Poor Ol' Douglas J. Feith.
**Positions Wanted**
Today, brothers and sisters, we pity poor ol' brother Douglas J. Feith. [Click here.]
In the near future, as other members of the Bush administration wrap up their cushy prison time and start their book tours after all the Iraqi War Scandal trials are over, ol' Feith will be wandering around lost, looking for any type of gainful Washington, DC employment. To no avail.
For poor ol' brother Douglas J. Feith, you see, now has "the Bad Resume."
As the under secretary of defense for policy, Douglas has been in a position to know intimate details of the inner workings of the administration and of the Dept. of Defense.
In a need-to-know operation, the under secretary of defense for policy has a very high need-to-know.
Few beings on this planet knew of his existence, outside of his family, the people he shared conference tables with and the one or two fanatics who track the footsteps of every member of the Bush administration.
But, today he did something astoundingly dopey. Whether he jumped or allowed himself to be pushed, he opened his mouth. For public consumption. To the press. Loudly. At his own self-called briefing. Bad move, Douglas.
He fired back at White House critics. Critics who have been speaking with increasing numbers of CIA pros happy to supply information about the administration's illegal subverting of their agency and the rest of the U.S. Intelligence community over Iraq for purely political reasons. [Click here.] Then, ol' Douglas went ahead and made the howling mistake of letting this quote hit the paper:
"Mr. Feith told reporters. 'I know of nobody who pressured anybody.'"
Well, unfortunately for ol' Douglas, here, this can only mean two things, and neither are good to have on your resume in the arena he works in.
- He is a liar (uncomfortably beyond Washington, DC standards);
- Or even worse—he was out of the loop.
Hopefully for Douglas, it's only the former. That way he can take his sentence, work on his book, do his time along with the big boys, then hang with his convicted brethren afterwards at their Barnes & Noble signings.
If it's the latter, ol' Doug is in for more serious problems.
Ex-Administration Types only have value insofar as they have access. Power is seen as access. Note the many Ex-Administration Types heading up companies involved in the corporate raiding of Iraq. And now here comes this moron, screaming to the world, in essence, "They don't tell me anything." Doug, even if it's not true, it looks awfully bad. If it even looks like they won't tell you now, when your office is two doors down the hall, how ever will you be able to get appointments to see them later, in order to justify your high fee? Most corporations and contributors most likely will just smile and take a pass on you.
Plus, since one intelligence professional describes Douglas as one of "the browbeaters" at meetings, along with Deputy Defense Secretary Paul D. Wolfowitz, this may point to a certain lack of grace or of style, both highly prized commodities in capitol employment circles. Be warned also, Douglas, since Wolfie, like J. Gordon Liddy before him, may well prove to be "the man whom everyone will go on record as denying they ever met" when this all goes down. So, you may not want to appear to have been too close.
So, best of luck out there, Douglas. Keep your head up. You will have support. The other two-to-four million people you and your bosses have helped throw out of work over the last three years will be happy to welcome you.
[I just saw that Joshua Marshall takes a very similar tack on this story in his Talking Points Memo blog, only with a great deal more reporting and an emphasis on the goodly amount of trouble our friend Douglas may find himself in in the short term. Well worth reading.]
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posted by Gotham 3:14 AM
