Bushco Rolled Out A Parade Of Liars To Squelch Lichtblau, Risen & NYT

A fairly significant article just posted at Slate by Eric Lichtblau on the jaded history of the publication, and withholding of publication for well over a year, of his and Jim Risen’s seminal story on the criminal warrantless wiretapping by the Bush Administration. Some of it we knew, some of it we guessed and some of it is first impression. As a whole however, it is stunning to digest.

For 13 long months, we’d held off on publicizing one of the Bush administration’s biggest secrets. Finally, one afternoon in December 2005, as my editors and I waited anxiously in an elegantly appointed sitting room at the White House, we were again about to let President Bush’s top aides plead their case: why our newspaper shouldn’t let the public know that the president had authorized the National Security Agency, in apparent contravention of federal wiretapping law, to eavesdrop on Americans without court warrants.

As the door to the conference room opened, however, a slew of other White House VIPs strolled out to greet us, with Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice near the head of the receiving line and White House Counsel Harriet Miers at the back.

The risk to national security was incalculable, the White House VIPs said, their voices stern, their faces drawn. "The enemy," one official warned, "is inside the gates." The clichés did their work; the message was unmistakable: If the New York Times went ahead and published this story, we would share the blame for the next terrorist attack.

That shared skepticism would prove essential in the Times’ decision to run the story about Bush’s NSA wiretapping program. On that December afternoon in the White House, the gathered officials attacked on several fronts. There was never any serious legal debate within the administration about the legality of the program, Bush’s advisers insisted. The Justice Department had always signed off on its legality, as required by the president. The few lawmakers who were briefed on the program never voiced any concerns. From the beginning, there were tight controls in place to guard against abuse. The program would be rendered so ineffective if disclosed that it would have to be shut down immediately.

All these assertions, as my partner Jim Risen and I would learn in our reporting, turned out to be largely untrue.

Go read the entire article, it and you deserve nothing less. There was one great little aside that is absolutely priceless. What do you think the Secret Service was doing in the days and weeks before 9/11? Heh heh, well this:

… extraordinary diplomatic maneuverings the U.S. Secret Service had arranged with their Mexican counterparts to allow Jenna Bush, then 19, to make a barhopping trip south of the border. (She had just been charged with underage drinking in Texas.)

So, clearly, George Bush and his government was focused on what was important, at least to a blue blood, self centered, slacker chump. Just not so much on the well being of the United States and the safety of it’s citizens from terrorism.

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60 replies
  1. MadDog says:

    … extraordinary diplomatic maneuverings the U.S. Secret Service had arranged with their Mexican counterparts to allow Jenna Bush, then 19, to make a barhopping trip south of the border. (She had just been charged with underage drinking in Texas.)

    The drunk Father knows best!

    • bmaz says:

      Can you imagine the living hell that would have ensued if Bill and Hillary had expended such assets and resources to let Chelsea go on a drunken pub crawl in Mexico because she already had a criminal record for it in the US?

    • Leen says:

      The world has suffered greatly because Bush has not worked a twelve step program. Especially Iraq.

      Bush is a dangerous dry drunk and I have no idea why anyone would want to become a President and try to clean up the disaster this group has left behind

  2. pdaly says:

    Thanks, bmaz. I’m heading over there to read the article.

    This part catches my eye:

    The risk to national security was incalculable, the White House VIPs said, their voices stern, their faces drawn. “The enemy,” one official warned, “is inside the gates.”

    I hope Lichtbau asked the disingenouse WH VIPs to elaborate.
    Who let the enemy in?
    If they are referring to Al Qaeda (and not to their fellow Neocons running amok), then the next question might be WHY are they coming here? (I haven’t heard the term “blowback” tossed around since 2001).

  3. pdaly says:

    disingenuous. Actually, though, the frenchification of the word might be more biting for them.
    (Is frenchification a word?)

  4. MadDog says:

    And as to the Slate article, I found it revealing that both Condi “I know nothing” Rice and Harriet “Who, me?” Miers were intimately involved.

    Alarms bells about Condi should have begun ringing immediately when the story broke since the Warrantless Surveillance could only have been done under the color of “National Security”.

    As National Security Advisor, Ms. “No Fingerprints” Rice had to have been involved up to her eyeballs, and yet, not a whisper in the MSM until today.

