Coordinated Fatwa on Intel Agency Declared by Rightwing Columnists, Bloggers, Talk Radio and Congress...
By Brad Friedman on 11/8/2005, 12:07pm PT  

Over the last 48 hours or so, the newest front of attack by the Republican Attack Dogs on behalf of the Bush Administration has become quite clear.

To defend against the indefensible leaking of the identify of a covert CIA operative in the TreasonGate affair, it is now clear that the Rightwing has begun an offensive to try and attack the CIA in order to define them as a "rogue agency" who was out to get the Bushies from the get-go.

The insinuation has been made quite clear over the last few days with coordinated lock-step efforts via newspapers, blogs, talk radio and congressional action to attempt to discredit the CIA. The latest strategy is now seen dropping unsupported accusations across the media spectrum to the effect that the intelligence agency's assignment of Ambassador Joseph Wilson to look into the now-discredited Iraq/Niger/uranium claims were all part of a long-term insidious scheme to try and discredit the Bush Administration.

Yesterday, I wrote about Carol Platt Liebau's recent efforts at HuffPo to fight back on behalf of the Bushies by attacking the CIA's motives in both sending Wilson on the mission and in releasing the information that they had requested a DoJ investigation into the outting of his wife Valerie's identify as a covert CIA op.

Liebau did little more in a blog item yesterday at HuffPo, titled "A 'Rogue Agency'" than copy and paste directly from an op/ed by Deborah Orin on these matters from the Rupert Murdoch-owned NY Post.

My reply to Liebau's article has yet to be posted on HuffPo. I'll update this item with the link once it's posted over there.

Today, Liebau is at it again. This time, she copies and pastes from an article from the wingnut Powerline blog, with further questions about the CIA's motives for the Wilson assignment and the recent information revealed by Washington Post concerning secret CIA prisons overseas.

Meanwhile, both talk radio and congress has also joined in the rightwing fatwa against the CIA.

Editor & Publisher is reporting today that Senator Bill Frist and House Speaker Dennis Hastert have requested a congressional inquiry into "the leaking of classified information" which led to the article about secret al-Qaeda prisons run by the CIA in Europe. RAW STORY has obtained the actual letter requesting the inquiry by Frist and Hastert.

This morning, Rush Limbaugh continued the lockstepped new front in the war to salvage the Bush Administration by spending the first several hours of his radio show blasting the CIA for the exact same issues discussed by Liebau, Orin, Powerline Blog, Frist and Hastert.

He also let slip that "you won't be hearing George W. Bush speak about this directly," as if to indicate that this is "a war" to be carried out by Bush's advocates in the media so that Bush himself can remain above "the fray" while his sycophants carry out his dirty work for him.

What the effectiveness of this new P.R. effort will be remains to be seen. But when the wingnuts all get together and march from the same page of the same rulebook, the propoganda effect on the nation has proven to be very effective. Unfortunately, the Left simply doesn't have the same kind of organized media network that the Right does in order to effectively and quickly rebut such a coordinated all-out attack.

But at least you now know about it. Make no mistake: The effort to fight back by directly attacking the messengers --- in this case, the CIA (along with those of us who dare point out what really occurred in the TreasonGate matter) has now become very clear. It will be yet another phony war. This time, the CIA vs The Bush Administration.

UPDATE: Inquiry into who leaked info on secret prisons may bite Republicans in the ass. Trent Lott reports that it was a leak by a Republican after a meeting held recently with Dick Cheney and Republican Senators. Says Lott, "He was up here last week and talked up here in that room right there in a roomful of nothing but senators and every word that was said in there went right to the newspaper." RAW STORY has more...

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