I have not seen an administration on their heels like this since Watergate

[NNN0LHI]

Not even with Clinton. Not even close. These guys have lost lost it. "We have gave everything we have. No we haven't, here is some more but this is all we have. Oh wait, we found some more after all but this is really all we have now this time. No wait"...developing

Don

[Tandalayo_Scheisskopf]

1. Exactly.

Also, this one issue has crystalised investigation into everything else.

[NWHarkness]

5. The logical next step

We ought to be pressuring the media: If Bush didn't show up, why didn't he show up?

[seemslikeadream]

24. There are 104 papers this morning reporting

the Bill Burkett story. The tide has turned and there's no way to ignor it now!

[fishnfla]

2. They are on the ropes for sure

But as someone is always quick to point out, how many times have we heard, "this is the knockout punch for sure" ?

We have to keep swinging, keep the pressure up. Hit them with truth jabs.

On the flip side, while the WH is on the defensive, we need the Dem candidates to push a positive message.

[hobbes159]

3. About time for another code orange, attack, etc

The BA flights cancelled are a start....

[nostamj]

15. FEAR is all they have (and all they ever had)

HATE, FEAR and IGNORANCE, the real Bush Trifecta, is about to be trotted out yet again.

Having failed at everything he’s touched he has nothing left but to terrify and distract. He’ll be getting plenty of help from the corporate media.

The cable whores will (reluctantly) divert their attention from MichaelMarthaScottPetersonStewertJackson to pander to images of armageddon in your own back yard.

And then something scary will happen.

No, I don’t believe another actual attack. Failing to protect the homeland against WMD or a terrorist event would be fatal to the bushies–unless it facilitated marshall law.

What they need is a domestic success in the “War on Terror” so watch for an attack being prevented by the bushies ‘superior intelligence’ and steely resolve. Manufacturing one would be child’s play.

The people will respond with renewed FEAR (which had been lessened to near apathy by the sequence of ‘chicken little’ alerts, duct tape, and the ridiculous color codes).

Their HATE will be re-focused on the terrorists (which will be loosely defined as anyone who doesn’t do what the US tells them to do) and on those that would impede or question the “War on Terror” (that would be the Dems).

And, with the help of corporate media, IGNORANCE will be assured to the masses who do not or cannot (like working three jobs to survive) seek the Truth.

I hope I’m wrong.

[ProfessorGAC]

21. You Are Correct!

There will be no major terror attack in the next 7 months. That would be political suicide for Li'l Georgie. After all the bravado, after all the "pre-emption", after all the flagwaving, we get hit anyway. He would actually look like the incompetent buffoon he is.
The Professor

[nostamj]

27. yes, with one caveat

there will be no major terror attack that the WH is aware of in advance in the next 7 months

[ProfessorGAC]

30. We Are In Total Agreement

I should have said that in my post as well. If it happens, it's incompetence. If they let it happen, it would reveal momunmental dereliction of duty to protect and serve. So, they lose either way. They'd never let it happen, because their one and only issue would be a documented failure.

Now, i don't know what happens if the angry nutjobs who do these types of things decide to strike. It's awfully hard to stop every possible attack of any type. That's a fool's goal.
The Professor

[spotbird]

38. I hope you are right, but I'm not so sure.

They will see it as their only hope.

[NWHarkness]

4. And this is just the beginning

In the vast panoply of Bush scandals, the AWOL thing is a relatively minor matter.

[Loonman]

6. I've wanted to ask folks who followed Watergate as it happened...

What similarities in the general behaviour of both administrations exist.

8. denial...

branding McGovern as unpatriotic


just for starters

[NNN0LHI]

10. Their fixation with secrecy is almost identical n/t

[ewagner]

13. And why not?

Cheney and Rummy BOTH were Nixon proteges'. They learned their trade under the master of secrecy and dirty tricks.


hhhmmmm....maybe this is something to talk about?

on edit: Didn't Dubya work with Donald Segretti of the renowned dirty tricks squad under Nixon?

[never cry wolf]

33. That was Rove

don't know if the boy king got lessons himself.

[stanwyck]

7. When Watergate first surfaced

it was a tiny, tiny story. No one expected legs on that one. Alas, I am old enough to remember. There is no predicting what will take root in the American consciousness. However, since Bush advertises himself as a warrior, a "war president", and as someone who has "been to war' (?), then he is making his military service a continuing story. We have soldiers dying every day. Bush can no longer take credit for a background he does not have. As Richard Cohen noted, he is again hiding behind the service of other men and representing it as his own.

[criticalmass]

28. I'm old enough to remember, too

Just finished reading All the President's Men by Woodward & Bernstein for the first time (way better than the movie, of course) and I'm having deja vu all over the place.

[belle]

40. Yeah, it's the glaring hypocrisy that's the story.

What's that English lit term, a part that's symbolic of the whole? Synechdoche, is it?

[Minstrel Boy]

9. Me too. It scares the hell out of me.

Because Nixon was CREEPy, but these bastards are eeeeeevil. And capable of anything.

[Webster Green]

11. True.....Tuesday's WH press briefing reminded me of it.

I pray for a similar outcome. The Marine helicopter on the White House lawn waiting for the disgraced smirky to board for the last time.

[priller]

19. But, but...who would take over?

If you Bush departs in the helo, do you really want Cheney taking over? Cheney needs to go with him. But then who's next in succession? Is it Dennis Hastert? Just one bad man after another.

