Wednesday, January 18, 2006

White House: Your ignorance is our bliss.


The White House continues to hide from the American people. Secrecy is the name of their game. What we don't know, we can't protest. Our ignorance is bliss, indeed, if you operate above the law.

Spy on Americans without court approval--that way, they have no way of even knowing their rights are being abused, much less protesting the same. It's Rovian business as usual: lie, deceive, hide, distract, blame someone else, and continue to do whatever the heck you llke--BushCo in a nutshell.

The President's recent assertion that he does not know Abramoff personally is CocaCola-coming-out-of-your-nose-hysterically-funny, at best. As one of BushCo's top fundraisers, it is inconceivable that the two have not met...much less schmoozed.

Now we are told of meetings between Abramoff and White House staff, the details of which will not be revealed. Rather, presidential spokesman Scott McClennan tells us we should "be assured that the White House is not for sale." Chalk that up as just another White House statement contending for the "Biggest Joke of the Year" award.

Abramoff "brought in at least $100,000 for the Bush-Cheney '04 re-election campaign.... The campaign took $6,000 of the contributions -- which came directly from Abramoff, his wife and one of the Indian tribes he represented -- and donated it to the American Heart Association. But the campaign has not returned the rest of the money Abramoff raised."

Reassuring, isn't it?

FLASH! THIS JUST IN: Bush and Abramoff—Say Cheese?

According ti Kim Eisler of the Washingtonian, White House press secretary Scott McClennah has admitted that "the White House has been on a search mission for any photos showing President Bush with toxic lobbyist Jack Abramoff, who is cooperating with the Justice Department on its investigation of a wide-ranging lobbying scandal.

"At a press conference, McClellan said if there were pictures, which officials hadn’t found, they might have been taken at a Christmas-party line, where the President poses with hundreds of people. “The President does not know him, nor does the President recall ever meeting him,” McClellan said.

The comment about searching raised images in the press room of a “White House plumbers” operation looking for incriminating photos.

If the White House can’t find the photos, prosecutors already know where to look. The Washingtonian has seen five photos of the President with Abramoff or his family. One photo shows the President and Abramoff shaking hands at a meeting in the Old Executive Office Building, where a bearded-Abramoff introduced Bush to several of the lobbyist’s native-American clients.

[...]

Sources say the photographs are being kept safe. Abramoff would tell prosecutors, if asked, that not only did he know the President, but the President knew the names of Abramoff’s children and asked about them during their meetings. At one such photo session, Bush discussed the fact that both he and Abramoff were fathers of twins."

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