Mullings May 15, 2002 regarding the Democrats accusing the GOP of using the September 11 attacks for political gain with that picture of President Bush aboard Air Force One:
In fact, [the Democrats'] first instinct was to use the attacks for political gain.
Fast forward from Tuesday of last week all the way to Thursday of last week and consider this image: Tom Daschle and Dick Gephardt racing up the stairs of the Capitol to the Senate and House Radio-TV Galleries, projectile sweat spurting out of their foreheads, papers flying out of the arms of aides racing along side, screeching to a stop in front of the microphones to announce - more or less - that:
"(whileofcoursewesupportthepresidentonhisconductofthewar) Bush Was Asleep At The Switch!
We Must Investigate!
What Did He Know And When Did He Know It!
Exhume Sam Irvin!
Get Howard Baker Back From Japan!
They Don't Tell Us Nothin'!"
This, after months and months of tsk-tsking every time the very same Bush Administration actually issued a warning of potential, but non-specific terrorist activity. Democrats couldn't wait to get on the Sunday shows to warn the Administration was running the same risk as the boy in the Aesop fable who cried wolf one too many times.
You may not have seen this in the headline of your morning paper, but Congress had the same information as the Administration. During his press conference on Thursday, Gephardt demanded about 732 times that there had to be an investigation about what the Administration knew. From the transcript of the very beginning of his press conference:
Gephardt: I think what we have to do now is to find out what the President, what the White House knew about the events leading up to 9/11, when they knew it and, most importantly, what was done about it at that time.
But later, the same transcript:
Question: I just saw [Chairman of the House Select Committee on Intelligence] Porter Goss [R-FL] who told me that Members of Congress, at least in the Intelligence Committees, received the same information last August that the president received. This is information that was never run by you? A generic report about possibility of hijackings, not specific about going into buildings, not targeting the Trade Center but just something about hijacking? This is not something that you knew about last August?
Gephardt: No, but this is the reason we need to get the facts out. I don't know what information was there in front of the White House, the President, the Intelligence Committees, or anybody else. That's why we need to know this.
There is no reporting as to whether Gephardt showed any embarrassment about not having the slightest clue what the [deleted at the very strong instructions of the Mullings Director of Standards & Practices] he was talking about.
Gephardt, Daschle, et. al. couldn't have made this more partisan if they had held their press conferences at the Democratic National Committee headquarters.
One of the more amusing developments was Senator-and-Future-Vice-President-of the-United-States Hillary Rodham-Clinton-Rodham quoting, of all things, the NY Post in her demand for answers to unasked questions. Of course, she couldn't bring herself to actually say the words, "New York Post." The closest she could come was to refer to "one of our newspapers in New York."
She said in her floor statement, "I hope the President ... will also authorize the release of any other information that New Yorkers and Americans have a right to know. I certainly look forward to learning of and being able to share that information with the people I represent."
Remember that Hillary didn't want a Powder-Puff-First-Lady-Office in the East Wing. She wanted (and got) a Power Office in the West Wing. Ok. What information did she see regarding terrorist activities while she was the Associate-Deputy-Assistant-Co-President of the United States? What did she know and when did she know it?
Mullings would like to share THAT information.
As much as this pains me to admit it, Hillary Rodham-Clinton-Rodham is correct. Things WOULD have been different if she and Bill were still cataloging furniture in the White House:
There would not be a single aspirin factory left standing anywhere in Central Asia.
BIG Secret Decoder Ring page today: The actual Aesop fable: The Boy who Cried Wolf, an explanation of the title, links to the Hillary floor statement and the Gephardt presser, and a Catchy Caption reminder.
If you are working at a lobbying firm, a government affairs office, a coalition, or a PAC you should take a
look at this page to see how advertising in Mullings might serve your organization very well:
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