Of Daydreams, Lies, Libby and The State of the Union

Chopped Garlic ... Yes, Where Is The Intelligence - Both Literally and Figuratively?

I had the most delicious daydream earlier today.

Tonight, at the historic moment of when the U.S. House Sergeant at Arms booms out "Madam Speaker ... The President of the United States!", that Nancy Pelosi booms back "Don't let him in!, and Bush is hustled out of the Capital, much in the same manner as Cindy Sheehan was last year.

While it is a constitutional requirement that the "[The President] shall from time to time give to Congress information of the State of the Union and recommend to their Consideration such measures as he shall judge necessary and expedient." (Article II, Section 3)", it doesn't mandate that he deliver it in-person.

Tonight, our Court-Appointed President might as well mail (or e-mail) it in, for the canopy of the 24+-hours before says a whole lot more on the state of our union than anything (short of retracting his "New Way Forward" and admitting he lied to launch his occupation of Iraq) he can spew out to what will be a less-than enthusiastic audience then he's been used to at these things.

Here's the backdrop in which our "Decider" will strut into the House of Representatives this evening.

Yesterday afternoon, Sen. John W. Warner (R-Va.), a staunch supporter of the President's policy and deeply knowledgeable on the military, joined with a mushrooming (no, not one of Condi Rice's "mushrooms") group of senators in denouncing the President's plan to send more troops into Iraq, with yet another resolution.

This morning, during the opening arguments of the I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby trial, Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald laid out a devastating charge that Libby was acting on the orders of Vice President Dick Cheney in bouncing around Washington, telling all who would listen on who administration-critic and former Ambassador Joe Wilson's wife was. And that Libby destroyed a memo given to him by Cheney on just what to say to a reporter to lay out the smear-and-destroy job they were launching on the Wilson's.

Maybe Cheney will send his daughter out, not to bash Hillary Clinton and other critics of the administration's foreign policy as she did today, but perhaps spin yet another version of the CIA Leak Case, or begin smearing Fitzgerald.

But it was last evening, when our intrepid anchor-hero, MSNBC Countdown's Keith Olbermann called out the President, and his administration, by pointing out that there are only seven work days left in January for them to release, as they said they would, the National Intelligence Estimate on Iraq.

With Olbermann, to stand up, waving their arms as if to say "Look over here" was Richard Clarke, the former top counter-terrorism adviser to presidents of both parties, and author of the new techno thriller “Break Point.”

It was brutal.

When asked by Olbermann on where was the N.I.E. Report, Clarke offered "They haven‘t written it ... It‘s in draft. It‘s in pieces." Then, with the timing of Max Roach on the back beat, he added "The reason is this administration doesn‘t base its actions on intelligence."

OLBERMANN: The administration has been accused in many quarters, especially this one, of playing politics with intelligence. Would it go so far—you worked with these people; you know some of them. Would it so far to really sit on a NIE and not assemble it for purely political reasons?

CLARKE: Well, they can delay it. The fact that they have said there‘s one being prepared means ultimately they have to produce it. And given the fact that they did try to influence the last important one on Iraq, WMD one, and there have been investigations after that, trying to figure out how much they influenced it, and they influenced it a lot. They‘re limited in what they can do to influence this one. Especially now that they have increasingly real intelligence analysts, real intelligence professionals in some of these jobs.

The House, this evening, may resemble a Saturday afternoon swap meet, as Bush will have to have his best Willy Loman suit on, to spin selling whatever it is he's hawking this week - be it Iraq, the new, new FISA Domestic Spying program of last week, or laying down the lies, er, I mean foundation, to start hyping war against Iran.

Frankly, I'm hoping it wasn't a daydream I had, but a premonition

Links

Watch The Olbermann Video of 'Where's The Intelligence'

Transcript of Countdown for Monday 22 January 2007

Elizabeth de la Vega's "Lying and Spying: How the Administration Slip-Slides Away"

Frank Rich's "Lying Like It's 2003"