Josh Marshall/Nelson Report (pretty juicy stuff)

[remfan]

WH sounds as if it's in meltdown mode. bush* looks like an ass if someone doesn't get fired, but does he have the balls to do it, and if he does, is it a) too late, and b) will that open or close the floodgate? Drip...drip...drip.

-snip-

11. As one Administration source put it, privately, today: "Between Tenet and Hadley, Condi now has the choice of saying she's a fool, or a liar...if not both. Bottom line is she failed to protect the President...look at all this lame stuff about him not being a 'fact checker'. It's just incredible."

-- even before last week, a source close to the White House told us, "the President now sees that he's exposed on the intel problems. And he now sees who's been manipulating him, and he's not happy about it. No president likes to be embarrassed, but this stuff goes to the heart of all the reservations, pre-9/11, about his intelligence, his attention span, and his interest in foreign affairs."

12. Three weeks ago, this source speculated that it would be "difficult" for Bush to fire the senior officials responsible, for obvious reasons, since they would include Rumsfeld, Cheney, and Rice, at a minimum, and that Tenet seemingly had so ingratiated himself at the personal level, he could escape punishment.

-- today, while no one wanted to speculate about Rummy and Cheney, in the absence of new disclosures, disparate Administration sources confirm that it is "generally accepted" that Tenet will be fired from the CIA, if only because of what he started last week.

more...

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/ (scroll down to July 23rd 7:25 pm)