IN DUBIOUS BATTLE

Bush’s Social Security “gamble” -- well, only to the extent he is willing to gamble OTHER people’s money

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/04/30/politics/30plan.html

“Progressive indexing” isn’t what it appears to be

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2005_04_24.php#005567
[L]et's state specifically what this to-some-sexy-sounding proposal offers: steep benefit cuts for all but the lowest income Americans and meager increases in benefits for them. It's hard to see how there's anything particularly progressive about gutting Social Security for the entire middle class. And how this comes off as a politically attractive proposal once anyone understands it is hard to figure.

All that has happened here is that the president has temporarily bamboozled a few folks in the media by trying to spin phase out. He is calling for steep and growing benefit cuts for everyone in the middle class and he still demands a partial phase-out of Social Security to be replaced by private accounts.

Social Security's support of the poorest Americans is a critical part of what it accomplishes. But Social Security is not poor relief. That is only what the president wants to make it -- in part because, once it is, it is far easier to cut further, since it has no organized political constituency.

More: http://atrios.blogspot.com/2005_04_24_atrios_archive.html#111478037565395248

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2005_04/006210.php

http://www.prospect.org/weblog/archives/2005/04/index.html#006290

http://www.tnr.com/etc.mhtml?pid=2645

Only one thing wrong with Bush’s plan

http://billsrants.blogspot.com/2005/04/social-insecurity.html#comments
By untethering the benefits from payments made into the program, President Bush proposed last night that Social Security be transformed into the thing President Roosevelt feared; a welfare program for the aging…with private accounts.

Important questions Bush hasn’t even begun to address yet, such as, What about the disability benefits built into Social Security? What about the “clawback”?

http://www.prospect.org/weblog/archives/2005/04/index.html#006293

http://www.prospect.org/weblog/archives/2005/04/index.html#006289

http://www.prospect.org/weblog/archives/2005/04/index.html#006297
Josh Marshall notes the dissonance between this and the White House's claim that, in other contexts, Treasury bonds are "just IOUs." But it's worse than that. As I've said before, under the proposal Bush has put forward an investment in Treasury bonds is guaranteed to lose money. . .

Scotty tries to “clarify” what Bush meant

http://www.first-draft.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=3007

You’ve heard about the struggle to reschedule the timing of Bush’s Very Important Press Conference so it wouldn’t conflict with the networks’ favorite shows. So, how did the press conference fare in tv terms?

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/blog/2005/04/29/BL2005042900675.html
[Dan Froomkin] The television networks -- and, by extension, the American viewing public -- got snookered last night. . . Strong-armed, beguiled and wheedled into pre-empting an hour of prime-time national programming last night for President Bush's news conference, the networks were assured they would be getting must-see TV. Instead, they got a clip show. . . The White House had promised that Bush would unveil new specifics about how he proposes to resolve Social Security's future funding shortfalls. And he did that -- but only briefly, and using language that was disingenuous at best.

More: http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room/index.html?blog=/politics/war_room/2005/04/29/headline/index.html

[NB: This is fascinating in its deeper implications. So the sharpest evidence that the tv networks have stopped being intimidated or deferential to Bush ISN'T primarily that their questioning or coverage are getting tougher -- it's that they simply rate Bush's comments as less interesting and important than programs like "The O.C.", and so drop it lower in their programming priority. Hey, George, you need better plot twists (Jenna gets kidnapped....)]

Summed up in one sentence

http://www.discourse.net/archives/2005/04/a_pithy_summary_of_bush_press_conference_remarks_on_social_security.html
President Bush on Thursday used a format he does not like to discuss issues he cannot resolve in hopes that he can sell the American people on policies most say they don’t want.

Ouch!

http://www.first-draft.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=2998
My favorite lines from what may have been the worst press conference ever, in terms of achieving it's goals (gaining public support for Chimpy's plans to destroy Social Security and calming public anxieties over high gas prices). . .

