The Face of Fascism

Truthout.org explains how you're looking right into it. The excerpt below speaks volumes.

Vice President Dick Cheney and then-Deputy National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley led a campaign beginning in March 2003 to discredit former Ambassador Joseph Wilson for publicly criticizing the Bush administration's intelligence on Iraq, according to current and former administration officials.

The officials work or had worked in the State Department, the CIA and the National Security Council in a senior capacity and had direct knowledge of the Vice President's campaign to discredit Wilson.

In interviews over the course of two days this week, these officials were urged to speak on the record for this story. But they resisted, saying they had already testified before a grand jury investigating the leak of Wilson's wife, covert CIA operative Valerie Plame Wilson, and added that speaking out against the administration and specifically Vice President Cheney would cause them to lose their jobs and subject their families to vitriolic attacks by the White House.

The officials said they decided to speak out now because they have become disillusioned with the Bush administration's policies regarding Iraq and the flawed intelligence that led to the war.

They said their roles, along with several others at the CIA and State Department, included digging up or "inventing" embarrassing information on the former Ambassador that could be used against him, preparing memos and classified material on Wilson for Cheney and the National Security Council, and attending meetings in Cheney's office to discuss with Cheney, Hadley, and others the efforts that would be taken to discredit Wilson.

Remember, Wilson was an ambassador who had been highly decorated by Bush Sr., had personally faced down Saddam Hussein before the first Iraq war. He was a valuable public servant, as was his wife, Valerie Plame, who had undertaken dangerous missions in antiproliferation of WMD.

But woe behold you should you criticize the Chimpettes with the truth.

Cheney is a traitor, a fascist, and a disgrace.

Ah, the Stunning Reality of Bushworld

This really galls the shit out of me, because I worked as a contractor to NASA many years ago--best job I ever had. Anyway, this little twerp, George Deutsch, was appointed to be a public affairs officer at NASA. His qualifications? He worked on Chimpie's campaign in the "war room" as a fucking intern. So this little twerp does the following, according to the New York Times:

In October, for example, George Deutsch, a presidential appointee in NASA headquarters, told a Web designer working for the agency to add the word "theory" after every mention of the Big Bang, according to an e-mail message from Mr. Deutsch that another NASA employee forwarded to The Times.

And that's because Deutsch is an expert in the subject, seeing as he has a mighty BA in Journalism from Texas A&M.

The Big Bang is "not proven fact; it is opinion," Mr. Deutsch wrote, adding, "It is not NASA's place, nor should it be to make a declaration such as this about the existence of the universe that discounts intelligent design by a creator."

It continued: "This is more than a science issue, it is a religious issue. And I would hate to think that young people would only be getting one-half of this debate from NASA. That would mean we had failed to properly educate the very people who rely on us for factual information the most."

Okay, are you getting nervous yet? The key words here are "factual information."

Well, you know, it turned out that this twerp's mighty BA in Journalism from Texas A&M wasn't exactly "factual information." Oops!

The Times and the scientificactivist.blogspot.com Web site reported that Deutsch, who worked on President George W. Bush's 2004 re-election campaign, lied about his college degree.

And how did this deeply guarded secret get spirited out of its little hidey-hole? Well, you know, it was real cloak-and-dagger stuff, nothing you'd expect our terrific mainstream media to do or the White House, for that matter, because it's a really dangerous, complicated investigation to undertake. Nick Anthis, the good citizen who uncovered the twerp's little problem, explains:

[H]ow did this guy, who already had dubious qualifications, make it into NASA with such an obvious lie on his resume? To work for a federal agency, including NASA, extensive background checks are usually required. If I was able to uncover the truth about Deutsch in one phone call, then he must have been placed in his current position without any investigation, due to his loyal service on the Bush presidential campaign.

He uncovered the truth in one god-damned telephone call!

And that's why Wolf Blitzer is such a megastar on cable news. He'd never sully himself with such underhanded snooping of a Chimpie appointee.

Damned bloggers! Ruining it for kneepad journalists everywhere!

Nick Anthis--now, there's an American hero.

No Such Thing as Blasphemy

Let me state a position at the onset: no freedom is more important than freedom of expression. If there is anything that can keep totalitarianism at bay, it is the right of information to pass among people, and that the expression of that information be given as free a range as possible. If it offends, it offends.

We have two ways of dealing with our differences: dialogue or violence. And if we are to fully exploit dialogue in the avoidance of violence, then its field of expression must be as broad as possible. Whether it's "Piss Christ"--Anthony Serrano's piece that had Christians in a froth--or Mohammed in a bomb turban, or Vishnu giving it in the hindquarters to Buddha, or L. Ron Hubbard licking Zoroaster's teabag, or Larry Flynt's portrayal of Jerry Falwell's fond remembrance of drunken sex with his mother, it is protected speech. Burning the American flag in America is protected. Invoking God's name in vain, or the gods' names in vain is protected. Throwing a pie in Che's face is also protected. In fact, if it offends, all the more reason it needs to be protected, because we don't construct meaningful dialogue on unitary agreement.

Conflict through dialogue, offensive cartoons, skewered saints, brutal satire, mean-spirited diatribes is where it's at. Cluster bomb units, bullets, bludgeons, guillotines, napalm, depleted uranium warheads and the like pale by comparison for really resolving our differences.

Violence is for dummies.

Gasoline on the Fire at the White House

Valerie Plame was protected by the CIA as a NOC (non-official cover). That makes leaking her name criminal, treasonous, and disgusting, and anyone who assisted in the cover-up should be fired, indicted, tried, and if convicted, jailed. Primary candidate:

The new papers show Libby testified he was told about Plame by Cheney "in an off sort of curiosity sort of fashion" in mid-June—before he talked about her with Miller and Time magazine's Matt Cooper. Libby's trial has been put off until January 2007, keeping Cheney off the witness stand until after the elections.

Oh wait, Dick--wouldn't someone harming the interests of our nation be committing some form of terrorism? In that case, no indictment, no trial, and no acknowledgment of their disappearance. Just a nice cold cell in an undisclosed location, punctuated by whatever Alberto "Tortureboy" Gonzalez says is permissible, which means, as I recall, any infliction of pain up to the point of organ failure. And since Tortureboy will be in Congress next week to defend some other illegal practices, why not get him to renew his declaration that torture is necessary--if fact, it's the greatest pleasure he ever experienced since coaching Chimpie when to throw the switch on Texas' death row inmates.

That's what this should be, IF, that is, the Democrats don't do their usual complete retreat, duck and cover on impeachment and if the rest of the mainstream media does its usual thing and gives endless airtime to administration hacks who will spin this to mean that well, even if the CIA said she was a covert agent, it doesn't really mean that if Chimpie or Cheney thinks otherwise.

Courage or gutlessness? Placing any bets?