Dead-Eye Dick

BUSH LYING ABOUT HIS ILLEGAL WIRE TAPPING DURING 2004 CAMPAIGN

"...Secondly, there are such things as roving wiretaps. Now, by the way, any time you hear the United States government talking about wiretap, it requires -- a wiretap requires a court order. Nothing has changed, by the way. When we're talking about chasing down terrorists, we're talking about getting a court order before we do so. It's important for our fellow citizens to understand, when you think Patriot Act, constitutional guarantees are in place when it comes to doing what is necessary to protect our homeland, because we value the Constitution..." George Dubya Bush, April 20, 2004  read the entire transcript
 

It seems to me that Cheney shooting Harry Whittington is emblematic of the whole Bush administration.

• Cheney was hunting quail without a licence with total disregard for the law.
• He was acting against expert advice, doing what is considered both unsporting and dangerous in shooting downward instead of upward.
• He was rash and incompetent in that he shot Whittington.
• He then tried to cover it up.
• Then, when it was clear it was coming out, he tried to blame the victim via his lackeys.
• And he’s getting off scot-free.

I can’t think of a single event that shows the modus operandi of the administration in such complete clarity.    ---anonymous comment

Senate Rejects Wiretapping Probe
But Judge Orders Justice Department to Turn Over Documents

Washington Post, Feb 17

The Bush administration helped derail a Senate bid to investigate a warrantless eavesdropping program yesterday after signaling it would reject Congress's request to have former attorney general John D. Ashcroft and other officials testify about the program's legality.

"It is more than apparent to me that the White House has applied heavy pressure in recent days, in recent weeks, to prevent the committee from doing its job," Sen. John D. Rockefeller IV (D-W.Va.), vice chairman of the intelligence committee.

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And then, of course, there's FEMA...

The New York Times reports...

"The idea that this department and this administration and the president were somehow detached from Katrina is simply not correct," Chertoff said.

NY Times...A FEMA official named Marty Bahamonde sent word back to Washington on the same day Katrina struck, saying the 17th Street Canal levee in New Orleans had been breached. This was not based on a rumor; he had seen it with his own eyes from a Coast Guard helicopter. FEMA public affairs officials sent Mr. Chertoff's chief of staff an e-mail note that night. The former FEMA director, Michael Brown, says he notified the White House at the same time. Yet the next day, President Bush said New Orleans had "dodged the bullet," while Mr. Chertoff flew to Atlanta for a briefing on avian flu.

Bush was on vacation in Crawford, Tex., Vice President Cheney was fly-fishing in Wyoming, and Chief of Staff Andrew H. Card Jr. and homeland security adviser Frances Fragos Townsend were on vacation in Maine. Secretary of State Rice was shopping for shoes and seeing shows in New York.

And get this...

Sen. Mark Dayton (D-Minn.) cited roofing, water removal, temporary housing and federal agency construction contracts worth $618 million issued to Kellogg Brown & Root and the Shaw Group, firms that have hired lobbyist Joe Allbaugh, a former FEMA director and Bush's 2000 campaign manager. "You got, I think, a political scandal of enormous proportions," Dayton said.