Found At Starbucks, The Pentagon's Papers

[Oilwellian]

As most of America slept early last Sunday morning, the Bush Administration hustled and bustled to prepare for the Sunday morning talk shows – among others Colin Powell was appearing on Face the Nation and Donald Rumsfeld was booked on Fox News Sunday. Condi Rice was not scheduled to appear until prime time, when she would make a star appearance on CBS' '60 Minutes' – the last in a long line of media appearances that caused 9/11 Commissioner Richard Ben Veniste to quip that “Condi Rice has appeared everywhere but at my local Starbucks.”

Well, others in the Bush administration did, apparently, make an appearance at the local Starbucks. And as the Washington Post reports today, one of them – obviously readying himself to prep Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld – left his notes on the table. Talking points, hand-written notes on spin tactics, and a hand-drawn map to the Secretary's house were found by a resident of DuPont Circle, who made them available to the Center for American Progress. The name of said resident is being withheld at his request, as he fears that he may be accused on national television of being "disgruntled."

Download The Pentagon's Papers
http://www.americanprogress.org/site/pp.asp?c=biJRJ8OVF&b=42125

[PartyPooper]

1. Well, latte dah!

:evilgrin:

[Oilwellian]

2. I loved this part

"Stay inside the line - we don't need to puff this at all, we need to be careful as hell about it. This thing will go away soon and what will keep it alive will be one of us going over the line."

[priller]

4. Maybe they need to tell that to Cheney, then.

n/t

[brooklynite]

31. Boy, lucky for them that never happened...

what will keep it alive will be one of us going over the line.

[Dover]

18. LOL! With sprinkles on top.............eom

.

[ewagner]

3. Whaaaaa??????

Is this for real?

I know it says the Washington Post had it but this is almost too incredible..........

also...any idea who "Eric" might be?

[Stuckinthebush]

5. He will be the newest person fired by the Pentagon

I'm sure he will surface soon.

[KC]

7. Washingpost article

Note to Eric: U Need 2B More Careful

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A37321-2004Mar30.html

[54anickel]

8. Ha! Thanks for posting!

[Oilwellian]

11. LOLOL!

This headline is hysterical!

[jimshoes]

6. Maybe Eric can get into the

manufacturing sector at the local McDonalds.

[KittyWampus]

9. I Don't Think Eric Will Make Many More Dimes In Washington

:(

[koopie57]

21. I guess the poor sob

will have to write a tell all book ...

[spooked]

10. We need to figure out WHAT

he meant by "STAY INSIDE THE LINE"
That is the KEY to understanding LIHOP.

What is it that they could mention on the talk shows that would GO OVER THE LINE??

"Stay inside the line - we don't need to puff this at all, we need to be careful as hell about it. This thing will go away soon and what will keep it alive will be one of us going over the line."

[Oilwellian]

12. My first thought was...

Bush coloring in a coloring book.

Seriously though, you make a very good point. I think "we don't need to puff this at all" means calling the dogs out has backfired so it would be better to "not go over the line" and remain as quiet as possible about the situation.

[KC]

13. It reminds

me of someone in trouble and then saying to everyone involved
...let's make sure we all say the same thing so we can
keep our story 'straight'


KC

[Kool Kitty]

24. Which is exactly why "Spin 'n Marty"

will be appearing before the 9-11 commission together. They can't trust each other to keep the story straight.

[spooked]

14. Could "Eric" be...

Eric Ruff, Defense Department Spokesman who recently defended Rumsfeld after he was charged with taking of Sept. 11 "artifacts"??

http://groups.google.com/groups?q=eric+ruff+rumsfeld&hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&as_drrb=b&selm=uohe505j49hae9pu6u43clgcvu7easop4b%404ax.com&rnum=1

[webtrainer]

22. Additional article (UPI), Ruff is the 'Eric'

Found notes may show Bush plan on Clarke

<snip>
The notes were written by Pentagon political appointee Eric Ruff who left them in a Starbucks coffee shop in Dupont Circle, not far from U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld's home.

The notes are genuine, a Pentagon official said. They were compiled for an early morning briefing for Rumsfeld before the Sunday morning talk shows, during which administration officials conducted a flurry of interviews to counter the testimony of Richard Clarke, President George W. Bush's former terrorism czar who left the post in 2003. Rumsfeld appeared on Fox and ABC.

