Busy busy busy, like bees

March 23, 2004 10:43 PM

major ongoing scandals - a list"there have been an amazing number of investigations of Republicans since Bush took office, some of which directly involve the White House." Is this, in fact, an unusually long roster of scandals as compared to the scandal tallies of past presidential administrations?
posted by troutfishing (25 comments total)

Is this, in fact, an unusually long roster of scandals as compared to the scandal tallies of past presidential administrations?

Yes.
I mean no.
Wait... yes?
posted by Witty at 11:39 PM on March 23, 2004

Is Witty?
posted by interrobang at 12:04 AM on March 24, 2004

Yes!
posted by The God Complex at 12:13 AM on March 24, 2004

Yes, but nobody thinks George cheated on Laura.
posted by effugas at 12:14 AM on March 24, 2004

Yeah, but Rumsfeld was in bed with Saddam.

bad dum pssht.
posted by The God Complex at 12:17 AM on March 24, 2004

Why do you hate America?
posted by sycophant at 12:50 AM on March 24, 2004

* Former Rep. Bill Janklow (R-S.D.) was under investigation for vehicular manslaughter, a crime for which he was later convicted.

How is this Congress-Kritters failings the 'fault' of the White House?
posted by rough ashlar at 4:45 AM on March 24, 2004

Why do you hate America?

I can't stand its cliches.
posted by XQUZYPHYR at 4:48 AM on March 24, 2004

rough ashlar - it's not a list of the WH, but Republicans
posted by evening at 4:52 AM on March 24, 2004

someone hates America, what a surprise

cause and effect folks - America is bringing it all on itself. Try getting to the root of the problem.

sycophant has it right... he actually asks why. Get your President to do something similar. more importantly, get him to listen.

Personally I don't hate America, just it's leaders.... it all seems to be me me me. If you really want to make the world safe and pursue those noble ideals of freedom and democracy why do you not bother with Africa - Mugabe is far more destructive than Saddam ever was. Aids is wiping out the continent but all we hear day after day is Iraq, fighting terrorism and other such nonsense.

Poverty, that's the real killer.

Sorry for the offtopic rant... What's happening in Africa is just annoying me big time at the minute. It's one of the biggest disasters of our time. Forget 9/11 for a minute and look outside your front door (that goes for Europe also by the way).
posted by twistedonion at 4:52 AM on March 24, 2004

I don't hate America. But I think we can do better with new leadership.
posted by troutfishing at 5:14 AM on March 24, 2004

Why is C-Span downplaying the 9/11 Commission?
Is this a pattern? more inside
posted by Domain Master 666 at 6:27 AM on March 24, 2004

sorry! that was to be a fpp!
posted by Domain Master 666 at 6:28 AM on March 24, 2004

Steve Bell on Bush hearing news of 9/11.
posted by matteo at 8:50 AM on March 24, 2004

major ongoing scandals - a list...
compared to ?(what & when).
new leadership.
Maybe new thinking, most politicians are out for themselves. Give me a farmer as they are self productive and can think about my needs too.
posted by thomcatspike at 9:35 AM on March 24, 2004

Compared to whitewater, filegate, Vince Foster's mysterious death, Monica, flubbing on Al Qaeda after the Cole and various embassy bombings, and so on? Not to mention, if we're going after congress-kritters, Ted Kennedies manslaughter and drunkenness, etc etc?

Politicians are bad. Big shock. So? A blog with an axe to grind is an FPP worthy thing? Come now, children, don't we have better things to do?
posted by swerdloff at 10:07 AM on March 24, 2004

swerdloff - did you even read the post and know what the context is? it's not a blog with an axe to grind. geez!
posted by evening at 11:08 AM on March 24, 2004

Give me a farmer as they are self productive and can think about my needs too.
Hey, Carter was a farmer--can we bring him back? (he was the best human we've had as president lately, I think) : >
posted by amberglow at 11:21 AM on March 24, 2004

* Republican Connecticut Gov. John Rowland is under a criminal investigation (and an impeachment investigation) after he lied about prominent state contractors and several government aides paying for refurbishments to his lake-front cottage.

oh
my GOD.

that sure beats a hummer in the oval office and ron brown and co. trying to turn parts of the DOD into a yard sale.

but ron is dead, hence, no investigation.
posted by clavdivs at 11:59 AM on March 24, 2004

That's one of the lesser scandals, clav. As for Ron Brown, well - Don Rumsfeld, pre 9-11, was planning to cut three army divisions. And - sex in the Oval Office? Stacked against some of the current scandals - blowing Valerie Plame's cover and so jeopardizing major portions of the CIA's WMD espionage programs, for example.......yikes. I'd take the blow job scandal any day.

