Intelligence

The Cave Man Speaks

The Cave Man Speaks

y Howard Kurtz
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, January 20, 2006; 8:42 AM

I began noticing in recent months that administration officials were taking credit for the lack of another terrorist attack on America since 9/11.

This, I thought, was risky business, since no matter how much security is beefed up, no many how many terrorists are investigated, there is no way in an open society to block every conceivable attack. And if administration officials want to boast that their policies have kept America safe, are they willing to accept the blame if another attack takes place?

Cheney was at it again yesterday, calling the safety record "no accident." Maybe. Maybe the administration's efforts have contributed to the four-year lull, or maybe we've been lucky, or some combination thereof.

Another one of those Osama tapes surfaced on al-Jazeera yesterday, as you undoubtedly know, and from his undisclosed cave he claimed that there have been no attacks because al-Qaeda is still making preparations. This may be little more than bluster, since the terrorist organization has obviously suffered serious damage. And bin Laden is a master media manipulator; remember when he put out a tape just before the Bush-Kerry election?

But after the bombings in London and Madrid, not to mention the al-Qaeda efforts in Iraq, who can really say there won't be another attack on U.S. soil?

No matter what the question yesterday, Scott McClellan kept saying we have the terrorists "on the run." I hope he's right and that "on the run" doesn't turn out to be like Dick Cheney's "last throes" in Iraq. Because political bluster isn't going to win this war on terror.

"Al-Jazeera today aired an audiotape from Osama bin Laden in which he makes fresh threats against the United States but also offers a long-term truce if unspecified 'just' conditions are met," says the Los Angeles Times. "The White House said the intelligence community was analyzing the data and said the U.S. would never shrink from pursuing terrorists who attacked the country on Sept. 11, 2001."

Osama reads the polls: "The statement noted that American opinion polls had shown the nation's desire to withdraw its troops from Iraq and its feeling that it is better that Americans 'don't fight Muslims on their lands and that they don't fight us on ours,' " says the New York Times.

Al-Jazeera said the tape was made last month, and "American intelligence and counterterrorism officials speculated that Al Qaeda leaders had kept the recording on the shelf, timing its release for maximum propaganda value," says the Chicago Tribune.

The New York Post 's banner is "DROP DEAD," and inside: "BUSH: NUTS TO OSAMA'S WHEEZING, WHINING BID FOR A TRUCE."

We hope that's clear.

Now for some Beltway politics. The New Republic's Ryan Lizza is, ah, blunt about the acting House majority leader:

"Republicans seem oblivious. Given the Democratic strategy on this issue -- a laser-like focus on the personalities and specific practices of the current crop of Republican investigatees -- it boggles the mind that GOP members are about to make Roy Blunt their majority leader. There is a reason why Howard Dean was celebrating Blunt's rise Tuesday and why some Democrats in the Great Hall yesterday were gleefully joking that they hoped to soon add a 'Blunt Reform' plank to their package.

"Think of just about any current scandal involving a Republican in Washington and Blunt is at the center of it. To wit:

"Abramoff. Blunt signed three letters to Interior Secretary Gale Norton asking her to stop the Choctaw Indians from opening a casino that would have competed with the tables of Abramoff's Indian clients. Blunt personally met with Abramoff or his fellow lobbyists (the records are unclear) when Abramoff was working the Mariana Islands issue. . . . Blunt had 'friend of owner status' at Abramoff's Signatures restaurant, meaning he ate for free.

"K Street Project. Blunt was DeLay's liaison to K Street -- he was DeLay's DeLay.

"Alexander Strategy Group. Blunt was closely associated with the now disbanded firm run by ex-DeLay aides who are at the center of the Abramoff investigation. A detailed report put together by Public Citizen notes that 'Ten of Blunt's biggest contributors have hired the Alexander Strategy Group as their lobbying firm' and that the firm did some $500,000 in fundraising and consulting work for Blunt.

"Duke Cunningham. Blunt reportedly flew four times on the corporate jets of companies run by Brent Wilkes, the defense contractor accused of bribing Representative Cunningham with millions of dollars in cash and gifts.

"Pay to play. Blunt once mysteriously added a provision beneficial to tobacco giant Altria, for whom his wife and son are lobbyists, to a Homeland Security bill. (It was removed when it became public.)"

