WP: A New Moment of Truth For a White House in Crisis

[kskiska]

With yesterday's indictment of Vice President Cheney's top aide, President Bush's administration has become a textbook example of what can go wrong in a second term. Along with ineffectiveness, overreaching, intraparty rebellion, plunging public confidence and plain bad luck, scandal has now touched the highest levels of the White House staff.

Not surprisingly, Democrats were quick to condemn the president and his administration over the perjury and obstruction indictments of I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby. But even some Republicans suggested that the president and his team will have taken away the wrong lesson if they conclude that, other than the personal tragedy of Libby's indictment, the long investigation changes nothing of significance.

(snip)

Citing both the indictment and the withdrawal of Harriet Miers's nomination to the Supreme Court on Thursday, former GOP congressman Mickey Edwards of Oklahoma said: "The president got a pretty good wakeup call. He needs to stop thinking about his grand legacy and being the all-time hero of the Republicans and concentrate on doing the job he was elected to do. He really has to get a grip on his administration."

Some GOP loyalists dismissed yesterday's indictment as a blip that will quickly be forgotten. "If we are going to reach conclusions about stains on the presidency, let's wait until he's convicted," said veteran GOP strategist Charles R. Black. Calling Bush's administration "remarkably clean," he added: "The amazing thing is that they went almost five years without having any kind of scandal."

more…
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/10/28/AR2005102802150.html

[kurth]

1. "Remarkably clean... Five years without having any kind of scandal"?

What a fucking liar.

Where's Osama?

[Straight Shooter]

13. Scandal like Guckert? Like the DSM?

Where do we begin? I don't know, but I know the end is not in sight as far as scandals about the bush maladministration.

[Carla in Ca]

15. What a bubble these people are in!

Put the word exposed on the end of that sentence, Charlie!

They went 5 years without having any kind of scandal EXPOSED!

[Demeter]

28. Scandals Were Exposed and the Suppressed

glossed over with a bout of bread and circuses.

[Bonescrat]

21. I almost spit my coffee out all over my computer...

:spray:

[kskiska]

2. Podesta nails it

John D. Podesta, who was chief of staff to Clinton, said Bush may be more constrained by his troubles than Clinton was by his. Noting that Clinton's approval ratings remained above 60 percent throughout the impeachment battle, while Bush's are in the low 40s, Podesta said, "When Clinton said, 'I'm going back to do my work,' people cheered," Podesta said. "When Bush says, 'I'm going to do the job I've been doing,' people say, 'Oh, no.' "

[Cha]

6. Podesta did nail it!

Finally!

[grytpype]

8. Hehehe...

It's funny cause it's true...

[Olney Blue]

22. Podesta's comments were a homerun with bases loaded....

if we use a baseball analogy.

:applause:

[...of J.Temperance]

3. "Calling Bush's administration remarkably clean"

These people are so TOTALLY delusional it hurts.

Yeah, they went for five years without a scandal...because the mediawhores either IGNORED or helped COVER UP at least 40-50 of Bush Inc's scandals. What's AMAZING is actually what pigs like this can GET AWAY WITH when they have the media on their side and IN their back pockets and LYING for Bush Inc. and HELPING Bush Inc. to lie.

What, do they think we're STUPID or something, that we don't know about this stuff.

[rusty charly]

4. Unreported Bush Scandals

http://www.buzzflash.com/contributors/04/08/con04323.html

[...of J.Temperance]

9. Mind-blowing isn't it?

If the mediawhores had reported on the VERY FIRST dirty scandal about these pigs, then we WOULDN'T even be in this mess now...and A LOT of people would still be alive too, like, oh I don't know...2,000 GIs, 100,000 Iraqi people, God knows how many Afghans.

The whores need to be put on trial too, they're a bunch of Julius Streicher's that's what they are.

On Edit: If some people don't know who Julius Streicher was, then go to Google and type in his name, he was THE Nazi Propagandist and they eventually strung him up for his crimes against humanity.

[wordpix2]

23. yes it is a national disgrace and blew my coffee out, too

[neuvocat]

5. 5 years?

There's the stolen election, ties to Enron, 911 happened on his watch because of his administrative negligence, and that's just for starters.

