Ben-Veniste, Smoking Gun, 9-11 Commission Inquisition, Condoleeza Rice, Declassification of August 6, 2001 Presidential Daily Briefing (PDB); Ben-Veniste hoisted on own petard.

April 12, 2004: #00* Political Satire/Commentary where satire is always commentary but commentary isn't always satire ™·2004.
(but we're confident you'll know the difference) Search PoliSat.Com Home Tell a friend about PoliSat.Com Subscribe
Permanent Link to this installment in PoliSat.Com's Archives Google-News list of recent updates About author, Jim Wrenn .
*Reposting of yesterday's installment not picked up by news/opinion software due to a technical glitch.

Ben-Veniste, Smoking Gun, 9-11 Commission Inquisition, Condoleeza Rice, Declassification of August 6, 2001 Presidential Daily Briefing (PDB); Ben-Veniste hoisted on own petard.·

The April 10, 2004, declassification of the August 6, 2001 Presidential Daily Briefing (PDB), about which Richard Ben-Veniste cross-examined Condoleeza Rice at the April 8, 2004, hearing before the 9-11 Commission, exposed a smoking gun but not the one Ben-Veniste expected or hoped to expose. The smoking gun is the partisan deception culpably employed by Ben-Veniste to convey the false impression that the August 6, 2001, PDB contained "warnings" which, if heeded, could have prevented 9-11.

Ben-Veniste asked Rice a two-part question. When she answered the second part first and then began answering the first part, he deceitfully attempted to characterize his two-part question as though it had been a one-part question in an effort to prevent her from answering the first part. Of course, only people not paying attention to his two-part question (and subsequent media sound-bites omitting the first part but including the second part) could have construed his two-part question as a one-part question. Such subsequent media "sound bites" of the colloquy between them thus conveyed false impressions: (a) that she was attempting to answer a question he hadn't asked and (b) that her answer (to the second part of his two-part question) constituted an "admission" that the PDB at issue had contained "warnings" which, if heeded, could have prevented 9-11.

What was the two-part question? He asked her whether the August 6, 2001, Presidential Daily Briefing (PDB) contained "warnings" of bin Laden's intent to launch attacks within the United States, and without pausing he also asked her whether she could remember the PDB's "title." She straightforwardly answered the second part first by saying the title was "Bin Laden determined to strike within the U.S." The instant she began answering the first part by explaining why the PDB constituted a recitation of historical information about bin Laden's actions and previously stated intentions rather than a "warning" of any particular attack, Ben-Veniste deceitfully denied he had asked any question other than whether she remembered the PDB's title. However, the fact that he had asked a two-part question and was attempting to prevent her from answering the first part was obvious to anyone who had been listening to his words. His efforts to deny such and his deceitful effort to prevent her from answering the first question and to simultaneously falsely characterize her attempt to do so as an attempt to waste his allotted time by filibustering insulted the intelligence of anyone listening with ears not attached to heads containing little thought other than blindly partisan contempt for President Bush.

Ben-Veniste (and Jamie GoreLick) then behaved as though his eliciting from Rice the title of the PDB was the equivalent of uncovering the barrel of a smoking gun and as though Rice's insistence on answering the first part of the two-part question was an effort to disguise the barrel as something else. However, although the White House's subsequent declassification and public release of that PDB (the full contents of which Ben-Veniste knew during his inquisition of Rice) revealed an entire smoking gun, it wasn't the one Ben Veniste pretended to have discovered. Instead, the fact that the content of the PDB wholly corroborated Rice's characterization of it and wholly negated Ben Veniste's deceitful characterization of it revealed the smoking gun to be in Ben Veniste's hand-- i.e., his transparently partisan and willful distortion of information available to him in an effort to deceitfully and unjustifiably impugn the integrity of his political opponent.

Fair-minded reading of the PDB, the contents of which were known to Ben-Veniste when he cross-examined Rice under an expectation that Bush would probably refuse to declassify its contents, reveals that nothing in it could rationally be construed to support Ben-Veniste's deceitful attempt to characterize it as an unheeded "warning" of an al Qaeda attack in the U.S. even remotely similar to the 9-11 attacks. He owes Rice an apology but surely lacks the moral integrity to make one or even realize he owes her one.

I'm Dick Ben-Veniste, who spun
a web to ensnare smoking guns,
but yet my deceit
in trying this feat
snared me with my own smoking gun.

Framing a cross-examination question knowingly and deceitfully mischaracterizing the content of a document expected to not be shown to "the jury" (in this case, the public) is a favorite tactic of deceitful, unscrupulous lawyers. I've dealt with honorable lawyers and successfully prosecuted deceitful lawyers, and I know the difference. Not only did Ben-Veniste expose himself, rather than Rice, as the person holding a smoking gun, he simultaneously also used it to publicly shoot himself in the groin. I suspect his sense of honor is too dull for him to even feel the pain.

--Jim Wrenn, Editor at PoliSat.Com.

Daily Update immediately preceding the one above.

Recent Political Satire/Commentary Animations-- Click image to play. More: Text-Index/Images-Index.

Donate your frequent-flier miles to military personnel to return home from port of reentry on leave: www.HeroMiles.Org.

·support our troops, support Bush, support Cheney, support victory in Iraq, support victory in Afghanistan, Clinton Liebrary, http://PoliSat.Com , PoliSatDOTcom, Salute America's Heroes, Fallen Heroes Fund, oppose Gore's Global Warming theory, support milblogs, Michael Yon, Pat Dollard, BlackFive, MilBlogs, MilBlogging, Michael Yon, Mudville Gazette, HotAir.Com, JawaReport, PajamasMedia , VictoryCaucus , VetsForFreedom , FreedomsWatch , DayByDayCartoon , WrennCom.Com , Video , Political Satire, Politics, News, oppose MoveOn.Org, oppose Code Pink, oppose DailyKos, oppose ANSWER, support PoliSat.Com, support WrennCom.Com, ·

First Things First: Salute America's Heroes · Fallen Heroes Fund · Frequent-Flyer-Miles for Troops · Thanks to Troops · Military News ·· MilBlogs ·

Home · Posts: Current /Recent · Videos/Toons/Songs: Latest · Embed-Codes · Text Index · Images Index · Archives: Old · New · About · Contact · Syndication · Affiliates ·

News Sources/Papers/Magazines Pundits Blogs ThinkTanks What is "property"? Pantheopians Global Climate Asteroids/Comets Hitting Earth--Risks/Predictions Science GlobalWeb

Other sites that feature PoliSat.Com's Political Satire/Commentary-- Click here to view our Affiliates page.