Old Fashioned Patriot

When they say, "Justice is blind." they didn't mean duck blind.

John Dean's book is not only a stunning indictment of Bush/Cheney but he manages to get several jokes off at Bush's expense.

Impeach!

Bush - A Steady Liar in Changing Times

<a href="http://georgewbush.com/NationalSecurity/Read.aspx?ID=2494">Bush - A Steady Liar in Changing Times</a>

A poster at Atrios refers to Karen Hughes as Bush's nanny.

Bush Says He's Looking Forward to 9/11 Questions

If he is looking forward to them so much why has he been fighting them tooth and nail? Why testify visit in private? Why is he having Cheney hold his hands through it if he is looking forward to it so much?

says it so well.
A wartime deserter sends surrogates to attack a decorated war hero.

First to reduce overtime pay in the history of America. Cheap labor Republicans are at it again.

I guess that old joke about the definition of chutzpah being the kid accused of murdering his parents asking for leniency because he's an orphan needs to be updated.

Bush has sough to reduce military pay, reduced their medical benefits and transformed the National Guard to the International Invasion Force. He now accuses Kerry of cutting military benefits.

Meanwhile, attack dog Cheney says that voters have "ample grounds" to doubt Kerry's judgment when it comes to national security. We sure wouldn't want to get away from Bush's "sound judgement" - take a month long vacation when he gets news of an imminent attack. Didn't Bush later make up news for an imminent attack to he could commit war crimes against Iraq and steal their oil?

Steady leader? More like a steady misleader.

While linking to Paul Krugman's "What Mr. Cheney is defending, in other words, is a doctrine that makes the United States a sort of elected dictatorship" the invaluable Buzzflash reminds us that the dictator was appointed, not elected. All because of a frivolous lawsuit.


Incidentally, folks wonder why I refer to George W. Bush as Gov. Bush. Well, it is polite to address someone with the highest office they were ever elected to.

Looking at the "liberals were wrong" posts from the warfloggers over the last year:

The liberals were wrong. There was no debacle in Iraq, and the citizens welcomed our troops with much jubilation. Eat it, Janeane Garofalo.
- Steven Musemechen, April 19, 2003

Iraq could become a beacon for the Middle East to see and show the rest of the thugs who rule the region that the days of status quo are gone.
- William Selber, April 24, 2003

liberals were wrong again in opposing the war in Iraq
- Kim B. Deffenbaugh, Sep 15, 2003


President Bush may be too humble to gloat, but I’m not.
- Thomas Lindaman, 12/22/03

We are now engaged in a great debate over whether Iraq is another Vietnam. This says far more about the liberal mind than it does about history.
- Mona Charen, March 2004

Japan makes freed hostages pay for their trip home.

Do you want to know the difference between Bush and Kerry? I suggest you read The Black Commentator's article on Kerry's DLC vs The Pirates. An excerpt:

"The Bush-Cheney regime is a criminal enterprise following a blueprint for world conquest and bent on liquidating what remains of the public sector and the domestic social contract in the United States. Its core electoral support is derived from the most racist and fascist-minded elements of society."

Still having trouble seeing the difference, Ralph? Why are you willing to give us four more wars, Ralph?

Believe it or not, Bush's fiasco in Iraq looks like it is going according to plan. I wrote this in response to Blah3's excellent summation of the bumbling, fumbling and stumbling by the so called "steady leader":

The "new and improved" Iraqi constitution allows them to sell oil producing land to foreigners while the old one didn't. Those auctions can't begin while the US is an occupying power so they have to wait until an "Iraqi" government is in place.

Due to the security situation, Iaqi oil lands will probably go for pennies on the million dollars but the only people allowed to bid are Cheney's friends.

It had Bush's face photoshopped on Nixon's last helicopter ride from the White House. Can you imagine that? Richard Nixon, one of the most despicable people in politics and he at least had the sense to resign. Like John Dean said, "Worse than Watergate."

Or something like that. Bush has blown through 179 billion dollars to commit war crimes in his Iraq qWagmire, most of which was spent after "Mission Accomplished." He is going to come up $4 billion short before his next snort of taxpayers' money kicks in. This, of course, will take priority of funding the war on terror and the war on ignorance and the war on disease. America can't afford 4 more months of this Harvard MBA's "steady leadership" much less 4 more years.

