Everything Leaks

/in , /by

At 7:39 on Wednesday evening, Pool Boy and his friends posted this interview with Dick Cheney.

Also on Wednesday evening–though at an unknown time–the NYT informed the CIA it would reveal the CIA had destroyed tapes of interrogations of high value Al Qaeda detainees.

The New York Times informed the C.I.A. on Wednesday evening that it planned to publish an article in Friday’s newspaper about the destruction of the tapes. Today, the C.I.A. director, General Michael V. Hayden, wrote a letter to the agency workforce explaining the matter.

Given this exchange from Dick in his Pool Boy interview…

Cheney said the [NIE] was released because “there was a general belief that we all shared that it was important to put it out — that it was not likely to stay classified for long, anyway,” he said.

Cheney said that “especially in light of what happened with respect to Iraq and the NIE on weapons of destruction,” officials wanted to be “upfront with what we knew.”

He said he agreed that was “the right call.” So he thought it might leak? “Everything leaks,” he said with a chuckle.

…I wonder whether Dick had already learned that the news of the destruction of the terror tapes had leaked?

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  8. AZ Matt says:

    The Administration seems to be spring leaks all over the ship of state. No doubt there are still many rats in the bliges that are waiting to be flushed out.

    Just watched the video of KO calling Bush a liar over at C&L’s. Way Cool.

  9. TheraP says:

    Doesn’t it feel like the wheels are coming off the bus? Naturally they are trying to make light of it. Not show they’re sweating.

    The best thing in that article @ 2: “no statute of limitations.”

    That should be said over and over. People should hold signs saying that if any of these criminals tries to make a speech.

    No Statute of Limitations

    Let them sweat over that!

  10. AZ Matt says:

    I am sure that Judge Brinkaman(sp?) is more than a littled pissed about the Administration lying to her about torture evidence.

  12. LS says:

    I wonder if Dick realizes the party is over…they’re pickin’ up all the empty bottles and debris…everyone has left…but he and W are still there in the corner…smashed…except that W’s been passed out since…what…August…or maybe 2006????

  13. marymccurnin says:

    The take down started when nuclear missiles showed up on a jet bound to Louisiana and, perhaps, eventually to Iran. Seems like the first thread was pulled then.

    • OldCoastie says:

      The take down started when nuclear missiles showed up on a jet bound to Louisiana and, perhaps, eventually to Iran. Seems like the first thread was pulled then.

      Mary – I think you may have something there… something set the bells to ringing Very Loudly that the shrub and the dick had to be shut down and shut down now… that may have been the straw that broke the camel’s back.

  14. Rayne says:

    So now leaks are funny-ha-ha.

    Quite the transition, from lying about prosecuting leaks while actively leaking about operatives in 2003, to demanding heads on pikes about leaks regarding the super-secret domestic spying program…

    And now, “Chuckles” Cheney shrugging off leaks by preemptively releasing the NIE.

    Su-uure.

  15. pdaly says:

    WRT disappearing DVDs:

    Wasn’t there a time when Padilla was defending himself and the government gave him a roomful of data–only later to barge into the room when it realized Padilla had “top secret information” that needed to be removed from the collection? Wondering whether it was a DVD….

    I remember the newspapers reporting with relief that Padilla had not viewed this secret information as it was mixed in with a haystack of so many other bits (discs?).

    Does the timing of the government retrieval from Padilla’s files fit the timeline of disappearing torture DVDs?

  16. Neil says:

    Murtha “and the other senior leaders … march to the tune of Nancy Pelosi to an extent I had not seen, frankly, with any previous speaker,” Cheney said. “I’m trying to think how to say all of this in a gentlemanly fashion, but [in] the Congress I served in, that wouldn’t have happened.”

    But his implication was clear: When asked if these men had lost their spines, he responded, “They are not carrying the big sticks I would have expected.”
    Cheney bashes top Democrats
    Mike Allen and Jim VandeHei and John F. Harris
    Dec 5, 2007 07:39 PM EST

    In a gentlemanly fashion? Pulease. After telling Leahy to go fuck himself Cheney’s worried about conducting himself in a gentlemanly fashion. Bullshit, it means he’s about to be less than gentlemanly. Out comes the shotgun. Everyone take cover.

