Opinion Earnest Dumas - February 13, 2004: "Give George W. Bush credit. Who would have dreamed that he could get by with a political maneuver so brazen as putting Laurence Silberman in charge of an 'independent' commission to investigate the intelligence failures leading up to the Iraq war? The country should be boiling with outrage but hardly a whimper was heard.

Putting Vice President Dick Cheney or Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld in charge of the inquiry would have been too transparent, but even they do not have Silberman's record of protecting the Bushes from scandal and punishing their critics. Whitewater aficionados on both sides will recall Silberman's role in the campaign to destroy Bill Clinton. When the commission's work is done - long after the election - Silberman will see to it that much of the blame for anything requiring blame will be borne by, who else?, Bill Clinton. Silberman's co-chair is former U. S. Sen. Chuck Robb, picked for his reputation as a malleable man who never rocks the boat.

Silberman is a federal judge but he has never let the black robes or the code of judicial conduct stand in the way of getting dirty when he needed to. He has been a political loyalist first and a judge fifth. "

The Silberman connection. Bushies can only play with a marked deck. And the press, with the exception of the Arkansas Times, have not picked up on Silberman's glaring thralldom to the Bushies. Didn't anyone in the press read Brock's "Blinded by the Right," where Brock describes being mentored by Silberman.