POP QUIZ - White House Ethics...
HEADLINE FLASHBACK: Nov. 05, 2005
"President Bush has ordered White House staff to attend mandatory briefings beginning next week on ethical behavior and the handling of classified material after the indictment last week of a senior administration official in the CIA leak probe.
According to a memo sent to aides yesterday, Bush expects all White House staff to adhere to the "spirit as well as the letter" of all ethics laws and rules.
As a result, "the White House counsel's office will conduct a series of presentations next week that will provide refresher lectures on general ethics rules, including the rules of governing the protection of classified information," according to the memo, a copy of which was provided to The Washington Post by a senior White House aide.
To be fair and balanced Fox News reported on it as well, dutifully quoting Scott "Truthfully Challenged" McClellan...
"The president directed that action be taken to provide refresher briefings for all White House staff, that includes staff within the White House as well as staff within the Executive Office of the President." White House spokesman Scott McClellan said Tuesday.
McClellan said the first week's discussion will focus on "classified information and the proper handling of classified national security information, how that material is classified, by whom, for how long, who has access to it, how the material is declassified, you know, the badges that people wear to show their security clearances and so forth."
A memo went out last week to the more than 3,000 White House staffers announcing the sessions. The classes are being conducted by the White House counsel's office. (My friend Harriet!)
"Your attendance at one of these sessions is mandatory. Please attend the briefing that corresponds with the first letter of your last name. The counsel's office will ask office leaders to ensure that each of their employees has signed up to attend a session. There will be no exceptions."
EXCEPTION: Neither President Bush nor Vice President Dick Cheney will attend the sessions with McClellan hinting that neither of them consider themselves 'employees' and we know as former Boy Scouts they adhere to a much stricter Code of Ethics.
posted by Patrick J. Fitzgerald at 4/07/2006
52 Comments:
Seems a little late for this Administration to start talking about ethics. As the walls keep tumbling down around them there will be no place left to hide. A drastic change is on the horizon, and each day it looks more possible for the Democrats to take over the House and the Senate. Thanks Fitz, for all you are doing for a New Tomorrow!
Your as good as your leadership. No matter what you learn if your leaders have no ethics that will flow to the rest of the staff. This is whats happening in the White House. The ethic class was a front for all the corruption. As we see today everything is back to normal ethics means nothing just lie and steal is the new policy of the Bush Administration.
The same PR stunt was used right after Libby resigned in 2005.
okay right read the date...your being sarcastic again.
I agree with Harry Taylor..Bush should look inside himself and feel ashamed of the shame he has brought on the office of the POTUS.
Bush and Cheney--Boy Scouts?? Bwak!!
E.,
I posted this earlier and there's no better write I know of the workings of the Bush mind and ego. Win at all costs has no shame.
http://gailsheehy.com/Politics/polimain_bush3.html
He was a funny guy in church too...
...to a religious lecture series given by Christian author and broadcaster James Dobson. But Bush refused to behave himself. "Laura would be sitting next to George, and George would come around to sit next to me" so the two could crack jokes, says Jones.
"What kind of pants did the Levites wear?" Bush would whisper.
When the pastor asked, "What is a prophet?" Bush sang out in front of the 40 couples, "That is when revenues exceed expenditures. No one's seen that out here in years."
In 1985, Don Evans urged Bush to join a new kind of men's group—a franchised Community Bible Study program for men, a precursor to the Promise Keepers. "That was a very pivotal time for George," Laura Bush has said. "For the first time [these men] weren't just spending their time sitting around, kicking back with hamburgers and beer." But Jones doesn't remember Bush taking that spiritual exercise very seriously either. The pastor would ask a question from the lesson: "What happened to the Jew on his way to Jericho?"
"He got his butt whipped," Bush shot back.
And when his attention span was exceeded, he set his watch to go off in the middle of the pastor's spiel. The other men guffawed, and the following week they all set their watches and the class turned into a cacophony of alarm bells.
Please help me. I've been reading this blog for a couple of days and as adept as I am with joke grenades and cunning linguistics, I can't for the life of me figure out if this is really the blog of PJF or a faux blog a la the Harriet Meirs link on the front page.
I'll be glad to play along if this is a lampoon, but if this is really the blog of the special persecutor, you rock dude. But I guess that's true in either case.
Good Show.
Saw your site @ Blogexplosion. Thought you might enjoy these. If you do, please pass them on to your lists.