More photos: http://www.first-draft.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=3004

And the questioning? (thanks to Doug Kellner for the link)

http://www.thenation.com/capitalgames/index.mhtml?bid=3&pid=2357
[David Corn] Overall, the press conference was not a grand performance--for either Bush or the reporters. The questions were not that sharp. And Bush was usually able to pull the rip cord for his same-old rhetoric. Asked about the controversial practice of renditions--under which terrorist suspects are sent by the CIA to other countries where torture may be conducted--he said, "We operate under the law," and he asserted, "We're going to do everything we can to protect us." One reporter simply wondered what Bush's view of the economy is at the moment. In response, Bush discussed the hardship imposed on small business by high gas prices. What about the National Education Association's lawsuit against the No Child Left Behind Act. The legislation is working, he insisted. North Korea and nuclear weapons? We're working through the six-party talks, he responded. John Bolton? A fine fellow who "isn't afraid to speak his mind." No one asked him to defend Tom DeLay or the administration's fantasy budget numbers.

On Iraq, Bush didn't deviate from his happy-talk approach: "I believe we're making really good progress." He declined to address the fact that insurgent attacks have returned to the high levels of last year. And he has yet to acknowledge in public that various military experts say that the insurgency can continue for years (perhaps decades) and that it could also take several years to train an Iraqi security force. When might US troops be withdrawn? As soon, he said, as Iraqis are "able to fight." Asked about the rise in the number of terrorist attacks worldwide last year--statistics that the State Department refused to release--Bush ran for cover, repeating his index-card rhetoric that it is necessary to fight terrorists abroad so they do not have to be confronted at home. It was a non sequitur. He refused--yet again--to criticize Russian leader Vladimir Putin for taking antidemocratic steps, noting that both he and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice recently had good chats with "Vladimir" about democracy. He refused to denounce Russia's decision to supply Iran with highly-enriched uranium for a nuclear power plant. He noted that "Vladimir is trying to help" Iran with its power needs and that Russia would collect the uranium after it was used. "I appreciate that gesture," he added. How understanding.

By and large, the media coverage of Bush’s Social Security comments was. . . well, you know

http://mediamatters.org/items/200504290007

http://mediamatters.org/items/200504290004

http://mediamatters.org/items/200504300001

How we got here (thanks to Jan Pieterse for the link)

http://www.consortiumnews.com/2005/042805.html
The Left's Media Miscalculation

Bush’s tipping point?

http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room/archive.html?blog=/politics/war_room/2005/04/29/tide/index.html
[Tim Grieve] One hundred days into his second term, it's a little early to stick a fork in George W. Bush. But boy, has the tide turned on a president who was so recently the swaggering darling of the national news. The White House had to beg some of the networks to air last night's prime-time news conference; it was the first night of sweeps week, and NBC and Fox couldn't bear the thought that Donald Trump or "The O.C." might be bumped by a not particularly popular commander in chief with little new to say. Bush's media handlers, who value nothing more than the president's reputation for resoluteness, caved in at the last minute and moved up the presser by half an hour so that most of the prime-time entertainment could appear on schedule. Bush made a joke about it all toward the end of the press conference, but, as the New York Times notes, a lot of viewers didn't see it: NBC and CBS had already cut away. . . If he reads the papers today, Bush might find himself wishing that the print reporters had left early, too. Forget the analysis pieces, almost all of which focus on the sorry shape of the president's second-term agenda; notice the hostile tone in the straight news stories today.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/7656009/site/newsweek/
[Howard Fineman] Across a range of issues, and in a number of subtle and not-so-subtle ways, the Bush administration seems to have lost its touch. Is it losing momentum in a serious and permanent way?. . . Yes, Bush has been down politically before, and recovered smartly. He’s a fighter, and has the ability to ignore the gloom and doom around him. Yes, the Democrats don’t have much of an answer to him other than to shout “no” on a host of issues. Still, despite Republican control of virtually every lever of power in Washington—in a way because of that very fact—Bush finds himself playing defense. . .

