Would Obama Issue First Veto to Protect Anthrax Whitewash?
Bloomberg is reporting that Office of Management and Budget head Peter Orszag has told the intelligence committees Obama will veto the intelligence authorization because–among other reasons–it calls for re-examining the FBI’s conspiracy theory-as-investigation summary finding that Bruce Ivins acted alone. (h/t fatster)
President Barack Obama probably would veto legislation authorizing the next budget for U.S. intelligence agencies if it calls for a new investigation into the 2001 anthrax attacks, an administration official said.A proposed probe by the intelligence agencies’ inspector general “would undermine public confidence” in an FBI probe of the attacks “and unfairly cast doubt on its conclusions,” Peter Orszag, director of the Office of Management and Budget, wrote in a letter to leaders of the House and Senate Intelligence committees.
Whaa???
To sustain its claim that Ivins, rather than an accomplice, mailed the anthrax from Princeton, FBI engaged in addled speculation worthy of the Kennedy assassination. And now Obama is worried about “public confidence” in those addled speculations?
And shouldn’t there be an investigation of the investigation, at the least, because of the way FBI botched the investigation and framed Steven Hatfill?
If the investigation can’t bear any scrutiny, then I’d say there’s probably a good reason, and therefore a good reason to do an Inspector General investigation.
But I guess the President who advocates transparency is against that.
RawStory has a good summary of both this issue and the other targets of Obama’s veto threat: Congressional notification and GAO oversight of intelligence.
I guess that hopey-changey thing about the most open administration in history is no longer in operation.
Sigh.
On further reflection, maybe Obama is just throwing some work toward Sunstein’s new operation of infiltrating conspiracy theory groups. Quashing further investigation of Amerithrax will generate many more new theories…
Problem is most of those conspiracy theorists are going to be pretty respectable biologists. You folks don’t generally take to conspiracy very easily…
“Problem is most of those conspiracy theorists are going to be pretty respectable biologists.”
Until he opened his mouth, Steven Jones was a respected physicist. I’d give said respectable biologists a week before they join him.
Meanwhile, this just went up on the WH blog:
Absolutely shameless lying.
From the bottom of that post:
Is that a part-time position?
Eisen is a co-founder of Melanie Sloan’s CREW. Melanie’s husband is a former Irak War “Spook”. He works for SAIC, perhaps for some covert ops. He has publicly promoted assassinations. SAIC produced much Irak War cognitive infiltration and promoted Chalabi for Irak Dictator. It takes a small village to teach us about ethics.
The always timely aspect of irony….Never too early, never too late.
Transparent like the dark side of the moon!
No irony detector in the WH.
At least someone there has a good sense of irony.
In between this news and the news of the FOIA blocking being higher than The Shrub’s final year, these are more ugly signs that contradict that “Most transparent Administration ever” line.
Gosh. Golly. Gee-whiz.
Who could have imagined that Obama’s brief was to institute the Sunstein Doctrine, to cover “everything unpleasant” up, give even more money to the obscenely wealthy corporate constituency, and to pull the wool over everybody’s eyes.
Way to go! Barack. Hopey-changey wangery we can all believey-weavey in.
Pathetic Pathologies Preeminently Persist.
(P-P-P-Perfect!!)
(Remember Barack, “Don’t let the perfect become the enema of the good …”)
DW
Love it.
Always look forward, never backward. Don’t you fucking people get it?
My theory: The Kennedy magic bullet actually killed Ivins as well, and they don’t want that info to get out.
As I have said, “having a rethug in the WH now would be worse how?” Yes, I am a conspiracy theorist; it is just that some conspiracies are less well hidden than others. I know that that gets most people upset and calling me names, but connecting the dots can be done without knowing the exact details.
Everything you need to know about the anthrax attacks:
The anthrax attacks were planned in parallel with the Eleventh of September attacks.
In other words, there was either an amazing timing coincidence — either the hijackings and anthrax mailings just happened to occur at the same time — or members of the U.S. military-intelligence complex were active participants in both attacks.
The latter is correct, of course.
You see Obama’s problem? To investigate the anthrax attacks is to investigate the Eleventh of September. They’re the same thing.
We’ll have none of that.
Your evidence is so compelling.
