A Pentagon appointee left notes from a conference call on how to spin Richard Clarke’s 9/11 Commission testimony on a table at a Starbucks. The Center for American Progress posted copies on their web site.
Get your copies here. According to accounts, the Pentagon says they’re real. I still have my doubts, and still don’t know quite what to make of page 5.
They were compiled for an early morning briefing for Rumsfeld before the Sunday morning talk shows, during which administration officials conducted a flurry of interviews to counter the testimony of Richard Clarke, President George W. Bush's former terrorism czar who left the post in 2003. Rumsfeld appeared on Fox and ABC.Does any of this smell fishy to you?
Remember the video tape incident in 2000? “Someone” mailed a Democratic Rep some notes and a video tape of Dumbya prepping for a debate with Gore.
Campaign aides to George W. Bush say they are confident a videotape of their candidate preparing to debate Al Gore didn't come from their staff, but a federal law enforcement official says early evidence suggests the tape came from a person in the Bush camp.Didn’t they dust for prints?
The official refused to divulge the name of the person tentatively identified but said the early evidence appeared so far to point to someone in the Bush camp.
The incident unsettled the famously loyal Bush campaign apparatus, which has seen the GOP nominee slip in some polls and struggle to stay on message since the Democratic convention in August.
In October of 1986, Rove was working for Republican Bill Clements in his race against then-Gov. Mark White. A few days before the candidates were to debate, Rove discovered a listening device that had been planted behind a needlepoint picture of an elephant hanging on his wall. The FBI investigated. Accusations and counteraccusations were made. But no charges were ever brought, and the matter slowly dissipated, amid general speculation that Rove had planted the bug himself.Oh, by the way – FUCK YOU, KARL ROVE. I know you read this blog, you jelly-jowled piece of shit.
Adding interest to the video shenanigans are a few other fun facts. In 1986, when Rove was working for Clements, the chief spokesperson for White was an idealistic young turk named Mark McKinnon. It is "outrageous and sad that Rove would suggest the White campaign would be involved in a matter like this," McKinnon told the Austin American-Statesman at the time. Calling the bugging incident "bizarre and incredible," McKinnon said the Clements campaign was "desperate and frayed at the edges."
There's more. The bug was reportedly responsible for tipping Democrats that the Clements campaign had recently hired a Washington-based consultant, whom Rove and Clements campaign manager George Bayoud had discussed hiring over the phone shortly before the matter was mysteriously leaked. The consultant was a sometime blues guitar player renowned for his facility with attack ads and dirty tricks. His name: Lee Atwater.