First Rule of Neocon Club ... You Do Not Talk About Neocon Club!

The second rule of Neocon Club?

You don't talk about Neocon Club ...

And, that apparently is Richard Perle's story, and he's sticking to it.



Dana Milbank, in the WAPO today, has a fascinating, and hilarious, piece, on one of the Grand Poohbars on the Neocon Society, one of the architects and vociferious advocates of the invasion and occupation of Iraq, dutifully carried out by the Bush Grindhouse.

Here's one, of many, stories, putting Perle at Ground Zero Neoconland, where he infers that Iraq was behind Sept 11th;

Manning already understood that people close to President Bush wanted to go after Iraq, and Tenet of course knew it too. Conspicuous among them, in his mind that night, was the neoconservative agitator and polemicist Richard Perle, an outspoken advocate of removing Saddam Hussein by military force. On the very first page of Tenet's memoir, he tells us that he had run into Perle that very morning -- Sept. 12 -- as Perle was leaving the West Wing of the White House. They knew each other in a passing way, as figures of note on the Washington scene. As Tenet reached the door, Perle turned to him and said, "Iraq has to pay a price for what happened yesterday. They bear responsibility."

Ahh, but on to the hijinks.

Prince of Darkness Denies Own Existence

No, not that "Prince of Darkness", the one that runs over homeless people in his Corvette.

The Prince of Darkness -- so dubbed during his days opposing arms control in the Reagan Pentagon -- was not about to let details get in the way of his argument that "50 million conspiracy theorists have it wrong," as the subtitle of his article for National Interest put it. "I see a number of people here who believe and have expressed themselves abundantly that there is a neoconservative foreign policy and it was the policy that dominated the Bush administration, and they ascribe to it responsibility for the deplorable state of the world," Perle told the foreign policy luminaries at yesterday's lunch. "None of that is true, of course."

As you can see, Perle is adhering, not to the letter, the rules of Neocon Club.

In real life, Perle was the ideological architect of the Iraq war and of the Bush doctrine of preemptive attack. But at yesterday's forum of foreign policy intellectuals, he created a fantastic world in which:

1. Perle is not a neoconservative.

2. Neoconservatives do not exist.

3. Even if neoconservatives did exist, they certainly couldn't be blamed for the disasters of the past eight years.

"There is no such thing as a neoconservative foreign policy," Perle informed the gathering, hosted by National Interest magazine. "It is a left critique of what is believed by the commentator to be a right-wing policy."

Even when he was pressed;

Richard Burt, who clashed with Perle in the Reagan administration, took issue with "this argument that neoconservatism maybe actually doesn't exist." He reminded Perle of the longtime rift between foreign policy realists and neoconservative interventionists. "You've got to kind of acknowledge there is a neoconservative school of thought," Burt challenged.

"I don't accept the approach, not at all," the Prince of Darkness replied.

As Milbank aptly notes, "there was a sense of falling down the rabbit hole", but this wasn't merely a stumble, this was a head-first, deep-as-the-core-of-the-earth, plunge down that rabbit hole.

The Bush Grindhouse, in a equally-bald-face, twisted employment of the lexicon, gave us the "Clear Skies Act".

Perle, taking his cue, is trying to sell his "Clear Conscious" act.

Which is as about as credible as the mushroom clouds and WMD's Perle and his Neocon Nitwits tried to palm off on us.

And, when you look at where we are now, after eight-years of this kind of horseshit, Perle and Co. followed the script perfectly.

After establishing the Neocon Club, they immediately put into action Project Mayhem.


Bonus Neocon Club Riffs

Washington Sketch: Richard Perle in Wonderland (Video)

Christy Hardin Smith - Richard Perle: Rebranding Himself, The Neocons And Other Con Jobs

Steve Benen: RICHARD PERLE PLAYS MAKE-BELIEVE...

Spencer Ackerman: Just Ignore Everything Richard Perle Says for the Rest of His Life

Alan Colmes: Neocon Says There’s No Such Thing As A Neocon

Think Progress: THE ARCHITECTS OF WAR: WHERE ARE THEY NOW?

Garlic Poll Results ...Most People Think The PNAC Is ...

Where's Ernest Borgnine when you need him?

Neocon Dolphins? ... Say It Ain't So, Flipper!

Some More Heads To Be Pulled Out of Asses

In today's Murdoch Street Journal, Charles Calomiris and Peter Wallison lay down the case for blaming the Wall Street Meltdown on Democrats, Congress, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

Incredulously, not one Republican was castigated, and, in particular, one conspicuous Republican.

The Commander Guy ... The court-appointed 43rd President, George W. Bush.

Stumblin' Bumblin' John McCain has been beating this drum lately as well.