http://www.cq.com/public/crawford_current.html
[Craig Crawford] It has been a rough couple of months for the president, and, by extension, for Rove. These past weeks ended with Bush posting his lowest public approval ratings since the dog days before Sept. 11. Could it be that Rove’s untouchable political genius has already met its limits in the policy arena?. . . Bush’s troubles might stem from Rove’s management style, which seems to depend on three elements: power, intimidation and secrecy. Bush and Rove like holding all the cards. They work best from a position of total power. They get in trouble when they cannot command the shots, as in getting Congress to enact the Social Security changes they want. . . Bush and Rove have no qualms about leveraging their power. Many Republicans on Capitol Hill, especially in the Senate, gripe about “my way or the highway” edicts from the White House. This is one reason the president now encounters so much resistance to his agenda.

I like that phrase from Dan Froomkin: "clip show." Compare Bush’s recent lines with Frank Luntz’s strategy document that got leaked a few weeks ago (talk about message discipline. . . ). This is like those magicians who tell you how they are pulling off a trick, then they go ahead and do it anyway

http://www.needlenose.com/node/view/1331

Here is the weirdest, most outrageous argument yet for the “nuclear option” on Bush’s judicial nominees – though my only surprise is why someone hasn’t tried it earlier

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2005_04_24.php#005583
[Wayne Allard, R- CO] “In light of recent terrorist attacks, it is readily apparent that we face a new age of global unrest, a world in which terror has replaced formal declarations of war as the major threat against freedom and democracy. A necessary component of providing justice to those who would do harm to our nation is to maintain an efficient court system. . ."

In Iraq, Allawi is on the outside looking in (how far the mighty have fallen)

http://www.needlenose.com/node/view/1329

Bolton: setting the bar lower and lower

http://majikthise.typepad.com/majikthise_/2005/04/with_friends_li.html
[Peggy Noonan] The case of John Bolton is about politics (unhousebroken conservatives must be stopped), payback (you tick me off, I'll pick you off) and personality. People who have worked with him allege he is heavy-handed, curmudgeonly and not necessarily lovably so. . . I don't know him, but I suspect there's some truth in it. Do the charges disqualify him to serve as American ambassador to the United Nations? If reports of his behavior are true--he is tough, pushes too hard, sends pressuring e-mails and may or may not have berated a coworker as he threw paper balls at her hotel door--the answer is no.

[NB: The GOP and their proxies keep trying to spin this as a “tough boss” story – but we are way past that now. The serious accusations against Bolton concern abuse of intelligence, spying on colleagues, and interfering in independent assessments to drive results he favors. And on those stories something new comes out almost every day. . . ]

Misuse of NSA intercepts
http://www.thewashingtonnote.com/archives/000538.html

“Rogue behavior”
http://www.thewashingtonnote.com/archives/000541.html

Violating State Dept rules
http://www.warandpiece.com/blogdirs/001981.html

Trying to get people fired who don’t even work for him
http://www.warandpiece.com/blogdirs/001979.html

Widespread dissatisfaction among foreign policy professionals who knew and worked with him
http://www.thewashingtonnote.com/archives/000539.html

Here’s a new legislative trick: pass something overwhelmingly in both houses of Congress, garnering favorable press coverage for bold, principled, and bipartisan action – then eliminate it in secret in the GOP-controlled conference

http://yglesias.typepad.com/matthew/2005/04/conference_kill.html

***If you enjoy PBD and support what we are doing, you can help by forwarding a copy of this issue to your friends (using the envelope link below) or by sending them a copy of its URL (http://pbd.blogspot.com).

