speed before next November. If Karl Rove gets his way, the US would bring back the Poll Tax.

posted by Groom 12:59 PM

Democracy is Messy

The Turkish parliament will vote today on sending up to 10,000 troops to assist the US in Iraq with the Bush administration dangling $8.5 billion as the lure. But the Iraq Governing Council--remember those noble forerunners of a free and democratic Iraq-- doesn't want Turkish troops in their country. A Kurdish member of the US-appointed council, Mahmoud Othman, said the council "is unanimous in issuing a communique against the sending of Turkish forces to Iraq". Looks like Jerry Bremer will have to explain that even in a democracy some people's votes weigh more than those of others.

posted by Jerry Bowles 11:02 AM

A Thanks to Senator Graham

Senator Bob Graham did the graceful thing yesterday and bowed out of the presidential campaign. Although he failed to attract much fundraising support and trailed badly in opinion polls, Graham's role as Chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee has made him one of the most vocal and important critics of the Bush administration slash-and-burn policies in the Middle East. We owe him our gratitude. Senator Graham is also much beloved in his home state of Florida which guarantees that he will be high on the vice presidential prospect list for whoever wins the nomination. As it was in 2000, Florida may be pivotal.

posted by Jerry Bowles 7:54 AM

Who’s watching Rove's friends at the FBI?

Turf wars with the CIA… moonlighting agents… partisan politics…

White House political director Karl Rove used moonlighting FBI agents for opposition research back when he was running GOP campaigns in Texas. Wittingly, or unwittingly, FBI director and Bush family retainer Robert S. Mueller III has provided Congress with misleading testimony that has helped erode our system of Constitutional checks and balances. Now, as it is embarking on what has been billed as a “non-partisan” investigation into the outing of an undercover CIA agent by the political office of the White House, a source inside the bureau is seeking to discredit the Democrats by linking them to the funding of a covert FBI operation during the Clinton presidency in which money was provided to Hamas. Additional information by AP writer John Solomon is available at Yahoo but, as is so often the case with Rove-related material, the URL is being 404-ed into oblivion.

One wonders whether the motive of this disclosure was to really project “transparency” or to help make the US less vulnerable to acts of terror. Might it have been, instead, to discredit those in the bureau who questioned the bureau’s methods... notably, those non-political career field agents who warned senior officials of possible attacks prior to 9/11 and went public after being ignored? This is the same tactic that was employed by those who authorized and leaked information that compromised Ambassador Wilson’s wife.

FBI agent Colleen Rowley went public with her concerns shortly after Osama Bin-Laden’s strike force comprised of mostly Saudi nationals destroyed the World Trade Center and damaged the Pentagon.

FBI agent Kenneth Williams, who ran the “counter terrorism” operation out of the Phoenix office, with the approval of Attorney General Janet Reno and the participation of Israeli intelligence, has provided testimony to Congress that is damaging to the Bush administration.

This has enough earmarks of a Karl Rove retribution ritual that it makes you wonder if “Dial M” for Mueller has given the White House political guru a hall pass to the Hoover building. Linking the Democrats with Hamas helps discredit their outcry for an independent counsel on “leakgate.” Maybe a second special counsel is needed to investigate Republican politicization inside the FBI.

posted by Groom 4:37 AM

Monday, October 06, 2003

Enigma Variations

Reassuring to realize that it's not just us Americans who are getting dumber by the year; our British cousins are in hot pursuit. Three-quarters of Brits surveyed recently had no idea who that elegant dude on the back of a £20 note is. If you're among those who do know who Sir Edward Elgar is, you might be interested in taking a look at another of my money-losing web sites. Sequenza21.com is a weekly ezine devoted to contemporary classical music. I update it every Monday.

posted by Jerry Bowles 7:05 PM

Keep Your Eyes on the White Bunny

Interesting older column here by that dirty little unpatriotic rat Robert Novak in which he takes Ron Suskind to task for "errors" in an Esquire piece that linked Rove with a leak to Novak and Rove's subsequent 1992 Bush campaign firing. Novak writes:

Unfortunately, I did not escape Suskind's article, which includes these sentences: "Sources close to the former president say Rove was fired from the 1992 Bush presidential campaign after he planted a negative story with columnist Robert Novak about dissatisfaction with campaign fund-raising chief and Bush loyalist Robert Mosbacher Jr. It was smoked out, and he was summarily ousted." I was called by no fact-checker, who would have learned of multiple errors.

Suskind has confused former Secretary of Commerce Robert Mosbacher Sr., Bush's 1992 chief fund-raiser, with his son Rob, who headed the Bush campaign in Texas (Victory '92). Criticism of the younger Mosbacher, a frequent unsuccessful candidate in Texas, was not "planted" with me by Rove but was passed to me by a Bush aide whom I interviewed. Rove was indeed fired by Mosbacher from Victory '92 but continued as a national Bush-for-president operative. Robert Novak, Townhall.com, December 5, 2002

Note the subtle distinction that Novak makes between "planted," as in somebody called and gave me a story, and "interviewed," as in I was questioning this guy and through my superior interviewing techniques I was able to get him to fess up to something. Leaks are insider gifts to lesser reporters; Bob Novak gets his scoops through great reporting.

Or, another way to phrase what Novak is saying about the earlier Rove incident (and is still saying about the Wilson case) is that Rove did not "plant" the story but a "Bush aide" (Rove) revealed a piece of news in the course of being interviewed. Therefore, it is not a "leak" or a "planted" story.

And they thought Bill Clinton dissembled.

posted by Jerry Bowles 4:27 PM