</snip>

more here-->
http://www.upi.com/view.cfm?StoryID=20040331-112127-9812r

[spooked]

15. message deleted

[spooked]

16. Eric Ruff just became...

Rumsfeld's "Deputy Assistant Defense Secretary", and was working for Wolfowitz until recently.



From the Washington Times, March 12, 2004:
http://www.washtimes.com/functions/print.php?StoryID=20040311-113622-5770r

New deputy
Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld has quietly added another official to the Pentagon public affairs office. He is Eric Ruff, a former government and industry public relations specialist who was once a newspaper reporter.
Mr. Ruff, currently a public affairs specialist working for Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz, is likely to become the principal deputy assistant defense secretary for public affairs, the key deputy to Assistant Defense Secretary-designee Larry Di Rita.
Many Pentagon news reporters, however, are unfamiliar with the new spokesman.
Mr. Ruff was transplanted to the Pentagon from the Interior Department, where he was director of communications.
He also worked on Capitol Hill, where he was an aide to Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, Texas Republican, and before that, he was an aide to Sen. John W. Warner, Virginia Republican.
Mr. Ruff also worked in the first Bush administration at public affairs jobs in the Agriculture and Commerce departments.
As a news reporter, Mr. Ruff covered the Hill for Congressional Quarterly and before that, he worked for the Donrey Media Group.
He cut his newspaper reporting teeth in the 1970s and was the first to report the influx of Vietnamese refugees to Fort Chafee, Ark., in 1975 for the Southwest Times Record."

[pagerbear]

17. Wonder if this was a plant?

[GordonOKC]

19. I wonder the same

There is a possibility this was planted. Karl Rove has been
known to use this tactic.

[Zhade]

30. Exactly my thought. I'll need to read through to see, though.

NT!

[snippy]

33. It is classic Turd Blossom Rove technique.

It also is deceptive, therefore classic Bush, Liar in Chief.

None of the administration talking turds like Cheney or Rice or Comrade Squealer or any of the other republican attack assholes like Frist or Lehman or McConnell I saw made any effort to:

"Stay inside the line - we don't need to puff this at all, we need to be careful as hell about it. This thing will go away soon and what will keep it alive will be one of us going over the line."

If this truly was their strategy every lying piece of shit in the republican party failed to follow it.

[GoddessOfGuinness]

20. Oh what a tangled web we weave...

I wonder how much time and taxpayer $ are wasted on figuring out how to cover tracks?

Seems like the government would be much more efficient if it was simply honest...

[peterh]

23. WHOAaaaa…<Slapping forehead>

Now that’s a friggin’ novel idea…:P

[GoddessOfGuinness]

25. Doesn't it make you wonder

when they started this kind of crap?

Did Washington sit down with his advisors and determine that they'd better try a new spin on the Whiskey Rebellion?

[peterh]

26. Well…not sure about the Whiskey rebellion, but….

In some circles, Paul Revere was considered America’s first spin doctor…he supposedly fanned the flames of revolution by exaggerating a confrontation between the redcoats and the colonials that he and his comrades, the Sons of Liberty, dubbed “The Boston Massacre”.

A little bit of trivia I wasn’t aware of before….:shrug:

[sonias]

27. I liked the part where the concerned citizen takes the papers to...

Center for American Progress. I have to remember that with our current media of course being held hostage by this regime, we need other sources to get the information out. You know CNN would probably have thrown them away or buried them. Our supposed "mainstream media" has been out to lunch for decades. They make everything thing up or get it directly from the WH. No fact checking, no new ground being covered, no tough questions.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A37321-2004Mar30.html
Note to Eric: U Need 2B More Careful
(snip)
Our good citizen, no dummy he, concluded these were significant papers and should be turned over to the appropriate people. So that would be the Pentagon or the White House?

Oh, no. He turned them over to none other than that most left-leaning think tank, Center for American Progress, headed by none other than former Clinton chief of staff John D. Podesta.
(/snip)

Sonia

[Karenina]

28. Just like the "Powerpoint Presentation,"

found in Rock Creek Park???

[Whoa_Nelly]

29. Eric Ruff

The Pentagon PaperBoy.

Always wondered who really delivered the news from the top. O8)

[brooklynite]

32. Gee, I thought all them latte lovers were liberals...

On second thought, given what happened, maybe that's true.