Tuesday, March 28, 2006

If this Card could speak...

The resignation of White House Chief of Staff Andrew Card conjures up all sorts of fascinating scenarios which will probably go unrealized. What if he decides to talk?

He probably won't, of course. But we can still speculate: What if he spilled the beans on just two issues -- Plamegate and the World Trade Center attacks?

WHIG. Because Card has always kept such a low profile, few understand that he played a key role in the war conspiracy.
The White House Iraq Group (WHIG) was formed in August 2002 by Andrew Card, President Bush's chief of staff, to publicize the threat posed by Saddam Hussein. WHIG operated out of the Vice President's office.

The group's members included Rove, Bush advisor Karen Hughes, Senior Advisor to the Vice President Mary Matalin, Deputy Director of Communications James Wilkinson, Assistant to the President and Legislative Liaison Nicholas Calio, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, National Security Advisor Stephen Hadley and I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby.
The purpose of this group was to create public support for a war which (as we now know from the Downing Street memos and other sources) was pre-determined. In other words, this group focused on pushing propaganda -- the Niger forgeries, the aluminum tubes hoax, Atta in Prague and so forth. They also felt threatened by Joe Wilson.

Oddly, although journalists and pundits have offered much speculation about which WHIG member did what, few of those speculations concern Card, the organizer of the group.

We know, though, that when the Justice Department launched a criminal probe into the outing of Plame, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales gave Andrew Card a twelve-hour "heads up," which provided plenty of time to clear damning information from the White House computers.
...when Gonzales was notified about the investigation on the evening of Monday, Sept. 29, 2003, he waited 12 hours before telling the White House staff about the inquiry. Official notification to staff is meant to quickly alert anyone who may have pertinent records to make sure they are preserved and safeguarded.
Just what did Card do during that twelve hours -- and in subsequent days?

Recently, we learned about the 250 pages of "Now you see 'em, now you don't" emails which Rove recently "discovered" and supplied to Patrick Fitzgerald. These very same emails went missing during the original Justice Department inquiry, perhaps during those key twelve hours. (The deadline to turn over all materials was October 10.) Andrew Card could probably tell us some very interesting details about this strange matter.

One possible explanation for the disappearance and re-emergence of the emails concerns the idea of blackmail, or insurance. During the window of opportunity, someone might easily have made personal copies of those messages as a matter of self-protection. Later, someone else in the White House (call him Karl) arranged for the same emails to vanish. Once Karl learned that incriminating copies of these missives still existed, he would have been forced to "find" the emails again, in order to avoid accusations of participating in a cover-up.

(This scenario is very speculative, of course -- but there is historical precedent for this sort of thing. Nixon could not erase the Watergate tapes because the CIA had its own copies.)

And who might the original "someone" have been? Andrew Card would be my primary suspect, since he was the one who received advance warning from Gonzales. For a brief time, only he -- and those he chose to inform (if anyone) -- knew about the probe. The President himself did not learn about the investigation until the next morning, according to one published report.

The alternative theory, of course, reverses the roles: Perhaps Card was the one who tried to make the emails vanish, while Rove cleverly made them re-appear when the time was right. Although this is the more popular scenario, I tend to discount the idea, if only because I think Rove has more to hide.

Many believe that Card has had an adversarial relationship with Karl Rove. They disagreed over the Harriet Miers nomination: Card pushed for Miers, while Rove probably aided the conservative groups who called for her to withdraw. Some observers aver that Card quickly lost enthusiasm for the Iraq war itself.

As Needlenose points out:
Given this uneasy relationship with Rove, it's possible that the Plame leak was the proverbial last straw for Card, and when he learned that there would be a full Justice Dept. investigation, he decided to make it clear that he wouldn't be going down with Rove's ship.
Card could well be the senior White House official who told the Washington Post that at least six reporters received the Plame leak before Novak published the information. As you will recall, the earliest "Plamegate" reports fingered Rove as the likeliest source for Novak. Whoever circulated those stories had it out for "Bush's Brain."