The White House's outing of Valerie Plame's CIA affiliation could actually result, sometime in the future, in one of those "mushroom clouds" which the Bush Administration invoked as possibly coming from Saddam Hussein. (So laughable in retrospect, this).

I'd call anyone who damaged the CIA counter-WMD proliferation espionage program to be a traitor of the highest order.

Clinton, by comparison, was merely a lecherous buffoon.

Moving on...what of the Bush Administration's absurd lack of response to warnings about impending Al Qaeda attacks.....near criminal I'd say.

"Very early on, in the first days of the Bush Administration, Richard Clark presented plans for strikes against Al Qaeda camps. The Bush Administration ignored these proposals, and it also seems to have ignored Clark's warnings that Al Qaeda sleeper cells in the US were a "major threat" "

"January 25, 2001: Richard Clarke, National Security Council Chief of Counterterrorism and holdover from the Clinton administration, submits a proposal to the new administration for an attack on al-Qaeda in revenge of the USS Cole bombing. In the wake of that bombing, Bush stated on the campaign trail: "I hope that we can gather enough intelligence to figure out who did the act and take the necessary action ...? there must be a consequence." According to the Washington Post: "Clarke argued that the camps were can't-miss targets, and they mattered. The facilities amounted to conveyor belts for al-Qaeda's human capital, with raw recruits arriving and trained fighters departing either for front lines against the Northern Alliance, the Afghan rebel coalition, or against American interests somewhere else. The US government had whole libraries of images filmed over Tarnak Qila and its sister camp, Garmabat Ghar, 19 miles farther west. Why watch al-Qaeda train several thousand men a year and then chase them around the world when they left?" [Washington Post, 1/20/02] Clarke also warns that al-Qaeda sleeper cells in the US are a "major threat." Two days later, the US confirms the link between al-Qaeda and the USS Cole bombing. [PBS Frontline 10/3/02] No retaliation is taken on these camps until after 9/11. [Washington Post, 1/20/02]" - From "The Complete 9-11 Timeline"

Only a few days later, the 2 1/2 year long research project, by the bipartisan US Commission on National Security, culminated in the public release of the Hart-Rudman Report - a study of the terrorism threat which confronted the United States : "January 31, 2001: The final report of the US Commission on National Security/21st Century, co-chaired by former Senators Gary Hart (D), and Warren Rudman (R) is issued (see also September 15, 1999). The bipartisan report was put together in 1998 by then-President Bill Clinton and then-House Speaker Newt Gingrich. The report has 50 recommendations on how to combat terrorism in the US, but all of them are ignored by the Bush Administration. Instead, the White House announces in May that it will have Vice President Cheney study the potential problem of domestic terrorism, despite the fact that this commission had just studied the issue for 2 1/2 years. According to Senator Hart, Congress was taking the commission's suggestions seriously, but then, "Frankly, the White House shut it down... The president said 'Please wait, we're going to turn this over to the vice president'" (from "The Complete 9-11 Timeline")"

"[ the Clinton Administration's ] flubbing on Al Qaeda after the Cole and various embassy bombings..." - Well, I suppose. But when Clinton actually took action - hitting OBL's camps in Afghanistan and missing OBL by only 2 hours - Clinton's action was roundly roasted by the US right a a "Wag the Dog" strategy. It can be, further, argued that the right's strategy of keeping Clinton tied down by the Lewinsky sex scandal prevented more substantive action on terrorism (I.E. sending US troops into Afghanistan) for the fact that the right so strongly denounced Clinton when he actually resorted to military options.

So, this Republican criticism may have forced a tradeoff - government frenzy over blow jobs in the Oval Office vs. action taken, potentially, to directly attack Al Qaeda and so possibly prevent the 9-11 attacks.

Clinton's blow jobs seem, in retrospect, so laughably minor.
posted by troutfishing at 1:30 PM on March 24, 2004

"Very early on, in the first days of the Bush Administration, Richard Clark presented plans for strikes against Al Qaeda camps. The Bush Administration ignored these proposals, and it also seems to have ignored Clark's warnings that Al Qaeda sleeper cells in the US were a "major threat" "

