Senior Administration Official Guessing Game: Damage Control
Which of this week's totally shocking surprising Earth-shattering unexpected new reveals did you like more: the memos that showed Bush was set on war in January '03 (WHAT?!?) or this here that showseveryoneknew the aluminum tubes were bullshit long before they used them in the SOTU and pinned a rationale on 'em (NO WAY!)?
Being generally unshockable types, we're more intested in the identities of these two:
"Presidential knowledge was the ball game," says aformer senior government official outside the White House who was personally familiar with the damage-control effort. "The mission was to insulate the president. It was about making it appear that he wasn't in the know. You could do that on Niger. You couldn't do that with the tubes." ARepublican political appointee involved in the process, who thought the Bush administration had a constitutional obligation to be more open with Congress, said: "This was about getting past the election."
So -- we have a couple ideas, but we'd like to hear yours. If you can divine any clues from those descriptions, let us know who you're thinking and why.
Insulating Bush [National Journal]