Ok, if we accept that the coroporate media are a monolith in the sense that everyone knows what's going on, then it seems obvious that the fact that the Clarke book was in the pipe-line had to have been known for some time.
And if that's the case, if everyone knew that the sh*t was about to hit the fan, then that would explain why the Rove machine was so eager to start the popular campaign, in the sense of influencing the public, so early. They wanted to be in full campaign mode so they could claim that the Clarke revelations are simply "political"--i.e. intended to influence the election and without merit. As they are trying to do.
And, if it's the case that the Clarke revelations were in the works for a good period of time, then their publication this week in concert with the 9/11 testimony of the Administration's big fish is not a coincidence. Neither is it a coincidence that the presumptive Democratic nominee has been out of town, snowboarding in Idaho and that Governor Howard Dean was still on the airwaves making those outrageous claims from which the Democratic Party had distanced itself long ago.
Not only is the person making the claims about the Administration's failures to prosecute the war against terrorism with appropriate vigor and resolve a Republican, but the Democrats have been most united for months now in discrediting the one Democrat who had been sounding the alarm.
Now that's what I call plausible deniability. Who knew that crazy wild man from Vermont was on the right track?
So what I want to know now is how many more people are going to have been "out of the loop." First there was Paul O'Neill and then Christy Whitman (?), followed by that Wilson fellow whose wife was thrown on the pyre and now we have Richard Clarke. Will Dr. Rice be next and then Secretary Powell when questions have to be asked about our "good ally" assassinating an Islamic Sheik? God forbid they used one of the missiles we gave them.
Somehow, I don't think denial is going to be plausible for the Republicans this time around. No wonder Ollie North was out and about trying to put the fires out.
Posted by Hannah at March 23, 2004 02:17 PM