50 Ways To Dump The Dubya
Goper's Lament (Hard To Be A Republican)
cjt
thanks.
its just abuse gone wild..
Sub
it's the real thing
Classified information and proper handling the classified information? Well, there goes that old saying: lead by example. That goes out the window in the case of the Gerbil and Cheney. Maybe that's why there didn't attend the class. They knew that they wouldn't pass. Jackie mentions leadership. Anyone can be giving a title. The Gerbil, Cheney, Rove, Gonzo, yourself included Fitz, myself, etc. can be giving a title. But, you can not be given leadership. Leadership is earned. And neither Bush nor Cheney earned leadership. How can the Administration demand from the staff to attend ethic classes when neither one of them are leading by example nor earn leadership? This is showing the American people the definition of ethics through the Administration's actions. Action speaks louder than words!
Even then it was too little too late. By the time you mandate an ethics class it's already damage control.
Bush and Cheney are the Boys Scouts from Hell.
You can bet that they broke every rule in the handbook.
No ethics or shame.
Its all propaganda.
Spin spin spin and then some ...
what Bush and Co are counting on is the short attention span, and memory of the American people.
In the days before 'real time media' perhaps this was more likely.
Now with camera phones and a mike/video-cam every where you turn and server farms that well, can host a whole bunch of 'stuff' [bizillion gigabytes] well,
he's cooked his own goose.
He really is not smart... without certain key actions, phrases, he may have gotten away with it..now its caught in 60 million colors and its quite a show.
Rove, Cheney, Rummy, Condi and the other puppeteers will come tumbling tumbling down ...
Thanks PJF for just chipping away at the truth -- yes, the truth will set us ALL FREE from this tyranny!
Oh -- Subway Serenade...
its is the real deal.
Another side note: McFelon claim that neither the Gerbil or Cheney were employees???? My question is if neither one of these nimrods are employees, then how come the President is working for the people? Are Cheney and the Gerbil getting their paychecks on the 1st and last of this month??? And is the White House is a running business? If so, does the entire Gerbil Administration received a 1099 at the end of the year for the WH. Who is kidding who here. Pretty much a lame duck excuse for both of them not to attend the classes!
this in at WAPO ...
..."The revelation of former White House official I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby's involvement in authorized disclosures of sensitive intelligence information does not undermine Libby's contention that he innocently forgot about conversations he may have had with reporters regarding covert CIA operative Valerie Plame..."
hmm, well, you know, if I was asked to remember if I had tunafish or PB&J on July 8 2003, I'd be rather stretched to recall.
However, I most certainly would remember
a) if this was a COVERT operative, which seemingly in the filing by the Libby loose-lips attny seems to FINALLY accept she was COVERT, {ahem}... you know, I think this is a FIRST for AMERICA from SOMEONE inside THE WHITE HOUSE? eh?
b) he does remember things like
birthdays? holidays? far-flung facts; or is he going to go with the 'senior-moment' defense..?
What absolute piffle. How these lawyers look themselves in the mirror is beyond me.. but then, well, maybe that's why I tend to dislike defense attornies..
mmmmmmm.
a rose by any other name would smell as sweet.. W Shakespeare
The Subway Serenade, I enjoyed these tunes, thanks!
D
lessee;
Laura Bush killed a 'friend' while driving a car at the age of 17 in Texas .. she claimed to be unfamiliar with the intersection [uhm, she lived within 2 miles and had been in that intersection oh, a bizillion times]... in an article within the first 2 years of W's presidency, she and I quote:
..." was sorry people learned about it"...
NOT SORRY SHE KILLED AN 18 year OLD. HELLO?
Babs: Hey Katrina victims are 'better off'...
Neil: millions upon millions bilked from Americans and then the Govt bails him out
W Sis-In-Law: 40K in jewelry she 'forgot' to claim in Customs while returning from Asia.
It runs in the family... they don't need ethics, they just can do, say, act upon whatever they wish...
I may only hope PJF and team, [sure go ahead and validate what I wrote here]
you and your team of experts and honest folks, bring this
DY - NASTY down.
These people have zero scruples,
they are all about power, greed and self-fulfillment of that power and greed at any cost [mmm, yes, lets count again those innocent lives lost in Iraq, Katrina for starters]...
GOD HELP US if he stays in office through his entire term . ..
he'll drive us in to war with Iran, N Korea ... he is a zealot; as are Cheney, Rove, Rummy and Condi
cjt--thanks for pointing that Vanity Fair story out on W, I'm almost done, wow it is long and very revealing. I'm going to print it off and add to the Plame leak story they did.
