Two-Faced Two-Step. Would President Bush's administration break the law and breach national security to keep the truth from being told? Perhaps. In a world where the ends justify the means, I could see how easily this could happen. One hopes, however, and perhaps I am being naive, that it has not.
A writer for The Nation (see the column here) says the Bush administration may have blown the cover of a CIA operative in order to punish the operative and her husband. The husband, Ambassador Joseph Wilson IV, went to Niger to run down the source of the now infamous Iraqi nuclear weapons program buy.
The Ambassador came back and indicated the report of the buy was probably not true. Of course, the Bush Administration already reeling from the lack of evidence pointing to weapons of mass destruction, did not look kindly on the report. And if you believe The Nation, decided to make sure no one else got the bright idea of telling the truth by outing the Ambassador's wife. Of course, no one is confirming or denying she works for the CIA but the Ambassador is quoted as saying:
Naming her this way would have compromised every operation, every relationship, every network with which she had been associated in her entire career. This is the stuff of Kim Philby and Aldrich Ames.
This story has more twists and turns than Mulholland Drive. But, as the saying goes in Washington, it has traction. And it is growing, regardless of these efforts to make it go away, or perhaps because of it.
Voo Doo Two. Let me tell you a secret: There is no free lunch. One wonders how much longer the Bush administration can last. I mean, how long can you continue to cut taxes while increasing spending but say, with a straight face, that the increasing deficit has nothing to do with this (see this article here on this and other Bush administration flim flam)? What part of Economics 101 did these people fail to understand? Cutting taxes and increasing spending works only in an expanding economy. One in which tax revenues are increasing through increased economic activity.
Note, and this is the critical point, the economy must already be expanding when you cut the taxes. If it is not, doing these things will guarantee deficits and no, cutting taxes will not lead to economic expansion so much as it will lead to greater deficits. Forget not the results of the Reagan administration's dalliance with this wrong-headed policy. Huge deficits. Inflation. Unemployment. Will we never learn?
Have a Great Weekend Everyone - Aloha!
