Monday, October 13, 2008

How It All Went Down

SCOTT McCLELLAN

'What Happened' is the title of Scott McClellan's tell all book about his time spent at the Bush white house. Scott goes back with Bush to the days he ran for governor of Texas. As a campaign strategist in the early years McClellan saw Bush as a decent man who kept his campaign promise of reaching across the aisle and working with democrats. Scott was not as enthusiastic as his boss on the subject of capital punishment but, he claims he understood Bush's hard line re: killers on death row.

McClellan stayed on with Bush when he walked into the white house in 2000 and eventually became press secretary, a position he held for two years. Naturally, holding such a position McClellan saw it all, or at least enough to eventually break the bond he had with Bush and later write about his experience. When word came down that Scott was about to let the world see behind the curtain Bush issued only one statement. And that was that he didn't have the time to concern himself with former disgruntled employees. He's a cowboy until the end isn't he folks? Funnily enough, there is a quote in the book from Bush's mother that every Halloween and several other occasions the little decider would dress up in cowboy clothes. (Now you tell us).
The 323 pager is loaded with all kinds of chilling facts but I'm just going to focus on one frightening theme. The run up to the Iraq war. We all remember the run up, the talking points, the unimpressive sale thereof. When it was apparent that WMD was unlikely to be found Bush ramped up the freedom rhetoric. McClellan claims that behind closed doors, around corridors, outside various offices Bush could constantly be heard telling anyone who would listen that Iraquis wanted freedom and that he was the man to give it to them. He believed it. He convinced himself of it. He became obsessed with being the one and only president to bring peace to the Middle East. He would show his father that he could do it. He would go down in history as not only being a better commander in chief than his father but maybe even one of the best American presidents in history. This was his dream. We all heard the dialogue that supports this, and Scott McClellan was the fly on the wall. Remember, McClellan started out as big time Bush supporter.

VALERIE PLAME WILSON

Valerie Plame Wilson worked for many years at the CIA. During the run up to the war as inspectors were having grave difficulty finding WMD vice president Dick Cheney paid a visit to the CIA...in person. The dot,dot,dot is because apparently a vice president making a trip or trips to CIA headquarters is practically unprecedented. He had one thing on his mind and that was to have the agency find evidence that Saddam was buying naughty weapons. The agency scoured every inch of intel they had and found nothing. As time moved on Cheney began literally feeding them top secret info from sources the CIA had not even heard of. Finally, they (and the they is purposely vague) needed someone to travel to Africa to check out a lead that Saddam was buying weapons grade uranium from the North Africans. Valerie made the mistake of mentioning that her husband, Joe Wilson previously worked in that area and that he had contacts there. They sent Joe who found nothing. Bush still made mention of the yellow cake uranium and Saddam's attempt to purchase it, during his state of the union address. Joe Wilson fired at the administration for lying. The administration, specifically, Carl Rove and Scooter Libby leaked that Valerie Plame Wilson was a CIA operative. This move was illegal and treasonous. It also put her life in danger. After this, the administration began a smear campaign of Joe Wilson.

POWER

This all comes down to power. Power is dangerous especially when placed in the wrong hands. Bush is a recovering alcoholic and a somewhat born again christian. He substituted booze with religion all while never resolving his daddy issues. He worships his father while at the same time is highly competitive with him. If religion didn't make him see the 'light' as to his shortcomings perhaps therapy would have. For, because of this need to be better than daddy and perhaps gain a hug we were forced to pay the price for his fanaticism over the Middle East. Cheney, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, Bush Sr. and the other oil heads literally drooled over Iraq's oil, and the possibility of gaining a sweet footing in the Middle East. They wanted it so badly they manufactured evidence, fed it to Bush's telepromter and actually tried to pin it on the CIA. I'm not crying over Saddam being set up, or the CIA left holding the bag, but I do feel bad for the Wilsons. The U.S. government system needs more over site and over site to see that over site and then watchdogs and watchdogs watching them. Wait, that'll never work. All we really need is decency. Is there any left in the political arena?

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