All of which suggests that conspiracy-minded folks might want to check up on an overlooked AP story from November 27 of last year:
A small, twin-engine plane carrying White House Chief of Staff Andrew Card made an emergency landing in Nashville Saturday after smoke began pouring into the cockpit, officials said...

The plane left Texas, where Card has been meeting with President Bush...at his ranch in Crawford, White House spokesman Ken Lisaius said.
Pure coincidence, of course. Even so, Card did once say that "Karl is a formidable adversary."

The Day of the Goat. Another set of mysteries involving Card concerns the events of September 11, 2001.

I've always felt that Bush's undignified, incompetent reactions on that day indicate that he did not have foreknowledge of the attacks, or at least of their extent. At the end of the original version of The Manchurian Candidate, Senator Iselin is given a dramatic, moving "impromptu" speech to declaim on national television in the aftermath of an assassination; surely W could have made similar arrangements? At the very least, he would have made a mental note: "Attack planned for today. Try not to look like idiot in front of cameras."

Unforgivably, Bush entered the classroom and listened to the goat story (the Greek for goat provides the root of tragedy) even though he had already been informed of the first strike. We don't know when he was told or who told him. Was it Card or Rove?

On more than one occasion, Bush made a statement which many took as a claim that he had seen the impossible:
And my Chief of Staff, Andy Card -- actually, I was in a classroom talking about a reading program that works. I was sitting outside the classroom waiting to go in, and I saw an airplane hit the tower -- the TV was obviously on. And I used to fly, myself, and I said, well, there's one terrible pilot.
Of course, there was no footage of the first impact available at that time. Perhaps we should blame W's infamous difficulties with the English language. If you presume that he meant "I saw that an airplane had hit the tower," the statement makes more sense, even if his actions do not.

Bob Fertik summarizes one version of the tale:
According to ABC's John Cochran, Bush discussed the first crash with his Chief of Staff, Andrew Card, before he left his hotel. As Bush approached his car, a reporter asked, "Do you know what's going on in New York," and Bush said he did - and would say something later.
He had no business going to that school, of course. Everyone suspected terrorism from the moment the first jet hit; the President endangered those children by placing himself in their presence at such a time.

Bush stayed in that school some 25 minutes after being informed of the second strike. Even if he didn't have the presence of mind to leave, why didn't Andrew Card think of the obvious course of action?

The first reporter to interview the retired Card should ask that question.

7 comments:

911 Seeker said...

Another rat jumps ship.


The 9/11 Truth movement is gaining momentum. With recent and continuing national coverage on CNN, the truth about the events of that day have come into question. Polls suggest that many, possibly even most, Americans no longer buy the official myth of 9/11. Even if you still believe the official line, the fact that so many people do not, and are saying so publicly, is news. Like it or not, the 9/11 Truth movement is national news.

If you want to get up to speed on the topic quickly here's a good place to start:

Here are two facts:

1: No steel building has ever collapsed from fire. Not one, in the entire history of skyscrapers, not one.

2: Hundreds of buildings have collapsed to the ground in a manner almost identical to the three collapsed buildings that day. Every one of them was by controlled demolition.


Those are the facts. You'll have to draw your own conclusions. For help may I suggest the following sites:
http://st911.org
http://911blogger.com
http://9eleven.info

If you are only going to look at one page of 9/11Truth, look here:
http://9eleven.info/DemolitionComp.htm

The truth of 9/11 is coming out. It cannot be stopped.

Anonymous said...

.......

waiting for those 'house of cards' quips... when they all come tumbling down.

the evidence is accumulating and the facts are just that. facts. there's no denying the reality of the it all. maybe this has been around for awhile... this is the best 9/11 reality check i've seen yet.

straight up.

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-2023320890224991194

pay attention people.

.........

Admin said...

Oh, Card, you Card. Oh, it would be great to capture him and torture HIM and get some confessions out of him, huh? Not that I condone such behavior. Just, you know, what's good for the goose and all that.