That’s the FBI’s evidence. The evidence they’re no longer allowed to talk about.
They admitted that the Eleventh of September attacks and the anthrax attacks were coordinated. In parallel, not copycat. Why not believe them?
Who are “they” and what the hell are you talking about? What hard evidence are you or “they” basing that on? You are pitching crap.
THEY are top-level officials of the so-called intelligence and justice departments. The first anthrax letter was mailed a week after the Eleventh of September. This made it obvious to even government officials that there must have been an overlap in planning — a parallel.
Before George Tenet was thoroughly exposed as a fraud and a traitor, he said this:
… The most startling revelation from this intelligence success story was that the anthrax program had been developed in parallel to 9/11 planning. As best as we could determine, al-Zawahiri’s project had been wrapped up in the summer of 2001, when the al-Qaida deputy, along with Hambali, were briefed over a week by Sufaat on the progress he had made to isolate anthrax….
Tenet lied for a reason. He knew the timing told the story. But after he lost control of the story, he and his allies abandoned reality. They no longer talk about the timing because it directly links U.S. military-intelligence interests to al-Qaeda. We’re still living in abandonment.
This is bunk.
Ah, finestkind BS. The first resort of everyone who wants someone else to blame for their problems.
Wait a minute. Are you saying there was something funky about the Kennedy assassination?
Oh no, not at all. I’m just saying that if it becomes common knowledge that such effective ordnance as the magic bullet is available, everybody will want some.
Teddy Kennedy was assassinated? *g*
EW, your headline is strictly rhetorical I assume…
Sorry for being so scarce of late. I will continue to be for awhile, but I’ve been keeping up with the posts (not the threads) as best I can. This one though, I couldn’t help but take a minute to share my complete disgust with Obama and the Dishonestcrats. The only group of people more contemptible than the majority party is the minority party, so where does that leave us now?
God bless the ACLU, but I worry that not even the Article 3 branch can save us now.
Ok, rant over. Keep up the good work EW : )
Hurry back, phred, you are missed.
Thanks EW! Can’t tell you how much I’ve missed the OPR Report, er, festivities isn’t quite right, follies maybe? Well, you know what I mean… Oh well, I should be back in about a month… Gotta scoot for now though…
Ditto EW’s comment @ 43!
phred!
Is that you?
(“Seems like every time we see you … you got something else to do”, so I’m
” … campaign shoutin’ like a Southern diplomat …”, for truth …)
You are truly missed …
DW
Geez guys and gals, how many times does he have to say he is looking forward to progress, not looking back to punish anyone who might have done anything wrong. I am sooooo glad I robbed 30 banks during the Bush era. Now I am immune to prosecution. Lucky Me!
Careful, friend. The “looking forward” rule only applies to big people. How big are you?
and to sinestar @14
Look forward/forget what happened meet Senator Kaufman- or- another ‘strongly worded’ speech?:
“Sen. Ted Kaufman (D-DE) To Deliver 2nd Major Senate Speech: “The Rule of Law and Wall Street “”
Via Impishparrot @ TPMCAFE LINK:
http://tpmcafe.talkingpointsmemo.com/talk/blogs/a/m/amanda_lang/2010/03/sen-ted-kaufman-d-de-to-delive.php?ref=reccafe
From the text of Senator Kaufman’s speech:
Source of the text of Senator Kaufman’s speech- his website LINK:
http://kaufman.senate.gov/press/statements/statement/?id=DE804DBB-6DC3-4537-8C5D-81496714ED73
An adjacent posting on Senator Kaufman’s website:
“”At Lehman, Watchdogs Saw It All” Source: New York Times – Dealbook blog
By ANDREW ROSS SORKIN ”
An excerpt (it’s Timmeh Geithner!):
LINK to the above original:
http://dealbook.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/03/16/at-lehman-watchdogs-saw-it-all/
Yeah, I’ve been a lawyer for 25 years, and I can tell you that we’ve always had differential justice, but the accelerating blatancy of it fills me with rage and frustration, and to come right out and say “forward not backward” is an explicit statement that the court system, which ALWAYS looks backward, will no longer be applied to any but the little people.
This is the stuff of which revolutions are made, once the people really start paying attention.
