Turn Turn Turn

Have you read Scooter Libby's September 15, 2005, letter to Judith Miller, who was at that point still incarcerated? It closes with this:

"You went into jail in the summer. It is fall now. You will have stories to cover—Iraqi elections and suicide bombers, biological threats and the Iranian nuclear program. Out West, where you vacation, the aspens will already be turning. They turn in clusters, because their roots connect them. Come back to work—-and life. Until then, you will remain in my thoughts and prayers."

A lot of bloggers have tried to make heads or tails of the passage.

Is this just more of Libby's notorious purple prose?

It is based on fact.

Or, is it a code, perhaps written to look like purple prose?

As Robert Novak, of all people, reported on September 22, a bunch of rich conservatives recently gathered in Aspen, Colorado, to talk policy...and bash President Bush!

For two full days, George W. Bush was bashed. He was taken to task on his handling of stem cell research, population control, the Iraq war and, especially, Hurricane Katrina. The critics were no left-wing bloggers. They were rich, mainly Republican and presumably Bush voters in the last two presidential elections.

The Bush-bashing occurred last weekend at the annual Aspen conference sponsored by the New York investment firm Forstmann Little & Co. Over 200 invited guests, mostly prestigious, arrived Thursday night (many by private aircraft) and stayed until Sunday...They faithfully attended the discussions presided over by PBS's Charlie Rose on such serious subjects as "global poverty and human rights" and "the 'new' world economy." The connecting link was hostility to President Bush.

Hmmm.

The Aspens have turned in a cluster, have they?

And maybe it is their neocon roots that connect them?

Interesting.

Miller, by the way, authored a book on biological weapons and received one of the (hoax) anthrax letters in fall 2002.

Put that with her false reporting about WMD in Iraq and she's had a busy decade already.

I'm not 100% sure why Libby thinks there will be biological threats to report this fall, though I guess he could just be thinking of the bird flu.

In any case, I think one of the most interesting theories is that Libby was telling Miller it was OK to turn on someone (Bush? Rove? Bolton?) because everyone was turning already. People connected at the roots, like she and he, would live long and prosper.


Notes: big money conservatives have long had a thing for Aspen.

Some people argue that Bolton is not a neocon, and others report that he is actually "a libertarian who despises the neocons."