Friday, April 20, 2007

Gonzales & the 'Mayberry Machiavellis'

By Robert Parry
April 20, 2007

Watching the painfully inept testimony of Attorney General Alberto Gonzales brought to mind the memorable comment in 2002 by ex-White House insider John DiIulio, who described how politics dominated everything in George W. Bush’s government.

“There is no precedent in any modern White House for what is going on in this one: a complete lack of a policy apparatus,” said DiIulio, who had run Bush’s office of faith-based initiatives. “What you’ve got is everything – and I mean everything – being run by the political arm. It’s the reign of the Mayberry Machiavellis.”

Read on.

2 comments:

profmarcus said...

there is a key element that you neglect... yes, "everything is about the building and maintenance of power," but the inextricable companion to that overarching goal is the building and maintenance of the massive amounts of money necessary to keep the power machine turning... then there are the correlates: contractor cronyism and unparalleled corruption using an endless war as a money machine, the building and maintenance of the fear of terrorism in order to sustain a compliant populace and as the rationale for a steady abrogation of civil liberties, an unholy alliance with extremist christian groups as an additional means of social control, and the nullification of any implied or explicit social contract, thus diverting even greater rivers of cash into the "right" pockets... it's a many-faceted plan, has been executed slowly, inexorably and comprehensively for six-plus years, and will continue to be rolled out until bush and his criminal posse are removed from office... it goes without saying that 20 january 2009 may be too late...

Conchobhar said...

They've also succeeded in defining deviancy down so that we don't get outraged early enough. I've held a security clearance and the way these people have used classified information is infuriating. I've been outraged by the fact that Rove still has his clearance. As this post has pointed out, to my embarrassment, I should have been outraged that he had one in the first place, as well as the fact the the RNC isn't paying his salary.

A lot of the talking heads are saying that there's nothing to this (as I remember them doing for over a year during Watergate), and expectations are so low for this gang that lack of criminal activity gets the administration off the hook. Well, lookee!
http://www.bradblog.com/?p=4429
There just may be an obstruction of justice case here, going right into the White House.