Dang, why couldn't he have gotten baseball commissioner? I do feel some empathy for him but he is a sick man along with his whole family.
"Honor, dignity, character in the oval office"---out of touch with reality.
6 miles...
That was her possibly her boyfreind she had just broken up with. Lots of versions on this one...
http://www.snopes.com/politics/bush/laura.asp
Teak, It's long but worth it isn't it? The last part about the pollution is just an nightmare.
He says the Oval Office is just a step to Baseball Commissioner for him!
Last entry:
1. Reach out and spy on someone for those AT&T customers? From Americablog:
AT&T allegedly gave the NSA access to ALL of your phone calls, emails and Internet activities
According to an AT&T whistleblower, the telephone giant made available to a government snoop every single phone call you made, every single email you wrote, every single online video or text chat you ever had, a list of every Web site or chat room you ever visited, copies of every photo you've ever downloaded or emailed or received, so government spies could go through it and do whatever it is they do when they peep into your private life.
2. German inquiry to probe Iraq war, CIA links
BERLIN (Reuters) - Germany's parliament gave the green light on Friday for a parliamentary inquiry into whether German spies in Baghdad helped the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003 at a time when the government was publicly opposed to the war.
http://reuters.myway.com/article/20060407/2006-04-07T103005Z_01_L01743682_RTRIDST_0_INTERNATIONAL-SECURITY-GERMANY-SPIES-DC.html
We are the little people out here, doncha know?
SP Biloxi---you ever dreamed of having dubya (hehe, babs) under oath on the stand? Be honest and how would you play it?
I'd say he would choke once you figured out his game and without the 'brain' around to think for him. You would have to 'school' all your body language and control your speech patterns. (I have lived around some 'narcissistic' or BPD people, you can outwit them for a short period. Otherwise, they are not worth it.)
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
One more thing:
CALLING FOR PATRICK J. FITZGERALD!
I saw the Newshour with Jim Lehrer on PBS 4/7/06 (today). I had listen to a very interesting conversation between reporter, David Brooks and Jim Lehrer regarding the CIA Leak. Brooks slipped at the tongue. Brooks admitted that he was given the information by the little soldier. Here an excerpt of the transcript of the show:
DAVID BROOKS: He's got Iraq.
But, you know, they gave it to Judy Miller, and, then, eight days later, they gave it to a lot of us. They handed -- I think Scooter Libby himself handed the NIE the --to me, this intelligence estimate.
JIM LEHRER: This is the national intelligence...
DAVID BROOKS: Intelligence estimate.
JIM LEHRER: Gave it to you?
DAVID BROOKS: Well, we were -- I was in a group of a whole reporters.
JIM LEHRER: Raise your right -- raise your right hand.
DAVID BROOKS: Yes.
(LAUGHTER)
JIM LEHRER: Put your hand on the blue sleet.
DAVID BROOKS: I now have to get a lawyer. I shouldn't have said that.
JIM LEHRER: Yes.
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/political_wrap/jan-june06/sb2_4-7.html
Yup, out of the horse's mouth. Brooks admitted on air that he is part of the leak case. Fitz, I know that you have this knucklehead NY Times reporter on your list to talk to. Good night! Signing off! Cheers!
That is how BushCo. operates...let the press take the fall and use them. Did you all see that letter from Christy's site (you had to link to another) that showed Libby's letter to Miller in jail? Unbelievable....these people are nothing but master manipulators.
As far as I am concerned, they did the same thing on torture....they directed it, but then picked up the trail of bread crumbs leading back to them and let the low-ranking guys take the fall alone. Leaders do not do such things. Samething Bush did when manipulating Christian voters and people hungry (or greedy) for tax cuts.
Check out this screensaver, I put it on my blog. Great fun.
http://www.planetdan.net/pics/misc/georgie.htm
Use the mouse if it stops.
NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) - Job growth was a bit stronger than economists expected in March, pushing the unemployment rate back to the lowest in nearly five years, the government reported Friday.
The unemployment rate slipped to 4.7 percent from 4.8 percent, the Labor Department said, matching the low hit in January, which had been the lowest rate since July 2001.
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The White House on Friday chose not to challenge a prosecutor's disclosure that President George W. Bush authorized top official Lewis "Scooter" Libby to disclose intelligence on Iraq in 2003, as Libby alleges.