I don't get anything personally out of this project, except the satisfaction of doing it (I don't run ads, etc). The credit really all goes to the people whose material I copy and redistribute. But if I do have a "mission," it is to get this information into the hands of as many people as I can.***
- posted by Nick Burbules @ 7:54 AM

 
GRASPING AT STRAWS

Bush’s press conference: a good overview. Best line: “Bush holds a press conference to tell us that he can't do anything to help with our problems, but he wants us to know that he's trying”

http://www.thinkprogress.org/index.php?s=Press+Conference&SubmitButtom=Search

http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room/index.html?blog=/politics/war_room/2005/04/28/bush_conference/index.html

Remember that Bush was SUPPOSED to lay out his plans for Social Security in greater detail. . . but for some reason he never got around to that (I wonder why?)

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2005_04_24.php#005550

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2005_04_24.php#005557

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2005_04_24.php#005559
There was so much bamboozling going on tonight in that press conference that it was easy to miss one essential contradiction in the president's argument. You don't have to worry about private accounts, he said, because if you want you can fill your account with US Treasury bonds which have no risk at all. They're backed by the full faith and credit of the US government. But he says that the very same Treasury notes, when they're in the Trust Fund, are just worthless IOUs.

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2005_04/006208.php
[Bush] As a matter of fairness, I propose that future generations receive benefits equal to or greater than the benefits today's seniors get. . . Secondly, I believe a reformed system should protect those who depend on Social Security the most. So I propose a Social Security system in the future where benefits for low-income workers will grow faster than benefits for people who are better off. . . This reform would solve most of the funding challenges facing Social Security.

[Kevin Drum] I assume that "equal to or greater" is code for "indexing to inflation, not wage growth." In other words, guaranteed benefits, which today are based on wage growth, would be reduced by quite a bit for everyone except the lowest wage earners. But he didn't have the guts to actually say this, instead making it sound like no one's future benefits would be cut. . . Presumably the unvarnished truth will come later, at some time when the president isn't on primetime TV. What a coward.

http://slate.msn.com/id/2117742/fr/rss/
Rather than acknowledge what amounts to future cuts, the president suggested something of the opposite, saying "As a matter of fairness, I propose that future generations receive benefits equal to or greater than the benefits today's seniors get."

More: http://www.j-bradford-delong.net/movable_type/2005-3_archives/000816.html

The Washington Post nails it

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/04/28/AR2005042801044.html
Bush Social Security Plan Would Cut Future Benefits

CBS doesn't

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2005_04_24.php#005558
President Bush put a populist face on his Social Security plan by urging Congress to tilt the system to benefit low-income retirees of the future as part of a plan to shore up the program's finances.

Does he really mean this, or is he just trying to have it both ways?

http://thinkprogress.org/index.php?p=766
Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist has defended the claim that opponents of President Bush’s judicial nominees are “against people of faith.” Tonight President Bush was asked if he agreed, and his answer was clear:

BUSH: … I just don’t agree with it.

QUESTION: You don’t agree with it?

BUSH: No. I think people oppose my nominees because of judicial philosophy.

QUESTION: Sir, I asked you about what you think of…

BUSH: No, I know what you asked me.

QUESTION: … the way faith is being used in our political debates, not just in society generally.

BUSH: Well, I can only speak to myself. And I am mindful that people in political office should not say to somebody, You’re not equally American if you don’t happen to agree with my view of religion.

The history of Republican filibusters

http://dailykos.com/storyonly/2005/4/28/223716/871

Read or listen to this speech by Al Gore on the GOP’s assault on Senate traditions to promote extremist judges: really, it’s worth the time

http://moveonpac.org/algore/rally.html

More: http://atrios.blogspot.com/2005_04_24_atrios_archive.html#111465401232668688

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/04/26/opinion/26tue1.html

The latest vote count on overturning the filibuster

http://www.prospect.org/weblog/archives/2005/04/index.html#006280

How conservatives and theocrats manage to convince themselves that they are a put-upon minority even during a time when their influence and power are dominant (thanks to Colleen Vojak for the link)

http://www.alternet.org/story/21865

More: http://www.workingforchange.com/article.cfm?itemid=18952

New Iraq govt formed – and guess who’s the Oil Minister? (It all makes so much sense)

http://www.needlenose.com/node/view/1327

http://www.juancole.com/2005/04/iraqi-cabinet-more-details-of-new.html

Pentagon says it has put a stop to the “ghost detainee” practices they never quite fessed up to committing in the first place. . .