    And Harriet “Subpoena, what’s that?” Miers’ involvement probably included using a rubber stamp with Fredo’s signature on it to forge the demand documents to the Telcos. She’s no dummy. Let Fredo go fishing – not her.

    • readerOfTeaLeaves says:

      Aw, for the ‘regulars’ hanging out at EW’s bar stools tonight, I’ll follow up with one of my little ’saved gems’ for y’all, in view of MadDogs’ observations regarding Harriet ‘What’s a Subpeona?’ Miers:

      I spoke to Karl Rove an hour ago. His support for the Miers nomination is not merely enthusiastic, but adamant and even vehement. The judicial philosophy question? She has been a member of the White House’s judicial selection committee for three years, not the one I had thought, as the Deputy Chief of Staff sits on the committee, along with the White House Counsel and a handful of other senior aides, including Karl Rove.http://hughhewitt.com/archives/2005/10/09-week/index.php#a000357

      bmaz, you’re tending this bar just fine and I thank you.

      Great link to the Slate article — boy, what an thoughtful, insightful piece of writing. It should be put into a Time Capsule, as it’s a synopsis of much that’s gone wrong (but may yet be righted) these past years.

  5. bmaz says:

    You know, the Bushies were blatantly lying through their teeth. Because, if even the mere mention of “the program” would render it useless and result in it being shut down (not to mention the death of everything American), how is it that, over two years after the expose was published, the Bushies are still arguing that the program will die if they don’t get full retroactive immunity? Why would anybody in the world believe these lying criminals?

    • Loo Hoo. says:

      Nobody believes them. Nobody. There are people, however, who believe they can still profit from them. And that’s probably true. I just want to know why Mukasy decided to throw his hat in at such a late date. I do not get it, unless there is money in it for him.

    • behindthefall says:

      Because, if even the mere mention of “the program” would render it useless and result in it being shut down (not to mention the death of everything American), how is it that, over two years after the expose was published, the Bushies are still arguing that the program will die if they don’t get full retroactive immunity?

      Ding! — as they say in the blogs. Very revealing. It is ALL about Bush and minions getting away without the full story being hung around their necks.

  6. masaccio says:

    Consider the financial damage to the phone carriers that took part in the program, one official implored.

    Wow.

    • bmaz says:

      Which would be exactly zero if it were really a legal and necessary program. Kind of a culpable comment and mindset from the outset eh?

      • bmaz says:

        By the way, not looking so good for the Vols. I thought Louisville would be tough, maybe even win, but I though it would be a real close game. Sure like Bruce Pearl and the job he is doing there though.

    • readerOfTeaLeaves says:

      Yeah – that was an eye-popper, wasn’t it?
      Not that we didn’t suspect, but… evidently the threat of impacted phone company profits are right up there with Al Quaeda.

      Glad I finally got clear on that point.

    • NCDem says:

      Consider the financial damage to the phone carriers that took part in the program, one official implored.

      This line also hit me in the face. There must be some strong language in the agreement between the telecoms and the government on the programs. My guess is that the government made some guarantees to them that are very unrealistic based upon the deception they were asked to take. If a reporter could connect with someone who has this “agreement”, he/she could probably retire immediately, very wealthy.

      • GeorgeSimian says:

        Why on earth would anyone give a shit about the financial implications of the telecom companies? How is that in any way persuasive?

        • NCDem says:

          My suggestion is that our government/the Bush administration gave the telecoms in writing some financial guarantees that they would not be harmed financially if the secret program was revealed. We know that the telecoms are required to keep secret the details of the program. That is the problem thus far with law suits against them. They can’t disclose the agreements because they are “state secrets”. It is my assumption that the lawyers for the telecoms realized this might place them in legal jeopardy/catch-22 if they were exposed. Thus I think, the administration has already given them a “hold harmless” agreement that agrees to cover all “financial losses”.

          Now that the details are leaking out this is the reason for the finely crafted House version that allows “only a court judge” to review the documents and make the decision if the program was legal/illegal and if the 40 odd court cases should go forward. Please notice how Spector wanted to release the telecoms from liability and place it on the government. He knew we were “on the hook” anyway. Now that the House version has been proposed, it still restricts knowledge of the program to a select few while protecting arrangements between the telecoms and the administration.

          • GeorgeSimian says:

            I understand all that. I just don’t understand why the NYT would care, or a reporter would care. Who cares if the telecoms have to pay loads of money because of this? Remember in the 70’s? If you wanted a good guy to steal something, you had him rob the phone company. Who loves AT+T? Even if they had to pay out billions, would they lose as much as GM or Ford do every month?