Spokesman Scott McClellan noted that the White House released declassified portions of an intelligence report at around the same time, July 2003.
That was part of an already known public release of information in the face of criticism of Bush's grounds for invading Iraq from former Ambassador Joe Wilson.
The POTUS has the right to declassify if it is a threat to US
this case does not fit any of those parameters does it SPB?
so does't a case against POTUS lie in these details..
that was me SPB hit wrong letter
Ethics classes are always for the employees, and then it is the executives in the big companies that are the most corrupt. Ethics will have to start at the top (or better yet by parents) in order to give a good example to employees vs. children.
D
If you have AT&T now is the time to cancel.
ethics in the WH.
oxymoron at best.
Yes, I do have AT&T and would bet I was "spied on". I had tons of overseas calls because much of my family works for the fed gov.
And I used my cell!!!ARG! How dare they! SPB, can I sue the pants off them? I can ASSURE you I have no "known or unknown" ties to terrorism!
I really hate these people misusing their clearance-maybe instead of a law suit I would settle, just being allowed to give each and everyone of them a good tongue lashing like their mother never did! But I'll probably have to settle for a lawsuit. p
They aren't considered "employees" in need of ethical training?
And here I thought the president was a "public servant"...
anon.
the only person Dumbya is concerned about serving is
himself.
hence the situation we're in.
41 and Babs spoiled the crap out of him and so,
he should just get everything he wants.
he won't stop until he takes away
every
single
civil
liberty
you
have.
Executive Order 12356
National Security Information
April 2, 1982
Sec. 3.4. Mandatory Review for Declassification.
(b) Information originated by a President, the White House
Staff, by committees, commissions, or boards appointed by the President,
or others specifically providing advice and counsel to a President or
acting on behalf of a President is exempted from the provisions of
Section 3.4(a).
Donald Rumsfeld on Leakers of Secret Information:
... No, I'll tell you about leaks. When a person takes classified information and gives it to someone who is not cleared for classified information, whether the person's from the Pentagon or any department of government, they're violating federal criminal law. And they ought to go to jail. That's not complicated.
folks. all phone companies must provide any information at the behest of the government.
btw, that includes your employer too.
if you switch from employer to employer, from ISP to ISP, it just doesn't matter.
in that 'little form'/fine print we all tend to ignore when signing on as an employee, when signing up for phone service/internet service/cell service,
its in there. you just missed it.
Donald Rumsfeld on Leakers of Secret Information:
... No, I'll tell you about leaks. When a person takes classified information and gives it to someone who is not cleared for classified information, whether the person's from the Pentagon or any department of government, they're violating federal criminal law. And they ought to go to jail. That's not complicated.
Sorry for the repeat. It wasn't posting under my blogger name, so I thought I would try posting under anonymous and apparently it posted both.
Are facts obsolete?
Apr 4, 2006
by Thomas Sowell
"People who have made up their minds and don't want to be confused by the facts are a danger to the whole society. Since the votes of such people count just as much as the votes of people who know what they are talking about, politicians have every incentive to pass laws and create policies that pander to ignorant notions, if those notions are widespread."
David Brooks is now part of the CIA Leak Investigation?
Shocking!
Fitz we got really desperate neocon fanatics out there. Hope you can wrap this case up and get the charges brought.
I mean I am literally saying they are trying to nuke Iran, right away and we got to get those criminal charges filed before they nuke anyone.
Thanks again this was a hilarious post!
http://rawstory.com/
I have received replies from my Senators Brownback and Roberts and Congressman Jim Ryun on how wonderful and needed the 'domestic surveillance program' is.....Brownback includes the word internet quite often in his letter.
From what I've read on these guys, they are busy with their own personal business and agendas or covering up for someone else's dirty deeds.
We need to throw out Brownback, Roberts and so on and have them indicted.
Get rid of Hillary clinton too.
Like I said the obstacle is congress, put a fresh congress in there and we'll have impeachment trials starting right away.
This bunch of kooks besides a select few leach off the neocons and are always gone with the lobbyists~!
GIVE US A NEW CONGRESS ON THE GOD DAMN DOUBLE!!!!!!
http://www.givemeliberty.org
>:=D
Anon,
Look for a class action lawsuit on AT&T soon.. Make sure you keep all of your receipts!!!!
Anon at 6:51:
The success with the Economy is a delusion by the Bush Administration.
It's a fairy tale.
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