Me: Frank Lynch

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The mistake? Trusting the White House. A non-government terrorism watchdog has reported that last month the White House was entrusted with an advance copy of a video from Osama Bin Laden, one that al Qaeda didn't know the watchdog firm had found in its computer networks; and then, in spite of having asked the White House to sit on it because the firm's peephole into Al Qaeda was fragile, well, the White House leaked the video out to the press. In the process, Al Qaeda became aware of the hole in their security, and promptly shut it down. As a result, that firm's carefully nurtured insider view to al Qaeda went down the tubes.

If you read the article, unnamed administration sources say there's no danger to security, since they feel they can get the same intelligence elsewhere. Three things on this:

1. The White House isn't going to admit there's any harm done by their own efforts;
    
2. (as an extension), you can bet your last dollar that if the breach was the New York Times' fault (and not something deliberately leaked by the White House), you know that Bush et al would be in high dudgeon about the lack of respect for national security; and,
    
3. Events on the release happened too quickly for the White House to have done due diligence and to have checked that they have redundant sources and there was no security risk. (I mean, they apparently didn't do those checks on Valerie Plame, either, right? Otherwise you'd be saying they willfully outed a covert agent.)

The Plame connection is relevant: Scooter Libby was basically ordered to selectively leak intelligence to Judith Miller that would make the Administration's support for the war more defensible. Bush declassified information for this express purpose. No, the Bushies don't hate America, but they sure do love maintaining power.
Link | | | 7:36 PM | Home
 

How very unlike Scooter Libby. Marion Jones: if you didn't see her statement of contrition, a full acknowledgment of responsibility, guilt, and betrayal of trust, you should.

Scooter Libby, of course, was part of a White House effort to defend an indefensible war, chose to use the Press for propaganda, and participated in an effort to fight off investigators after the truth. He lied to prosecutors, of course, basically doing what Jones did with her false statements to the FBI. He showed no contrition whatsoever, and Bush commuted his sentence.
Link | | | 10:19 PM | Home
 

Across the Universe. Earlier tonight I made the mistake of trying to talk to our daughter during a commercial. Normally this would be a safe time, but the commercial was for the movie "Across The Universe." She had seen the movie and loved it so much that the commercial stirred such intensely fond memories that she couldn't stand being interrupted: she was tolerant once or twice, hitting that magic DVR button which stops the world, but only once or twice. The continuity of a commercial mattered in the way that we grown-ups think about movies interrupted by commercials. This was a well-crafted commercial (I guess it was well-crafted) which hit enough high notes to remind her of that big screen experience. I'll grant you, the movie got a fine review in the Paper of Record, and we offered to take her to see it, but she's at an age when she sees movies with her friends and we don't know what she does with us. (Not feeling dissed, it just is.) I guess I was just really surprised by her desire to focus on a commercial. I guess I'd be bummed if I was listening to "Won't Get Fooled Again" and was disrupted by a phone call just as Daltrey sang "yaaaahhhhh." OK, she's forgiven, we'll keep her.
Link | | | 11:57 PM | Home

We have met the enemy, and he is us. Oh, Walt Kelly, if you were only with us now. All that hooting and hollering about "if ya da da ya da da, then the terrorists have already won" has come true: Bush has gotten away with breaking the law over wiretapping without judicial oversight, as mandated by Congress (the judiciary can declare something unconstitutional, but when the executive branch does it, it has no teeth), he frequently spits in the face of Congressional intent by issuing "signing statements" instead of vetoing what he doesn't like (so tell me, please, why is the notion of an "activist judiciary" more noxious than that of an "activist executive"?)... Oh hell, just read what has me all worked up.
Link | | | 11:21 PM | Home

Friday afternoon "cat blogging" sure beats Friday afternoon "document dumps." You know the pattern: release the embarrassing stuff on a Friday, too late for the nightly news shows, but in time for a low readership newspaper day. (Maybe the press should just embargo their reporting until Monday instead?) Al Kamen at the Washington Post observes that the State Department has started a blog, called DipNotes. It will of course be interesting to see how long they have the energy to maintain it, since 1, it can be time consuming, and 2, the CIA has already come out against this sort of thing from those in the Administration.
Link | | | 8:22 PM | Home
 

About that success in Afghanistan. Yeah, well, if you've been paying attention you know that it's not at all a success, in so many ways: violence, poppies, and so on. It's what you get when you stop going after the people who attacked us on 9/11 and start chasing those who didn't. If you want more confirmation of how badly it's tanked...

Afghanistan is currently suffering its most violent year since the 2001 U.S.-led intervention, according to an internal United Nations report that sharply contrasts with recent upbeat appraisals by President Bush and his Afghan counterpart, Hamid Karzai.

"The security situation in Afghanistan is assessed by most analysts as having deteriorated at a constant rate through 2007," said the report compiled by the Kabul office of the U.N. Department of Safety and Security.

Imagine that: Bush overrepresented the success in Afghanistan!

Meanwhile, if you've been following the child custody battles of Britney and K-Fed, take a break, because Seymour Hersh has a new piece up at the New Yorker about the Push to Go Into Iran. Much of it won't surprise you, but it's still worth reading, every bit, because at the same time that it outlines our aggressive, unfounded posture, it also shows the danger we've made ourselves vulnerable to with our loss of credibility over Iraq:

There is, he added, "a widespread belief in London that Tony Blair's government was sold a bill of goods by the White House in the buildup to the war against Iraq. So if somebody comes into Gordon Brown's office and says, 'We have this intelligence from America,' Brown will ask, 'Where did it come from? Have we verified it?' The burden of proof is high."

It's the Boy Who Cried Wolf writ large, and we're in danger as a result. Our allies are more likely to look askance at everything we say, thanks to the false premises under which we invaded Iraq.

I've linked to it before, and will do so again, but do you remember what Chuck Hagel said to CNN's Aaron Brown before we invaded Iraq?

I'm concerned, Aaron, today with what I have been concerned about all along. It is not about Saddam Hussein being rehabilitated. It is not about whether we should or need to deal with him. Of course we need to deal with him. But it is about how we deal with him.

Bringing our allies along with us, working through the legitimacy of the United Nations. Because what ends in Baghdad is just the beginning of another chapter of our dealing with terrorism, proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. We, the United States, can't do this alone. There's going to be an extended commitment in the Middle East of resources, of prestige, of men, of treasure. This is going to be a long-term effort. We can't see, view or deal with Iraq in a vacuum.

...Now we know, I know, we all know that you can't predict the end of these kinds of things or totally the outcome. But that's the point of staying with our allies and working within the United Nations. Because there will be consequences if we go to war. And we want to have this done with our allies because there are many, many other dangerous places in the world, North Korea, Afghanistan, we're still at war, the Israeli-Palestinian issue, India, Pakistan, South America, that we can't deal with all of these alone. We need our allies.

Of course, we've pissed away the goodwill of our allies and the UN. A lot of people have lost their lives, not just coalition troops, but respected officials of the UN have, too.

Ah, but Hagel's just a "RINO." If more people had listened to him, the GOP would still hold the Congress.
Link | | | 10:02 PM | Home
 

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