Colin Powell to leave Bush Adm. on 1/21/05

Max -- You misquoted Craven: "I fear that if Bush is re-elected there will eb a significant policy shirt to the right."

That's "**** to the right."

Hmmmmmmmmm, that's way I always ****

this bit of news isn't being verified by the administration.

Swamp Fever and Colin Powell
In addition to the following clues, you might consider the difference in the language and tone Bush used to defend Condi Rice at his recent news conference and the tepid language used to defend Powell.

---BumbleBeeBoogie
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Swamp Fever and Colin Powell
Chicago Tribune
Published August 6, 2003

Swamp fever strikes every summer in Washington, D.C., the pathology connected to a confluence of geography, weather and politics. It gets very hot and unbearably close, like living in a recently used fishing boot, so the blessed, the wealthy and the powerful rush away to the ocean resorts in Maryland and Delaware, or follow the president to broiling Texas for a "vacation." Those embittered victims who remain--journalists, bureaucrats, hopeless partisans, functionaries and the like--then fall prey to a virus that leads them to stir up trouble.

The fever currently swirls around Secretary of State Colin Powell. A key underling to Powell has informed White House National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice they aren't going to stick around for a second Bush administration, it has been reported by the Washington Post, which rigorously pursues such news in the steamy Potomac calm.

Well, doesn't that strike you as strange, to announce 17 months before the end of the first administration that you don't intend to stay for the second one? And who gains advantage from this kind of a rumor, anyhow?

There are some delicious clues in those questions.

The answer to the first is that no one announces they are going to leave office 17 months before the moving van arrives. "I'm leaving in a week. I'm leaving in a month. Two months, I'm history!" Those time frames are believable. But 17 months? No. The party invitations would positively dry up, first, and it would be hard to get even a benign despot to answer the phone of a secretary of state who is clearly Hollywood Squares-bound and so no longer a player.

Powell is too smart for that.

Someone else must have helped with this, which is where the other clue falls into place.

Here are some possibilities:

A. Someone who is intent on crafting a second Bush administration is trying to get rid of the single moderating force in the current Cabinet and set up the leak, knowing the fever opens everyone to all kinds of nonsense in August.

B. Someone who is worried that Powell has lost influence is trying to force President Bush to deliver the political equivalent of a wet kiss, "Oh, No, Colin, please don't go!" just to show everyone how happy they are with one another.

C. Someone who wants Powell's job is gabbing to the Washington Post, perhaps over fruity summer drinks and shrimp the size of bananas at a party, just to test ambient political conditions.

D. A mean-spirited ideologue has decided to use the presidential vacation and the knowledge that fevered Washington, like a bass on the nest, will take any bait in the summer just to give the secretary of state a whomping.

For the record, Powell has officially said, "Did not!" and so has the deputy mentioned in the rumor. A White House spokesman says the president thinks Powell is doing a great job and is quite welcome to stay on board. Both Powell and the deputy, Richard Armitage, zipped off to Texas Tuesday for dinner with President Bush, an event, the White House quickly noted, that has been planned for weeks.

But as sure as Howard Dean is headed for the presidency (Yes, there is swamp fever in New England, too, in the year before presidential elections) there will be more to say about Powell.

Until the fall or something else comes along.

The New York Times

Neocon Coup at the Department d'État
By MAUREEN DOWD


WASHINGTON

Let others fight over whether the war in Iraq was a neocon vigilante action disrupting diplomacy. The neocons have moved on to a vigilante action to occupy diplomacy.

The audacious ones have saddled up their pre-emptive steeds and headed off to force a regime change at Foggy Bottom.

President Bush staged a Texan tableau vivant last night, playing host at his ranch to the secretary of state, his wife, Alma, and his deputy, Richard Armitage. Mr. Bush wanted to show solidarity after a Washington Post story on Monday that said that Colin Powell, under pressure from his wife, said he would not be part of a second Bush term, nor would Mr. Armitage.

Mr. Bush might be trying to signal his respect for Mr. Powell, but the president is not always privy to the start of a grandiose neocon scheme.

The scene was reminiscent of last August in Crawford, when Mr. Bush dismissed press "churning" that the administration was on the verge of striking Iraq, saying, "When I say I'm a patient man, I mean I'm a patient man and that we will look at all options and we will consider all technologies available to us, and diplomacy and intelligence."

We all know how that turned out.

When the neocons want something done, they'll get it done, no matter what Mr. Bush thinks. And they think Mr. Powell has downgraded the top cabinet post into a human resources job, making nicey-nice with the U.N. and assorted bad guys instead of pursuing the neocon blueprint for world domination through what James Woolsey calls World War IV (World War III being the cold war.)