"January 25, 2001: Richard Clarke, National Security Council Chief of Counterterrorism and holdover from the Clinton administration, submits a proposal to the new administration for an attack on al-Qaeda in revenge of the USS Cole bombing. In the wake of that bombing, Bush stated on the campaign trail: "I hope that we can gather enough intelligence to figure out who did the act and take the necessary action ...? there must be a consequence." According to the Washington Post: "Clarke argued that the camps were can't-miss targets, and they mattered. The facilities amounted to conveyor belts for al-Qaeda's human capital, with raw recruits arriving and trained fighters departing either for front lines against the Northern Alliance, the Afghan rebel coalition, or against American interests somewhere else. The US government had whole libraries of images filmed over Tarnak Qila and its sister camp, Garmabat Ghar, 19 miles farther west. Why watch al-Qaeda train several thousand men a year and then chase them around the world when they left?" [Washington Post, 1/20/02] Clarke also warns that al-Qaeda sleeper cells in the US are a "major threat." Two days later, the US confirms the link between al-Qaeda and the USS Cole bombing. [PBS Frontline 10/3/02] No retaliation is taken on these camps until after 9/11. [Washington Post, 1/20/02]" - From "The Complete 9-11 Timeline"

Only a few days later, the 2 1/2 year long research project, by the bipartisan US Commission on National Security, culminated in the public release of the Hart-Rudman Report - a study of the terrorism threat which confronted the United States : "January 31, 2001: The final report of the US Commission on National Security/21st Century, co-chaired by former Senators Gary Hart (D), and Warren Rudman (R) is issued (see also September 15, 1999). The bipartisan report was put together in 1998 by then-President Bill Clinton and then-House Speaker Newt Gingrich. The report has 50 recommendations on how to combat terrorism in the US, but all of them are ignored by the Bush Administration. Instead, the White House announces in May that it will have Vice President Cheney study the potential problem of domestic terrorism, despite the fact that this commission had just studied the issue for 2 1/2 years. According to Senator Hart, Congress was taking the commission's suggestions seriously, but then, "Frankly, the White House shut it down... The president said 'Please wait, we're going to turn this over to the vice president'" (from "The Complete 9-11 Timeline")".

Clinton's Oval Office plo chops now seem, in comparison, to be laughably minor offenses.
posted by troutfishing at 1:37 PM on March 24, 2004

Oops. Another left-wing scandal, right there!

redundancy-Gate!
posted by troutfishing at 1:38 PM on March 24, 2004

Wonderful satire from Billmon, over at Whiskey Bar:

Out of the Loop

Faith-Based Aide's Charges Denied

WASHINGTON, January 21, 2003 -- Bush administration officials today denied allegations that the White House lacks a coherent policy-making process and is dominated by a small clique of conservatives aides known as the "Mayberry Machiavellis."

The charges, reported in the current issue of Esquire magazine, were made by John DiIulio, Bush's former top advisor on faith-based initiatives. However, White House spokesman Ari Fleischer said DiIulio was "not in the loop."

White House Denies O'Neill's Charges on Iraq

WASHINGTON, January 14, 2004 -- Bush administration officials today criticized comments from former Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill, who claimed in a recent 60 Minutes interview that President Bush and his top aides began planning for an invasion of Iraq within days of taking office.

O'Neill was "not in the loop," White House spokesman Scott McClellan said.

Cheney: Clarke's Charges Not Credible

WASHINGTON, March 22, 2004 -- White House officials reacted with anger today to charges by President Bush's former top counter-terrorism advisor, Richard Clarke, that the president has badly bungled the war on terrorism.

Clarke, who blasted the Bush administration in a 60 Minutes interview Sunday, "wasn't in the loop," Vice President Dick Cheney said in an interview Monday with radio talk show host Rush Limbaugh.

Former President Under Fire After Interview

WASHINGTON, May 7, 2007 -- Top aides to former President Bush reacted with scorn to his claim that he was manipulated by top administration officials, including Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and Vice President Dick Cheney, into invading Iraq.

In an emotional 60 Minutes interview Sunday, Bush blamed the disastrous war (now in its fourth year) on a small cabel of neo-conservative officials, who played upon his ignorance of world affairs and his obsessive desire to destroy the Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein.

Former administration officials derided Bush's claim, saying the former president was in an alcoholic stupor through most of the period in question, and couldn't possibly have detailed knowledge of the key decisions that led to war. "He was out of the loop," said former Vice President Dick Cheney, currently serving a 20-year sentence in federal prison for his role in the Carlyle Group scandal.

President Kerry pardoned Bush for his role in the affair last year.

Posted by billmon at 09:13 PM

posted by dash_slot- at 5:55 PM on March 24, 2004

Well, I suppose....

thats your tagline sweetheart
posted by clavdivs at 8:26 PM on March 24, 2004

Ooops - I forgot to include my /sarcasm tag.
posted by troutfishing at 6:49 AM on March 25, 2004