[FlaGranny]

12. Yes, now that you mention it, they

ARE on their heels. As horrible as all this has been, (and I hate to say it) maybe the country needed/needs this neocon assault on our government to wake us up. As more and more comes out, hopefully, a good portion of the "sleeping" country will see what we're up against and throw all the neocons out. How nice it would be to bring back the balance of fiscally conservative Republicans and socially conscious Democrats. More than anything else, I hope that every dirty deal is brought out into the open and we PUNISH the dirty dealers with, at the least, exposure, if not jail time.

I can dream, can't I?

[bambo53]

20. On both sides?

I hope this becomes a trend, airing dirty laundry, and I don't really care if if some of the Democrats get bloodied in the process out of retaliation. If they are that dirty it might help explain why they've been so timid to fight back the last 10 years, and they've certainly not represented us or our needs.

Maybe this is the beginning of the PEOPLE saying they've had enough, from both sides, and demanding our country back. Somehow we need all dirty laundry all day everyday.

It won't happen though, remember it took Michal Moore to get this out...

[FlaGranny]

35. Of course, both sides.

[Kazak]

14. Steal an election and...

you oughta be grilled like this, IMO.

[madrchsod]

16. i`ll agree

i never thought that history could repeat itself so fast. this bunch was so blatant in their lies that many people couldn`t grasp the idea and when it was exposed couldn`t believe that they didn`t see it.
it`s the same as "sticker shock" you just can`t believe something costs that much.

[Ripley]

17. I really hate to be the half-empty glass person, but...

This has been said so many times on DU in the last 3 years. It never sticks.

Altho to look at the half-full glass...the accumulation of these dirty scandles is really adding up!!!!!!!!!!!!

[PVnRT]

18. Hopefully

this means that the press might actually go into attack mode, as well as the Democrats. I'm sure the DLC would just as soon "let this go" as it "doesn't matter."

[bambo53]

22. Michael Moore MADE it newsworthy

How sad is that? and what can we do about it?

[DemoTex]

23. Amen, Don.

Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all convictions, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.

W.B. Yeats

[fishnfla]

25. Shit, you just knew it!

just when things were going our way...an intern sex scandal. sonuvabitch

[Brian Sweat]

26. Don't worry, the GOP will come up with some sex scandal

to derail the issue.

[nostamj]

29. they just did! kerry's alledged affair

breaking on Drudge............... <sigh>

[FlaGranny]

36. I have no reason to doubt that

the neocons have "files" on everyone (congresspeople, candidates, etc.). I'll bet they've been digging up dirty laundry for a long time, which they keep at the ready for just such times.

[maggrwaggr]

37. Unbelievable. Terror alerts on airplanes too!

How obvious can these evildoers get?

[DU GrovelBot]

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[HootieMcBoob]

32. The big difference is that the GOP

Controls every branch of government completely. They also control the media.

During Watergate Democrats controlled both the house and the Senate. During Clinton's Monica Gate the opposition party also controlled the house and senate.

The only way that justice will ever be seen is if we pressure the media constantly on all of these things.

[Hamlette]

34. We are at the mercy of the press

entirely

Just as we were in Watergate.

During Nixon we all thought "how can the country support Nixon? He's lying. It's obvious." Then month after month, nothing.

What broke it was the coming together of four people. Katharine Graham, Bill Bradley, Woodward and Bernstein. If any one of those players not been there, Nixon would have survived. We didn't know about it until years later. Read All the President's Men AND Katharine Graham's autobiography, A Personal History. Graham was independent. She was willing to put her "tit in a wringer" over Watergate AND The Pentagon Papers. The GOP pushed too hard, threatened her, and she got her back up.

For a time after we worried that the Woodward and Bernstein fever would make it impossible to govern. Young turk journalists would want to make their mark and would do so by turning over every rock, good or bad. It didn't really happen. We next saw something like it during Clinton but by then it was corrupted by money. The "journalists" during Clinton were well financed by Scarife et al. They were not out to find the truth, they were out to make money and Scarife had plenty.

All its gonna take now is a journalist who gets pissed off enough to keep after it. And a paper willing to keep publishing it in the face of threats from the powers that be (more than just the GOP at this point, big corporations don't want a scandal about many issues including the war.) Maybe the AWOL story is a safe target because it doesn't show the rest of the world our "bad" in killing thousands of dark skinned people. The war is going to be a hard sell. As much as we hate it we are all haunted by Kerry's words from Vietnam "the last to die in a war that was not necessary." (not exact, close?)

[spotbird]

39. But we have the Internet, and that changes everything.

This AWOL thing would have stayed under wraps if there wasn't a steady source of agitation about the issue.

Everyone here knows the truth about what Chimp is, it would be almost impossible to be so well informed if we couldn't access so much information so easily and quickly.

Knowledge is power, they can't stand it.

[DemBones DemBones]

41. What's happening today to make you post this?

I watched at least half of Washington Journal this morning but have seen/ heard no other news today, just got here to check up.

Who's Bill Burkett of the story in 104 papers this a.m.???

I did think things were looking kind of good yesterday (i.e. looking bad for Bush with his hokey stories about the TANG.) Who the hell gets out of the military early to go to business school? The Guard isn't regular military, I realize, but him telling Russert "I worked it out with the military" cracked me up. Loved what Max Cleland said on Hardball the other night, especially about the thousands (he gave the actual, very large number of soldiers in Nam) of men who were serving in Viet Nam and would have loved to get out of the military early and go to business school, would have loved to be "able to work it out with the military." It shows that he cheated the system, abetted by his father's influence as a congressman/ CIA agent.

I'd like to see father and son waving as they get in a helicopter to be taken to Gitmo.