As reported yesterday:

Members of Vice President's Dick Cheney's staff censored congressional testimony by a top federal official on the health threats posed by global warming, a former Environmental Protection Agency official said today.

...an official from Cheney's office edited out six pages from the testimony of Julie Gerberding, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, last October.

So, what was the White House saying about this last October?

Q Is it typical for the White House to cut that much of an administration official's prepared --

MS. PERINO: ...remember, we only suggest the edits. CDC made the decision as to what testimony they were going to provide. [...]

Q There's another CDC in that article -- another CDC official was saying that the testimony was "eviscerated," which is pretty -- I guess accusing the White House of playing very heavy hands.

MS. PERINO: I understand what they're accusing us of, but I can -- I just reject it.

Yesterday George Bush used the 60th anniversary of the birth of Israel to attack Barack Obama, suggesting that he was an appeaser on par with Hitler apologists:

Some seem to believe that we should negotiate with the terrorists and radicals, as if some ingenious argument will persuade them they have been wrong all along. We have heard this foolish delusion before. As Nazi tanks crossed into Poland in 1939, an American senator declared: "Lord, if I could only have talked to Hitler, all this might have been avoided." We have an obligation to call this what it is -- the false comfort of appeasement, which has been repeatedly discredited by history.

Democrats, including Barack Obama, Harry Reid, Howard Dean and Hillary Clinton,  roundly condemned Bush's remarks and the White House responded:

Q:  ...This is being seen in some quarters as a slam on Senator Obama. Is this in any way directed at Senator Obama?

MS. PERINO:  It is not. And I would think that all of you who cover these issues and have for a long time have known that there are many who have suggested these types of negotiations with people that President Bush thinks we should not talk to. I understand when you're running for office you sometimes think the world revolves around you -- that is not always true and it is not true in this case.

But according to CNN:

The president did not name Sen. Barack Obama or any other Democrat, but White House aides privately acknowledged to CNN that the remarks were aimed at the presidential candidate and others in his party.

So, CNN, what's it going to be?  You have allowed unnamed White House sources to weigh in on this story, while the White House is publicly disputing your report.  Will you challenge this double message? Are you an independent news organization, or are you a mouthpiece for putting out messages that the White House doesn't have the guts to do themselves?  

Well, finally.  During today's White House press briefing, Dana Perino was asked, for the first time since the New York Times broke the story more than a week ago, about the administration's propaganda program aimed at the American people for the past five years.  It should be noted that the question was asked only because Helen Thomas Len Kinsolving forced Perino's hand:

Q How about this gentleman's question, Dana? How about him? He's had his hand up all this time.

MS. PERINO: Yes, I'm well aware. I am sure it will be a great question. Go ahead.

Q The New York Times has reported that over the last --

MS. PERINO: Definitely going to be a good question. (Laughter.)

Q -- over the last six years the Pentagon conducted a secret operation designed to sell the war in Iraq and the war on terror to the American people. It recruited more than 75 ex-military officers, many with financial ties to the defense industry, provided them with talking points and an extraordinary degree of access not available to ordinary members of the press, including meetings with the Secretary of Defense, and it got them higher supposedly independent military analysts by every U.S. television network. One of its participants described it --

MS. PERINO: Do you have a question?

Q One of its participants described the program as "psyops on steroids" and others said that if they --

MS. PERINO: Is this your opinion?

Q I'm describing the program.

MS. PERINO: What's your question?

Q Others said that if they departed from the Pentagon's talking points, their access was cut off. And my question is, did the White House know about and approve of this operation?

MS. PERINO: Look, I didn't know -- look, I think that you guys should take a step back and look at this -- look, DOD has made a decision, they've decided to stop this program. But I would say that one of the things that we try to do in the administration is get information out to a variety of people so that everybody else can call them and ask their opinion about something.

And I don't think that that should be against the law. And I think that it's absolutely appropriate to provide information to people who are seeking it and are going to be providing their opinions on it. It doesn't necessarily mean that all of those military analysts ever agreed with the administration. I think you can go back and look and think that a lot of their analysis was pretty tough on the administration. That doesn't mean that we shouldn't talk to people.

Interesting answer, isn't it?  She didn't even bother with the non-denial, denial, regarding the White House's knowledge of the program.  After more than a week of the media silence, apparently she wasn't expecting anyone to rock the you-scratch-my-back-I'll-scratch-yours boat that is the White House press corps.  And she doesn't think it should be against the law?  Huh?  Is she admitting that the program was illegal?  

