November 21, 2007

CNN's round-table on the new revelations and clarifications coming from Scotty McClellan's book publisher really exposed Gloria Borger's egregious White House shillery for what it is.

icon Download icon Download

Gloria thinks that because "nobody wants to see the President accused of lying" over a leak that was really just a "technicality" anyway that we ought to just wait until Bush writes his memoir to find out the truth (I'm so not kidding. I wish I were) about whatever happened because really "nobody cares anymore." Thank heavens we had Jack Cafferty to help set the conversation straight.

Suzanne Malveaux: Jack, let's start with you. With a bombshell accusation like this, what does it say about the administration?

Jack Cafferty: Well, a couple of things occur to me. The first one is, whoever is doing the PR for McClellan's book ought to get a raise, because he's doing a masterful of creating buzz and interest in a book that won't even be out until next April. The second thing is, it doesn't really seem to me like it's breaking news that the administration, the White House, may have misled one of their own about something. After all, they've been lying to the rest of the country about a whole bunch of stuff for the better part of six and a half years. You remember when the story broke about the CIA agent and President Bush said I will fire anybody in the White House who was involved in compromising the identity of a CIA agent? Well, that was a lie wasn't it? Because Karl Rove and Scooter Libby and some of those folks, they were up to their armpits in the compromising of Valerie Plame's identity. so the President changed and he said I will fire anybody who is convicted of committing a crime in conjunction with the outing of a C... So I mean that place has turned into an oil slick a long time ago and I don't believe a whole bunch of anything that comes out of there these days. ... [snip]

Suzanne Malveaux: Gloria, how's this going to be perceived by the White House? Who's the potential fall guy in all of this?

Gloria Borger: Well, they are not happy obviously because nobody wants to see the President accused of lying and I think the key word to look at here which everybody seems to be throwing around is "knowingly." I did not "knowingly" tell somebody a falsehood. If the President actually told Scott McClellan that nobody in the White House had leaked Valerie Plame's name, that is probably what the Vice President, what the President was told. I agree with John. The question is who told the President that? Was it the Vice President? And we know how close the vice President was to Scooter Libby. And did Karl Rove technically leak Valerie Plame's name or did he say to the Time correspondent when the Time correspondent raised it, said Yeah, I heard that.' Is that technically leaking her name? Maybe not. I think this whole thing is a bunch of technicalities right now and by the way, I agree with you Jack this is a big publicity stunt because really nobody cares anymore.

Cafferty: Well I care, and I'll tell you why I care. George Bush is the President of the United States and this idea that he was somehow victimized by his own people, he didn't know what was going on. He's the President. This was a huge story at the time.

Borger: But what if he's lied to Jack? What if somebody lied to the President?

Cafferty: Excuse me. Excuse me. The buck stops at the oval office. He's in charge. It's up to him to find out who's telling the truth and who isn't. It's up to him to tell the American people what went on in his White House. It's his, it's his White House. It's his White House.

Borger: I think we'll hear that in his memoir. I think when he writes his memoir, when he writes his memoir maybe we'll get to the bottom of it.

Cafferty: I'd like to hear it now. No, I'd like to hear it now. There might still be time to impeach him.

Borger: I would to. I'd like to hear it.

Malveaux: Should we wait for the memoirs? Does anybody believe the President should jump in now, or the next 15 months?

Cafferty: No. How about the American public be told what the chief executive office of the United States government is up to? How about if we were told the truth? Wouldn't that be a switch?

Yes Jack, it would be.

Can you help us out?

For nearly 20 years we have been exposing Washington lies and untangling media deceit, but now Facebook is drowning us in an ocean of right wing lies. Please give a one-time or recurring donation, or buy a year's subscription for an ad-free experience. Thank you.

Discussion

We welcome relevant, respectful comments. Any comments that are sexist or in any other way deemed hateful by our staff will be deleted and constitute grounds for a ban from posting on the site. Please refer to our Terms of Service for information on our posting policy.
Mastodon