Tami Silicio, whose photos of US soldiers coffins lined up for return to the US showed the world why Bush is afraid of these photos, got fired.

How can warfloggers and the insane religious right consider someone who is afraid of a photo as a "steady leader?"

The Fables of the Reconstruction memo , not to be confused with the fine blog of the same name. Regardless, to allow the United Nations to again loot Iraq will be problematic at best. Yeah, it is much better to let Bush, Cheney and Halliburton loot Iraq.

Chimpeach!

Many have wondered what is the best thing for demonstrators to carry. May I humbly suggest something that will be symbolic and useful in the New York summer:
flyswatters.

George Bush presided at a wake this week. White American Manifest Destiny is dead, rotting ignominiously somewhere in Iraq. Neither Bush nor the corpse knows it yet, but the stench is pervasive and unmistakable.

The draft will be announced right after Bush steals this year's election (courtesy of his brother in Florida and Diebold nearly everywhere else) .

Now is when people with a conscience must apply to be a member of their local draft board. If you don't then some rich, old, crotchety, white, Republican man will be deciding who gets deferments.

The folks at http://drivingvotes.org/ present Driving Bush Out of Office.
Everyone knows at least one or two Americans who hate what Bush has done to this great country but might not get around to voting. Responsible, patriotic Americans will make sure everyone they know who is against Bush will vote. DrivingVotes is concentrating on swing states and will register everyone. Which isn't a bad idea. You wouldn't believe the number of Republicans who have confided in me that they will vote against Bush this November.

Jeff, at Notes on the Atrocities, notes this passage from Woodward's book - Rove said:

"The good news for us is that Dean is not the nominee," Rove now argued to an associate in his second-floor West Wing office. Dean's unconditional opposition to the Iraq war could have been potent in a face-off with Bush. "One of Dean's strengths, though, was he could say, I'm not part of that crowd down there."

Blah3 had his 500,000th visitor and I want to congratulate him on his Magnificent Success! While there, I learned about Confessions of a Shameless Agitator who then pointed me to Juanita's, the world's most dangerous beauty salon where she hammers The Hammer but good.

Cheney and Rumsfeld, on Bush's approval, showed top secret war plans labeled "No Foreign" to Prince Bandar of Saudi Arabia.

Prince Bandar is the man who demanded that George Bush let Osama bin Laden's family flee America when real Americans weren't allowed to fly and George "Tough on Terra" Bush complied.

This is the man whose family has given Bush and his Daddy 1.5 billion dollars over 30 years. Where exactly does George Bush's loyalties lie?

Is this how you support the troops, Mr. Bush? I have called for you to be sent to the Hague for war crimes but I would like you to spend some time alone with some soldiers that just got back from Iraq first so they could explain to you their opinion on this matter.

John Pilger makes a convincing case. I always enjoy reading someone who is not afraid to accuse Bush and Blair of war crimes.

Among his many gems:

"Amnesty International reports that US-led forces have 'shot Iraqis dead during demonstrations, tortured and ill-treated prisoners, arrested people arbitrarily and held them indefinitely, demolished houses in acts of revenge and collective punishment'. "

Bush is engaging in collective punishment just like Hitler did. I know Americans get queasy when they hear that but I wish Bush would quit giving us so many correlations!

Karl Rove admits the "Mission Accomplished" banner wasn't so great in hindsight.

I think "Jobs and Growth" is also going to come back and bite him.


He also feels Bush will win Ohio comfortably. Diebold have anything to do with that?

Bush denies planning Iraq war shortly after 9/11.

I wonder if he would deny planning war shortly after staging his coup and sitting in Al Gore's office?

Bush gives Sharon no green light to kill Rantisi. So what happened? Did the Israelis ask if the Texacutioner would give them a red light and Rice told them he wouldn't do that?

9/11 Files Show Warnings Were Urgent and Persistent. Bush was cutting brush. I believe he wanted the deaths of thousands of innocents so he could install his anti-American policies. He didn't start talking about robbing Social Security until after the August 6th memo. My guess is he spent August waiting for his trifecta to come in.

US troops have carried out a massacre in Falluja, but MPs are silent writes Ronan Bennett in the Guardian. Indeed, the siege is mass punishment against tens of thousands of people for the acts of a few hundred. This is not right. This is not how Americans are supposed to behave. The Commander in Chief must control his troops or we must get that sucker out of office and get someone like Kerry who can support troops without supporting atrocities.