http://talkleft.com/new_archives/010522.html

. . . and limits the interrogation practices they never quite admitted to either

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/04/28/politics/28abuse.html

Detainee interrogations were faked for visiting observers

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/04/28/AR2005042801639.html
The U.S. military staged the interrogations of terrorism suspects for members of Congress and other officials visiting the military prison in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, to make it appear the government was obtaining valuable intelligence, a former Army translator who worked there claims in a new book scheduled for release Monday.

Who really supports the troops?

http://dailykos.com/storyonly/2005/4/28/173257/680

Wow. How badly was the WMD search screwed up? Very

http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2005/04/27/cia_report/index.html

Bush WH finally releases those suppressed terror numbers – and guess what? Things have gotten a lot worse

http://www.warandpiece.com/blogdirs/001965.html

Just to show that I can criticize Democrats too: Pelosi has to deal with House colleagues who don’t seem to have gotten the memo that a political war is going on, and that compromise with the Bush regime never helps

http://dailykos.com/storyonly/2005/4/28/125717/774

http://www.prospect.org/weblog/archives/2005/04/index.html#006275

http://atrios.blogspot.com/2005_04_24_atrios_archive.html#111470869290013982

Look at how the House Repubs are planning to respond on the DeLay fight, and tell me you can deal with these people

http://www.prospect.org/weblog/archives/2005/04/index.html#006286

Everyone gives big play to Hastert’s concession on ethics rules. But this doesn’t mean they have any intention of actually investigating DeLay

http://www.tnr.com/etc.mhtml?pid=2643

What’s the matter with liberals? (thanks to Jan Pieterse for the link)

http://www.nybooks.com/articles/17982

What’s the matter with conservatives? (thanks to Jan Pieterse for the link)

http://www.tomdispatch.com/index.mhtml?pid=2337

The Bolton wars: heating up again

http://www.thewashingtonnote.com/archives/000534.html

http://www.thewashingtonnote.com/archives/000533.html

http://www.thewashingtonnote.com/archives/000536.html

http://www.thewashingtonnote.com/archives/000535.html

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/04/29/politics/29bolton.html

http://www.boston.com/news/world/africa/articles/2005/04/29/in_citing_sudan_dangers_bolton_went_beyond_cia/

http://www.warandpiece.com/blogdirs/001975.html
John Wolf tells Senate Foreign Relations committee staff of Bolton's bizarrely extreme efforts over months to retaliate against junior State Department rising star Rexon Ryu, and two other still unnamed State Department officials.

http://www.warandpiece.com/blogdirs/001964.html
[Chris Nelson] "The potentially explosive part of this is that Richardson is known to have had several conversations with then-Secretary of State Powell about his meetings with North Koreans since the Bush Administration came to power. If intercepts of these chats are on Bolton’s list, some observers argue that this means that Bolton, in effect, was spying on his own boss."

[NB: it is widely acknowledged that Bolton was the Cheney/Rumsfeld “mole” in the State Dept to report back on what Colin Powell was doing. See, for instance, http://www.commondreams.org/views05/0309-32.htm]

More on the Denver 3 trial: it may be that the “Secret Service agent” was actually a WH staffer. This could get good

http://www.first-draft.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=2992

Did you buy oil stock when Bush/Cheney took office?

http://dailykos.com/storyonly/2005/4/28/123113/206

Another creepy House bill on parental notification

http://www.prospect.org/weblog/archives/2005/04/index.html#006272

http://www.prospect.org/weblog/archives/2005/04/index.html#006278

http://www.prospect.org/weblog/archives/2005/04/index.html#006276

Our new Education Secretary

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/04/28/education/28spellings.html
"Margaret Spellings terrifies me," said a Washington lobbyist who has known Ms. Spellings since she joined the Bush White House in 2001. . .

