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White House Outrage Misplaced?
TPMm Reader AF doesn't think much of the White House's response to this morning's New York Times story:
The White House pushback is focused exclusively on 1) the President, 2) Dana Perino and 3) Tony Fratto. However, "administration officials" and "senior administration officials" have certainly commented on the story. To wit:From CNN, 12/8/07:
"Later Friday, two senior administration officials told CNN that then-deputy White House counsel Harriet Miers was aware of the tapes and told the CIA not to destroy them."From the Washington Post, 12/11/07:
" Administration officials have said that Justice Department and White House lawyers, including longtime Bush aide Harriet E. Miers, had recommended against destroying the tapes."Seems to me that the White House wants to have it both ways. They officially decline to comment while on background administration officials offer exculpatory details. This is reminiscent of their position on the Plame scandal. At the outset there were blanket denials of responsibility followed up by repeated "no comments." It also highlights this administration's penchant for selective leaking.
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Comments (18)
He is our President wrote on December 19, 2007 12:26 PM:The thing is is that Bush is defending us
so why does he have to deal with this
He is our President
No matter what we think or what party we belong to we have to support him
or God will abandon our country
blaze wrote on December 19, 2007 12:36 PM:He's our President.
Insane President. wrote on December 19, 2007 12:43 PM:You intend to faithfully follow the man into the shady world of torture? Torture by the US administration will certainly ensure that God is on our side.
It's gotten so bad that even Generals refuse to say that waterboarding is torture even if done by enemies to our own soldiers, a position that is appalling to most Americans who realize that waterboarding has been torture since the Inquisition.
This moral confusion is a direct result of underlings trying to protect Bush from his own actions.
Of course, he is our president because, well, he's our president.
Insane President. wrote on December 19, 2007 12:45 PM:... God has abandonned us a long time ago.
Remember what Chavez said...
Incompetent and Anti-American President wrote on December 19, 2007 12:50 PM:This is our country. We abandon our principals to support a president who uses torture to get inaccurate info and then destroys the evidence, and we're sunk.
Nixon was our president too wrote on December 19, 2007 12:56 PM:I'm floored that you should blindly follow someone who has been caught time after time in lies and falsehoods. Does the phrase "I am not a crook" ring a bell? We are sacrificing over 200 years of support of the Constitution because of this administration, and why? I want my country, and all that is supposed to stand for, back.
Bonnie wrote on December 19, 2007 12:59 PM:Bill Clinton was our Presidenet, too.
Chicago wrote on December 19, 2007 1:07 PM:Reply to: He is our President,
So you find torture to be in line with God's teachings? And do you call efforts to illegally wiretap United States citizens back in February 2001, a full 6+ months before 09/11/01, protecting us?!? I call it spying on us....like the old KGB or some other totalitarian regime.
Lisa wrote on December 19, 2007 1:14 PM:And do you believe a war predicated on subterfuge and outright lies to be protecting us or to be Godly?! How about the Bush administrations weakening of our environmental laws, continued resistance to clean air & alt-energy policies do you think that it's all part of God's big plan?! This administration has lied, cheated, blackballed, stonewalled and taken a mile where it should have taken an inch and you are worried now about God abandoning us? Last time I checked not telling the complete truth is as bad as lying in the eyes of God. Oh yeah, the torture thing is frowned upon also.
Chicago
All of what you say is just a smoke screen to mask the fact that you are not a true patriot
justobserving wrote on December 19, 2007 1:19 PM:Good story by Jason Leopold of truthout on the involvement of michael chertoff in advising the CIA about interrogating abu zubaydah and the possibility that Cheertoff who was the chief of DOJ's criminal division at the time. This is a name missing from the discussion
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/121907J.shtml
Jeff wrote on December 19, 2007 1:19 PM:The substance of the story was absolutely accurate - and there are many more outlets from Dec. 7-8 indicating that administration officials, including senior administration officials, were on background indicating that Miers was involved and remaining silent on more extensive White House involvement. Apparently, word went out on the evening of December 7. The subhead may or may not have been technically accurate depending on whether (the Times knows that) any of the those administration officials, including senior administration officials, were White House officials.
If the Times really is going to issue a correction, as Perino apparently indicated, it better be a good one that does not back away from the substance of the story but only, at most, the "It" in the subhead, which instead could and should have read, "Bush administration role was wider than it said," or "White House role wider than senior Bush officials said."
Martin wrote on December 19, 2007 1:26 PM:I'm giving "He is our President" the benefit of the doubt here, because NOONE can be THAT simple-minded and still be able to function at a computer screen. They'd have to have opposable thumbs, for one.
So good one, "He is our President" for your wit and sarcasm. If it's not sarcasm, well....I can't go on without offending the human race.
feckless wrote on December 19, 2007 1:34 PM:This is just standard CIA disinformation.
Get your lie out there first, people are more inclined to remember the first thing they hear on any issue.
po wrote on December 19, 2007 1:50 PM:here's what else Ms. Perino had to say on December 7, 2007:
"Q Dana, a follow-up to that, was anyone else in the White House notified about the existence of the tapes, aware of the existence, aware that they were going to be destroyed, that they were destroyed? The Vice President? Anyone else in the White House --
MS. PERINO: As I said -- I already said that I asked about the President -- look, if we can get you answers on other people, I will. The Vice President's office has a press office and you can contact them."
Guess we won't be getting those answers. Sort of like we didn't see anyone fired for Plame.
Who is our president? wrote on December 19, 2007 2:21 PM:Thank you Martin. I don't think even the fringy-est flake subscribes to the "He's our president" mantra anymore. My RW friends may still be stupid enough vote R, but they're not quite stupid enough to parrot that nonsense.
bob wrote on December 19, 2007 3:19 PM:he is our president. He talks to the invisible sky wizard. I know because he said so. I believe in the invisible sky wizard as did the founders of our country.
you must follow me and our president over the cliff.
Really, face it, you all were pulled over the cliff on that one, the discussion of torture tapes was totally derailed by that republican guard dead-ender.
jpk wrote on December 19, 2007 4:20 PM:So, is anyone interested in a comment on topic?
If you take a look at the topic, it isn't "Is Bush Our President?"
Which is a good thing, because there's no issue there. He is. Not a lot of controversy there.
No, the topic was, Is What House Outrage Misplaced? Shouldn't it be placed at its own leakers? Wouldn't the vehement denials that any statement has been given be better directed at the repeated "leaks" that amount to a statement? If the White House is really outraged, shouldn't its outrage be directed at them?
The answer is yes.
And of course, the obvious implication: since the White House is attacking everyone else, there's not much to argue for the charming myth it presents here: oh, the poor, poor, victimized President! He hurted so vewy vewy bad.
Uh, that didn't happen.
What did happen: the Times reported the usual leakage and Perino sucker-punched that this was misrepresenting OFFICIAL position. Oh? If so, whose fault is that, Perino?
Marius Key wrote on December 19, 2007 8:16 PM:Though I hate to say it, the fault on this one really lies more with the NYT than the White House. The NYT should never have given Administration officials anonymity to spout the Administration line; doing so made it easy for the Administration to give an official "no comment", which now makes their objections look reasonable.