How out of touch is he?

Bush is so out of touch I don't think he would notice if Jen & Barb got drafted to go to Iraq.
(User contributions are welcome and encouraged.)

Paul Gerhard thinks Google points to Michael Moore for "Miserable Failure". It does if you use the retarded results criteria that AOL imposed on Google and its users. The free world, however, does point to the right place for Miserable Failure

Bush's Top Fund Raisers Profited Extraordinarily From Tax Cuts for "All America"

Those are among my favorite subjects:
Rewiring the War Room

Deleted my comment on his blog where I congratulated him on his Google bomb. The Wingnuts can't even take a compliment. Of course, I did deconstruct his quote in USA Today that "But I believe George W. Bush is a man of conviction and a man of his word. I can't say the same for Sen. Kerry."

My comment was innocent enough, I mentioned that we don't know George Bush's convictions because Daddy Bush and James Baker had the court records expunged and sealed. I also happened to mention, in a friendly sort of way, that while he believes Bush is a man of his word that The Daily Show had to subtitle Bush's speech so Americans could understand his dissembling.

He deleted the comment. Typical of a freedom loving Bush supporter. I guess I ventured out of the free speech zone. My other comment which is soon to be deleted is

lol - you deleted my comments from the other thread. Typical of a "Bush freedom lover"

Speaking of waffles, your boy Bush is eligible to apply for a job at the Waffle House. Among his many flip flops

flip flop
flip flop
flip flop
flip flop
flip flop

The funny thing is, my original comment was congratulating him on his Google Bomb. So much for the wingnuts changing the tone...

USA Today referred to google bombing political figures as old fashioned chicanery. No, it's Old Fashioned Patriot. Don't you hate it when newspapers misspell your name?

In all fairness to USA Today, they tried to reach me by email for their article but I have been too busy with real life to read blogmail for the past few weeks and couldn't respond in time for their article.

John Kerry said, "I'm tired of Karl Rove and Dick Cheney and a bunch of people who went out of their way to avoid their chance to serve when they had the chance," the Massachusetts senator said. "I'm not going to listen to them talk to me about patriotism."


George "Flip Flop" Bush, whose first campaign commercial exploited the 9/11 attacks had one of his flunkies accuse Kerry of "consistent political opportunism on the war on terror."

Art. 33. No protected person may be punished for an offence he or she has not personally committed. Collective penalties and likewise all measures of intimidation or of terrorism are prohibited.

One trouble with Bush's "stay the course" rhetoric — he never changes his mind, he never backs down, what a macho guy he is, etc. — is that he does change his mind, often, (why do you think Condi Rice testified?), but you can't tell if he realizes it.

Hmm. An awful lot of F's.

Michael Moore takes a break from editing Farenheit 911 to write about Bush's press conference.

Priceless stuff including:
"Halliburton is not a "company" doing business in Iraq. It is a WAR PROFITEER, bilking millions from the pockets of average Americans. In past wars they would have been arrested -- or worse."

He is said to be embracing a proposal to create a powerful new post of director of national intelligence. What they aren't saying is the point is to take it away from the Central Intelligence Agency because of the prohibition of its role in domestic spying.

It doesn't matter what structural changes they make if people like Rice and Bush don't use the intelligence in their pursuit of their "Reichstag fire."

Secretary Rumsfeld is described by knowledgeable diplomats as still favoring a major role for Mr. Chalabi in Iraq.

"Although the road map is the American plan, the president agreed to endorse another plan which is inconsistent with the road map.''

When Bush was asked a slightly difficult question he killed time waiting for magical words to buzz into his earpiece and out of his mouth.

Terror. 9/11. Iraq.
Any questions?
Terror. 9/11. Iraq.

It isn't because they hate freedom. They happen to remember the last time the US installed a regime friendly to US interests - a young guy named Saddam Hussein. That and Bush wants to take ownership of their oil.

It's a sad day when someone normally as level headed as Hesiod calls for Sadr's blood. Our press and government call Sadr radical and brutal but what he is doing is no different than what we do if his army was occupying our country. He is leading a popular uprising not because it is brutal but because many Iraqis agree with him.

The Nation speculates that Rice blew her chance for President or Vice President with her testimony before the 9/11 Commission. No silver bullet for you!