            • Leen says:

              Bmaz and others here have often said that the telecoms are all ready protected. That they are the firewall

            • skdadl says:

              Remember in the 70’s? If you wanted a good guy to steal something, you had him rob the phone company. Who loves AT+T?

              Has anyone considered conscripting Lily Tomlin as a spokesperson for the cause?

              • Leen says:

                Too funny, great image. Saw Lilly in person 35 years ago in Boulder Colorado. She really knows how to keep a crowd in stitches. almost in pain from laughing.

                • skdadl says:

                  “One Ringy Dingy” (which is around on YouTube) still packs a punch. Us old guys just assumed back then that, when Ernestine began reading Mr Veedle’s financial statements back at him, that was the way things were, or were very close to being. It’s sort of cold comfort to be proved right after all these years.

                  She’s a genius, probably also a saint. I admire her almost as much as I admire Mr Veedle, which is going some.

  7. JohnLopresti says:

    It was interesting to read the excerpt from Lichtblau in comparison with an excerpt from Woodward’s review of Tenet’s stormBook which depicts Rice’s leadership early in the first term.

  8. Dismayed says:

    The “inside drama” huh? Good drama is not the creation of cowards. They backed down when they knew the administration was breaking the law, and now they want to be heros. They want us to read books about the “drama” of walking away from the story for TWO YEARS – punks!

    In this very tiny Slate piece, they are almost appologist for the administration, more than once they talk about the deep concerns and angst the administration had – What a crock. The administration could give a shit about breaking the law. They just care about being exposed and they don’t care about that much at this point.

    Bottom line – they punked out. Eligibility for the prize and their balls should have been checked at the door. Two Years, two years.

    Sorry, but I just don’t get why anyone is kissing these guys ass over this.

    • readerOfTeaLeaves says:

      Lictblau was largely reflecting on his own experience. It’s interesting to note the date of the NSA article: post-Katrina, but still a year before the 2006 elections. That NSA news hit around the time that John Murtha first came out against the war (and FiveDefermentsCheney was insulting to Murtha). Murtha’s coming out against the war was a milestone; after that, even retired Generals started to voice their concerns. All of that made people receptive — finally! — to the NSA information. It also made it harder for the WH to smear the NYT successfully.

      I didn’t read Lictblau’s article as an apology for Bu$hCo. I read it as a retrospective about how profoundly attitudes toward BushCheney have shifted over the past six years. The NYT could have published an NSA article in 2003, but many people would have wanted to sue the NYT as ‘unpatriotic’. By late 2005, although the news about the NSA spying was shocking, people were more receptive to doubting Bu$hCo.

      What I find remarkable is that Bu$hCo was going to shut down the publication of the NSA news, and that the Times felt so strongly about the information it was willing to ‘open source it’ by putting it online — (which would have meant the NYT lost control of it’s ’scoop’, because competitors could copy the information and put it in their morning papers). Within the context of the news biz, that shows a lot of passion and commitment from the NYT. Kind of like browsers being given away for free in the mid-1990s; new paradigm in the flow of information.

      • Dismayed says:

        Yeah but there were plenty of people ready to question this administration from day one. The earlier the administration could have gotten beaten about the head and shoulders over this the better, and the less time they would have had to get ducks in a row and cover tracks. There is no place in this world for less than courageous journalists. They should fucking live to put this kind of thing out on day one, just fucking busting the heads of power. Those that don’t should be shunned by readers and colleagues alike.

        Now perhaps if the fourth estate had been doing it’s job from day one, the climate for releasing this would not have been arguably chilly, this is simply a continuation of punk performance and cowardace from the press – There was a day when journalism was a profession, taken damn seriously by most practitioners, not so with the current crop, most are just as self serving as the politicos. The bloggers, by and large, are the true fourth estate at present. The medial premadonnas are largely parodies of the role they think they play.

  9. bobschacht says:

    Hey guys & gals,
    EPU’d from the previous thread:
    Dan Abrams was all over the Siegelman story at the top of his program on VERDICT tonight, saying that he’s gonna stay on the story. He billed it as a blockbuster event, and featured the Rove connection. His story line looked like he’d been reading this blog’s “Mr. Siegelman Goes To Washington”. They read statements by the Alabama Republican party, but their panel of 3 did not contain any supporters of Siegelman’s conviction. So maybe the MSM is starting to get this one.

