After a week of intense fighting, often at close quarters, it now seems the remaining insurgents are being driven from the State Department and the Central Intelligence Agency.
That’s what this is all about, isn’t it? It’s astounding, that even at this late date, one can read “thought” pieces in the mainstream media urging George Bush to dump the hard-right base that sent him back to the Oval Office and move “toward the center” if he wants to govern effectively in his second term. In fact, now that Mr. Bush has been re-elected, a troop of monkeys will perhaps climb through the window and prepare Thanksgiving dinner. Both scenarios are possible, neither is likely.
What’s happening in Washington, DC is not “normal second-term turnover,” it’s a purge. Although there was remarkably little room for discussion or dissent during Mr. Bush’s first term, there will apparently be none from here forward.
The longest and sharpest knife went into Colin Powell, who must have welcomed the death stroke after suffering four years of flesh wounds. During the 2000 campaign Candidate Bush promised that, if elected, he’d name Mr. Powell secretary of state. (Message: You might think I’m inexperienced and wacky, but I’ll let the adults call the shots.)
While Mr. Powell was employed by the White House, the “Powell Doctrine” was not. Developed during the Gulf War, Mr. Powell’s doctrine held that the U.S. should go to war only – 1 – as a last resort, 2 – if the U.S. is directly threatened, 3 – with overwhelming military force and 4 – with a clear exit strategy. George Bush’s Iraq invasion did not – and still does not – meet any of the Powell Doctrine’s criteria. Mr. Powell allowed himself to be debased over and over on behalf of an effort he knew was doomed. In his resignation message, Mr. Powell noted he and Mr. Bush “mutually” agreed on his exit, which is a diplomat’s way of saying he’s being forcibly thrown from a moving vehicle.
Secretary of State-designate Condoleezza Rice has been national security advisor for four years, except she never seemed to give the president advice. For instance, in the summer of 2001, she should have advised, “Mr. President, there’s clear evidence that Osama bin Laden plans to attack the U.S.” Instead, it was, “You’re planning a month-long vacation in Texas? Can I come too?”
Prior to the Iraq invasion, Condi Rice made the most exaggerated claims (“We don’t want the smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud”) on the flimsiest evidence (yellowcake rumors, any old aluminum tube). When the 9-11 Commission called her on it, she said she hadn’t read the parts of the reports that cast doubt on the bogus intel. Ms. Rice will now be the person charged with re-establishing America’s credibility with the rest of the world.
If Ms. Rice runs State the way she ran the NSC, then it will just be another outlet for the neoconservative views of Dick Cheney and the thugs at the Pentagon. Eerily, the State Department could come to resemble Iraq, with a puppet administrator pushed out front while the war machine and Halliburton call the shots.
If State goes the way of Iraq, it’s appropriate that the CIA is starting to resemble Afghanistan. Porter Goss, the warlord in control of that province is an ex-spook, ex-congressman who told Michael Moore’s camera that he is not qualified to even work for the CIA anymore, then told a Senate confirmation committee he would run the agency in an apolitical manner, then forced the resignation of dissenters and now, according to the Washington Post, has written a memo telling the staff that the CIA works for the administration, not the nation.
Was Attorney General John Ashcroft part of the purge? He’s as ideologically pure as any of the first-term Bushies, but purges serve practical, as well as ideological, ends. Geneva Convention-scorning White House Counsel Alberto Gonzales needs to pad his resume before he can pass the laugh test for his anticipated Supreme Court nomination, so Mr. Ashcroft had to take one for the team.
All the cabinet-shuffling leaves us with two questions: 1 – Will George Bush move to the center in his second term? and 2 – Do you want a banana with your turkey?
Welcome to the Monkey House
After a week of intense fighting, often at close quarters, it now seems the remaining insurgents are being driven from the State Department and the Central Intelligence Agency.
That’s what this is all about, isn’t it? It’s astounding, that even at this late date, one can read “thought” pieces in the mainstream media urging George Bush to dump the hard-right base that sent him back to the Oval Office and move “toward the center” if he wants to govern effectively in his second term. In fact, now that Mr. Bush has been re-elected, a troop of monkeys will perhaps climb through the window and prepare Thanksgiving dinner. Both scenarios are possible, neither is likely.
What’s happening in Washington, DC is not “normal second-term turnover,” it’s a purge. Although there was remarkably little room for discussion or dissent during Mr. Bush’s first term, there will apparently be none from here forward.
The longest and sharpest knife went into Colin Powell, who must have welcomed the death stroke after suffering four years of flesh wounds. During the 2000 campaign Candidate Bush promised that, if elected, he’d name Mr. Powell secretary of state. (Message: You might think I’m inexperienced and wacky, but I’ll let the adults call the shots.)
While Mr. Powell was employed by the White House, the “Powell Doctrine” was not. Developed during the Gulf War, Mr. Powell’s doctrine held that the U.S. should go to war only – 1 – as a last resort, 2 – if the U.S. is directly threatened, 3 – with overwhelming military force and 4 – with a clear exit strategy. George Bush’s Iraq invasion did not – and still does not – meet any of the Powell Doctrine’s criteria. Mr. Powell allowed himself to be debased over and over on behalf of an effort he knew was doomed. In his resignation message, Mr. Powell noted he and Mr. Bush “mutually” agreed on his exit, which is a diplomat’s way of saying he’s being forcibly thrown from a moving vehicle.
Secretary of State-designate Condoleezza Rice has been national security advisor for four years, except she never seemed to give the president advice. For instance, in the summer of 2001, she should have advised, “Mr. President, there’s clear evidence that Osama bin Laden plans to attack the U.S.” Instead, it was, “You’re planning a month-long vacation in Texas? Can I come too?”
Prior to the Iraq invasion, Condi Rice made the most exaggerated claims (“We don’t want the smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud”) on the flimsiest evidence (yellowcake rumors, any old aluminum tube). When the 9-11 Commission called her on it, she said she hadn’t read the parts of the reports that cast doubt on the bogus intel. Ms. Rice will now be the person charged with re-establishing America’s credibility with the rest of the world.
If Ms. Rice runs State the way she ran the NSC, then it will just be another outlet for the neoconservative views of Dick Cheney and the thugs at the Pentagon. Eerily, the State Department could come to resemble Iraq, with a puppet administrator pushed out front while the war machine and Halliburton call the shots.
If State goes the way of Iraq, it’s appropriate that the CIA is starting to resemble Afghanistan. Porter Goss, the warlord in control of that province is an ex-spook, ex-congressman who told Michael Moore’s camera that he is not qualified to even work for the CIA anymore, then told a Senate confirmation committee he would run the agency in an apolitical manner, then forced the resignation of dissenters and now, according to the Washington Post, has written a memo telling the staff that the CIA works for the administration, not the nation.
Was Attorney General John Ashcroft part of the purge? He’s as ideologically pure as any of the first-term Bushies, but purges serve practical, as well as ideological, ends. Geneva Convention-scorning White House Counsel Alberto Gonzales needs to pad his resume before he can pass the laugh test for his anticipated Supreme Court nomination, so Mr. Ashcroft had to take one for the team.
All the cabinet-shuffling leaves us with two questions: 1 – Will George Bush move to the center in his second term? and 2 – Do you want a banana with your turkey?
© Mark Floegel, 2004