PDB stands for Presidential Daily Briefing and also Pretty Damn Bad. David Corn, who broke the story about Novak's traitorous act in outing Plame, explains why the PDB is PDB.

As always, the right wing has gotten it backwards and VLWC knows the remedy:
Great President and Mr. President. Not to mention waffles and flip flop
For the HTML impaired that is:
<a href="http://www.johnkerry.com/" target="kerry">Great President</a>
and
<a href="http://www.johnkerry.com/" target="kerry">Mr. President</a>
Not to mention
<a href="http://www.whitehouse.gov/president/gwbbio.html" target="gwbio">waffles</a>
and
<a href="http://www.whitehouse.gov/president/gwbbio.html" target="gwbio">flip flop</a>

The Bush administration has repeatedly promised to get tough with tax cheats, saying it has ended a long slide in enforcement of tax laws.

However, Corporate Risk of a Tax Audit Is Still Shrinking, I.R.S. Data Show

Iraqis who weren't willing to fight to the death for Hussein do seem willing to fight to the death for their country. Are we supposed to be surprised?

Ready or Not, Help From New Iraqi Forces Is Vital, U.S. Military Says.

Good plan, relying on quislings.

Blair Defends the War in Iraq as Part of a `Historic Struggle'

Blair "committed himself anew on Sunday to the war in Iraq, calling it part of a 'historic struggle' against dictatorship, terrorism and fanaticism across the globe." Apparently by telling Iraqis who their leader will be and killing civilians despite what British public opinion says.

Troops Hold Fire at 3 Iraqi Cities for Negotiations. United States officials warned that the resistance in all three centers would be crushed if the insurgents maneuvered for long.

Personally, I think vacationing in Crawford is prima facie evidence of dementia.

On Easter Sunday in Texas, Bush Awards Purple Hearts said the headline in the New York Times.

It happened to list his activities as even the warfloggers doubt Iraq.

He gave the NRA a tour of his "ranch"
He gave an interview to the Ladies Home Journal
He gave Ducks Unlimited a tour of his ranch. (What? No Scalia or Cheney?)
He gave the National Wild Turkey Federation a tour of his ranch. (I wonder if he thought it was this wild turkey?)

To show concern for the Easter festivities in Iraq, he cancelled his fishing trip on Saturday.
Why don't Republicans want to yield to Bush's fondest desire and give him a permanent vacation in Crawford?

PS - Why don't the rich people who support Bush understand that wanting to vacation in Crawford as a sign of dementia? Most rich people want to vacation in Vail, Jackson Hole or Switzerland. For Easter vacations shouldn't it be New Orleans or Carnivale in Rio?

Stranger, aka editor, at Blah3 notes the PDB mentioned airplanes, New York, Washington, Al-Qaeda. The memo, released during Easter when the White House is sure it will be ignored leaves only one question open. Will Mel Gibson ask for Bush's intestines on a stick?

Hey, Moveon, give this guy a job!

'You are either with us or against us' spaketh Bush on Nov 5, 2001. He rambled on, "But all nations, if they want to fight terror, must do something."

Looking back, pretty tough talk for someone who took the month off after ignoring warnings from Richard Clarke and others.

Hmm... it looks like if we want to do something about terrorism it will have to be anybody but Bush at the wheel.

Bush has committed America to the subjugation of Iraq not for their freedom or their betterment but to transfer the vast Iraqi oil reserves to ownership by multi-national corporations that are American in name only but pay no American income tax. The sham called the transfer of power that is to take place on June 30th has nothing to do with Iraqi security or freedom but to install some regime that can sign ownership papers of Iraqi oil to oil companies. The hundreds of Americans who died in Bush's illegal war did not die for a noble cause or to avenge the dead from 9/11 but to make Bush's, Cheney's and Rice's friends at Chevron richer. It is not what they or the American people signed up for.

Groundhog day, indeed. When is No More Mister Nice Blog going to get comments?

From her prepared statement:
"I thank the Commission for arranging this special session. Thank you for helping to find a way to meet the Nation's need to learn all we can about the September 11th attacks, while preserving important Constitutional principles."

(Translation - thanks to you idiots agreeing that no one else from the White House will testify in exchange for me stonewalling you the nation won't learn that our anti-terrorism efforts were impeded by our anti-Clinton bias.)

