exposure of warrantless wiretap program by NYT did not damage national security, says McClellan.

I know what you’re thinking: You are certain that in the 29 gazillion press availabilities that you have watched, you have heard everything that former White House press flack Scott McClellan has to say about George W. Bush’s great American truth killing machine. But there he is, on the radio, on the TV, up in the sky. . . and you find yourself looking and listening again.

OK, I didn’t see him up in the sky, but I did see and/or hear three additional interviews with Scotty Mac on Monday, and there are the odd interesting moments that are differently interesting enough to keep you coming back. For instance, McClellan’s appearances on both Fresh Air and The Daily Show each had moments where he was challenged more than he was during any of what I heard or saw last week.

Also interesting was McClellan’s appearance Monday afternoon on WNYC’s The Leonard Lopate Show (and no, I’m not talking about the two times that Leonard tried to out Scott). Lopate asked McClellan about White House attempts to silence what it saw as bad or inopportune publicity (just after the 24 minute mark on the audio):

Lopate: Didn’t the administration forcefully threaten the press, especially when the New York Times revealed the NSA’s warrantless wiretapping program?

McClellan: Well there were certainly some strong words there that if you do this you’re going to expose some national security secrets; I can’t find any that would be harmful to our national security. I can’t find any evidence that it has been with its exposure. And in fact those investigative reporters did a great job and their article was delayed for about a year because of the pressure that the president and other top people put on the editors of the New York Times.

With Congress gearing up for another go at new FISA legislation (or, more like, Republican fear mongers and their BushDog enablers gearing up for another attempt to force retroactive immunity through the House), it would be good to add Scotty’s words to the overwhelming consensus of opinion (and the overwhelming lack of countervailing arguments that can site, you know, facts) that revelations about the administration’s illegal wiretaps did not harm our national security, and that warrantless surveillance does nothing to make us safer.

And now you don’t have to take the word of former intelligence officials, first amendment lawyers, federal judges, and scores of freedom-loving activists for it, you have the testimony of the guy that was fully briefed on the program the night before he had to go out and defend it.

(Which, of course, means that several folks at the Times knew about this program a year before the Press Secretary did. . . but that’s a whole other issue.)


(cross-posted on The Seminal)

McCain “smitten with the celebrity of power”

As I remarked in a couple of posts last week, I often find attempts to limn Republican presidential wannabe John McCain’s motivations to be overly complex. Most notably was Matt Bai’s NYT Magazine piece that tried to somehow link McCain’s experience as a POW with his ridiculous embrace of Bush’s war in Iraq. My response was that there really is no complex worldview when it comes to McSame, no nuanced position on the use of American military might, and certainly no sense of honor bound duty to his fellow fighters.

Rather, McCain’s “positions”—if you can dignify his empty posturing as such—are the result of political expedience. John McCain, though touted as a maverick, just put his “Straight Talk Express” on what he thought was the straightest road to the White House—if he wanted the Republican nomination, he had to go along not just to get along, but to get the financing he needed, too. What motivates this third generation Navy man to embrace a “strategy” that continues to send his brothers and sisters to their needless deaths? Naked ambition, pure and simple.

Many who have crossed paths with McCain in the last few decades have observed as much, though some try to put in nicer terms. Now, writing in the New York Times, David D. Kirkpatrick has given us more evidence of McCain’s lust for power. . . not to mention his penchant for hypocrisy.

Mr. McCain has often said he decided to run for office because he felt his war injuries would make attaining the same rank as his father and grandfather “impossible.” But Mr. Lehman, now an adviser to the McCain campaign, and two other top Navy officers familiar with Mr. McCain’s file insist that was not the case.

Instead, many who knew him say, Mr. McCain seemed bored by Navy life. “Sitting down with Anwar Sadat or Deng Xiaoping and being treated as an equal — that is pretty heady stuff,” said Rhett Dawson, a former aide to Mr. Tower who is now president of an electronics trade group. “It had opened his eyes to a much broader world.”

Mr. McCain was captivated, recalled Jeffrey Record, then an aide to former Senator Sam Nunn, the hawkish Georgia Democrat. “He thrives on competition, and he thrives on political combat,” Mr. Record said. “He saw the glamour of it. I think he really got smitten with the celebrity of power.”

Considering that former Press Secretary Scott McClellan, who is now making the rounds promoting his book, attributes much of what went wrong during the Bush Administration to what’s been called the “permanent campaign”—using the authority of the office for partisan gain—and the president himself becoming overly impressed with his own power, does America really want another chief executive that thrives on political combat? And can we survive another four years of a man so taken with the idea of power for power’s sake?

I think the whole world—from the sultans to the serfs, from the admirals to the GIs, from the celebrities to the wannabes—knows the answer. Well, the whole world minus one, I guess.


(cross-posted on capitoilette and The Seminal)

no time to post, luv, I’m only here to read the meter

Apologies for the commentary-free laundry list. . . .

I said this almost two years ago when the MCA/dungeons act was being debated, but now we have proof—the Bush Administration reserves the right to disappear anyone it wants. Period.

Look out ol’ Mac is back!

Here’s a twist: a Congressman strong-arming a telecommunications industry lobbyist (it’s about 20 paragraphs in).

All you really need to know for November.

(OK, here’s a little more) McHypocrite

(And a little more) McSame