Washington Post is Cheney's megaphone for SMEAR ATTACKS on Nancy Pelosi...

(click our headline-link for ThinkProgress' original story, complete with a full set of hot-links documenting the article we highlight below.)

- -IF the cowardly, craven, lying, and corrupt editors and publishers of the WASHINGTON POST stuck to reporting the facts - honestly and with a minimum of "spin" or bias - George W. Bush would never have "won" the election of 2000, the New York World Trade Center towers would probably still be standing, and the US Army and Marines would not be bogged down in Iraq, making new enemies in the Muslim world by the score every time a US Air Force bombing attack wipes out an entire family in its bomb runs on "suspected insurgent positions."

Indeed, were the situation reversed: would a President Al Gore's SECRETARY OF DEFENSE and VICE PRESIDENT (both of them former Secretaries of Defense from a decade earlier) done EXACTLY NOTHING when warned, IN PERSON, by BOTH the CIA Director (George Tenet) and 'Counter Terror Czar' (Richard Clarke), in JULY of 2001 that "AL QAIDA WAS DETERMINED TO ATTACK IN AMERICA," probably by hijacking or attacking US airliners, then the WASHINGTON POST would have long ago been LEADING the nation-wide calls for a President Gore's impeachment.

Instead, because the Post is so horribly corrupted, all of America gives Vice President Dick Cheney, and former Secretary of Defense Don Rumsfeld, a FREE PASS for DOING EXACTLY NOTHING when Clarke and Tenet made those urgent, in-person, "system is blinking red" warnings to the sitting Vice President and sitting Secretary of Defense!

And, in typical SMEAR-MOB fashion, the craven, cowardly, corrupt Washington Post is LEADING the Right-Wing assault on Speaker Pelosi, for trying to provide America with SOME kind of leadership alternative to the treacherous, arguably traitorous, 'leadership' of Bush, Cheney, and former Secretary of War Rumsfeld.

--------------------------------
Sources for our comments:

#1. Rumsfeld did EXACTLY NOTHING when warned, in person, by CIA Director George Tenet that Al Qaida was likely planning to attack IN AMERICA:
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/29/washington/29account.html
<< Mr. Woodward writes that in the weeks before the Sept. 11 attacks, Mr. Tenet believed that Mr. Rumsfeld WAS IMPEDING THE EFFORT to develop a coherent strategy to capture or kill Osama bin Laden. Mr. Rumsfeld questioned the electronic signals from terrorism suspects that the National Security Agency had been intercepting, wondering whether they might be part of an elaborate deception plan by Al Qaeda. >>

#2. From the same source (NYT review of WP writer Bob Woodward's book, "State of Denial," written with many first-person accounts from within the Bush-Cheney White House)

<< On July 10, 2001, the book says, Mr. Tenet and his counterterrorism chief, J. Cofer Black, met with Ms. Rice at the White House to impress upon her the seriousness of the intelligence the agency was collecting about an impending attack. But both men came away from the meeting feeling that Ms. Rice had not taken the warnings seriously. >>

#3. There are legions of sources that document that the warnings National Security Advisor Rice recived were also shared between Vice President Cheney, Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld, and Attorney General Ashcroft. Indeed, in his biographical account of the weeks leading up to the 9-11 attack, 'Counter Terror Czar' Richard Clarke complained that he had communicated his desires to hold a "PRINCIPLES MEETING" to discuss the Al Qaida threat (Al Qaida had attacked the USS Cole with a suicide bomb in Yemen just 8 months earlier) BUT WAS REPEATEDLY REBUFFED by Vice President Cheney.
<< The response in the Bush administration was that it was inappropriate for me to be asking for a principles meeting. >>
We also have this CNN article,
this official Democratic Senate outline "Vice President Cheney's task force on terrorism never met"; this CBS news article "Ashcroft given 'THREAT ASSESMENT' and stopped flying on public airliners in JULY of 2001"; and this Truthout.org article which ties all the above together: that Ashcroft, Rumsfeld, and Cheney WERE WARNED that "Al Qaida was DETERMINED TO ATTACK IN AMERICA," yet these three leaders of America's law enforcement, defense, and national security establishments DID EXACTLY NOTHING - besides get the Attorney General out of the line of fire, while allowing American airline passengers and aircrews to remain exposed, like sitting ducks.