"This Commission, and those who appear before it, have a vital charge. We owe it to those we lost, and to their loved ones, and to our country, to learn all we can about that tragic day, and the events that led to it. Many families of the victims are here today, and I thank them for their contributions to the Commission's work."

(Translaton - if those damn Jersey bitches had left well enough alone we could have pulled the wool over everyone's eyes that we did everything possible to stop Saddam H... Osama bin Laden.)

"The terrorist threat to our Nation did not emerge on September 11th, 2001. Long before that day, radical, freedom-hating terrorists declared war on America and on the civilized world. The attack on the Marine barracks in Lebanon in 1983, the hijacking of the Achille Lauro in 1985, the rise of al-Qaida and the bombing of the World Trade Center in 1993, the attacks on American installations in Saudi Arabia in 1995 and 1996, the East Africa embassy bombings of 1998, the attack on the USS Cole in 2000, these and other atrocities were part of a sustained, systematic campaign to spread devastation and chaos and to murder innocent Americans."

(Translation - I will try to appear bi-partisan by mentioning an attack under Reagan but after that it is Clinton, Clinton, Clinton, Clinton, Clinton, Clinton. I hope they don't ask me where Osama bin Laden got his funding and training for asymmetrical warfare against Communist Russia. I am an expert on Communist Russia, you know.)

"The terrorists were at war with us, but we were not yet at war with them. For more than 20 years, the terrorist threat gathered, and America's response across several administrations of both parties was insufficient. Historically, democratic societies have been slow to react to gathering threats, tending instead to wait to confront threats until they are too dangerous to ignore or until it is too late. Despite the sinking of the Lusitania in 1915 and continued German harassment of American shipping, the United States did not enter the First World War until two years later. Despite Nazi Germany's repeated violations of the Versailles Treaty and its string of provocations throughout the mid-1930s, the Western democracies did not take action until 1939. The U.S. Government did not act against the growing threat from Imperial Japan until the threat became all too evident at Pearl Harbor. And, tragically, for all the language of war spoken before September 11th, this country simply was not on a war footing."

(Translation - The terrorists are just like Nazis, invading countries and blowing up churches. I will leave out the part about W's grandfather's role as "Hitler's Angel." I will leave out W's dad's part in arming radical Iranians. I will leave out Rumsfeld's supplying Hussein with weapons including the gas he used on his own people. I will leave out that Cheney's company Halliburton broke UN sanctions to deal with Libya and Iraq because, well you know, money was at stake.)

Since then, America has been at war. And under President Bush's leadership, we will remain at war until the terrorist threat to our Nation is ended. The world has changed so much that it is hard to remember what our lives were like before that day. But I do want to describe the actions this Administration was taking to fight terrorism before September 11th, 2001.

(Translation - Should I mention we also plan to leave Bush in power until the never ending war against terrorism has ended? Maybe, I won't bring that up until 2008. Besides, I don't want to describe the actions we were taking because how to say "Asleep at the switch." while looking tough on terrorism? Oops, better hurry up, after that last statement the Jersey bitches have steam coming out of their ears.)

After President Bush was elected, we were briefed by the Clinton Administration on many national security issues during the transition. The President-elect and I were briefed by George Tenet on terrorism and on the al-Qaida network. Members of Sandy Berger's NSC staff briefed me, along with other members of the new national security team, on counterterrorism and al-Qaida. This briefing lasted about one hour, and it reviewed the Clinton Administration's counterterrorism approach and the various counterterrorism activities then underway. Sandy and I personally discussed a variety of other topics, including North Korea, Iraq, the Middle East, and the Balkans.

(Translation - Elected or selected, what's the difference? Please pay no attention to accounts they wanted to talk about bin Laden but I kept wanting to talk about Hussein.)

"Because of these briefings and because we had watched the rise of al-Qaida over the years, we understood that the network posed a serious threat to the United States. We wanted to ensure there was no respite in the fight against al-Qaida. On an operational level, we decided immediately to continue pursuing the Clinton Administration's covert action authorities and other efforts to fight the network. President Bush retained George Tenet as Director of Central Intelligence, and Louis Freeh remained the Director of the FBI. I took the unusual step of retaining Dick Clarke and the entire Clinton Administration's counterterrorism team on the NSC staff. I knew Dick to be an expert in his field, as well as an experienced crisis manager. Our goal was to ensure continuity of operations while we developed new and more aggressive policies."