If only there were people whose job it was to investigate government operations like this...we could call them journalists.

Update:  It wasn't Helen Thomas who prompted the question, it was Les Kinsolving of WND and the person asking the question was Eric Brewer of Raw Story.  Kudos to Eric.

Yesterday's five year anniversary of the greatest foreign policy blunder in U.S. history was marked by George Bush telling us we must stay the course, and with Dick Cheney saying whether we like it or not.  And between the two, Dana Perino's baldfaced lie almost fell through the cracks:

Q The President warned of the danger that al Qaeda could gain access to Iraq's oil resources. But I don't understand how a fragmented, clandestine, non-Iraqi terrorist organization could produce and sell Iraqi oil on the global market, especially when the majority of Iraqis have turned against al Qaeda. Could you describe a plausible scenario?

MS. PERINO: The purpose of what the President said is that al Qaeda should not be allowed to have safe haven in Iraq and take over --

Q How can they take over Iraq's oil reserves --

MS. PERINO: Well, if we were to leave we would certainly ensue chaos and not be able to -- if we were to leave too soon, it would certainly be chaos and it would be terrible for not only the innocent Iraqis, but the entire region and, in fact, our own national security. That's what the President --

Q But the Iraqis would let a foreign terrorist organization take over their oil?

MS. PERINO: You're missing the point, and I think that you should go back and read --

Q No, I --

MS. PERINO: Yes, actually, I think you are missing the point. And I call on you because I see what you write about how you come here and you really want to have questions asked. And I'm calling on you and I'm providing it to you, but I suggest that you read the President's speech and read it in context, because that's -- what you're suggesting is not what the President said.

Well, there's nothing like a Perino challenge to read the President's own words for context and meaning.  Here's what Bush said:  

Out of such chaos in Iraq, the terrorist movement could emerge emboldened -- with new recruits, new resources, and an even greater determination to dominate the region and harm America. An emboldened al Qaeda with access to Iraq's oil resources could pursue its ambitions to acquire weapons of mass destruction to attack America and other free nations.

So, who missed the point?

During today's White House press briefing, Dana Perino was asked about Dick Cheney's disregard for the opinion of the American people:

Q ...is the Vice President saying it really doesn't matter what the American public thinks about the war?

MS. PERINO: No, I don't think that's what he's saying... [blathers on about Bush doing what he thinks is right]

Q So at what point -- I mean, I guess I just -- there is the impression that the Vice President doesn't care about what the American people think in policy like that. Is that a wrong impression? And does the President share that impression?

MS. PERINO: I think that is the wrong impression. I think that the Vice President and the President both, together, all of us across the administration, would like for people to support the President's decisions.  [resolute, principles, stay the course] ...We are all Americans. We care deeply about what people think.

Let's review:

Q Let me go back to the Americans. Two-thirds of Americans say it's not worth fighting, and they're looking at the value gain versus the cost in American lives, certainly, and Iraqi lives.

THE VICE PRESIDENT: So?

From that we are supposed to get the impression that they care about what people think...deeply. And a vote for John W. McCain will bring us four more years of that same tender concern for the opinion of the American people.  

From today's White House press briefing:

Q Did the questioning of al Qaeda leader Abu Zubaydah conform with the interrogation program approved by President Bush?  [...]

MS. PERINO: I will say that all interrogations -- all interrogations have been done within the legal framework that was set out after September 11th...All of the -- the entire program has been legal.

Q Are you saying that whatever was done in this case was not torture?

MS. PERINO: I am saying that the United States does not torture. The President has been --   [...]

Q But when you have a former CIA officer, John Kiriakou, now saying that waterboarding was used -- since you're saying the interrogations were legal; he's saying on the record now, waterboarding was used in at least one case. You're saying waterboarding is legal?

MS. PERINO: Ed, I'm saying I'm not commenting on any specific technique. I'm not commenting on that gentleman's characteristics of any possible technique. I've given you a very general statement about interrogations being legal, limited and --

Q You just said it was legal.

MS. PERINO: I'm sorry?

Q You said it was within the legal framework.

MS. PERINO: Yes.

Q Everything that was done.

MS. PERINO: Yes.

Q So waterboarding is legal.

MS. PERINO: I'm not commenting on any specific techniques.

From today's White House press briefing:

Q: Do you have the numbers from the attacks in other parts of the country that are covered by the surge?