[...of J.Temperance]

10. The bastards have ONLY got THIS far

Because of their mediawhores, had the country had a proper media, the bastards would NEVER have gotten off square one.

Of course the SAME mediawhores have NO problem chasing and MAKING UP false scandals when a Democratic President is in the WH, a Democratic President who for a start was ACTUALLY elected TWICE.

[Cha]

7. That's cause the m$m didn't

report on it for five years, but Treasongate couldn't be hidden, thanks to Fitz.

Scandal free? I call Bullshit!

Let's see..there was Paul O'Neil, Richard Clarke, Enron, 9/11, AWOLer, Taking the country to War On Iraq with a truckload of LIES, Katrina, brownie, harriet miers, ad infinitum.

[...of J.Temperance]

11. But according to the mediawhores

NONE of that was Junior's fault...it was EVERYONE but Junior's fault.

Yeah, whatever you say you pig whores.

[loyalsister]

20. That's because.......

as we are reminded here regularly, he is STUPID.
He is implicitly incapable of pulling it off in the collective conciousness. Stupid like a fox, he is.
It is worth considering what message may be reinforced everytime it is repeated, and how much they benefit from it.

[Cookie wookie]

25. They are not delusional.

They are and have been intentionally aiding and abetting criminal behavior that is so serious it threatens the lives of all Americans and people around the world. We need to take off the gloves now and tell it like it is. for all these years we've been living in the delusion that the * administration is stupid when all their behavior has been intentional working toward very definite goals of destroying democracy in America. And for all these years the Post and all the mainstream corporate media has aided and abetted the administration's sinister and evil schemes.

The Post is an enemy of democracy.

This is no different from a newspaper actively supporting, justifying and advocating for bank robbers, just larger in scale and more devastating to more people.

[Hissyspit]

12. Re: Headline - Yes. A moment of truth would be something new for the Bush

administration.

And, by the way, if you are confused, no, the Bush admin has not been remarkably clean and scandal-free for five years, you idiot. THIS CIA leak scandal has been going on for almost three of those years. Letting the Pentagon and WTC get attacked has been going on for almost five years.

[bemildred]

14. "Moment of more lies" is a better guess. nt

[sofa king]

16. Remarkably secretive, which facilitated even worse scandals.

In fact, the secretiveness appears to have been in order to cover those scandals, so many of them that I scarcely know where to start.

That is not an admirable achievement by any standard.

[The Roux Comes First]

17. 5 years and no failure of the cone of silence?? n/t

[radfringe]

18. culture of corruption is a cancer on our country

and has corroded our credibility...

as predicted - Libby is taking the fall. Who is he covering up for? Who is he trying to protect? What other lies will be revealed? Why did he feel it necessary to lie in the first place?

[cassiepriam]

19. Yep, it is amazing they went five years without being caught.

[wordpix2]

24. that's because M$M not doing their jobs---recall, they are corporate

employees. They will only rise in the ranks if they are complacent, follow the leader and help the corporation with its bottom line. Reporting the truth? What's that?

[cassiepriam]

26. That has become crystal clear with NYT, Miller fiasco.

[Demeter]

27. Go Easy On That Truth There!

We can't have too many moments of Truth--what would the neighbors think? Protect our children (protect our asses), limit Truth!

Anyone notice how there's been a terrible shortage of Truth these last 5 years? Can't be squandering the nation's most precious resource like it was free and renewable! Wouldn't be proper! Wouldn't be prudent! Wouldn't be GOP!

[cliss]

29. This is an interesting statement and it's a

Freudian slip.

"The amazing thing is that they went almost fie years without having any kind of scandal". We all know these people give new meaning to the word "scandal".

What he really meant was "...that they went almost 5 years without any kind of consequence".

There was no consequence for their rotten deeds. As the GOP laughed, smiled, and clinked their champagne glasses together, they realized the world was their oyster. Once the press was silenced, there was no limit to the things they could do.

Someone once wrote, "the ONLY people they are truly afraid of, is Americans." They don't care about the rest of the world.

[leftchick]

30. wrong

they are wrong. The amazing thing is that our so called librul media never bothered to report on ANY of the MANY scandals in the last five years.

:grr: