2005 archive

In the weeks and months ahead, Bush critics will argue that the Plame affair is merely the most publicized example of how the administration treats those who dissent on the war. There is a documented track record of retaliation.

After Army Chief of Staff Gen. Eric Shinseki told Congress that the occupation of Iraq would require “several hundred thousand” troops, he was pushed into an earlier retirement. After national security aide Richard Clarke questioned Bush’s response to al-Qaeda threats, he was assailed as a disgruntled, publicity-hungry partisan. After ex-Treasury Secretary Paul O’Neill wrote a book claiming that Bush and Cheney were obsessed with Iraq, the administration suggested that he may have shared classified documents with the press. After an ABC reporter did a story on low troop morale in Iraq, he was painted by a White House aide as an “openly gay Canadian.”

“We are obviously watching and the press is beginning to document the implosion of a presidency,” Bernstein said Thursday, just hours before the Plame grand jury is set to expire. “How destructive that implosion is going to be, ultimately, we don’t know yet.

“But what the Plame leak investigation has unveiled is what the press should have been focusing on long before and without let up–how we went to war, the dishonesty involved in that process in terms of what the president and vice-president told the American people and the Congress, and the routine smearing by members of the Bush administration of people who questioned their actions and motives.” Emphasis added.

Dayton, Ohio: Perhaps, this indictment will teach Republican officials a lesson not to get too cozy with the journalists who are for all intents and purposes their enemies.

Robert G. Kaiser: You know, this is a truly silly comment. At the risk of sounding self-serving and pompous, I will say as forcefully as I know how that honest reporters are not the “enemies” of any public figures other than corrupt or malfeasant ones. The idea that we are sitting in this newsroom with a political mission to undo Republican officials is just nuts. (Did Bill Clinton believe that when The Post broke the Monica Lewinsky story?)

Today is an ominous day for the country, signifying a new low since Watergate in terms of openness and honesty in our government. This is far more than an indictment of an individual. In effect it’s an indictment of the vicious and devious tactics used by the Administration to justify a war we never should have fought. It’s an indictment of the lengths Administration officials were willing to go to cover up their failed intelligence, their distortion on Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction, and their serious blunders on the war. It is an indictment of their vindictive efforts to discredit anyone who challenges their misrepresentations. (Emphasis added)

In a new escalation of the nation’s culture war over the teaching of evolution, the National Academy of Sciences and the National Science Teachers Association announced yesterday that they would not allow Kansas to use key science education materials developed by the two organizations.

The refusal came after the groups reviewed the latest draft of the state Department of Education’s new science education standards and concluded that they overemphasized uncertainties about the theory of evolution and failed to make clear that supernatural phenomena have no place in science.

. . . in perhaps the biggest misjudgment, Bush assumed that Miers would somehow shine in a Washington klieg light she had never before faced.

(snip)

“This thing never got off the launching pad very well,” said a senior administration official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because public airing of self-criticism is not encouraged in the White House.

A need for foreign workers in Iraq — and the flood of American dollars into the country — have created a labor network that critics call misleading, illegal and even dangerous. Chicago Tribune correspondent Cam Simpson retraced the fatal journey of 12 men from Nepal.

WASHINGTON — Harriet Miers withdrew her nomination to be a Supreme Court justice Thursday in the face of stiff opposition and mounting criticism about her qualifications.

Bush said he reluctantly accepted her decision to withdraw, after weeks of insisting that he did not want her to step down. He blamed her withdrawal on calls in the Senate for the release of internal White House documents that the administration has insisted were protected by executive privilege.

VICE PRESIDENT Cheney is aggressively pursuing an initiative that may be unprecedented for an elected official of the executive branch: He is proposing that Congress legally authorize human rights abuses by Americans.

(snip)

It’s not surprising that Mr. Cheney would be at the forefront of an attempt to ratify and legalize this shameful record. The vice president has been a prime mover behind the Bush administration’s decision to violate the Geneva Conventions and the U.N. Convention Against Torture and to break with decades of past practice by the U.S. military.

(snip)

So now Mr. Cheney is trying to persuade members of a House-Senate conference committee to adopt language that would not just nullify the McCain amendment but would formally adopt cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment as a legal instrument of U.S. policy. The Senate’s earlier vote suggests that it will not allow such a betrayal of American values. As for Mr. Cheney: He will be remembered as the vice president who campaigned for torture.

A 14-year-old St. Pius X High School student might lose her right arm after she was bitten by a copperhead snake taken to school by another student, Lower Pottsgrove police said yesterday.

The girl, whose name was not released, was bitten Friday afternoon inside the gymnasium during a meeting of the drama club.

A 17-year-old boy, whom police did not identify, had taken the snake to school after capturing it in Valley Forge National Historical Park on Oct. 15, police said.

He took the snake from a box, and it bit the girl’s right middle finger, police said.