Much like Stumblin' Bumblin' Johnny throws rocks at Barack Obama, over "The Surge", while completely ignoring the first five-plus years of the invasion and occupation of Iraq, Calomiris and Wallison also choose not to look too far in the rear-view mirror.

Not once, not a single word in their "Blame Fannie Mae and Congress" do they mention, reference or otherwise bring up the centerpiece of the Bush Grindhouse's planned legacy - The Ownership Society.

Directly from the Bush Grindhouse, "For Immediate Release - Office of the Press Secretary, August 9, 2004"

Blame Fact Sheet: America's Ownership Society: Expanding Opportunities

"...if you own something, you have a vital stake in the future of our country. The more ownership there is in America, the more vitality there is in America, and the more people have a vital stake in the future of this country."

-President George W. Bush, June 17, 2004

Expanding Homeownership. The President believes that homeownership is the cornerstone of America's vibrant communities and benefits individual families by building stability and long-term financial security. In June 2002, President Bush issued America's Homeownership Challenge to the real estate and mortgage finance industries to encourage them to join the effort to close the gap that exists between the homeownership rates of minorities and non-minorities. The President also announced the goal of increasing the number of minority homeowners by at least 5.5 million families before the end of the decade. Under his leadership, the overall U.S. homeownership rate in the second quarter of 2004 was at an all time high of 69.2 percent. Minority homeownership set a new record of 51 percent in the second quarter, up 0.2 percentage point from the first quarter and up 2.1 percentage points from a year ago. President Bush's initiative to dismantle the barriers to homeownership includes:

* American Dream Downpayment Initiative, which provides down payment assistance to approximately 40,000 low-income families;
* Affordable Housing. The President has proposed the Single-Family Affordable Housing Tax Credit, which would increase the supply of affordable homes;
* Helping Families Help Themselves. The President has proposed increasing support for the Self-Help Homeownership Opportunities Program; and
* Simplifying Homebuying and Increasing Education. The President and HUD want to empower homebuyers by simplifying the home buying process so consumers can better understand and benefit from cost savings. The President also wants to expand financial education efforts so that families can understand what they need to do to become homeowners.

Can't have an Ownership Society if no one is buying and owning anything.

You gotta move some product, get the numbers up, rack-up testimonials, create the soundbites and talking points to build up the program.

So, however Fannie and Freddie were managed and/or mismanaged, they had a mandate to sell the legacy, the Ownership Society and sell they did.

As did the rest of the dwarfs, finks, phonies and frauds on Wall Street, dissecting it every which way, so as many cronies as possible could get a piece of the money pie.

Here's some riffs on the great "Ownership Society";

• Flashback: In 2004 Bush Campaigned For Re-Election On The Backs Of Subprime Mortgages
• Test Drive Suggests Bush's "Ownership Society" May Be a Lemon
• Is This Your Ownership Society?

Robert Reich's "What Ownership Society?"

You won’t be hearing much at the Republican Convention about jobs and wages, because job growth has stalled and wages are stagnant. But you will hear about something Republicans are now calling the "Ownership Society." The notion is to expand private ownership through more tax cuts on capital investments, tax credits for saving and privatized Social Security.

Face it: The Republican "Ownership Society" is hokum. Ownership of America is now more concentrated than since the days of the Robber Barons of the 19th century. The richest 1 percent of America owns more than the the bottom 90 percent put together.

Calomiris and Wallison also leave out that it was still, at that time, a Republican-dominated Congress, that was rubber-stamping anything and everything coming out of the Bush Grindhouse.

Calomiris and Wallison also were forgetful in mentioning that two close aides to the Republican nominee for President this year, were retained by Fannie and Freddie, as lobbyists, to, among other things, resist regulation and oversight.

Yesterday, the NYT laid it out about Stumblin' Bumblin' Johnny's campaign manager, Rick Davis (to which, the Rove Rats running McCain's campaign whined about).

Today, Bloomberg enlightens us to the person Stumblin' Bumblin' Johnny has laying down the carpet for his planned presidency.

Calomiris and Wallison, both, are from the American Enterprise Institute, which has been, for all intents-and-purpose, a second West Wing for the Bush Grindhouse.

Between Hank Paulson's attempted coup, Faux News, and others, laying down the meme of blaming the people who bought houses during this period (and many of them, first in line, as to getting royally screwed), this drivel blaming everyone but the Republicans, break out the umbrellas, as you can expect significant more bullshit to be thrown before the week is over.

Rah, Rah, Rah ... Sis Boom Bah!

Tough slogging on the war cheerleading front these days.

I mean, can't a good, healthy, loud-lunged, pom-pom-waving girl get a break?

In the Asked-and-Answered Department ...

Michael O'Hanlon, as good a pom-pom waver as there has been, is inserting himself in the news this week.