    Is ShotGun Dick Cheney trying to call Murtha and Dingell two little girls in skirts?

    Did he just say Big Sticks?

    Oh my god, Cheney isn’t just challenging Murtha and Dingell’s manly steadfastness in forging their own course in Congress, which any man worth his salt would do if they had a female speaker, he’s disparaging the size of their dicks, he’s saying they have small dicks.

    I think HE feels emasculated. His language here, plus the news about the Iran’s uranium enrichment program being suspended which ended his quest for one more glorious war, plus as EW suspects, the news about the destruction of the terror tapes might do that to a man with a vision and the dedication to pull it off.

    Things must be bad. Cheney’s on the attack.

  17. radiofreewill says:

    The Gooper Neocon Think Tank Gurus are All flat-faced – the new NIE has made Monkies out of them, and their Ivory Jungle Gyms, too.

    Que the anger…5, house lights down…2, 1,

    “Hell hath no fury like a woman an Ideologue scorned!”

    Welcome to Fireworks Friday!

  19. Hmmm says:

    If they can find one where all the interregators are no longer alive, maybe they could find a way to leak that one.

  20. Rayne says:

    EW — in re your static timeline: WordPress has a feature called “pages” which you can use to build a single page dedicated to your timeline. You can then add a link to the timeline page in your navbar.

  22. CasualObserver says:

    Seems like everyone is happy to focus on the leak, with little consideration of whether the leak will have any consequences. My guess will be Zero. Zero consequences.

    So what does the revelation actually mean? Perhaps all it means is a two to three day news cycle, ending on sunday talk shows, and a blip on the historical record for future historians and political science grad students to marvel at. Or at least I hope they will marvel. Marvel that, with so much evidence of so many types of lawbreaking and wrong-doing, that the opposition party simply sat there, and did nothing.

    • TheraP says:

      Zero consequences? Price of oil is up. Some Asian markets were down overnight. People at home may be tuning out.. but the world is tuning up the volume.

      Lawlessness in a govt that has WMD and it’s clear the lawlessness goes on and on… and other countries won’t notice? More anxiety out there on the international scene…. we’re creating anxiety in many, many ways.

      When you think consequences, don’t just think here. The world is watching.

  24. radiofreewill says:

    The Neocons have realized that, if the NIE stands, as is, it means the End of their Ideological Fantasy of Superiority, the End of an entirely disproportionate relationship with Israel, and the End of the Dollar-based Consumer Economy they planned to Force on the rest of the World.

    With time, it will also mean that They Were Never Right, to begin with.

    Bush and the Neocons deceptively gambled Our Treasure, Security and National Integrity to achieve their Hateful Vision of a World split, by fortune of birth, into Elites and Proles – as a confirmation of their own sense of Entitlement and Our inherent Unworthiness to Govern Ourselves.

    Here’s hoping the NIE stands while BushCo falls, leaving US with Our Constitution unfettered.

  25. wavpeac says:

    I hate to be a pessimist but I don’t expect these people to “understand” any thing about the reality they face (other than save my own a**). Authoritarian’s don’t accept responsibility or see “truth” unless they are faced with severe consequences…and even then they still may not be able to access “truth”. What they experience is tantamount to a “delusion” in the form of “denial”. Denial has a physiological base. That is that the part of the brain that would give feedback and process reality in regard to “greed” (since I think this is the addiction…where drugs and alcohol have left an emptiness) shuts down and stops working.

    This means that they will never give up. I would not expect them to be able to “see” reality here, even when they are sitting in a court room being faced by prosecutor. The more I.Q (as opposed to e.q ‘emotional intelligence’ which is a better predictor of success in life) the more complex the rationalizations and excuses. It seems to me that newest rationale being used…is to pose this “prove Iran wasn’t dangerous, if you can’t prove it, then there would be no other option than to treat them as if they are.” I suspect that this is more likely what we will continue to see in their rationale. They will get desperate and there will be some sort of crises as the noose continues to get tighter. Remorse, and personal accountability are not accessible to the authoritarian personality.

    • TheraP says:

      What has clearly stopped working – in the brain – is the conscience.

      Everything fits under that one category. All the crimes. All the cover-ups. All the scandals. All the greed.

