Dick Clarke, Not The Dorian Gray One

The Richard Clarke interview on 60 Minutes last night combined with former Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neil's revelations that the Bush puppet masters were itching for an excuse to invade Iraq pre 9/11 raises lots of interesting questions but most important to me is WHY NOW are these ideas getting press? Most sane people said what they are saying now from the beginning of the march to war, so why the fuss now?

Here's my supposition: elites in this country are split. Perpetual war, unilateral actions and affirmative action, special ed presidents are bad for business. For instance, the Saudi's have just opened up their oil sector to "competitive" bids, the first time since nationalizing the industry in the 1970's, and surprise, surprise, US based corporations came in second place in every one (see story). There has also been noise in the OPEC world that petrodollars should be de-dollarized and replaced with the Euro. The "doves,"- multilateralist imperialists-let's let the UN privatize and occupy, Iraq, Haiti, Korea, etc... are very nervous about how things look when power is used so nakedly. The neo-cons don't really care how things look because they have the power and what are you going to do about it? The doves say plenty, see above petrodollar and contract stories. This brings us to why the dogged media bring up the story now? Because they are crass opportunists. They are hedging their bets on the next election. Just think if Leslie Stahl wasn't invited to dinner at the Kerry tomato farm or where ever they hang out? They want access to power and if your not flattering you don't get access.
The profit motive is also at work, they want to sell books and get ratings. This explanation is secondary however to the above analysis in my eyes. I think Chomsky summed this up well when he talked about sensationalism and the press. They are usually only sensationalists when it suits their interests, Spanish-American War, Terrorism, EVIL, etc... but other sensationally gorey stories somehow go un-noticed, cluster bombs in Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam that maim people to this day, genocide in East Timor, Guatemala, Pinochet's crimes, and lots more. Let's face it there are deserving and underserving victims.