    Bob in HI

  10. Leen says:

    When the wiretapping program or program’s began seems rather important. Before 9/11?

    Keep remembering that four part series by Carl Cameron of Fox News about wiretapping that aired just after 9/11. That four part series was pulled off of the Fox News website. In two of those reports Carl Cameron reported about AmDocs (Israeli based communication and datamining company) and Comverse Infosys and data mining companies that had access to 95% of all U.S. phone companies bills.

    That four part series by Fox News is still on you tube, but how it is titled keeps changing. (it is some times posted under some unsavory titles, almost as if discouraging folks to view)

    Part 1
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JWpWc_suPWo

    four Part series
    http://www.informationclearing…..le7544.htm

    “Most directory assistance calls, and virtually all call records and billing in the U.S. are done for the phone companies by Amdocs Ltd., an Israeli-based private telecommunications company. Amdocs has contracts with the 25 biggest phone companies in America, and more worldwide. The White House and other secure government phone lines are protected, but it is virtually impossible to make a call on normal phones without generating an Amdocs record of it. In recent years, the FBI and other government agencies have investigated Amdocs more than once. The firm has repeatedly and adamantly denied any security breaches or wrongdoing. But sources tell Fox News that in 1999, the super secret national security agency, headquarted in northern Maryland, issued what’s called a Top Secret sensitive compartmentalized information report, TS/SCI, warning that records of calls in the United States were getting into foreign hands — in Israel, in particular.” [CAMERON, C., pt. 2, 12-14-01[

    A second Fox News report notes:

    “An Israeli-based company called Amdocs Ltd. … generates the computerized records and billing data for nearly early phone call made in America … [A second Israeli company, Comverse Infosys] provides wiretapping for law enforcement … Adding to the suspicions is the fact that in Israel, Comverse works closely with the Israeli government, and under special programs, gets reimbursed up to 50 percent of its research and development costs by the Israeli Ministry of Industry and Trade. But investigators within the DEA, INS, and FBI have all told Fox News that to pursue or even suggest Israeli spying thorugh Comverse is considered career suicide.” [CAMERON, C., pt. 3, 12-14-01]

    • behindthefall says:

      Keep remembering that four part series by Carl Cameron of Fox News about wiretapping that aired just after 9/11. That four part series was pulled off of the Fox News website. In two of those reports Carl Cameron reported about AmDocs (Israeli based communication and datamining company) and Comverse Infosys and data mining companies that had access to 95% of all U.S. phone companies bills.

      Why is it that this smells more like an energetic true believer who has just gotten onto the bridge of the ship, someone like Cheney, rather than Bush, more concerned with clearing brush and long vacations at that time? It’s got that faux international odor. It’s got the Total Information Awareness coloration. This seems like Cheney.

      Can anyone enlighten me?

  11. NCDem says:

    I’m a big believer of time-line. Some comments here lead me to correct a few statements or mis-reads from the article.
    Risen and Lichtblau first became aware of the spying program in the fall of 2004. Maybe even late fall, like November, 2004. It was finally disclosed in December, 2005.
    The reference he made about “two years” was the time elapsed since December, 2005 and not the time that they held/were aware of the story.
    If I am wrong, please correct me.

  12. Leen says:

    “The enemy is inside the gates” This would make it a tough decision.

    “But the episode was critical in reflecting the media’s shifting attitudes toward matters of National Security from believing the government to believing it less”

  13. klynn says:

    “The enemy,” one official warned, “is inside the gates.” The clichés did their work; the message was unmistakable: If the New York Times went ahead and published this story, we would share the blame for the next terrorist attack.

    Yeah, Cheney plays host to those inside the gate…really.

    http://www.talkleft.com/story/2005/10/05/394/21448

  14. Leen says:

    I have a hard time trusting the New York Times intentions after the lies they allowed Judy “I was fucking right” Miller to get away with. Mistake? I don’t know

  15. strider7 says:

    you have got to read, “The schemata of bulshit” at belacqua [email protected]. go to the “older articles”, not the archives. stuff like “bullshit is not just a random pile of turds”….. it’s great!

  16. Quebecois says:

    bmaz, you’ve done a great job, holding the fort. I really appreciate your writing.