My question is, how many lawmakers have similar records?

In a "GOP Lameness Watch," Washington Monthly's Kevin Drum spotlights "what may be the lamest criticism ever of an elected official:

" Republicans mounted a fierce counteroffensive . . . accusing Mr. Reid of using his Senate office to prepare political documents.

" 'Does Mr. Reid think that using an official government office for political purposes is ethical?' asked Brian Nick, a spokesman for the National Republican Senatorial Committee .

"Do Republicans really think they're going to score points by accusing Reid of the dastardly sin of using his office to prepare attacks on the opposition? Lee Atwater would be ashamed."

Reid, meanwhile, has apologized for putting out a press release -- which likens Republicans vowing to stamp out corruption to John Gotti promisiong to clean up organized crime--saying the tone was too harsh, the Washington Post reports today.

Who was Abramoff meeting with at 1600 Penn? Slate's John Dickerson wants to know:

"Jack Abramoff was the Typhoid Mary of Potomac Fever: He sucked up to people in power and showered them with gifts and favors in hopes that they would forget who they worked for and think they worked for him. Did White House aides succumb? McClellan's argument for not telling us is that staff in the executive branch should be allowed to deliberate without fear of disclosure. Staffers can't give honest advice if they're constantly worried about how the public might react to every meeting they might hold. The courts upheld the idea when they rejected attempts by both the General Accounting Office and private watchdog groups to sue for the records detailing which representatives of which oil, gas, and coal companies helped Dick Cheney write the administration's energy policy.

"But like the government car, the 'executive deliberation' perk can be abused. In this case, the White House isn't protecting its sensitive decision-making process; it's merely shielding itself from embarrassment. Congress may not have a legal right to demand records of meetings, but under the circumstances, Bush should voluntarily relinquish them to the public. Taxpayers may not have a right to sit in on every meeting and read every memo, but they should know whether Abramoff succeeded in putting his interests ahead of theirs inside the White House as well as Congress. The Bush campaign returned Abramoff's donations to help remove the stink. But it won't be able to fully fumigate until officials let us know who they met with and why."

HuffPost blogger Eric Boehlert says the media lost sight of K Street (don't blame us, we work on L Street):

"In the wake of disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff's guilty plea on Jan. 3, some press outlets did their best, belatedly, to explain the crooked lobbying empire Abramoff had built with the help of Rep. Tom DeLay. And specifically, some news outlets addressed the K Street Project, the DeLay/Abramoff/Santorum/Norquist pay-to-play money machine that's playing a pivotal role in the GOP's deepening ethical morass. (Read a smart, concise description of the K Street Project here.) But even then, the media's descriptions have often been half-hearted at best. Appearing on the Don Imus radio show recently, Newsweek's Evan Thomas mentioned, 'this thing called the K Street Project,' as if he'd just heard about the day before over lunch at The Palm.

"In truth, there's not a serious reporter in Washington, D.C. who for the last three years did not know exactly what the K Street Project was. (The GOP openly boasted about it.) The K Street Project was, hands down, the most important behind-the-scenes development in terms of how power/legislation was bought and sold inside the Beltway and represented an epic story with endless angles and repercussions. And yet for the last three years those same serious MSM reporters participated in a virtual boycott of the story, refusing to detail corruption inside the GOP. (Curious, because during the Clinton years the press couldn't stop writing about alleged Democratic funny money scandals that never actually materialized into criminal wrongdoing by prominent Dems.) Only in recent weeks, after Abramoff pleaded guilty and DeLay's grip on power loosened, have reporters felt confident enough to cross the street -- to explain what the K Street Project is.

"And yes, boycott really is the word that described the MSM's previous don't-ask/don't-tell policy regarding the K Street Project. It's true that on June 10 2002, the Washington Post and the New York Times both published articles detailing the creation of the K Street Project. (Again, GOP leaders were practically advertising it.) But then the cones of silence went up."

At Power Line, John Hinderaker has a problem with yesterday's NYT scoop on the report of the last living independent counsel:

"The New York Times reports on David Barrett's investigation into alleged misdeeds by Clinton cabinet officer Henry Cisneros. . . . Someone leaked it to the Times. The Times' angle on the story is that Barrett's eleven-year investigation exemplifies what went wrong with the independent counsel statute, 'an important post-Watergate law.' (So important that it has been repealed, to pretty much everyone's relief.)

