Ten Stages of a Bush Scandal (The unfolding of the NSA story)

[Unmarked Poster]

From Salon's Daou Report:

http://daoureport.salon.com/synopsis.aspx?synopsisId=c7a6261b-ca97-4bd2-a4a0-655d131080f3

"NSA REDUX: Ten Stages of a Bush Scandal - In light of the NSA hearings, I'm reposting - with updates - my December 20th piece on the unfolding of the warrantless spying scandal. Written 72 hours after the story broke, the objective of the post was to illustrate the transparency of the Bush damage control process and to counter what I believed was unwarranted (no pun intended) optimism among many Bush opponents that this was the "big one" and that the administration would suffer the consequences of an audacious power grab. Stages 1 through 9 have unfolded with the same numbing consistency as previous Bush scandals. The coming days will tell if #10 accurately anticipates the story's denouement...

<snip>

"Not surprisingly, the main strategy the White House has settled on is to politicize the issue as Bush=strong, Dems=weak. The political calculus is that the mere discussion of terrorism helps Bush politically, something that leading Democrats and Democratic 'strategists' buy hook, line and sinker. No matter that Bush has presided over the worst ever attack on American soil, launched a failed war in Iraq, started a so-called "march of freedom" that has installed hardline Islamic regimes across the Mideast, stretched the military to the breaking point, let bin Laden and Zawahri spit in our faces every few months for the past four years, allowed the threat from North Korea and Iran to fester, and created a laughing-stock color-coded system to alert Americans to a threat he's obviously incapable of handling (in light of the disastrous federal response to Katrina)."

<snip>

"A few reliable Dems, Conyers, Boxer, et al, take a stand on principle, giving momentary hope to the progressive grassroots/netroots community. The rest of the Dem leadership is temporarily outraged (adding to that hope), but is chronically incapable of maintaining the sense of high indignation and focus required to reach critical mass and create a wholesale shift in public opinion. For example, just as this mother of all scandals hits Washington, Democrats are still putting out press releases on Iraq, ANWR and a range of other topics, diluting the story and signaling that they have little intention of following through. This allows Bush to use his three favorite weapons: time, America's political apathy, and make-believe 'journalists' who yuck it up with him and ask fluff questions at his frat-boy pressers.

Update: True to form, Democrats missed the political equivalent of the medical "golden hour," that initial opportunity to create a political firestorm and turn the controversy into a crisis. Not to say that there haven't been other opportunities to revive the issue: imagine a fiery SOTU response from a Democrat like Jack Murtha focusing almost entirely on Bush's law-breaking instead of the inoffensive, focus-grouped response from Tim Kaine."

[GreenPartyVoter]

1. Thanks!

[Unmarked Poster]

3. You're welcome GreenPartyVoter

.

[Jackpine Radical]

2. So they all play their little roles, including Conyers, etc.

as they de-fuze the bombshells. Conyers helps to give the rage a focus and thereby dissipates it more effectively, kind of like a grounded lightning rod. Now you know why not a single senator stood with the black caucus. It wasn't in the script.