Scapegoats Gone Wild!

Typically, Republicans who fuck up know the game ... take the hit, don't point upward and you and probably your family will continue to bask in the Republican's subsidization through corporate largesse.

Yet, the machine has holes. If a fallguy becomes too toxic, it becomes extremely difficult to assure him of the back-end payoff. Such appears to be the case with Michael "Heckuva Job" Brownie. He's realized that any positions he now obtains are being unusually scrutinized and that his future potential was about to take another ass-whoopin' at the hands of a new and massive effort by Senate Republicans to publicly scapegoat him beyond all repair. That was not part of the deal.

So now he's starting to talk ... first, by revealing that the Bush Administration's claim that it was surprised to learn of the NOLA levee breaks on Tuesday. Not so says Brownie, the White House knew of the breaks on early Monday. Further, he says they did nothing because Chertoff/Bush made disaster relief the step-child of the Homeland Security Department. OUCH!!!

Then we have 28 year CIA veteran Paul Pillar who - now that he's left the agency - is free to defend it without fear of retribution from his politically appointed boss. He is the scapegoat that cannot be controlled because he trult believed in his mission and isn't interested ion political payoffs. He points out the following:

Policymakers ... employed a "cherry-picking" approach that selected pieces of raw intelligence that seemed most favorable to its WMD claims and the charge of a relationship between Iraq and al Qaeda.

The White House ignored intelligence reports that said Iraq was not fertile ground for democracy and warned of a long, difficult turbulent post-invasion period that would require a Marshall Plan-type effort to restore the country's economy despite its abundant oil reserves.

Reports also predicted an occupying force would be a target of resentment and attacks including guerrilla warfare.

As to the Republican led Senate Panels that looked into the bad prewar intel, Pillar says "the method of investigation used by the panels -- essentially, asking analysts whether their arms had been twisted -- would have caught only the crudest attempts at politicization." Does anyone other than the most biased righty partisans doubt that?

Finally, the hardest scapegoat of all to control is the one facing a lengthy prison sentence. In that category we have Jack Abramoff (though he is probably a blended scapegoat given that he is also too toxic). Abramoff is now ratting out his former Republican benefactors given they haven't done enough to help save his ass from a stint of a decade (or more) in federal prison. He's spilling the beans on the President's laughable claim of not knowing Abramoff.

The wheels of the machine - a machine that has worked so well for Bush for quite some time - are coming off.