Best of the Blogs

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

Rove has a history of denying and lying about leaks

When Karl Rove was axed from the 1992 Bush-Quayle campaign in Texas for leaking a hit piece on a Bush family friend he denied it and said the charges were false, the September 30 edition of the Houston Chronicle reported. Additional information that isn't surfacing in the national media can be found at Texas Monthly. Being a sinner in Shrubby's book is one thing. But from the perspective of an independent counsel, being an Enron investor with a dicey track record who is desperately seeking plausable denial... things look just a tad different.

posted by Groom 2:50 PM

Dukakisize This

It would appear that Howard Dean should not be called a Dukakis liberal, for one simple reason: Dean was among those who declined to endorse Dukakis’s Presidential bid when it mattered most, back in the early spring of 1988, and the reason, Dukakis said, was that Dean, who was then lieutenant governor of Vermont, “thought I was too liberal for him.” Jane Mayer, The New Yorker, October 6, 2003

posted by Jerry Bowles 2:18 PM

How Can We Lose?

Anti-Shrubsters have gone through a big mood shift since the Democratic debacle of the mid-term election. From "there's no way we can beat this guy in 2004" we (by we, I mean Democrats, disenchanted independents and repentent Republicans) have moved into a quiet, but fervent, belief that the next Presidential election is ours to lose. A recent poll shows several of the Democratic contenders beating Bush.

How can we lose it? In a word, Hillary. Forget the polls that show she is more popular than the other Democrats, Hillary in the race will guarantee that every Republican in America shows up at the polls. She is a polarizing figure, with no chance of winning much support with independents. If you want to see a replay of 2000--with the same result--encourage Mrs. C. Personally, I'd rather win. Tell me where I'm wrong, as Bill Oh Really might say.

posted by Jerry Bowles 1:00 PM

MBA Thinking

It looks like the White House has decided to get a firm grip on this Iraq and Afghanistan business once and for all. The new effort includes the creation of an "Iraq Stabilization Group," which will be run by the national security adviser, Condoleezza Rice.

Those clever devils. That’s exactly what I would do if my military miscalculations had turned into disastrous liabilities, my approval ratings were headed for single digits, and I faced the likelihood of being routed in the coming election—appoint an in-house committee chaired by an academic with no management experience and the kind of electric personality that can put that cranky old Don Rumsfeld in his place. This is the kind of strategic MBA thinking that has made Shrub such an effective leader.

posted by Jerry Bowles 10:13 AM

ROVE AND NOVAK... an old tag-team

After planting a 1992 hit-piece with columnist Robert Novak that attacked Poppy Bush campaign chief fund raiser in Texas Rob Mosbacher, Jr., Karl Rove was fired from the George H.W. Bush presidential campaign. This information has been floating around several websites for quite some time. Fishing for a link between Novak and Rove, Meet the Press yackmeister Tim Russert failed to brace American Traitor Novak on this one yesterday. But William Rivers Pitt's piece in TruthOut makes things, as Dick Nixon used to say... perfectly clear.

posted by Groom 7:25 AM

West Nile Virus, Westward Ho!

According to the Centers for Disease Control, California can expect a bumper crop of West Nile Virus next year, the New York Times reports. Down in the Imperial Valley to be exact says Dr. Lyle Peterson, the CDC’s top cop on “vector-borne” diseases. Isn’t it just amazing how fast those mosquitoes have made it across the country since they arrived in New York in 1999. Faster than the pioneers. Faster than the trans-continental railroad. Peterson didn’t say whether the virus would head into Mexico, which makes up the southern portion of the Imperial Valley. But he did say that “there is no elimination… you can’t kill every mosquito.”

Selective amnesia…the Poppy Bush-Saddam love fest

David Kay says his crew found some botulism toxin over in Iraq. But Kay isn’t saying whether the stuff may have been developed from strains sold by a US firm during the Saddam-Poppy Bush love fest... American Type Culture Collection, the one Nobel Laureate Dr. Joshua Lederberg was a director of.

When the Poppy Bush White House was keen on Saddam, US firms moved a lot of dual-use technology to Saddam’s WMD front companies. Let’s see, umm, Poppy’s Houston pal Mosbacher was Commerce Secretary at that time. Funny how we can find anthrax in Iraq but we can’t seem to find the perps who sent the anthrax to only Democrats in Congress, shutting down government and so mollifying our elected officials that they rubber stamped this whole mess. Sad how none of the Democratic presidential hopefuls are not on the attack and raising these issues.

Slipping the punch

Tomorrow is the official deadline for White House (and VP) staffers to turn in any documents that may be helpful to Elder Ashcroft’s “in-house” investigation of “leakgate. The key word here is “documents.” Documents might be helpful in identifying a “leaker” but they aren’t particularly helpful when it comes to identifying and prosecuting to the full extent of the law the person or persons who authorized the leak. This is the kind of crime that is corroborated by deals and whispers, and White House tapes. Think John Dean, Alexander Butterfield. it’s the authorizer, not the leaker. Wonder who was up late shredding and deleting files last night.

posted by Groom 6:43 AM