    As New York Times Editor Bill Keller, Washington Bureau Chief Phil Taubman, and I awaited our meeting,

    What I want to know is this, who was pressuring Taubman and Keller not to publish??? These guys was there when the star W.H. line up spewed their crap at them. I can’t believe that it was their fear of the next attack, or the “Pentagon Papers-type injunction to block publication” that could stop them from publishing that story.

    Wich owner of the N.Y.Times was stopping them???

  17. marksb says:

    I read Lichtblau’s article and my brain is shouting “How can the WH think they can get away with this kind of shit?!” and so on, LA freeway rage style.
    But of course the answer’s easy.
    They’ve gotten away with *everything*. Why should they think they’re going to get stopped now, for this?
    I think History is going to judge the Dems and media as harshly as Bush & Co., for not having the nerve and wisdom to stop these criminals.

    And BTW, bmaz, you’ve done brilliantly. And all of you, I learn so much reading here. Thanks!

    • Leen says:

      the faith that the American people have in Bush has gotten how low? 30%

      the faith that the American people have in Congress even lower. I remember reading at one point it had gotten down to 20%.
      Is this the sound of our country imploding?

    • readerOfTeaLeaves says:

      Yeah, the Dems are going to look very cowed.

      I’m not excusing Dems, but I just don’t want the Roves of the planet to muddy the waters by claiming that Dems were ‘equally at fault’. They were complicit, but they were also naive, and too well-intentioned to recognize the evil they confronted. Overlay these facts:
      – the Dems were in the minority in both House and Senate, then add
      – the BushCheney politicizing of DoJ (in part to prevent investigations by Lam and others, partly to protect their corrupt, legislative majorities),
      – the political persecutions of Dems by a politicized DoJ (a la Siegelman and USAGs),
      – the hacked voting machines (Gore 2000, Siegelman in Alabama 2002, Kerry 2004… etc)

      It appears that the Dems didn’t recognize how many battles they needed to be fighting. By failing to put more focus on voting machines and campaign finance violations, the Dems lost all the other battles by default. They weren’t strategic enough to put more resources into understanding, fighting, and prosecuting voting machine hacking; the other losses then became inevitable, because they lost control of government.

      Not excusing the Dems, but it’s also worth noting that each of the topics listed above has implications for NSA — because to pull off every one of those crimes must have required spying on private email, phone, and fax communications. Which underscores why the WH was so adamant and ‘over the top’ that their private spy network NSA snooping remain secret. So yeah the NYT was too late, but in the end they did print the story and it is still reverberating.

      Let’s hope Siegelman can help people connect some very simple dots: casinos/K Street corruption + campaign finance violations + hacked voting machines (and stolen elections) + politicized DoJ = corrupt, corporate-toadying, economically disastrous government.

      It’s really no more complicated than “This is the cow that tossed the dog that worried the cat that ate the rat that ate the malt that lay in the house that Jack built.” Each thing led quite logically and simply to the next.

      That’s what the Dems didn’t figure out soon enough.
      But the NYT still contributed a key piece of the puzzle, IMHO. For that, I think they deserve kudos, and to castigate them for publishing the NSA story plays right into Rover’s hands.

      ————
      Speaking of Rover’s hands… GoogleNews says Houston Chronicle reporting that Siegelman has been released from prison and is on his way home. Good news.

  18. masaccio says:

    I have been patiently waiting for an economics thread on which to say that McCain’s speech on the economy is nuts. First, there is the talking down to me part, including the following:

    A bubble occurs when prices are driven up too quickly, speculators move into markets, and these players begin to suspend the normal rules of risk and assume that prices can only move up — but never down. We’ve seen this kind of bubble before — in the late 1990s, we had the technology bubble, when money poured into technology stocks and people assumed that those stock values would rise indefinitely.

    Or this:

    Homeowners should be able to understand easily the terms and obligations of a mortgage.

    Who is he kidding with this remark? Short version of your mortgage: pay or lose your house. The rest is just screwing with you so they can do it as economically as possible.

    Then we get to the really crazy:

    In financial institutions, there is no substitute for adequate capital to serve as a buffer against losses. Our financial market approach should include encouraging increased capital in financial institutions by removing regulatory, accounting and tax impediments to raising capital.

    This is an idea just ripe for exploitation: accounting impediments to raising capital? Could we just get rid of accounting and guess at the financial condition of companies seeking our investment capital? Shades of Jay Gould and Andrew Carnegie. Tax impediments? Could we mean getting rid of capital gains taxes altogether?