I racked up a big student loan debt during the Bush years.
But that was in the past. Now I’m just going to look forward and not dwell in the past.
Hey, you’re right! All of the debt I collected in the Bush years shouldn’t count anymore, right? After all, aren’t we moving forward now? And since I haven’t racked up any debt in the Obama time, that should make it okay, shouldn’t it? After all, the Bushies get a pass because they are no longer torturing people or, (they say), wiretapping people illegally. What’s the difference between their sins and mine, (except of course mine were about money while theirs were war crimes and unConstitutional surveillance of United States citizens)?
The more things change the more they stay the same. Apres l’Obama le deluge.
Would Obama Issue First Veto to Protect Anthrax Whitewash?
Last year at this time I would have responded with a qualified “no” but now I would have to say almost certainly. What a difference a year makes. When he said change (we) could believe in, who knew he was talking about the drapes in the White House?
Or underwear.
Considering the smell emanating from the Oval Office these days, I’m not even sure that change has been accomplished.
Offal Office?
Bob in AZ
Hell, Obama would veto the health care legislation if it included a public option. Has to honor his back room deals.
They’d have to do better than just look for an assistant/accomplice for Ivins; they’d have to actually explain how he *could* have made the mailed anthrax spores, because my understanding is that they were significantly different physically and chemically from what Ivins could have produced in his lab, no matter how late he stayed.
And facing that means facing a range of other problems.
I can’t help thinking about “Dewey” Clarridge’s email that cropped up two threads back, practically advocating a ‘nasty’ civil war, then thinking about who might have been able to manufacture the mailed spores and chosen to send them to those particular recipients. A suspicious mind might wonder whether someone has told President Obama that if he permits that topic to be investigated properly, he *will* have a civil war on his hands and a lot of deaths in government. I mean, really, do we appreciate how ‘nasty’ some of the hidden actors truly are?
I’m leaving the anthrax debunking to Jim White, and I’m focusing on the Princeton puzzle.
Division of labor and all that.
Yeah; I know I get repetitious with that spore-prep theme, but whenever I imagine what standard equipment Ivins probably had available to him and compare it to the descriptions of the mailed preps, then judge that against my own experience with webby fluff on the insides of round glass flasks, my brain just goes “fzzzt”. Don’t mean to take up bandwidth …
If you look at the diary I linked above and the ones to which it links, you’ll see that although there are a lot of conflicting opinions out there, I come down on the side of believing the spores had no special treatment other than being remarkably pure, which is something Ivins achieved in his RMR-1029 prep. This is based on the published opinions of scientists I respect who claim to have examined the spores from one of the envelopes. What Ivins could not have achieved is producing enough spores on his own to account for how many were mailed. That’s where other facilities have to come into the picture and where the FBI has utterly failed in its burden of proof.
I’m reacting to the impression I get that the spores were physically unattached to their neighbors. The standard methods for freezedrying when I was a kid involved shell-freezing a liquid on the inside of a (rotated) glass flask, then attaching it to a vacuum. The result was always a fluff, not a powder, and it’s just hard for me to imagine how to get from fluff to uniform micron-sized particles (individual spores). I can imagine a technique in which an aerosol bearing spores is sprayed into a sub-zero vacuum, resulting in dry, separate spores, but that would be an entirely different beast and not a part of a standard micro lab setup. It’s not so much the _amount_ of the spores that gets me; it’s the nature of the prep itself.
Change you can believe in.
You can spin all kinds of conspiracy theories with this. I’m going to stick with my original thought, I guess.
The problem the government has primarily is “Where did the anthrax in question come from?”. They’ve accepted an obviously flawed theory. I think there’s an undeclared bioweapons lab out there that contained both the source, the equiptment, and the villian.
Boxturtle (and that’s why I think the congresssheep will support ObamaCo)
… great minds …
Reports to the OVP, it’s in the constitutional footnotes.
I believe I’ve discovered the name of the lab director for that undeclared lab…has anybody heard of a Dr. Grassley Noll?
Boxturtle (He has a wife named Ruby…?)
