May 1, 2003
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Why the Bush Cartel "Ruling Triumvirate" Sent Newt Gingrich Out to "Eat Cheese" on Colin Powell
A BUZZFLASH NEWS ANALYSIS
When Newt Gingrich used an April 22nd speech at the American Enterprise Institute (AEI) to lay siege to the State Department, it was no accident. The AEI and the Heritage Foundation are the two primary right wing think tanks that flesh out the extremist policies for the White House. The AEI's "scholars and fellows" include a rogue's gallery of the hard right Republican Party "intelligentsia," including Lynne Cheney, Robert Bork, Richard Perle, and Gingrich himself (the Charles Manson of the Republican Party).
No, Newt didn't just get up to the podium and freelance it. The three people running America knew what was coming. Yes, the ruling triumvirate of Donald Rumsfeld (with the portfolio of Foreign Policy and Defense), Karl Rove (with the portfolio of Propaganda and Internal Affairs), and Dick Cheney (with the portfolio of Government Contracting and Business Development) let the morally debauched, but still sharply fanged Gingrich loose to shred Colin Powell.
Here's a little of what Gingrich had to say on April 22:
Without bold dramatic change at the State Department, the United States will soon find itself on the defensive everywhere except militarily. In the long run that is a very dangerous position for the world's leading democracy to be in. Indeed in the long run that is an unsustainable position....
The collapse of the State Department as an effective instrument puts all this at risk. We must learn the transforming lessons of the last six months and apply them to create a more effective State Department.
No, Gingrich wasn't acting on his own.
Karl Rove, for one, has had it out for Powell from the get-go. Bush was Rove's ticket to the moon, not Powell. According to "Bush at War" Bush Royal Court biographer, Bob Woodward:
"Rove was disturbed and felt Powell was beyond political control and operating out of a sense of entitlement. 'It's constantly, you know, "I'm in charge and this is all politics and I'm going to win the internecine political fame,"' Rove said privately.
For Donald Rumsfeld, Powell was a rival who was keeping Rumsfeld from becoming a Master of the Universe, after years of failing to grasp the brass ring. And when the triumvirate prevailed and got their marionette, George W. Bush, to launch a war despite the opposition of the U.N. Security Council, Rummy couldn't wait to humiliate Powell. Maureen Dowd elaborates:
The swank cocktail party celebrating the fall of Baghdad was the hot ticket on Embassy Row.
The host was the Bush administration's vicar of foreign policy [Rumsfeld]. The guests on Saturday, April 12, included Tony Brenton, acting head of the British Embassy, and dozens of ambassadors from the smaller countries that fashioned the fig leaf known as the coalition of the willing.
The ambassador of Eritrea was welcomed to the house on Kalorama Road, even as the French ambassador, who lives directly across the street in a grand chateau, was snubbed. The German ambassador is kaput, but the ambassador of the Netherlands mingled with Dick Cheney, Paul Wolfowitz, Doug Feith, and Gen. Richard Myers and Gen. Peter Pace of the Joint Chiefs. The winners were gaily lording it over the losers, sneering at the French.
Conspicuously absent was the nation's top diplomat. Asked if Colin Powell was invited, a State Department official replied, "No. People here didn't know about the party."
And did we mention, by the way, that Gingrich sits on the infamous Defense Department advisory board, the one that Richard Perle still uses as a platform for disparaging, intimidating and belittling anyone and everyone in the name of the United States government.
As for Cheney, he had a grudge match with Powell. But for Dick, it was mostly just business. Powell was standing between him and all those billions of dollars in contracts he wouldn't get to award if Powell prevented the destruction of Iraq; because they wouldn't need to rebuild it if they couldn't bomb it first. Powell just didn't understand how corporate cronyism and GOP contributions work hand-in-hand -- and there's nothing like a war to prime the pump with taxpayer dollars.
And Cheney had been undercutting Powell whenever he could, including the Secretary of State's attempts to move the peace process forward in the Middle East. Woodward records that at a crucial moment in Powell's efforts to mediate between the Israelis and Arafat, he received a call from his trusted aide Dick Armitage:
"I'm holding back the fucking gates here," Armitage reported. "They're eating cheese on you" -- an old military expression for gnawing on someone and enjoying it. People in the Defense Department and the vice president's office were trying to do him [Powell] in, Armitage said. He had heard from reliable media contacts that a barrage was being unloaded on Powell.
And what about Little Caesar, the marionette whose strings are tugged and pulled by the members of the triumvirate? Well, Little Caesar doesn't have much to say about Colin Powell. After all, Colin's not a "tough guy" like Rummy, Dick and Karl. And Little Caesar likes to hang out with the thugs because he wants to feel like a man.
As Bush court hagiographer, Bob Woodward recalls asking Bush about Powell:
When I specifically asked about Powell's contributions, the president offered a tepid response. "Powell is a diplomat," Bush responded. "And you've got to have a diplomat. I kind of picture myself as a pretty good diplomat, but nobody else does. You know, particularly, I wouldn't call me a diplomat."
No, George, BuzzFlash wouldn't call you a diplomat either.
But there's another reason that George may have it out for Colin. (He's not going to fire him or anything. That would get Poppa Bush in a snit, and they need Michael Powell to allow more Republican media consolidation through FCC deregulation.) He resents Powell for having had the courage to actually fight in a war, not just run around playing Commander in Chief in a script written by Karl Rove.
In his book "Colin Powell: An American Journey," Powell writes scathingly about young, privileged cowards who avoided service in Vietnam:
"I particularly condemn the way our political leaders supplied the manpower for that (the Vietnam) war. The policies -- determining who would be drafted and who would be deferred, who would serve and who would escape, who would die and who would live -- were an antidemocratic disgrace. I can never forgive a leadership that said, in effect: These young men -- poorer, less educated, less privileged -- are expendable (someone described them as "economic cannon fodder"), but the rest are too good to risk. I am angry that so many sons of the powerful and well placed and many professional athletes (who were probably healthier than any of us) managed to wangle slots in Reserve and National Guard units [e.g., George W. Bush (BuzzFlash's insertion)]. Of the many tragedies of Vietnam, this raw class discrimination strikes me as the most damaging to the ideal that all Americans are created equal and owe equal allegiance to our country."
-- and --
"Better-off kids beat the draft with college deferments [e.g., Dick Cheney (BuzzFlash's insertion)]."
So Colin Powell has something on George W. Bush, Dick Cheney and Karl Rove -- all who were too cowardly to serve in Vietnam. (Rumsfeld served in the military, but not in battle.)
Colin Powell has George W. Bush's number and Little Caesar knows it.
That's just one of the reasons Newt Gingrich, another Vietnam War evader, was sent out to fire a shot across the bow of the Secretary of State.
After all, Newt is an expert at "eating cheese on you."
A BUZZFLASH NEWS ANALYSIS
