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DEEP THROATS APLENTY
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Ever since Mark Felt came out as Deep Throat -- and there's still much about that "ancient history" that has yet to be grasped -- liberals and progressives have given throat to a common refrain: "Where's OUR Deep Throat?"
Why not ask Greg Theilman, the former State Department intelligence official who dropped a dime on Cheney's unprecedented arm-twisting visits to CIA headquarters? More than most of us, Theilman knows first hand that just because Congress is reneging on its promise to investigate the Bush administration's fabrication of Iraq-related intelligence, that doesn't mean it didn't happen.
While you're at it, why not ask Karen Kwiatowski? She's the retired Air Force colonel who has already explained, in excrutiating detail, what she witnessed as a long-time Pentagon employee. It is because of her that we know about the hijacking of history's mightiest military machine by dangerously incompetent neoconservative ideologues.
And let's not forget State department employee Michael Springman. In the months following 9/11, Springman went public about how his office was pressured into issuing American visas to dubious Jihadis in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, by higher-ups and intelligence operatives. I'm sure he'd have something to say about the idea that nobody has come forth to blow the whistle.
There are others, of course; people like former FBI translator Sibel Edmonds. But don't bother asking her about the evidence she and others uncovered about the klepto-narcopoly that lurks at the black heart of the military-industrial-intelligence complex. She's still subject to a ridiculously restrictive gag order issued by Jesus H. Ashcroft himself, back when he was Dubya's Witchfinder General, as a matter of "vital national security." Indeed.
And then there are the people who have spoken up, only to back-track after parties unknown reminded them that it would be a shame if anything happened to their lovely families. People like former Faith Based Initiatives director John DiIullio, who said that the White House was a purely political operation, home to the "Mayberry Machiavellis", having no real policy apparatus at all. His subsequent reversal spoke volumes:
"My criticisms were groundless and baseless due to poorly chosen words and examples. I sincerely apologize and I am deeply remorseful. I will not be offering any further comment, or speaking or writing further on any aspect of my limited and unrepresentative White House experience or any matters or persons related thereto. I regret any and all misimpressions."
Paul O'Neill had a similar turnaround. After leaving the administration, the former Secretary of the Treasury said that the decision to invade Iraq was made in the first months of Dubya's preznitcy, and that Dubya, himself, was like: "a blind man in a roomful of deaf people." He soon backed off his statement and apologized, but eventually backed off his backing off.
And let's not forget two of the most important whistle-blowers of recent years. First, Joe Wilson, whose wife's career was ended and life put in danger by the White House's retaliatory lashing-out after the former ambassador's inconvenient truth-telling about amateurishly fraudulent Niger nuke evidence. And second, Richard Clarke, who has revealed enough information -- most of it under oath -- to bury the entire administration. It's all there in black and white, in the 9/11 Commission's report, if you subject that document to some Straussian, between-the-lines analysis.
In truth, we don't lack for Deep Throats. We got Deep Throats a-plenty, as a matter of fact. And collectively, they've opened wide and served up more hints and leads and evidence than Mark Felt ever did. It's just that, now, there's nobody around to take the hint. Nobody follows the leads. Nobody's listening. Nobody gives a fuck. Nobody that matters, anyway.
The conservative movement learned well the hard lessons of Watergate. By the early 70's, the right had succeeded in staging the hostile takeover of every significant power structure in the USA except one… the media. After Watergate, the principals involved vowed: "Never again." So they set about a two-track approach. First, they would use lavish donations by eccentric billionaire sugar-daddies to set up a fully-funded, alternative, self-referential network of conservative think tanks, activist organizations and media outlets. Second, they would infiltrate, intimidate, muzzle, yoke and bell the mainstream media. Concentration of ownership, reduced competition, bottom-line considerations and increased top-down editorial interference are now the norm. Today, the information stream is so polluted that anyone who drinks from it risks going insane.
Who knows what -- if anything -- can break this spell?
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Yer old pal Jerky's Words of Wisdom #272:
When you start visualizing yourself as a corpse every time you look into a mirror, maybe it's time to start thinking about getting your shit together.
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Send all Jokes, Letters and other stuff to Jerky:
jerkyleboeuf@gmail.com
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