Dr. Grassley Noll, now a senator and using his maiden name, is from Iowa. Ames is in Iowa. QED
ps. I only moved here recently; please don’t hurt me
Oh, I don’t think it’s even completely undeclared. In this diary, I pointed to a facility that would have been capable of producing a batch of spores just the right size for the attacks. And Judy Miller was even used to throw up a little chaff around the facility on September 4, 2001. I’d put a fair amount of money on that facility being the one. The equipment’s there, the facility had access to Ivins’ RMR-1029 and to strains of B. subtilis that would be good candidates for the contaminant found in some mailings and you can bet that Cheney’s team had access.
I’m sorry I missed that diary when if first posted, most interesting. Dugway would fit.
*takes off tinfoil hat*
But Dugway is exposed. There’d be no reason to protect that secret, if the Russians were going to get ticked they’d have already done so. Yet still the coverup. There’s another facility out there.
Boxturtle (In the old days, the mafia would have run it for us. Today, maybe Xe?)
Dear Turtle;
I thought we was referring to “them” as:
“Bu$h Co.”
&
“Obama Inc.”
However, it am very possumable that there is considerable cognitive dissonance regarding this contentious issue and I am, to be honest, quite uncertain as to the Proper Official Sunstein Historic Designation.
If you, Turtle, have more complete information regarding the appropriate address of the respective emperors preferences or proclivities (from an apparently utter lack of connected curiosity to a curious lack of apparent connection) please, do not be bashful about sharing your insights.
The “best of neo-liberalism” from both “sides”, is the all that I can manage, looking forward on the straight and narrow, in the “In God We Trusts” kind of way that pambly nambly and facto ipso, is the course clearly charted for us by the unseen ham or whoever it is (in heck or heaven) who decides these kind of things.
“Co.” or”COMPANY”just sounds so … Bu$h …
While “INCORPORATED” or “INC.” is ultra sophisticated and multi-dimensionally Obamaesque … “Ve Ri Tas” (and so forth and so on).
Yours, in continuing perplexity …
DW
I’m thinking Obama LLC. The limited liability part sure fits in with their corporate philosophy. But ObamaCo works because frankly I’m not seeing that much difference from BushCo in any area where it matters.
Boxturtle (I think Rahm channels Rasputin)
Limited Liability … yes. The Obama corporate world view … (applies to all government attorneys as well). There is NO connection between actions and consequences, unless there is, but that only applies to those who lie outside the political and corporate cla$$es. Lying, within those classes, is a Gawd given and divine right.
Wait a minute, now Turtle, isn’t “DIFFERENCE” what it is ALL supposed to be about? “Dis heah weevil, is da lesser weevil, but dat just make ‘im da BETTER weevil, ‘cuz dat utter weevil … is da bad weevil … da evilest most-nasty weevil, evah … you betcha!
Isn’t dat whut all da partyin’ and lobby-lovin’ campaign war-chest-thumpin’ is about?
But, howsome-ever, and anyhow, it do appear that “difference” is all ’bout packaging, whether it is Rahmed or Roved into everyone’s consciousness. B’cuz the contents do seem, always, ta be da same, more or less.
And frankly, I can’t stand to listen to either Bu$h OR Obama. Their voices are both equally “believable” and both politicians, from all appearances, have the same deep regard for the well-being of the people … a keen love of the truth of things, and an innate sense of social justice … (okay … the entertainment porpoises are holding up the SNARK cards and making derisive hoots about “Nuance!” and “Subtle Irony …” hinting in their own most-gentle way that sarcasm is lost on The Powers That Be Too Damned Big fer their Britches while claiming to be entirely above the quaint and obviously simplistic notion of the rule of law).
I ain’t disputin’ yer Rasputin channellin’ Rhamapithecussin’ us assertion neither, BTW.
DW
That’s a super diary for anyone who didn’t see it when it first went up and can click through it now.
@50 – well, if you guys really want to recognize the slickerthansnot-ness of Obama’s efforts, you’d have to go with LLP, a limited liability partnership – since he is all bipartisany with the Republican torturers too. Actually, with it all in The Family (the Executive torture and assassination and assorted felonies family) you could justify using the FLP reference, Family limited liability partnership – often referred to as a flip.