MR. SNOW: No, but we'll try to pull that together, because I think what you've seen is a declining level in the overall pace of attacks.

But according to the Pentagon:

Attacks in Iraq last month reached their highest daily average since May 2003, showing a surge in violence as President George W. Bush completed a buildup of U.S. troops, Pentagon statistics show.

The data, obtained by Reuters from the Defense Department, showed an upward trend in daily attacks over the past four months, when U.S. and Iraqi forces were ramping up operations against insurgents and militants, including al Qaeda, in Iraq.

Apparently the administation isn't going to let a few pesky facts get in the way of all those signs of progress in Iraq that they've been talking about lately.  

For the most part, the White House press corps has decided that George Bush commuting the sentence of a convicted perjurer and obstructor of justice to protect his own administration's wrongdoings is old news and not worth pursuing.  But every now and then, one of them feels a tiny spark of the reason they became a journalist and brings up that pesky miscarriage of justice:

Q Tony, you noted this morning that the sentences in the Border Patrol case were within the federal sentencing guidelines. They also were in the Libby case. So those guidelines are not a hurdle around here?

MR. SNOW: Well, actually -- no, if you take a look, actually, there is some dispute in legal circles about what the proper boundaries were for the sentencing in the Libby case. And I'll leave it at that. I'll leave it to the lawyers --

Q No one recommended no jail time.

MR. SNOW: On the other hand, there are differing benchmarks there for the use of it. What you do have is you've got probation, you've got a $250,000 fine. That's a significant punishment.

Q Is it the administration's position that the sentence in that case was beyond the federal sentencing guidelines?

MR. SNOW: Again, I will -- I'm not going to try to get myself into the legal cases, but you've seen arguments on both sides. I think if you took at look at the court papers -- I'm not going to try to fob myself off as a lawyer on this. I'll let the lawyers argue over it.

Well Tony might not be a lawyer, but it would have been a nice follow-up had he been asked to dispute what the Judge who handed down the sentence said:

In commuting the defendent's thirty-three month incarceration, the President stated that the sentence imposed by this Court was "excessive" and that two years of supervised release and a $250,000 fine alone are a "harsh punishment" for an individual convicted on multiple counts of perjury, obstruction of justice, and making false statements to federal investigators...Although it is certainly the President's prerogative to justify the exercise of his constitutional commutation power in whatever manner he chooses (or even to decline to provide a reason for his actions altogether), the Court notes that the term of incarceration imposed in this case was determined after a careful consideration of each of the requisite statutory factors, see 18 U.S.C. & 3553 (2000), and was consistent with the bottom end of the applicable sentencing range as calculated under the United States Sentencing Guidelines.

Rather than allowing Snow to fob off White House talking points to justify Bush's actions on them, perhaps the press corps could demand a legal justification for the White House's claim.  You know, follow their own code of ethics that demand:

...the principles of — truthfulness, accuracy, objectivity, impartiality, fairness and public accountability -

It would be a nice change of pace.

Before looking at today's White House press briefing, let's take a look back at what the administration was saying on the day George Bush announced his so-called new way forward in Iraq:

Well, here's -- but you're going to have to -- you're going to have some opportunities to judge very quickly...So people are going to be able to see pretty quickly that the Iraqis are or are not stepping up. And that provides the ability to judge.

But now, with reports saying that the report the White House will be delivering to Congress on July 15th will show that the Iraqis have failed to meet any of the benchmarks set down by Bush in January, our ability to judge will have to wait because according to Scott Stanzel:

The shift in strategy occurred with the new way forward, which is now two weeks underway.

And so the many "hopeful signs of progress" that the White House has been blathering about for the past six months are meaningless?  Were a lie?  Whatever the case, we now learn that the surge is just beginning and we must give it a chance to work.  After all, we haven't even had the bloody August that Bush promised us.  We must wait for September before we can judge anything and next week's report is simply, "an initial snapshot."

And the White House is sick and tired of the press ignoring the fact that Bush wants the troops home as much as anyone else.  

MR. STANZEL: But you're not reporting it, Martha.

Q Yes, we have. Of course, we have.

MR. STANZEL: That's the key difference here, is there is this impression that the President doesn't want to bring the troops home. He does.

Of course just yesterday, Tony Snow said, when asked whether there was any debate in the White House about bringing the troops home:

No, the conversation is always about what do you do to succeed in Iraq.

