When Suddenly

All of Scooter Libby's (remember him?) 2005 "the aspens are turning" weirdness vis-a-vis Judith Miller (remember her?)

“You went into jail in the summer. It is fall now. You will have stories to cover — Iraqi elections and suicide bombers, biological threats and the Iranian nuclear program. Out west, where you vacation, the aspens will already be turning. They turn in clusters, because their roots connect them. Come back to work — to life.”

snaps into sharper focus (from The New Republic):

"For every Judith Miller, the ex–New York Times reporter who would sometimes quote her live-in lover, former Representative and Defense Secretary Les Aspin..."

Of course, Les Aspin was also a member of the Aspen Group:

Fitzgerald asked Miller if she’d ever had occasion to talk with Libby after the two meetings at which she said he told her that Joseph Wilson’s wife worked for the CIA. Yes, she said, she ran into him in August 2003 at a rodeo in Jackson Hole, Wyo. Miller said she didn’t recognize Libby at first; he was wearing cowboy boots, jeans, a black T-shirt and sunglasses, and she’d only seem him in suits before. Once Libby identified himself — “Judy … it’s Scooter” — Miller said that they talked for a bit. Fitzgerald asked Miller what they discussed. “It was just some banter about the meeting at Aspen I had just come from … a meeting of the Aspen Strategy Group.”

The Aspen Strategy Group was and is a veritable who’s who of the Washington foreign policy-media establishment. Its co-chairmen are Brent Scowcroft, the national security advisor for George H.W. Bush, and Joe Nye, who served in the State Department under Jimmy Carter and in the Defense Department under Bill Clinton. In August 2003, its members included Sen. Dianne Feinstein, Rep. Jane Harman, former Defense Secretary Bill Perry, former CIA Director James Woolsey, Times reporter David Sanger, a slew of think tank and foundation types — and Miller herself.

So are members of the Aspen Strategy Group the “aspens” of which Libby wrote? They meet “out west,” where Libby had seen Miller on vacation. And like arboreal aspens, the members of the group are closely “connected,” not only at the “roots” — early members of the group included Walter Mondale, Paul Nitze, Les Aspin, Zbigniew Brzezinski and and Robert McNamara — but also at the branches.

...

So weirdness squared.

And for those who need a quick refresher on WTF is he talking about, let us return for a moment to the thrilling frontier days of 2005 -- back to a bygone era when America had a functioning space shuttle program, but no Honey Boo Boo...

...
But now it’s not one thing that’s melting down; it’s everything. The serial cons that have kept the grubby Mods goggle-eyed and heroin-loyal are all falling apart simultaneously and there’s nothing but decibels left in the Shiny Object Bag to keep them from noticing the awful truth.

That their Leaders are traitors.

Their heroes are liars.

Their dogma is a joke.

Their President is a feeble-minded creep who has fucked up everything he has ever touched.

It’s as if their mothers suddenly ripped of rubber masks and have shown themselves to be the spree killers they’ve always been.

How terrifying that must be. I mean, I’m wrong about a lot of stuff...but everything?

Every God Damned Thing?

And worse – so very much worse – not only were they utterly wrong about everyfuckingthing, but the Evil Liberals were right all along.

The big picture. The fussy details. The arithmetic. The real, racist heart of the GOP. The various myriad, casual betrayals by the Bush White House.

All of it.

The Liberals were right, and the Moderates had been given no fewer than 30 years of warning that this is precisely where their idiocy would land us.

I can’t even imagine how it must feel to know at some level that your whole world is a farce, and your whole belief system is a Ponsi Scheme run on you by thugs who never gave a shit about you, or your family or your dearest peon dreams.

Which is why I felt the merest shadow of pity falling on my shoulder today...

...until I flipped past the closed-circuit channel of the Fuhrerbunker, and accidentally stepped in a big, steaming pile of, “Wall Street Journal Report – The Journal Editorial Report.” Where John Fund, Paul Gigot, David Henninger -- three, low-rent, PBS, wannabe Weird Sisters of the GOP (and one, standard-issue, blond, female Republican Pleasure Droid) -- ply their filthy trade unmoored to Reality in any way whatsoever.

And here is what they said, with a little emphasis added by yours truly.

GIGOT: Two of the most influential men in the Bush Administration -- the president's senior adviser, Karl Rove, and vice-president Cheney's chief of staff, I. Lewis Libby -- waited for word this week on whether they would be indicted in connection with leaking the name of a CIA agent. Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald has to make a decision within a week and it has enormous implications for the Bush presidency. Dan, how did this investigation over what was after all a routine kind of Washington leak come to this point?

HENNINGER: Well, it came to this point because the original story, the alleged leaking of this covert CIA agent's name, was a mole hill that was generated into a mountain of controversy. The mistake was that the administration decided that the only way to resolve it was to appoint a special prosecutor. Special prosecutors are very unusual institutions. They are not like a normal prosecutor who looks for a crime and then decides whether you have an individual attached to it. They are appointed to investigate individuals, in this case Karl Rove and Scooter Libby. Having spent all this time and money on this investigation, he has to have something to show for it. We are faced with the prospect of the president's closest advisor being indicted which will be catastrophic for the presidency.

GIGOT: It would be damaging, wouldn't it John?

FUND: Very much so and of course the White House is already in disarray on all these other issues that we've been talking about. I have to say though, if it happens, I think it will be one of the strangest stories ever in Washington because there is no underlying crime. Almost everyone agrees that the law that was investigated probably should not even have been investigated.

GIGOT: ... If it is such a difficult decision, if it is such a close call, then why would you make such a momentous decision to indict? You are really essentially torpedoing a second administration and you are doing potentially great damage to the ability of the government to function.

These are the same breed of assworms who warmed their pincers in delight as Bill Clinton was “torpedoed” over lying about consensual sex, and now view treason during wartime as something “routine”, and are shocked that anyone would proceed with indictments over what they consider small matters given the “great damage” it may do “to the ability of the government to function.”

See, I do get some things wrong.

Douchebags like these deserve no pity whatsoever.

...

Man, I sure could write once upon a time :-)