Quotes of the Morning: Low Intensity War on Terror

“President Bush said Monday it was ‘disgraceful’ that the news media had disclosed a secret CIA-Treasury program to track millions of financial records in search of terrorist suspects. The White House accused The New York Times of breaking a long tradition of keeping wartime secrets.
‘The fact that a newspaper disclosed it makes it harder to win this war on terror,’ Bush said, leaning forward and jabbing his finger during a brief question-and-answer session with reporters in the Roosevelt Room.”
-Associated Press, June 27, 2006

“Dang straight! We can’t allow leaks to the media like this. We cannot allow leaks to jeopardize our national security, especially in a time of war, and even if the war is against a tactic and not a group.”
-Skippy

“Rove has been identified as a likely defense witness in next year's trial of I. Lewis ‘Scooter’ Libby, Vice President Dick Cheney's former chief of staff. Libby has been charged with lying to the FBI and a federal grand jury about how he learned about Valerie Plame's CIA status and what he told reporters about it.
If Libby's defense attorneys summon Rove to testify, Fitzgerald can cross-examine him about a host of issues, including a July 2003 conversation Rove had with syndicated columnist Robert Novak days before Novak published Plame's name.
Aboard Air Force One Tuesday, President Bush praised Fitzgerald.
‘It's a chapter that has ended,’ Bush said. ‘Fitzgerald is a very thorough person. I think he's conducted his investigation in a dignified way.’
The president said White House officials would remain mum about the leak and the results of the investigation. ‘I think it's going to be important for you all to recognize there's still a trial to be had,’ he said to reporters. ‘And those of us involved in the White House are going to be very mindful of not commenting on this issue ... because of the Libby trial.’
At the White House, Rove was all smiles, as he usually is, as he carried out his normal routine. With Chief of Staff Joshua Bolten in Iraq with Bush, Rove ran the senior staff meeting.”
-Associated Press, June 13, 2006

“..Except of course when the leakers are at the White House. I mean, sure, Rove talked to reporters about Valerie Plame and had a part in the scandal, but that doesn’t mean that he should lose his security clearance or anything like that. Leaking to the Press is bad when it works AGAINST the Administration, not when it works for it.”
-Skippy

“An angry President Bush rebuked chief political guru Karl Rove two years ago for his role in the Valerie Plame affair, sources told the Daily News.
‘He made his displeasure known to Karl,’ a presidential counselor told The News. ‘He made his life miserable about this.’
Bush has nevertheless remained doggedly loyal to Rove, who friends and even political adversaries acknowledge is the architect of the President's rise from baseball owner to leader of the free world.”
-New York Daily News, October 19, 2005

“What we should really be doing is reigning in the media. I mean here they are talking about a secret government program to monitor bank transactions. Before that they exposed the government spying on the phone calls of American citizens, and then they figured out that the phone companies were giving them access to monitor the internet too. I mean, ever since that whole ‘Watergate’ thing it is like the press believes that it is supposed to keep the government responsible.
We need to give the government the power to handle these dangerous terrorists. Can’t we just trust Big Brother?”
-Skippy

“Just last week, the Justice Department said 261 people have been convicted in terror-related prosecutions since 2001. Many were solid wins — Iyman Faris, who plotted to attack the Brooklyn Bridge, for example. Would-be shoe bomber Richard Reid, and Mohammed Babar, who admitted providing support for al-Qaida operations overseas.
But of the total 261 convictions, the average sentence is only around a year, from plea agreements, to charges like immigration or document fraud. And sometimes the threat may seem remote, as with the Lackawanna Six, the group in Buffalo, N.Y., convicted of getting terror training but never charged with planning any specific attack.”
-NBC News, June 27, 2006

“Hmm? Wait a second.. You mean they are grabbing all of this power and lying to the American people in order to lock up ‘terrorists’ for about a seventh the time that dealing pot would get you? Apparently the War on Terror is a lower intensity war than the War on Drugs.”
-Skippy