Damage Control
Also known as lying...


In the wake of the hilariously terrible last week that the Bush administration had (which was brought to a merciful end by the coming of Sunday and the official ending of the week) hoped that the bad news would magically stop once Monday rolled around again. They may even try and give the news a push in the far-right direction.

We've heard rumors that there will be a replacement for Harriet Miers on Monday, which is sure to obfuscate the results of the CIA leak investigation just enough for the new party line of damage control to take root (thanks, if you're wondering, to Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina for this one):

"Apparently, they didn't violate the law in setting the record straight [setting the record straight refers to leaking a covert CIA operative's name, technically treason] ... The allegation is that when they told the grand jury about the process they made some misstatements and false allegations."

This came from CBS' Face the Nation by the way.

So the line the Republicans are towing now is that the investigation proved that committing treason is not illegal, and therefore nobody in the administration did anything wrong and are, in fact, fucking angels. Oh, but wait, there were indictments in the investigation... hmm that can't be easy to spin away from the news... what were they indictments? Were they misstatements and false allegations? Were they, as the defense of Irv Lewis "Scooter" Libby will claim, simple cases of a shaky memory due to the massive work the job entails (a defense used by every administration under investigation since Watergate)? NOPE. FIVE COUNT 'EM FIVE FELONY CHARGES. One of them, gasp, basically alleges that Libby blocked the investigation from getting to anyone above him on the party food chain... basically taking a bullet for the vice president as if any amount of protection would keep that heart from exploding within the next decade. The Republican line on this one seems to claim bad memory and then get the hell away from Libby. Voila!

The bad part of all this is that they'll probably pull this off. The "fair and balanced" and "independent" and "fucking" liars at such "news" outlets as "FOX" (if that is their real name) claim as if it were the truth that there is "no underlying crime" in the investigation. What that means, of course, is that this investigation is a witch hunt akin to those terrible beasts that went after two adults who engaged in consensual sex during the last administration... oh wait they can't say that out loud can they... shit.... they were those terrible beasts that tried to slander and discredit one of the most successful presidencies we've ever had. If you aren't convinced of that by the way, go look up the murder mystery that involved the Clintons tying people to train tracks ala Snidely Wiplash. No joke. Okay, you're right, the Republican Party is a pretty funny joke.

FOX isn't the only place this happens. My favorite Republican, Lou Dobbs (I'm not kidding about this by the way, the guy's great despite his less than objective understanding of China), has had legal analysts on his "crazy liberal" CNN show who have claimed there is no crime as well. Frankly, this is how Nixon behaved. That's not a rant line from me, it's actually a pretty nice analogy from Chuck Schumer (Democratic Senator from New York):

"The real question for President Bush is going to be: is he going to be like Nixon — hunker down, get into the bunker, admit no mistakes ... or like Reagan, who actually admitted mistakes, did a midcourse correction and brought in new people, bipartisan people, people above ethical reproach, into the White House."
That one's actually from FOX News.

Which do you think will be chosen? Well it will most likely be uniquely BushII, which is laymen speak for Rove. The very existence of the problem will be brought in to question (as we've already seen), and then anyone detracting and believing in the existence of the problem will be slandered as seething hatemongers who clearly want the terrorists to win whatever the hell game it is that we think they're playing. What that also means is that Rove is now more powerful than you can possibly imagine, even more than Chuck Norris who is quite powerful.