'Stonewall' Bush Models and Encourages Avoidance

The common sense question was asked from the start: If Bush wanted to know if Karl Rove had leaked information about a CIA operative, why didn't he just call him into his office and ask him?

That Bush did not -- or that he did and was lied to, only to accept the lie -- illustrates a method of avoidance that amounts to stonewalling. Bush has not taken the matter into hand. He has not called anyone of any circumstance onto the carpet and demanded that the American people be given the full story.

Now, the Abu Ghraib materials remain out of public view. The American people have not been given the full story, as the Bush administration -- i.e. Rumsfeld -- knows it.

I reported earlier that the government refused to release all the materials. Now, apparently it is unclear what the government refused to do. Apparently, they have not yet blacked out necessary portions of the materials in order to prepare them for release.

Still, the fact remains that we have not seen all the evidence. The horrifying images we have seen of Abu Ghraib, it is said, were not the worst of what happened. But we don't know all that happened because that information has not been released.

In the absence of this information -- photos, video tapes, audio tapes -- we are left to make up our own versions. One version is that boys and women were raped. It could be that those stories are fabrications. How are we to know?

Again, by avoiding a direct engagement with the problem -- for instance, processing and releasing the material immediately (it's been over a year since Darby turned over the evidence) -- the Bush administration is showing a pattern of avoidance. Why isn't the release of this material more important that destroying Social Security or making permanent tax breaks for the rich? Why didn't the administration tell us two years ago precisely how involved Rove, Libby, and others were in distributing information about a CIA agent the press?

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Witholding information seems unfair, doesn't it? When someone is talking to me and trying to get my opinion on something and we disagree on certain points, there is nothing more disappointing than when my debate partner pulls out information he's been keeping to himself. I have to ask myself, why am I even in this conversation? The ground shifts every time I think I'm starting to understand.

This shifting story characterizes the whole run-up to the war -- and thus, the whole series of Bush actions taken in the wake of 9/11. We keep getting different claims of information -- weapons of mass destruction, mission accomplished, Iraq and 9/11, etc.

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How best to respond to such a pattern of avoidance? What strategies do you use to get the straight story? How do you operate in the absence of information? How do you read the codes so that you can guess at what the story really is?

Let's chew the fat. Speak to Fatspeak.