O'Hanlon has been wrong on his assessments of the Iraq Invasion and Occupation about as often as ... Well ... As the sun rises.

You may remember.

After penning (with his co-cheerleader Ken Pollack) last summer the NYT Op-Ed "A War We Just Might Win", the dynamic duo got slapped down by - of all the nerve - actually U.S. Soldiers, serving in Iraq, in their response, "The War As We Saw It" (to which O'Hanlon got a little miffed)

Yesterday, O'Hanlon just had to throw down his pom-poms and have a little cry.

O’Hanlon Gripes About His Waning Influence: I Now Get ‘Less Than One’ Interview Request Per Day

“I was getting on average three to five calls a day for interviews about the war” in the first years, said Michael E. O’Hanlon, a senior fellow on national security at the Brookings Institution. “Now it’s less than one a day.”

But, with the game on, he couldn't just sit on the sidelines and weep ...

No siree Bob, it was time to pick up those pom poms, clear his throat, dry his eyes and start chanting 'Go Team Go!" again.

O’Hanlon: Surge architects are the ‘Vince Lombardis’ of Iraq war

"I want to call them the Lombardis of this war. … And in addition to Fred and Ken who have been two of the most important people. Andy Krepinevich is another important think tanker. Retired Gen. Jack Keane from the outside. A small group of people inside the administration, smaller than it should have been, but people like Meghan O’Sullivan. […]

These people did two things that I think would have made Vince Lombardi proud. One, they stuck with it, and they persevered through difficult times. And two, they stayed focused on fundamentals."

Though, actually, O'Hanlon, if he wanted to make a more accurate analogy of the Iraq Invasion and Occupation to football, he might have been better to choose Ohio State's Woody Hayes and his strategy of "three-yards and a cloud of dust".

That seems like the much more accurate view of what we have going on over there.

Become a Cheney's Cheney ... Help The VP Build His Team, For The Most Gleaming of Brass Rings - Iran

We have a situation developing, with the Cheney side of our government all running around with puffed up tents in the crotch of their trousers, over the prospects of "hot conflict" with Iran, that there is talk of "insubordination against President Bush" and his wimpy diplomacy-first side of the government.

We'll set aside, for the moment, using the words "President Bush" and "diplomacy" in the same sentence.

Jackson Williams, on the Huffington Post, asked yesterday "Just who is Cheney's team these days, what with Scooter Libby headed to jail and Rummy off playing bridge? Well, the ranks have surely thinned as this blunder has gone on, but there is probably some recruitment of new blood taking place, too."

Where is the new blood coming from?

The Garlic, not wanting to be shown up as not supporting our troops, wants to lend a hand for this effort and has composed a Want Ad for the Office of Vice President, being that Monica Goodling resigned, and can't be sitting there any longer, wearing her BL armband (Bush Loyalist) when screening potential candidates.

Get yourself in the game, it's likely this position will be filled very quickly.

Position: Loyal, Hard-Nosed Neoconservative Yes-Man

Have you ever wanted to overthrow a foreign regime, start a war or tell a United States Senator to "go fuck yourself"?

Do you often find yourself sticking, obstinately, to a minority viewpoint, refusing to give in because you know, deep in your gut, you are correct - even when some panty-waist liberal is waving irrefutable evidence in your face?

If so, the Office of the Vice President has an exciting and rewarding career opportunity for you.

In the dynamic world of the nation's first "Shadow President", you will be in the vortex of domestic and world events, meeting with the nation's energy chiefs, or taking an overseas trips to berate foreign governments.

You may, at times find yourself holed-up in a genuine Secret Bunker, and you'll have the thrill of living through the Armageddon drills and running the country "the day after" with surreptitious weekend retreats.

And, you just may be on-board for the most gleaming of brass rings - Iran.

Qualifications

• Ability to write, bully, steal, fabricate, and/or otherwise generate intelligence supporting the Vice President's policies and vision
• Talent, in face of withering criticism, to be able to stay on message and repeat false claims
• No Conscious and no regrets in outing and exposing covert CIA agents
• Lying and the knack for placing blame on others are required skills for the position

*Internships and/or employment with the American Enterprise Institute or the PNAC is highly desirable

** All candidates, to be considered for the position, will be required to sign a waiver, indicating the acceptance of going to prison in order to protect the Vice President should such an occurance manifest in carrying out your duties in the Office of the Vice President.

Contact, with cover letter and resume, Chief of Staff (and the original Cheney's Cheney) David Addington at vice_president@whitehouse.gov


Bonus Links

The Trouble With Cheney: He's Dumb

Cheney Sets Up Shadow Government In Area 51

Libby Trial Update - The Scooter and Cheney Show Theme Song