The obvious fact is that this was an enormous news week in terms of constitutional abuses. THE big story of the week was the release of the NIE , causing a sea-change in the ability of the administration to run us into war. Rumor has it that the NIE was released because some members of the intelligence community were threatening to release it on their own.
Strange then how only days after this bombshell landed, another enormous bombshell landed regarding the destruction of evidential tapes by the CIA. Something seems familiar, but what . . .
For a moment, let's disregard my single largest question about the tapes, a question I've yet to hear on the floor on the Senate or the mainstream press.
By that I mean, the most obvious question of what exactly did the witnesses SAY that caused it to be destroyed.
[All parenthetical here, but the Republican line, as parroted by Washington Times Tony Blankley on Left, Right, and Center on Friday seems to be that of course torture was used to get crucial information, and that the CIA men who did should (in the words of Blankley) "get some sort of private medal" for doing what had to be done and destroying the tapes instead of seeing them leaked and used against the US as propaganda. To this, I have to call a parenthetical BS. Its too cute, by half. The tapes were likely destroyed because the witnesses said something that is going to embarrass or undermine someone on our side of the blurry battle line of the so-called war on terror.]
Now, parenthetical out of the way. Let's suppose for a moment that what the President is saying is true. Perhaps not that he didn't know the tapes were destroyed, that lacks all credibility, but at least that they advised against their destruction. Although the White House has destroyed evidence in the form of emails stored on RNC servers, their primary line of defense has been not to destroy evidence but simply to refuse to turn over information. I am sure that faced with a subpoena for those specific tapes by name the White House could have found (and by found I mean made up from whole cloth) a brazenly incorrect but costly to challenge legal rationale for refusing to turn them over.
Ok, so say the White House knew the tapes had been destroyed anyway, but also knew that they had no culpability in their destruction. What to do with the information.
When someone tells me something surprising or embarrassing or costly for someone else, perhaps something aweful or nasty that has the tendency to makes me emotional or angry, or makes me feel like I want to demand action, What I try to do is think critically and ask myself three simple questions;
- Who is telling me this?
- Why am I being told this now?
- Who stands to gain by this information getting out?
Important questions with regard to the destruction of these tapes. In terms of question 1 I think the answer is "I don't know." Correct me here on my facts if the source is known, I honestly have ot claim ignorance on this, but my hunch is that this is a new report from the New York Times that came for one to two "sources" and that the sources are unknown to us. Not only are they unknown to us, they are probably also likely unknown to the New York Times. No, I'm not saying the Times is dealing with a deep throat hidden away in a dark parking garage, just that even if the reporter does know the names of the sources, s/he likely is unaware of their motivations for providing the information and their internal professional allegiances.
Long story short, someone fed the Times a story and the Times was right to publish it. We however don't need to buy th story uncritically, but can move on to the next question "Why now"?
The simple question of "Why am I being told this?" is easy to answer. From a news perspective, this is a great freaking story, which makes the "why now?" question more compelling. These tapes were destroyed in 2003 , and apparently many, many individuals have discussed their destruction (at least, Harriet Meirs, Porter Goss, Michael Hayden, their staffs, etc.)
How did this stay in the can for so long? Further, how is it that it gets released in PRECISELY the same week as the NIE?
On to question 3, on the first read over coffee on Thursday my initial reaction was "Man, this is bad for Bush." But now, three and a half days out, I'm not so sure. After all, Bush likely does have at least plausible deniability of knowledge of the tape's destruction and if he doesn't its sure going to take a while to drag the evidence out of him. In fact, Bush ironically seems to have an awful lot to gain by this bombshell.
After all, just days before Bush was being blasted for getting caught dead to rights singing the EXACT SAME song to war with Iran that he did with Iraq. Further, as slow and mooing as the American Press is, even they were beginning to figure out that Bush knew of the NIE while he was giving speeches saying the exact opposite thing. If lying us into one war didn't rise to an impeachable offense, trying to lie us into a second just might. Not that it needed to come to this, or even for you to believe that the Congress would raise impeachment, to believe that Bush was feeling defensive,anxious, and angry about being manipulated into releasing the NIE. After all, Bush's main motivations and emotions seem to be defensiveness, anxiety, and anger anyway. It's not hard to set him off.
And then think who did this to him? It seems as though the only reason why the NIE was released was because careerists in the CIA were going to leak it if it wasn't.
Now who get's hurt by the news the tapes were released. I know, I know, we all are debased by this, etc, et al. but the CIA is hurt worst of all.
I'd feel like a loony paranoid, except of course something very similar to this happened not so long ago. Joe Wilson told the truth on Iraw, and Bush went after his wife.
Now several years later, the CIA pushes for the truth on Iran, and what happens? In the SAME EXACT WEEK a story that does enormous damage to the CIA, exposes them to congressional investigation, and places several of their agents in legal jeopardy gets released. A story mind you, that's been around town since 2003. Quite a coincidence.
As an added bonus, this black eye for CIA is so embarrassing and so big, its sucking all the air right out of the NIE (which for my money is the real story this week.)
All just speculation of course, but we have seen similar tactics from this administration. I do hope our Democratic leaders can use some critical thinking themselves and sort out the correct shiny object to rush after full steam ahead.