  26. bmaz says:

    Amazing. Pool Boys Mannie, Moe & Jack report out a long two page story on their exclusive interview of the most powerful, most corrupt and most criminal vice-president in United States history, conducted at a point in time in which he has just been caught trying to fraudulently push his country into a second unprovoked, unjustified and illegal war of unilateral aggression, and the most interesting tidbit in the entire piece to me is:

    In contrast to President Bush’s paper-free Oval Office desk, Cheney’s is a working desk, stacked with reference and reading material, including a pictorial directory of Congress and the latest issue of Politico.

    I knew the dipstick was incurious, inattentive, not very bright, not well informed, and didn’t like to read; but the oval office is “paper-free”? Despite all that I thought I knew about the incompetence and depravity of these asswipes, and despite the immense measure of calloused cynicism I have learned to filter news of them through, this just still strikes me as absolutely stunning. I suppose if there was paper on his desk, Alfred E. Bush would just make airplanes from it and sail them out the window to the Rose Garden or something; so WTF and what him worry?

  27. biffdiggerence says:

    “Everything leaks,” he said with a chuckle. “I, myself, require 20 minutes for micturation.”

    Drippy Dick

  28. Neil says:

    more Jokeline

    But it wasn’t just the intelligence community that had been trying to prevent the war hawks in the Administration from bombing Iran. The Secretaries of State and Defense and the leaders of the uniformed military had decided that diplomacy was the best way to deal with an admittedly hostile and dangerous foe in Tehran. Almost exactly a year ago, after the firing of Donald Rumsfeld, the President met with the Joint Chiefs of Staff in the “Tank,” the Pentagon’s secure facility. Bush asked the Chiefs about attacking Iran. He was told that a bombing campaign could do severe damage to Iran’s military and nuclear facilities, but the Chiefs said they were opposed to such a strike because of the probable “blowback.” The Iranians, Bush was told, could make life very difficult for the U.S. troops on the ground in Iraq. They could shut off the flow of oil through the Strait of Hormuz, thereby creating a global economic crisis. And they could use the threat of Iran-sponsored terrorist attacks on the American homeland

    At about the same time, a new NIE on Iran was meandering through the intelligence community. A senior U.S. intelligence official told me last week that the report was prepared to say with a “moderate” degree of certainty that Iran had stopped its nuclear-weapons program, but the information wasn’t very conclusive. That finding would have put the U.S. in the same camp as the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) — deeply concerned about the Iranian efforts to enrich uranium but skeptical about the regime’s efforts to fashion that uranium into a bomb.

    Iran’s Nukes: Now They Tell Us?
    By Joe Klein, Thursday, Dec. 06, 2007

    Do you think Joe Klein will ever consider actually attributing a source to a set of asserted facts? Especially now, that he’s received such public attention about the accuracy of his reporting about FISA. Without EW’s sleuthing we probably would not have come to recognize Klein’s source in his FISA article as crazy Pete Hoekstra. No! Klein attributes with no more specificity that claiming “Republicans believe” and “Democrats believe.” From reading Klein’s column, it seems all news in Washington is without attribution. Without attribution there is no context. Do you think Klein bothered to get corroborating evidence or did he just sidle up to one insider and steno the conversation, all attempts to corroborate or further legitimize the assertion non existent?

    Jokeline: Repeating, without attribution, single-source, and specious claims on-line and in print for Time Magazine…. because he loves politics.

  30. emptywheel says:

    Jeff

    My point upthread was that the CIA seems to know when these things are coming out before they’re officially informed. Leaking is a two-way street, after all.

    But if Cheney DIDN’T know this was coming, it’s all the more ironic…

  31. JodiDog says:

    Perhaps everything “seems to leak,”

    but if that is so, then where is the Plame smoking gun and the DOJ Attorney’s smoking gun? Depending on where you are standing, the seams seem sewed up pretty tightly.

  32. Leen says:

    Will Jane Harman be shown the door?

    “Rep. Jane Harman of California, then the senior Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee and one of only four members of Congress informed of the tapes’ existence, said she objected to the destruction when informed of it in 2003.”

    http://ap.google.com/article/A…..cch2P9ymXa
    J9mroogD8TCAIDO0

    Hayden Says CIA Videotapes Destroyed