It has the advantage of being able to be structered with a Gen Partner that is an “inc.” and ends up a lot like those nesting Russian dolls – a coproration inside a patnership inside what sould be an llc but is called an llp inside a vehicle that is set up mostly to protect the family rather than the conduct of legitimate business
ObamaFLP doesn’t roll as easily off the tongue, though.
I think there’s an undeclared bioweapons lab out there that contained both the source, the equiptment, and the villian.
That’s a much more rational theory than the obvious and bald faced lies they tried to feed us. It’s almost as transparently bad as the remorseful gay sailor (Clayton Hartwig) theory the Navy still stands behind as the official explanation of the gun turret of Iowa blowing up. To this day, the Navy has yet to acknowledge or apologize for the grief they caused his family.
Obviously the Admin would not want to re-open this closed case.
Quid pro quo said the FBI. You re-open the investigation, we blow the lid off the birth certificate. You choose.
(no, of course I’m not serious)
Well, what with some of the other comments that I had been reading in this thread, I did have to do a double take before I realized it was you and a joke….
LOL. When you find yourself in the rabbit hole, it’s best to learn to speak rabbitholese,
Looks like ew’s liquor cabinet isn’t the only one bmaz has had access to…
http://bit.ly/cxPCuL
Arizona Town Opens Time Capsule, Can’t Find Brandy
I don’t think bmaz is a big brandy drinker.
Now if the tequila were missing…
Hmmmm, burb!
This isn’t change I can believe in; it’s bullshit I can’t believe.
Hey EW, which of your posts do you think best addresses the Princton puzzle side?
transparency “would undermine public confidence” in an FBI probe of the attacks “and unfairly cast doubt on its conclusions,” …
hmmm.
during our probe we broke the law because we faced a crisis. In hindsight you will find what we did was illegal and if that were to come to light it would undermine the confidence the American people have in the FBI.
We are good Americans … what we did was what we thought was correct at the time … we faced a crisis … the ends justifies the means …
and besides … since when are you the American people allowed to have a memory … we need to look forward … we do not go back and investigate with the intent to prosecute illegal actions taken by the government of the USA.
maybe I am reading too much into this … as I am a kook.
Oh, I see, you think there is so much confidence in the conclusions of the FBI probe now Peter? Sorry Peter, you do not do risk communications very well at all. So what firm did your media training Peter? Piece of advice, do not hire them again.
Don’t sell Orszag short; he looks like a doofus and scores with chicks like Tiger Woods. On a government salary. The guy has skilz.
Tiger Woods is a chick? This puts a whole new light on that story.
Was that a misplaced metaphor or a dangling modifier?
Yeah, well, I didn’t mention to Peter that the WH blog had BETTER media training when it came to snark.
The Sunshine Week…Jeebus!
Gosh, I hope a writer from SNL is reading here for Seth’s news skit this week.
Maybe there is a little bit more to Obama’s stint at Business International Corporation than people would like to think. And/or he just loooves Dick Cheney. Gotta do whatever he can to keep them free to rip him to shreds in the press.
FBI is an internationally involved agency now; may be a problem O-co wish to avoid (for the nonce or until after second term ends); Mueller is going to face replacement or renomination sometime in the near future, I imagine, as well. I see the new global responsibilities of Fbi as analog of the problem with stateless theocratic gangs, and the quaint 1949 Geneva accords which were crafted in a time when nationstatism was trying to normalize after philosophoreligioethinic strife. O-co bureaucratic inertia in the Fbi investigation of anthrax may be the best Oira has to offer, given their thesis that conflict resolution is a genuine compromise effort, and O-co probably feel they owe it to Fbi to let Fbi cash a few chips from the torture grotesquerie. I think robotic war is another problematic theme O-co is mulling; and it jibes with the all volunteer plus mercenary military. Policy matters a lot more when universal conscription no longer is infusing centrism into the armadas* leadership. It all looks like a set of interesting challenges for Obama, given his prior work. I think the international press also has reported some copycat powder scares. One of the facets I have not studied much is an equally anathema topic for politicians in these times of pressure on 1A, 4A; the early Bushco discussions of smartmail. Not that a gwb43 outfit would care much for the electroinic equivalent of nearrealtime traceability. There are many globalization effects in multiple spheres in current times. At a minimum, O-co wants to see what governance is like February 2011. There may be some of those pesky judgeship nominations in store, as well. OT, rhetorically, how about a recess appointment to Scotus? I can relate to some of the efforts at Department of the Interior, in times such as these; salt of the earth. Also widely mostly OT, Jeff Stein has reviewed a book (SHarris) which praises TIA and says Nsa has taken teh program*s reins, just without TIA*s **safeguards**.