(Bonus citation: Also in July of 2001, the Italian police and secret service established batteries of SURFACE-to-AIR MISSILES around the port city of Genoa, Italy, specifically to protect the assembled presidents attending the G-8 economic summit from BEING ATTACKED BY AIRLINERS HIJACKED by Al Qaida terrorists to be used as flying bombs - a threat which Al Qaida (or someone posing as Al Qaida) actually called in to security forces there!
http://archives.cnn.com/2001/WORLD/europe/07/17/genoa.security/
<< The Italian authorities' security measures also include the positioning of surface-to-air missiles at Genoa's Christopher Columbus airport. Dubbed the SPADA, the land-based system consists of missiles capable of a range of 15 kilometres (9.3 miles).
The ministry said the decision to install the missiles is not excessive.
"There's no excessive precaution," military spokesman Colonel Alberto Battaglini told Reuters. "The measure, which was planned by the previous government, may seem open to criticism, but in reality it is merely to act as a deterrent against any aerial incursion during the summit." >>


==============================

Evidence Emerging Of Cheney-Led Smear Campaign Against Pelosi Over Syria Trip
http://thinkprogress.org/2007/04/14/evidence-pelosi-white-house/

Before Nancy Pelosi left Israel to travel to Syria earlier this month, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert’s spokeswoman Miri Eisin said “Pelosi is conveying that Israel is willing to talk if they (Syria) would openly take steps to stop supporting terrorism.” Pelosi delivered as requested, and this week received a thank you call from Olmert. So why then did the Israeli Prime Minister originally issue a statement of “clarification” about Pelosi’s message which became the basis for right-wing attacks against her?

The evidence of White House involvement behind the Israeli Prime Minister’s statement has been growing this past week. Middle East analysts have suggested Bush deputy National Security Adviser Elliott Abrams — a close ally of Dick Cheney — may have been coordinating the attempts to undermine Pelosi’s trip. “‘It’s obvious the White House is desperate to find some phony criticism of the speaker’s trip, even though it was a bipartisan trip,’ said Rep. Tom Lantos (D-CA), a Holocaust survivor who is considered the Democrat closest to the pro-Israel lobby. ‘I have nothing but contempt and disdain for the attempt to undermine this trip.’”

Rep. Henry Waxman suggested that the White House’s coordinated attempts to smear Pelosi were part of an effort to undermine her on Iraq:

Waxman said the administration is focused on building a case against the Democrats in preparation for a showdown over the Iraq War funding bill. The more they can paint Democrats as weak and irresponsible, the more likely the Democrats will knuckle under and let the president continue the war unchecked. It’s been known to happen.

So Cheney trashes the reputation of men like Lantos and Waxman (who, by the way, has doggedly pursued waste and mismanagement in Iraq by Halliburton, the company that made Cheney rich), and it’s politics as usual.

This is not unchartered territory for Cheney. He has become famous for kneecapping people with whom he disagrees, even individuals within the administration. Middle East experts recalled Cheney’s involvement in a similar situation last year:

Last year, U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice talked Olmert into a 48-hour cease-fire during the war with Hezbollah to allow humanitarian relief, but within hours Israeli planes were bombing again, to Rice’s surprise and anger. Olmert had received a call, apparently from Cheney’s office, telling him to ignore Rice.

The Cheney campaign against Pelosi hasn’t let up. This week, the Washington Post editorial board — which has helped drive the Pelosi smear campaign from the beginning — published an attack piece from Liz Cheney, the daughter of the Vice President.