Pelosi grabbed the big political wheel in 2002 and gave it a spin..
And it's come up with "lose a turn" in 2009. Too bad. It was only a matter of time before the never-ending campaign to tar Bushco would come back to haunt the Democrats. The Rick act from Casablanca only goes so far. The coup de grace--her diversion into the "Bush lied" Iraq thing, worth of a message board cowboy. As Clinton would say, game over Madame Speaker.
While this may seem like a loser moment from the Dems there's always a silver lining. More than a few would probably prefer Hoyer as Speaker anyway and today's denial of Cheney's document request perhaps signals there are already deals being made somewhere, somehow. They didn't put Panetta in there for nothing. The only wildcard is the rogues down in the bowels who might leak something.
As to Obama's "180" on the detainee abuse pictures, well it's pretty much a big picture win-win. By saying they are "too bad" to release he hits the Bush crew where it hurts without actually hitting them. He stirs up the jihadis and the Euros. And the press won't blast him for a flip-flop like they would a Repub. If the docs are later forced out by the courts his hands will be clean (despite McCarthy's opinion). Smart guy.
Besides, all this hoopla keeps the debate off the spiraling deficits he helped create, bad financial news in April, an end to the war on drugs, and a less than adequate explanation of Air Force One buzzing Manhattan. And Joe Biden.
But in the bigger big picture--the one that encompasses the cohesiveness of America--none of this is good. If Osama is alive he must be laughing and praising Allah for what appears to be a complete unraveling of the fabric of society in slow motion before our very eyes.
TOUCHE 5/14/09
The CIA used an Executive Order, "as amended", to deny Cheney's documents. What was the amendment? It was the one used by BushCheney in 2003 to allow White House aides to push back on Joe Wilson, and Cheney to claim himself part of both the legislative and executive branches, and neither.
Little Miss Marcy is beside herself, but what she doesn't seem to realize is that these guys are the ultimate masters at protecting their turf. The whole Wilson/Plame thing was a pushback on the lack of WMDs, ie, don't blame us or we'll hurt you. They are currently doing the same to Madame Pelosi and it will only get worse if Panetta doesn't stop it, or maybe even if he does.
2 comments:
The story has legs, but is it enough to bring her down?
At some point, someone with some guts will need to orchestrate her fall. Someone will need to make the case for minimizing the losses, in order to move on.
The longer Pelosi stays in power, the more danger the Dems are of losing big in 2010. It may happen anyway, but this all but guarantees it because it takes the steam right out of the steamroller (which was to be the "truth commission").
Clearly she's called the bluff, in her mind, of the CIA. It's hard to believe she would do that willy-nilly without knowing what they've got in the vault, but hey, after her recent performance we can't be sure on that.
It's also hard to believe the CIA would stand by and let her call them liars if they had the details. Then again, Panetta is in charge and he's a political hack, so good grief, who knows?
I think you're right about 2010, though. No matter what happens she's damaged good now and they won't want to go into the campaign season under a barrage of RNC commercials about the culture of lying, etc..
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