It's funny and sad that the photo festooned deck of playing cards...Iraqi and American...has become a dominant cultural aritifact of this political moment.
It's also ironic.
Because if you can find one characteristic of this administration that holds across the board it is that they play high stakes poker. There is no plan B. They bet it all. From Tax Cuts, to WMD and the Iraq invasion there is no nuance, no back up plan, and above all...
never a single stance that implies that they might not be 100% right. Which is why they can't apologize....
and also why they are absolutely shameless in savaging those who would turn those cards over, and reveal the inner workings behind their game.
Friends, there comes a time when even the highest of high rollers has to lay the cards on the table...
and that moment is right now.
Josh Marshall writes tonight about the brewing attempt to discredit Clarke:
Liars are usually easily discredited; it's the truth-tellers who need to be destroyed.
This administration has used and continues to use literally unprecedented means to maintain secrecy in order to keep this information -- what happened -- bottled up in the White House and in other parts of the executive branch.
We don't know what Condi Rice did because the documents haven't been released; nor have the minutes of meetings. Nor will she testify in public or even privately under oath.
We don't know what most of the key players did -- or at least we don't know with certainty -- because the locks on the information are being held that tight....Yet Clarke's new enemies now want to use the fact that they control the Justice Department and the process of declassification to knock him out because he is, to all appearances, trying to bust open that very vault of secrecy.
In other words, precisely the tools these folks refuse to use in the interests of keeping everything secret they are more happy to use to crush someone who is opposing them.
We've become so inured to this...after all, we are a nation that has endured Ken Starr, the Clinton Impeachment, the Florida debacle and the horrendous decision in Bush v. Gore....
we've become so inured to this type of tactic, this bluffing and stuffing, the attempt to destroy political enemies without regard to morality and truth, that we might not see that this is it. This IS the moment of truth. As Josh Marshall rightly points out, regardless of whether Clarke is ultimately hero or tool, this is the moment the cards have to be laid on the table and the truth must be told.
Condoleeza Rice went on TV and talked about impending mushroom clouds. Dick Cheney said we would be welcomed with open arms in Iraq.
Donald Rumsfeld just yesterday reiterated that we are likely to be attacked by Al Qaeda again and soon, and there is little or nothing we can do about it.
Well, we have a right to know. And we have a right, as a free and democratic people, to decide if we can do something about it, and if we could have done better. And, further, the families of the 9/11 victims and our troops in Iraq in Afghanistan have a right know...what exactly our government has been doing and thinking these last three years.
It is high time for a full accounting. If Richard Clarke is right that George Bush on 9/12/01 told him to "look into" Iraq, to find the link...I think that speaks to the very heart of the entire matter and puts it in terms that everyone can understand.
Friends, this may be something much bigger than we can even see right now. We may be witnessing a turning point. History is afoot. The cards will turn.