From The Crisis Papers
By Bernard Weiner

With Tom DeLay about to head to trial, Duke Cunningham in prison and Karl Rove looking at a likely criminal indictment, I needed to talk to “Shallow Throat” about the deepening implosion of the Republican machine and how progressives and Democrats should react in the run-up to the November election.

The high-ranking GOP mole inside the Bush Administration didn’t waste any time responding to my coded signal. He was on the West Coast, so we met off the beaten track amid the gorgeous high-desert rocks and wildflowers of Anza Borrego Park in Southern California.

“From the outside,” I said as we walked on the sandy path, “it looks like chaos and desperation in the Bush White House and a confused, contradictory Republican Party in Congress, with lots of important officials under indictment or investigation.”

“It’s even worse on the inside,” said Shallow Throat. “It’s not just the wheels falling off the bus — the whole damn engine is coming loose. There is virtually nothing, nothing, going on in the White House but the survival game — which means getting through the November election without total defeat. Everything they do, everything they say, every move they make, is geared for its effect on limiting the damage.”

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