Thursday, January 29, 2004
The 201k Crystal Ball
We don't know if we can say "you heard it here first", but 201k would like to at least go on record with a few predictions:
Prediction 1:
In the coming months, Dick Cheney will announce that he will not run for re-election with president Bush. We predict this for two reasons:
1. Cheney's persistence in sticking to discredited claims regarding Iraq's WMD is clearly an attempt to set himself up as the "problem" in the administration, to draw fire away from George W. Bush.
Anyone who believes this president and this vice-president would say contradictory things of such importance by accident is living in a dream world and needs to get medication.
Cheney is all but jumping up and down, trying to draw attention away from the president. When the target is clearly on him, he'll announce that he's not running, and the GOP media will pronounce the matter "settled".
2. The mainstream Washington media has, in the last few weeks, begun to criticize Cheney openly, by name, for the first time. This cannot be an accident.
Prediction 2:
Colin Powell, Donald Rumsfeld, and perhaps others in the Bush Administration will resign in the not-too-distant future. This is simply because an independent investigation of their Iraq WMD charges is inevitable now, and the administration will need to move the targets of this investigation outside their tent.
Their replacements will be able to duck tough questions (in the unlikely event the media or Congress poses any) with the standard response that they can't answer for their predecessors, and can only look to the future, etc. Meanwhile investigations will be centered upon individuals who have left office.
On this subject, 201k would like to congratulate former White House Press secretary Ari Fleischer for having the sense to jump ship back in July. Fleischer did his job--he said what he had to, double-talked with the best of them, vigorously defended the WMD charges until the invasion was underway--then bailed and left Scott McClellan holding the bag.
Who'll bother to go looking for Ari now? Not the Congress, and certainly not the media.
Prediction 3:
The CIA will accept blame for the Iraq war, acknowledging that their "poor intelligence" was the problem, not pressure from the administration. We cite two reasons for this prediction:
1. President Bush has recently praised the CIA in public.
2. Both president Bush and David Kay, the administration-appointed weapons inspector, have backed off claims that WMD existed in Iraq. Neither would have done so had the stage not been set for someone to take the blame. The administration would be sure to get its ducks in a row before changing stories.
You heard it here first.
Prediction 1:
In the coming months, Dick Cheney will announce that he will not run for re-election with president Bush. We predict this for two reasons:
1. Cheney's persistence in sticking to discredited claims regarding Iraq's WMD is clearly an attempt to set himself up as the "problem" in the administration, to draw fire away from George W. Bush.
Anyone who believes this president and this vice-president would say contradictory things of such importance by accident is living in a dream world and needs to get medication.
Cheney is all but jumping up and down, trying to draw attention away from the president. When the target is clearly on him, he'll announce that he's not running, and the GOP media will pronounce the matter "settled".
2. The mainstream Washington media has, in the last few weeks, begun to criticize Cheney openly, by name, for the first time. This cannot be an accident.
Prediction 2:
Colin Powell, Donald Rumsfeld, and perhaps others in the Bush Administration will resign in the not-too-distant future. This is simply because an independent investigation of their Iraq WMD charges is inevitable now, and the administration will need to move the targets of this investigation outside their tent.
Their replacements will be able to duck tough questions (in the unlikely event the media or Congress poses any) with the standard response that they can't answer for their predecessors, and can only look to the future, etc. Meanwhile investigations will be centered upon individuals who have left office.
On this subject, 201k would like to congratulate former White House Press secretary Ari Fleischer for having the sense to jump ship back in July. Fleischer did his job--he said what he had to, double-talked with the best of them, vigorously defended the WMD charges until the invasion was underway--then bailed and left Scott McClellan holding the bag.
Who'll bother to go looking for Ari now? Not the Congress, and certainly not the media.
Prediction 3:
The CIA will accept blame for the Iraq war, acknowledging that their "poor intelligence" was the problem, not pressure from the administration. We cite two reasons for this prediction:
1. President Bush has recently praised the CIA in public.
2. Both president Bush and David Kay, the administration-appointed weapons inspector, have backed off claims that WMD existed in Iraq. Neither would have done so had the stage not been set for someone to take the blame. The administration would be sure to get its ducks in a row before changing stories.
You heard it here first.