And what about reports that Alberto Gonzales told Congress that the FBI had not abused its powers under the Patriot Act, even though he had FBI reports of multiple legal or procedural violations?

MR. STANZEL: I'm not aware that that's the assertion. But maybe that's the assertion you're making, but the President has said repeatedly that he has great faith in the Attorney General, and that has not changed.

Q Will the White House be looking into and evaluating his performance in this regard?

MR. STANZEL: With response to the story, you mean?

Q With response to these reports that the FBI had --

MR. STANZEL: What reports?

And finally, on Bush's upcoming speeches on Iraq:

So the President will continue to talk about how he believes that we should try to get to the goal that all Americans, we believe, want, and that is a stable, peaceful Iraq where they can be an ally on the war on terror and not a home base for al Qaeda, which is what would happen if we had a precipitous withdrawal.

In the coming days, watch for the "precipitous withdrawal" charge.  It seems to be the favorite new Republican talking point.  

 

Are you still wondering what Bush's Plan B for Iraq is if the current escalation fails?  During today's White House press briefing, Tony Fratto articulated the administration's plan:

Q What's the next stage if it doesn't succeed?

MR. FRATTO: What's the next stage of --

Q If it does not succeed?

MR. FRATTO: We'll cross that bridge when we come to it. But we're going to operate on the presumption that our -- that our military forces on the ground and the work we're doing on the economic and diplomatic and political fronts will be successful.

Great.  Now if the Iraqis would just stop blowing up the bridges.

 

From today's White House press briefing, truer words were never spoken:

Q Scott, is Scooter Libby getting more than equal justice under the law? Is he getting special treatment?

MR. STANZEL: Well, I guess I don't know what you mean by "equal justice under the law."

Perhaps not stopping right here is a waste of time, but I'd like to point something out to the White House press corps.  Consider these exchanges:

MR. STANZEL: Well, to be clear, the President did not do this for political reasons. As we've indicated before, if he was doing it for political reasons, there would have been no action. As you all here have cited, polls indicating -- that the American people may not have agreed with lessening a sentence or commuting a sentence or a pardon, for that matter.  [...]

Q Scott, what do you say to Democratic critics who say that the commutation of Libby's sentence was intended to mollify conservatives, his own Republicans included, who were beginning to break with him on issues ranging from immigration to Iraq?

MR. STANZEL: Well, if that was what we were responding to, then a full pardon would have been the answer of the day, because that's what many people -- many conservatives were asking for. And that is what the President did not do. He respected the jury verdict.

After those responses, and on any number of variations of the same answer, not one reporter thought to point out the obvious.  That it is not a matter of it being a political decision in the sense of satisfying Bush's base or mollifying the DC cocktail circuit.  It was self-protection.  Period.  Has it ever occurred to the brain trust that makes up the Washington branch of the Fourth Estate to point out the obvious? Scooter Libby lied and obstructed justice to protect the Office of the Vice President, and possibly, the President himself. Why is this basic point being lost in the shuffle?  

Yes, that is the beginning of "Jabberwocky" by Lewis Carroll.   It is also the beginning of a column in today's Washington Post by Dana Milbank entitled "Through the Looking Glass, Darkly" which is well worth the time to peruse.  After quoting the beginning of the Carroll, and following that with Tony Snow's statement on the VP - including the speculation Cheney may have recused himself, Milbank puts it all in context:

Lewis Carroll had nothing on the Bush White House of 2007.

The president and his aides have been trending toward the margins of reality for some time now, but with this week's commutation of Scooter Libby's prison term, the administration's statements dissolved into nonsense.

While watching the White House press briefing this past Friday, I wondered what was keeping my head from exploding as I listened to big lie followed by misleading spin followed by even bigger lie. The John Bolton nomination is not in trouble, and he deserves to be confirmed because he's doing an exemplary job as UN Ambassador.  Before the election, Dubya thought that a minimum wage increase made good sense and he still maintains that position. Removing judicial oversight will increase the administration's ability to swiftly and effectively monitor terrorist conversations and communications. George Walker "I just don't think about him all that much" Bush has always made it clear that we continue to hunt vigorously for bin Laden. The deficit is down.

Down? Compared to what?  The real scoop is that The National Debt has continued to increase an average of $2.36 billion per day since September 29, 2006!  Please follow me down below the jump to see how much lipstick the preznit's lying mouth piece Tony Snowjob slathered on the corruptricuns pork barrel economy.