Countering the Post story, Mr. Powell's posse claimed that neither the secretary of state nor his deputy had ever said they intended to step down, and charged that the neocons were leaking a canard to turn the two men they consider lame doves into lame ducks.

"This is the revenge of the neocons for two months of bad news, looking like they're falling all over themselves in Iraq," said a Powell confidant, noting that Alma Powell was furious she had been dragged in.

In The Post, nearly all of the names of those who could move up if Mr. Powell moves out are Iraq hawks: Condi Rice, Paul Wolfowitz and Newt Gingrich were mentioned as candidates for secretary of state; Wolfie, Cheney Chief of Staff Scooter Libby and Condi deputy Steve Hadley, who may be radioactive after the uranium mistake, were mentioned for national security chief.

Mr. Wolfowitz has been tacitly campaigning for the jobs. He told Charlie Rose about his vice-regal trip to Iraq, where he said at last grateful Iraqis were thronging. "As we would drive by, little kids would run up to the road and give us a thumbs up sign," he said. (At least he thought it was the thumb.)

The move against the popular Powell had all the earmarks of the neocons' pre-emptive strike on Iraq.

1.) Demonize. Reiterating his speech trashing Foggy Bottom last April for propping up dictators and coddling the corrupt, Mr. Gingrich ?- a Rummy ally who serves on the Defense Policy Board ?- called for "top-to-bottom reform and culture shock" at State in an article in the July Foreign Policy magazine.

2.) Sex-up the intelligence. The leakers spread word that Mr. Armitage told Condi that he and Mr. Powell would leave on Jan. 21, 2005, the day after the next presidential inauguration. "Nonsense," said Mr. Powell. "Nonsense," said Mr. Armitage.

3.) Create a false rationale. Everyone knew the pair might not stay for a second term. But the neocons were impatient to give them a push, blaming poor Alma Powell for henpecking her husband when they were.

4.) Bring about regime change.

5.) Fail to prepare for the aftermath. "Newt as secretary of state?" sneered one Powell pal. "Hel-lo?"

6.) Make sure it's good for Ariel Sharon. Just as the neocons made their move on Mr. Powell, pro-Israel hawks scorned the secretary for not being on their team in the peace process. Israel's supporters scoffed at the new threat to cut loan guarantees as a State Department policy, not a White House policy.

7.) Ignore the real threat. While the neocons are preoccupying the country with Iraq and a coup at the department d'état, Al Qaeda may have blown up a Marriott in Indonesia and are plotting attacks here.

8.) Change the subject. Next stop, North Korea.


http://www.nytimes.com/2003/08/06/opinion/06DOWD.html

Ol' Maureen's got it right this time!!

Say, how about Wolfowitz? Perle? Why wait? Why can't Powell have a family emergency or something?

I think that this one is the real McCoy, no dowd. What a devious web they weave -

Maureen Dowd...the Liberals Anne Coulter?

God I long for the good old days when Presidents tape recorded their office conversations! Wouldn't you love to hear this crowd when no one is watching?!

Dowd like Coulter? No, Dowd is kind of normal looking, doesn't fling herself about in a kind of tortured, self-conscious fashion, doesn't seem to have to shout and talk over others. I saw Coulter once on the Bill Maher show and she seemed to be constantly twisting herself into tight, poise-challenged knots, interrupting, yelling, pointing.

Maureen Dowd isn't even liberal, much less comparable (in any way except they both write words) to that Fascist shrew Coulter.

They do both wear skirts.

Dowd isn't liberal?!? Whatever she, is I love her columns!

If Dowd's not liberal, someone should inform her immediately.

I'm certain she's aware.

Now, if she'll just fire her liberal ghostwriter...

Anybody who's been reading Dowd for more than a little while knows that her barbs go in all directions. She was a reporter before she became a columnist (and she gets read religiously, while Coulter has begun dying on the vine - mindful of the fact that she has to constantly promote herself).

But her speculation about Powell is interesting. When Powell goes, who's Bush got? The known names are not exactly well received, and so far all his unknown names have proven ineffective. I think Powell knows this, and right now it's kind of stalemate. And the way Afghanistan and iraq are developing - not good. BTW, has David Kay come up with any further revelations yet?

Mamaj is right about Dowd. She's an equal opportunity insulter and has disgusted us a number of times recently (and many of us have said so). But she's comfortable with herself and respects herself and has some depth of conviction. Coulter -- like Limbaugh -- screeches but never sounds convinced, just cornered. It's as though either could just as easily jump on another bandwagon.

I think you have been tainted by her politics and just don't like her because she doesn't agree with your image of the way things should be.

McG

Truly, that is not the complaint regarding Coulter. I could sit down with someone like Bill Buckley and have a very engaging and illuminating discussion on any number of subjects. That would not be so with Coulter. The differences between how these two engage in discourse, and the difference in WHY they might engage in it, are critical differences.