Candidate Obama: Yes, we can.
President Obama: No, we can’t.
OBama went from progressive liberal reformer to corporatist imperialist the day he became President. When the Gang of Three (Reid, Pelosi, Obama) says in unison “we don’t have the votes” (for the Public Option), what they are really saying is “we don’t want to have the votes.” We have had a corporate imperialist government for the last 29 years under Reagan, Bush I, Clinton, Bush II and Obama. Demo branch or Repub branch, its all part of the Great Imperial Corporatist Party.
Shout out to EW from Glenn Greenwald (links omitted, emphasis mine):
Orzag: We believe that having an impartial magistrate (bar association committee) review the Executive branch’s assertions (memos) for probable cause (compliance with adherence to the Code of Professional Conduct) and allowing the magistrate to issue a warrant (bar association to take action) would undermine the public’s confidence in the Executive branch and would unfairly, by making the Executive branch have the burden of showing probable cause (by making the lawyers liable for their misconduct) cast doubt on their determinations.
Shorter Obamaflp: I mean, read that Fourth Amendment thingy – it says the nation will burn in hell if the Executive has to first explain its decisions to search and seize. I know – I taught Con Law.
You know, here’s one more curious detail.
This was supposed to be an intell IG report: CIA or DNI, presumably.
Not FBI.
WTF is up with that? I know Glenn Fine causes them all matter of headache. But they only oppose Fine doing the work bc he’s good at what he does. And they won’t even allow an intell IG investigation?
Sounds like a post topic.
Is this undermining confidence in the FBI or underming confidence in the Executive Branch. They need to decide which. Who is this Orzag. He seems very neo-conny. Many FBI investigations have been shut down by their corporatist superiors in the executive branch.
Perfectly Orwellian turn of phrase, that. It is the incompetent or intentionally botched anthrax investigation and what the administration hopes to hide because of it that undermines confidence in it and the FBI, not legitimate oversight or self-inquiry into government failings.
Honestly, this administration is still arguing to keep Captain Dreyfus in Devil’s Island rather than admit their and their predecessor’s blunders, crimes and the injustices used to hide them. Thank you, EW, our Ms. Zola.
I would forward the following links to the President, to OMB and Congressional committees:
http://seminal.firedoglake.com/diary/30737
http://seminal.firedoglake.com/diary/31691
http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2009/03/04/anthrax/index.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%253A+salon%252Fgreenwald+%28Glenn+Greenwald%29
http://emptywheel.firedoglake.com/timeline-collection/anthrax-investigation-timeline/
Let them know this veto threat response is no “Sunshine”.
my~OT@63, link to JeffStein book review March 7, 2010, re TIA.
Thank you – I meant to ask you for that.
O/T: Whatever works, I guess.
GAO blocks contract to firm formerly known as Blackwater to train Afghan police
And not for the reason you’d expect. Instead,
“Federal auditors on Monday put a stop to Army plans to award a $1 billion training program for Afghan police officers to the company formerly known as Blackwater, concluding that other companies were unfairly excluded from bidding on the job.”
LINK.
You can never trust a people pleaser…made out of the same cloth, same compulsive problems as an addict…
I am sorry, but the people pleaser does what is perceived as “nice” instead of what is right. Obama has the same exact disease as Bush…Same grandiosity (“I am above the rule of law”, “I know what is right for the country despite the laws”), same self centeredness, same cognitive distortion about personalities vs. principles. We aren’t following principles we are being lead by personalities.
Ugh…watch it all fall down.
It’s not just the anthrax. Vetoing the whole Intelligence Authorization bill because of concerns about too much transparency and oversight of the Executive. It’s so reminiscent of Bush.
If only someone would call his bluff and say “fine! It’s vetoed.” At this point, I’d feel safer with no intelligence at all than with what now passes for it.