We have GOT to get these maniacs out of office. But how can we do that when the election system has been taken over by neocon-controlled voting machine companies?

But then there's Clint Curtis. Clint Curtis is mounting a congressional bid in Florida against Tom Feeney. As many of you know, Curtis was the programmer hired by Feeney to write election-stealing software a few years back. Since then, much has happened, including the suspicious death of the Florida Inspector General Raymond Lemme looking into the matter and the total media clampdown of any serious discussion of electronic election manipulation in Florida and across the nation. Curtis, a former Republican, became so disgusted by what he saw that he became a whistleblower. The whole sordid tale is chronicled on www.bradblog.com.

Here's Curtis in his own words:

My name is Clint Curtis. I am running for the U.S. House of Representatives in Florida's 24th Congressional District. This great district is currently represented by one of the most corrupt politicians in history. Having personally attended closed-door meetings where Tom Feeney spoke candidly about his aspirations of corruption forces me to provide this district with an alternative to this man. I will need your help.

http://www.clintcurtis.com

Now Curtis is now taking on the VERY well-funded Feeney. He promises to fight for fair elections and to expose electronic vote fraud. He is the ONLY candidate who will take it to the NeoCons on this issue.

Because of his willingness to take on election fraud, I believe Curtis may be the single most important candidate for the progressive community to promote. Please visit his web site and offer to help, donate even $5 if you can spare it, and help spread the word. Clint needs to raise $5K in the next 2 weeks to get on the ballot. Mr. Curtis may be own only chance of overcoming a rigged election system. CAN YOU HELP?

http://www.clintcurtis.com

Anonymous said...

Heh. I'm happy that Joseph provided such a thorough analysis of the possibility that Card just...might...sing like the proverbial canary. I've had a feeling about him for a while, (yeah, yeah, some tin foil junkie always has a theory) and it grew stronger during these past months he's been conspicuously absent from the spotlight. The only thing that makes me skeptical is that pesky plane crash Joe was careful to remind us of here. Card's silence may be the only thing tenuously protecting his life.

Anonymous said...

John says "there is no evidence". I
find that nine times out of ten such
statements are wrong. There is
evidence: squibs, eyewitness
accounts of explosions including
flashes of light from lower floors,
the symmetrical collapse from
asymmetrical damage, the fact that
NIST has no core steel showing
heating above 250 degrees C, the
molten metal in the basement, the
fact that firefighters radioing from
the impact floors reported only
isolated pockets of fire.

As to Bush's behavior re: the Pet
Goat, I think that what Card
whispered to him was "Flights 77 and
93 are late. Stall a half hour."

Bush is sitting there thinking
"Stall half an hour? How? Am I
being set up? Is this a trap?"

Anonymous said...

great points, joe.

as for the notion that rove was behind the plame leak, i believe that was initiated by wilson himself. he had been told by at least one of the reporters who admitted they had been contacted by the white house on the leak, and i doubt that any of them would have spilled that datum had it been rove. but i do know wilson was immediately and publicly relishing the image of rove being 'frog-marched out of the white house in handcuffs.'

as for 9/11, yeah, loads of questions about card's role there. the guy has kept such a low profile over the years, yet when he's broken it, he's often rally gaffed. think 'no one introduces a new product in the summer' idiocy.

in any case, there was a ton of prep for this event, what with all the talk about just how tired all these folks must be, and how card was the only cos in memory to stay in place for so long, it's such a burnout. makes it realistic for him to leave to get some sleep.

i'm frankly wondering if perhaps fitz might be getting dangerously close to the oval office itself, and card will be falling on his sword. if card ends up implicated in some way, one wonders just how bush will keep his head above water. again.

by the by, has fitz ever subpoenaed harriet?

Anonymous said...

Ask Card about the morning of 9/11?

Many of us would like to have some questions asked of the Secret Service, who kept the president right where he was on schedule to be, instead of immediately evacuating him to s safer place.