Layered distractions seemed to be the order of the day for the Republicans in the committee yesterday. Both Trent Franks and Steve King, went through a rather short list of Democrat Party all-stars, when they tried to suggest that "everyone" believed that Saddam had weapons of mass destruction.
That argument was put to rest by panelist Vincent Bugliosi when he correctly pointed out that the reason that these people thought that there were weapons of mass destruction was because the administration had edited the intelligence estimate about Iraq, so that it would better suit the war-mongers intentions of invading that country. They were basing their conclusions on the tainted evidence that Cheney's "Office of Special Plans" had cherry-picked to justify going to war.
The circular logic of King and Lungren being obvious: Bush didn't lie because he thought he was correct, and Clinton, Rockefeller, Albright, Kerry, Gore all thought the same thing (because of Bush's lies). They were all just duped by the intel (that was created by Cheney's OSP).
So again, the waters are muddied by the appearance of a bi-partisan consensus of misinformed agreement. Now remember what Sunstein said earlier? "There are people in the Clinton administration who share Bush's view with respect to foreign surveillance." Cass himself is also priming the pot for the bi-partisan cop-out meme. Again I ask, why?
Well, there may be one clue in the people they are quoting. Clinton, Rockefeller, Kerry, Gore, Albright--they are all deep political insiders with family ties to serious monied interests in this country. They are all players, so to speak, in what Greenwald calls the politico-class. Certainly, now, no matter what happens in November, Obama can be said to have joined that elite club of networked insiders in the investor/beltway club. As Nixon had his Kissenger and Clinton had his Albright, so to now does Obama have his Sunstein.
These people work on a level far beyond the limits of Party loyalty or agenda. They serve a class of people that don't really care about anything more than maintaining the status-quo. As George Bush once said when addressing a fund raiser with "the haves and the have mores," "Some people call you the elite. I call you my base."
And I would suggest to you here now, that it isn't Bush or Cheney that the Sunstein's of our political crisis are protecting, it's that "base." Because if you allow impeachment hearings to get underway, without any reservations I will promise you this: the corrupt connections between the super-monied class and this administration will have to be exposed. And when that happens, many in this country are deathly afraid that the majority of Americans will start to see this savage capitalist system for what it is: a detriment to both our quality of life and democracy as a whole. With the economy as it is, just how far reaching could the ramifications of that become?
That's why the Sunsteins and the Kissengers and the Albrights dutifully tow the line of both Parties and neither simultaneously. They must do what is necessary to maintain the status-quo for the elite class that runs this country.
And that is why we shouldn't be surprised when we see certain talking points blurring Party lines. Because at that level, there is only one line: the one we can't step across, that divides us from them.
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