"What most struck me about the Times story was how they characterized the person who leaked Barrett's report to them, thereby enabling them to beat most of their competitors to the story:

" A copy of the report was obtained by The New York Times from someone sympathetic to the Barrett investigation who wanted his criticism of the Clinton administration to be known .

"Isn't that delightful? This particular leaker was no whistle-blower and no patriot; just a partisan with an axe to grind. But after the Times has printed dozens (hundreds, probably) of stories critical of the Bush administration based on leaks by Democratic bureaucrats, we're still waiting for the paper to write: 'A copy of the report was obtained by The New York Times from someone sympathetic to the Democrats' position who wanted his criticism of the Bush administration to be known.'"

Actually, it wasn't someone who wanted Barrett's criticism "known," since it would have been known yesterday when the report was released. It was someone who wanted the prosecutor's arguments above the fold on the Times front page, where it ended up, by giving the paper an exclusive.

Washington Post ombudsman Deborah Howell has clarified, but not apologized for, her mistake on Abramoff:

"I've heard from lots of angry readers about the remark in my column Sunday that lobbyist Jack Abramoff gave money to both parties. A better way to have said it would be that Abramoff 'directed' contributions to both parties."

The avalanche of nasty comments about Howell -- calling her a shill, a whore and worse -- have prompted washingtonpost.com executive editor Jim Brady to shut down this site's new comments feature:

"There are things that we said we would not allow, including personal attacks, the use of profanity and hate speech. Because a significant number of folks who have posted in this blog have refused to follow any of those relatively simple rules, we've decided not to allow comments for the time being. It's a shame that it's come to this. Transparency and reasoned debate are crucial parts of the Web culture, and it's a disappointment to us that we have not been able to maintain a civil conversation, especially about issues that people feel strongly (and differently) about."

CBS's Vaughn Ververs weighs in:

"What I saw was certainly aggressive criticism, some off-base, some more on-point. There were a lot of attacks on Howell's ability to be an ombudsman and on the paper for its reporting. And there were an awful lot of calls for Howell to resign or be fired over the issue. (It was clear that few of the commenters had a solid grasp of exactly what the role of an ombudsman is, or who Howell reports to). . . . [T]he discussion was hardly one that could be considered respectful, or even civil.

"This unfortunate chain of events leaves everyone in the new media landscape in worse position. The Post, laudably, was making an effort to engage readers in a dialogue -- just as so many press reformers have clamored for. By closing that comment door, they've perhaps taken a step backward from trying to be more open in the future.

"More than that, the news audience has been terribly served by a few loudmouths incapable of having a rational discussion."

Responding to a negative piece is a political art, but in this column by Daily News gossip Lloyd Grove, Kerry's guy goes nuclear:

"Sen. John Kerry's flack traded barbs with the author of a soon-to-be published GQ mag article claiming that loyal Democrats, especially former Kerry aides, wish the once and probably future Presidential candidate would just go away.

" 'You read GQ to pick suits and ties, not to pick a commander-in-chief,' Kerry's mouthpiece David Wade E-mailed me concerning Michael Crowley's hit piece, which claims party activists believe the Massachusetts senator 'blew his best chance and that he's "delusional," as I repeatedly heard, to think he's still wanted.'

"Wade responded hirsutely: 'As a GQ fashionista would say, the magazine's political coverage has the longevity of the Soul Patch and the sophistication of The Mullet. I won't lose sleep over the inside-the-beltway musings of a reporter too young to shave and the Chardonnay-drinking pals he met on the cocktail party circuit.'

"Crowley, who pointed out that he's 33 while Wade is only 30, retorted: 'David Wade should show more respect for his elders. A juvenile response like that is what you get from someone without a real defense. And, by the way, maybe if John Kerry understood fashion better, he wouldn't have gone on those windsurfing outings, which made his own staff cringe.' "

That kind of response just guarantees that the GQ piece will become a must-read among the cognoscenti.

In other news, Amazon is offering a weekly online talk show starring Bill Maher. And did anyone know that Martha Reeves of Vandellas fame is now a member of the Detroit City Council? Was there dancin' in the streets?
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January 20, 2006 at 03:25 PM in Al Qaeda | Permalink | Top of page | Blog Home