    But if you thought that was nuts, get a load of this one:

    First, it is time to convene a meeting of the nation’s accounting professionals to discuss the current mark to market accounting systems. We are witnessing an unprecedented situation as banks and investors try to determine the appropriate value of the assets they are holding and there is widespread concern that this approach is exacerbating the credit crunch.

    So much for transparency. Mark to market? Quaint idea, let’s throw it where we threw Glass-Steagall.

    Finally, lest you think this is all about the money, here is his brilliant idea for helping homeowners:

    We should also convene a meeting of the nation’s top mortgage lenders. Working together, they should pledge to provide maximum support and help to their cash-strapped, but credit worthy customers. They should pledge to do everything possible to keep families in their homes and businesses growing. Recall that immediately after September 11, 2001 General Motors stepped in to provide 0 percent financing as part of keeping the economy growing. We need a similar response by the mortgage lenders. They’ve been asking the government to help them out. I’m now calling upon them to help their customers, and their nation out. It’s time to help American families.

    GM offered 0% car loans to help the economy grow? and not because it couldn’t sell cars any other way? And I’m so sure that Countrywide will be offering 0% mortgages. I seem to be having another snark failure, so I’ll stop now.

    • bmaz says:

      Good stuff. There have been a number of things that have surfaced in the general surroundings of the Bear Stearns mess we discussed a couple of days ago and i have been thinking about an econ thread to update that. I will incorporate some of your material into that and give everyone a forum to discuss all things financial/economical.

    • BayStateLibrul says:

      Excellent. He wants two conventions (bean counters and mortgage guys).
      Fuck McCain, it’ll be Barney Frank who will lead the change…

  19. marksb says:

    McCain has admitted he doesn’t “do” econ, so one wonders who’s pulling the strings, writing the speeches. I’m guessing he’s got a couple of GOP econ guys, someone long-time from his Senate staff, and some campaign marketing people to massage everything for public consumption. Which means we’ll get a watered down GOP stay-the-course core, wrapped in a media-friendly format, all run through the “Straight Talk Express” marketing filter. (Maybe with some BBQ’ed ribs?)

    Which makes it pretty much 100% BS. The other day I went and read Obama’s position stuff on his site, and then his econ speech. I don’t agree with everything, but there was intelligence running throughout. How refreshing.

  20. kspena says:

    OT—Well, well… here’s something else cheney achieved in the ME. According to Juan Cole the Iraqi fighting is a function of the coming Oct provincial elections which Sadr would win:

    “I think Cheney probably told ISCI and Prime Minister al-Maliki that the way to fix this problem and forestall the Sadrists coming to power in Iraq, was to destroy the Mahdi Army, the Sadrists’ paramilitary. Without that coercive power, the Sadrists might not remain so important, is probably their thinking. I believe them to be wrong, and suspect that if the elections are fair, the Sadrists will sweep to power and may even get a sympathy vote. It is admittedly a big ‘if.’”

    http://www.juancole.com/

  21. BayStateLibrul says:

    I’m beginning to think this bombing of Basra has been planned out
    weeks in advance…. right after the McCain visit… something is
    up…
    Please tell Bushie to stop using the word “I appreciate”…

  22. JohnLopresti says:

    There are some views above with which I agree even though they seem to originate in disparate apodes, concerning the credibility of the Lichtblau account of the colorfully characterized parade of dissimilators; at once I liked Dismayed’s disparagements as a glimpse beyond the courtier intrigues in the WhiteHouse as NYTimes progressed toward a decision to publish the wiretap article those years ago; yet, I tend to give NYT some appreciation for doing it, as another writer has, above. There is a similar range of comments elsewhere, especially among apologetes for the current administration, some of whom are doing the usual things to try to discredit critics; as Lederman’s two recent posts describe, the interchamber barter over the neoFISA rewrite is part of the quid pro quo in this ongoing discussion; this by MLederman devotes several hundred words today to the topic at JB’s site. My archive of book signings had a scheduled speech by Glenn Kessler last autumn at UCSanDiego flagged, the topic announced having to do with his biography of SecyRice+NSAdvisorRice; but a notice on the college website says the talk was ‘postponed’. At that time Kessler already had held a WaPo online live interchange about the biography the month prior in September 2007, in which he touches in various degrees of specificity upon some of the ‘VIP’ chemistries.

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