(Conscience talking - If I had taken any of those meetings that Clarke had demanded then maybe...
Condi - Shut up, Conscience!)

This is getting too aggravating to continue reading through her lies. I will end by noting her opening statement stonewall mentioned 9/11 10 times.

Kean, who spent all of his time asking snarky, partisan questions of Richard Clarke (and Kean got bitch slapped in the process) is now imploring 9/11 commission white wash members to leave partisanship out of Rice's questioning.

Now that Bush has a Sunni and a Shiite uprising against him in Iraq, what is he going to do to quell it? Gas them perhaps?

Sunnis and Shiites join forces against occupation.

WHAM! US Missile Attack on Mosque. Combined with Bush and Powell's past "crusade" remarks expect a lot of protests in the Middle East. The Shia not willing to join Sadr might change their mind after this.

Update: Al Jazeera says Marines didn't find insurgents's bodies in the bombed mosque. "When we hit that building I thought we had killed all the bad guys, but when we went in they didn't find any bad guys in the building," Lieutenant Colonel Brennan Byrne told reporters.

The Petulant Failure goes on vacation. Why are there any Republicans who think they should vote for Bush after his latest display of "supporting" the troops? Rotation cancelled, I am going to Crawford!

The latest grants they are trumpeting are Hispanic Training Grants in Florida, Nevada, and New Jersey. Florida and Nevada are among the key battle states.

Also, Taegan Goddard's Political Wire notes that Bush Cabinet Heads To Swing States.

Sometimes it takes an unrelated news item to make sense of another. The March jobs numbers showed an increase of 300,000. Unemployment jumped by 0.1% as well. That is around 100,000 workers. The unrelated news was the troop rotation, which was not yet completed has been cancelled but after around 100,000 troops came back. Not all of the troops are National Guard but a large number of them are. A large number of them going into Iraq last month also had jobs. I think a large number of 300,000 new jobs were to temps to replace outgoing National Guard troops. I think a large number of the new unemployed were temps that were let go now that some of the NG are back. I have no way of backing up this guess because the data is not collected.

Thomas Kean, handpicked by Bush to run the investigation whitewash into 9/11 appears ready to blame Clinton for 9/11.

is turning into even deeper shit. They managed to piss off Sadr by closing his newspaper which is why Shiites protested all week against the occupation. The latest development, according to the New York Times:

"I ask you not to resort to demonstrations because they have become a losing card and we should seek other ways," Sadr told his followers. "Terrorize your enemy, as we cannot remain silent over its violations."

SweetLiberty informs us of what I have been afraid of. Bush wants to reinstate the draft and draft women to carry out his war crimes against brown people in other countries. This means that my twelve year old daughter might end up dying in Bush's qWagmire to steal Iraqi oil. Impeach the lying, thieving, murderous war criminal now! Give Iraq back to the Iraqis and get out of there!

Thousands of women marched in Baghdad to protest the US occupation.

"We are here to show the world our might," a cleric said. "This army can be a striking force at any moment, it's a time bomb that will go off at a time and place it chooses."

I guess this is more of the good news pouring out of Iraq that shows Bush's grab for oil is winning...

Skippy notes first we kill 'em, then we arrest 'em where Recently Captured al Qaeda Leader Was Killed Last Year. Of course, this was probably a dry run for the reports from Bush's administration that we killed Saddam three times before arresting him last December.

But I guess we shouldn't worry about details like this because the jobs report was so good.

After promising the 9/11 Commission an hour of his time (less than what he spent at the NASCAR race and the "big fan" didn't even finish watching that because the drunken frat boy can't finish anything he starts) he is diluting that hour by splitting it with Cheney. Even before he backs down on his promise (yet again) it was less than 1/10th of 1% of the time he has spent fundraising over the last year.

The 9/11 Commission, which is looking into the failures under Bush and Cheney, are caving into letting the Number 1 suspects to testify visit spin in front of the commission. To ease the strain Bush and Cheney will appear before the commission simultaneously so they can keep their stories straight.

Bush has apologized for failing to keep his promise to be a uniter and not a divider and has promised to listen to diverse opinions. He has also apologized to Richard Clarke for not taking him more seriously when it meants saving lives and regrets the egregious smear attacks that his underlings have unleashed on Clarke. See comments for further details.