Plame Case -- History Revised

Two recent headlines regarding the self-serving testimony by Scott McClellan before John Conyer's congressional committee makes it very clear how low, shallow and mean-spirited the anti-Bush crowd can be. McClellan recently wrote a sensationalist book speculating about all sorts of things he really didn't know anything about and wasn't directly involved in. He wrote the book for one reason only: to make a pile of cash. He knew that writing scurrilous screeds against Bush is always very lucrative, even if nothing in them is true. Bush haters seem to have plenty of money. The headlines, both about the same event, illustrate succinctly how an author can twist and spin facts to match his own point of view.

The first: "McClellan: White House Hiding CIA Leak Info" plainly states as a fact that the "White House" (which most any average person would take to mean President Bush and Vice President Cheney) was "Hiding" the fact that they leaked Plame's name to Robert Novak in a vicious effort to punish Joe Wilson for his opposition to the war against Islamic Terrorism. The second: "Bush didn't know about CIA leak, McClellan says" makes no such assertion. It in fact says quite the opposite.

Both articles go on to say pretty much the same things however in their body. McClellan, who really was in no position to know what Rove or Cheney told Libby since he wasn't there and didn't ever ask, or bring his misgivings up with any senior White House official, nevertheless makes inflammatory assertions that Libby, Rove and Cheney leaked Plame's name to the press for nefarious reasons. Anybody, who doesn't have an axe to grind, has to now admit that Richard Armitage from the State Department was the leaker and the only leaker and that he did it deliberately for political, anti-Bush reasons. Libby was shamefully persecuted for purely political reasons even after that fact became known to the Special Prosecutor . The prosecutor was trying to poke a finger in Bush's eye and he didn't care how he did it. No leaks about Plame were ever given by Cheney, Libby, Rove or Bush! It didn't happen, but the leftists really wanted it to have happened so they just keep asserting that it did happen in a truly "Goebbelian" fashion.

Scooter was convicted of not remembering when he told, or what he told the late Tim Russert about the matter. He was never accused by the prosecutor of actually leaking anything because he didn't leak anything, nor did Cheney, nor did Rove. If they had, they would have been charged in a heartbeat. This whole political witch hunt is a giant embarrassment for all patriotic, clear-thinking Americans. Bush hating congressmen, news reporters and headline writers can make gratuitous assertions all they want that is was really Cheney, Rove or Bush who leaked Plame's name, but it still won't be true. However, the fact that it's not true doesn't seem to matter. They are all about revising history so the perception that it is true is at the forefront. And the saddest thing is that they seem to be able to get away with it.

Let me try my hand at yellow journalism headline writing: Russert Asserts Libby Was Involved in Plame Affair -- Now Dead!

It's Not the End of the World

To listen to the MSM yammer on and on about the state of the economy, one would think we are immeshed in the biggest economic depression in history. What we really have now is an economic downturn. Last quarter's .6% growth came as a great disappointment to those who are counting on a real recession to get Obama in office in November. They, of course, are embarked on all this recession talk to bolster the chances of their chosen candidate Barack Obama who has made talk of a recession a part of his campaign. Of course if these doom sayers can convince enough squishy voters that we are truly in recession, they might just vote for Obama and his tax raising economics. That would really send our economy into a tailspin and result in the very recession they are trying to scare us about. Most certainly they would then blame it all on Bush and Cheney. It's a convenient paradigm: if anything bad happens, blame it on Bush. So far it has worked for them.

Of course, the classic deffinition of recession is two consecutive quarters of decline in the Gross Domestic Product. This hasn't happened since 1990/1991. That was the Bill Clinton recession. Now the left-wingers are trying to claim that a recession doesn't have to have two quarters of negative growth. It seems that a recession is whenever they say there is one and we'd just better trust them. Essentially, a recession is whenever there is a Republican in the White House.

While nobody likes higher gas prices and other economics woes, we need to reign in our fears somewhat. One aspect of the current slow- down in the economy that impacts every consumer is the price of gasoline. There are reports of people canceling their vacations due the high prices. However just a little math can help people keep things in proper perspective. The average price of gasoline in May of 2007 was $3.20. In May of 2008 it rose to $3.90. The $.70 rise seems like a lot, but if you are an average driver getting 25 miles per gallon and driving 15,000 miles per year, your actual out of pocket cost has gone up by about $35 per month, or roughly $1.15 per day. Would an extra dollar and fifteen cents a day dissuade any self-respecting vacationer? Doubtful if they understand the reality, but the insistent, unremitting, negative drum beat from the mainstream media who are trying to elect their guy by scaring everybody, don't care about facts. And that's a shame. because it not only hurts the families who don't get to make memories while vacationing. It also hurts all the businesses who rely on those travelers. Think about that the next time Obama tells you how bad things are.