In the interview, Rove said he made no secret to anyone of his support for Griffin and cited published reports that Cummins was considering stepping down.

Bud Cummins did resign without objection but not until after his replacement was announced. He was told the reason was becuase they were just making room for other people.

Answering questions about mistakes Gonzalez made Cummins states: Trying to tell Congress and the public that the people were fired for “performance reasons.” He willfully slandered their professional reputations. Outrageous. link, which tells me Bud cares about the truth.

So I wonder if he’d offer a response to Karl Rove’s assertion about “published reports that Cummins was considering stepping down”

The thing about “published reports” is that their source is ambiguous so Rove can;t be tied down and either Bud was or wasn’t considering stepping down before he got the call. Besides, wasn’t Rove relying on Sampson to identify spots for Griffin?

Anyway Bud would certainly know if he had said anything about stepping down before he learned that DOJ had appointed his replacement.
Bud Cummins CEO/US Canadian Bio Fuels Inc/ bcummins at uscbiofuels dot net

Until Thursday, however, Rove had declined to comment, Luskin said. But he made prearranged deals with the New York Times and Washington Post, under which he allowed them to see some of his e-mail messages, which the White House had closely guarded. He also gave an interview with both newspapers in which he insisted he had done nothing wrong.

Note, “…opposed one early suggestion to dismiss all of the more than 90 United States attorneys in a single mass dismissal…” does not rule out the possibility that he supported, or was the originator of, later suggestions to dismiss all of the more than 90 USA’s in a single mass dismissal.

Need to think about the fundamental laws of supply and demand. If the US bid $1B for the crop, are there parties out there which will bid more?

And if we did buy the crop for $1B, will the market see this as a baseline for demand and ratchet up production in response?

What really needs to happen is for the farmers to grow replacement crops which are more valuable than the ones they are giving up, but just as easy to grow. Will cost more to pull this off than $1B, but we could look ourselves in the eye, and actually be making real progress towards helping the Afghan people. (Poppies are a form of monoculture, not good over the big picture for sustainability, putting aside the issue of narcotics.)

The other issue which must be dealt with is energy. Energy is one resource which could be more valuable than poppies, but getting it is a political war far bigger than the visible one we’re involved in. The instability which the poppy crop creates through the encouragement of corrupt forces is an unspoken benefit to the west in that it has disrupted the movement of energy resources across Afghanistan as well as the harvest of oil, natural gas and mineral reserves. Until a comprehensive plan which supports Afghans while reducing risk to other countries can be put into place, there will be a dynamic tension encouraging poppy farming.

Have those idjits in DC and NY forgotten all the propaganda they put out?