Friday, June 24, 2005

Bait and Switch

Dan Bartlett is saying that Karl Rove was only talking about MoveOn.org when he accused Liberals of aiding and abetting terrorists. I'm not buying it, Dan.

Billmon, as usual, has a couple of solid observations. Regarding Karl "The Weasel" Rove, I agree that his outburst is as much a signal that things on their side are falling apart as anything else--not that they can't do some damage on their downward spiral--but resorting to political spitballs (the time honored tactic of the GOP) when this is the latest headline is clear evidence that Team Bush is in WAY over their head--and they don't have the first clue as to which way is up.

Which means they've failed. And, in failing, they've given a tremendous boost to Fundamentalist Islamic terrorists, just as they did when they failed to protect this country prior to 9/11/2001. Team Bush has aided and assisted those who seek to destroy the United State. As Billmon notes, that's treason.

Meanwhile, George Dubya insists he knows all about hard work--and death, at least on TV. He bravely told an assembled gathering today that death on TV "bothers" him. I guess it bothers him so much that he won't call on his daughters to serve in Operation We're Screwed--Is There Any Way to Blame the Liberals? Bush smoked a joint spoke at a joint appearance with Iraqi Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari--who might be the one person for whom D.C. is actually safer than their home city.

Bush also pledged even more aid for Iraq, of course, seeing as how money is no object when it comes to anything that might revive his flagging poll numbers. It'll be interesting to see if that money is distributed like the last batch of dollars reaching hell on earth the country:

The United States handed out nearly $20 billion of Iraq's funds, with a rush to spend billions in the final days before transferring power to the Iraqis nearly a year ago, a report said on Tuesday...

...in the week before the hand-over on June 28, 2004, the U.S.-led Coalition Provisional Authority ordered the urgent delivery of more than $4 billion in Iraqi funds from the U.S. Federal Reserve in New York.

One single shipment amounted to $2.4 billion -- the largest movement of cash in the bank's history...

Cash was loaded onto giant pallets for shipment by plane to Iraq, and paid out to contractors who carried it away in duffel bags.

The report, released at a House of Representatives committee hearing, said despite the huge amount of money, there was little U.S. scrutiny in how these assets were managed...

An audit by the U.S. Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction said U.S. auditors could not account for nearly $8.8 billion in Iraqi funds and the United States had not provided adequate controls for this money.

"The CPA's management of Iraqi money was an important responsibility that, in my view, required more diligent accountability, pursuant to its assigned mandate, than we found," said chief inspector Stuart Bowen in testimony...

Contractors were told to turn up with big duffel bags to pick up their payments and some were paid from the back of pick-up trucks.

One picture shows grinning CPA officials standing in front of a pile of cash said to be worth $2 million to be paid to a security contractor...

In total, more than 281 million individual bills, including more than 107 million $100 bills, were shipped to Iraq on giant pallets loaded onto C-130 planes, the report said.


And, as you might expect, this money oiled a burgeoning industry in graft and corruption. Which, I'm sure the neo-cons will say, is "normal" in war--just like forcing enlistees to pay for their own equipment.

So, it's not all that surprising that Karl Rove would go off the deep end--and Dan Bartlett, Scott McClellan, and Bush himself would either find nothing wrong, or pretend it was meant for MoveOn/Michael Moore/etc. etc. Because that's ALL they know how to do--sling mud.

One thing they DON'T know how to do is figure out a way out of the disaster they've put us in. Again, citing Billmon (paraphrasing here): when neocons find themselves in a hole, their reaction is--dig faster!

No comments:

Post a Comment