Gonzales perjury, Part 2

Ask and you shall receive. 

I don’t think this really surprised anyone.  Now the Bush Administration is on record admitting that there were intelligence programs working alongside the Terrorist Surveillance Program authorized by one of Bush’s executive orders after 9/11. 

The NSA wiretap scandal disclosed by James Risen of the NY Times back in December of 2005 and acknowledged by the Bush administration as the Terrorist Surveillance Program was just one of many other intelligence programs. 

Which fits.  Bush claimed that the TSP only monitored communications where at least one of the targets was a known member of Al Qaeda. 

The evidence, however, pointed to activities which far exceeded this limited scope.  Data-mining, secret agreements with telephone/wireless companies for access to all of their records, federal agents who worked undercover to infiltrate organizations considered to be politically antithetical to Bush Administration policies. 

When I posted about this the other day, I thought it was interesting that in order to save Gonzales’ butt from perjury charges, the Bush Administration would have to disclose at least the existence of other programs. 

Can the apologists continue to pretend that we’re not at the edge of something irrevocably and undeniably unconstitutional here? 

Secrecy and the CIA

I’ll give CIA director some props on this one. 

He got the headlines he was looking for.  The Bush administration has placed a premium on secrecy, in its operations overseas, in the way its policy is executed, and in its political operations. 

The Vice-President, who has been perfectly upfront about his agenda if not anything else, is now at the center of a controversy regarding the classification/declassification of intelligence (I’ll write more about this later). 

So from the classic Rovian playbook of political misdirection comes the news that (cue dramatic music) the CIA will be declassifying wacky misadventures from the cold war.  Except that, at least as far as I can tell, nothing but the details will be completely new.  The general events were already revealed in the 1970’s through crack investigative reporting and congressional investigations. 

So Bush “compromises” with a meaningless gesture, the talking heads get to proclaim a new era of openness, and pundits get to declare any further inquiry into the inner workings of the administration a partisan display of witch-huntery.  Meanwhile on all the important issues, the administration continues to obfuscate, delay, and obstruct.