Since taking office, she has made clear that she sees the federal law as the nation's best bet for closing the achievement gap between minority and white students and that her mission is to help states that are raising student scores and following the law's principles, which include an expansion of standardized testing, to carry it out. Those states "will be gratified," she said recently. . . "Others looking for loopholes," she said, "who ignore the intent of the law and have minimal results to show for their millions of dollars in federal funds will think otherwise and be disappointed."

Mixed feelings: Limbaugh loses court fight on medical privacy. This is good news from the standpoint of seeing him convicted, bad news for its wider legal implications

http://www.cnn.com/2005/LAW/04/28/limbaugh.court/index.html

More: http://atrios.blogspot.com/2005_04_24_atrios_archive.html#111471053728143708

***If you enjoy PBD and support what we are doing, you can help by forwarding a copy of this issue to your friends (using the envelope link below) or by sending them a copy of its URL (http://pbd.blogspot.com).

I don't get anything personally out of this project, except the satisfaction of doing it (I don't run ads, etc). The credit really all goes to the people whose material I copy and redistribute. But if I do have a "mission," it is to get this information into the hands of as many people as I can.***
- posted by Nick Burbules @ 7:02 AM

 
LIGHTER FARE

Sometimes you gotta laugh to keep from crying. Every once in a while I like to collect some of the more funny and ironic stories in the news: a little humorous leavening for the daily dish of outrage and scandal. Here we go. . .

Light him up

http://atrios.blogspot.com/2005_04_24_atrios_archive.html#111463861486823442
[Time] Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar. And sometimes, according to House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, a cigar is an economic prop to a brutal totalitarian regime. Arguing against loosening sanctions against Cuba last year, DeLay warned that Fidel Castro "will take the money. Every dime that finds its way into Cuba first finds its way into Fidel Castro's blood-thirsty hands.... American consumers will get their fine cigars and their cheap sugar, but at the cost of our national honor."

DeLay has long been one of Congress' most vocal critics of what he calls Castro's "thugocracy," which is why some sharp-eyed TIME readers were surprised last week to see a photo of the Majority Leader smoking one of Cuba's best—a Hoyo de Monterrey double corona, which generally costs about $25 when purchased overseas and is not available in this country. The cigar's label clearly states that it was made in "Habana." The photo was taken in Jerusalem on July 28, 2003, during a meeting between DeLay and the Republican Jewish Coalition at the King David Hotel in Jerusalem.

Maybe the Dems are lighting up a few cigars themselves these days

http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room/archive.html?blog=/politics/war_room/2005/04/27/democrats/index.html

Under widespread criticism, House GOP goes into full retreat on their corrupt ethics rules, trumpeting it as proof that they are the party of ethical propriety (uh-HUH)

http://www.prospect.org/weblog/archives/2005/04/index.html#006270
The House Republican Conference distributed talking points blaming the minority party for forcing the majority to take a step with which it disagrees. Talking point No. 11: “Unlike the obstructionist Democrats who would rather bluster about supposed abuses of power by the Majority than actually come to an agreement on ethics, House Republicans are committed to moving forward and protecting the integrity of the House.”

More: http://www.nytimes.com/2005/04/28/politics/28ethics.html

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2005_04_24.php#005547

Who do you send the House Ethics Committee to for ethics violations?

http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room/archive.html?blog=/politics/war_room/2005/04/27/ethics/index.html

More: http://politicalwire.com/archives/2005/04/27/delays_ethics_panel.html
[USAT] "All five Republicans on the House ethics committee have financial links to Tom DeLay that could raise conflict-of-interest issues should the panel investigate the GOP majority leader"

http://slate.msn.com/id/2117650/fr/rss/
The NYT says inside that a few dozen Republican lawmakers who received money from DeLay's PAC also contributed to his defense fund. There's nothing illegal about that, but it could have been used as a way to get around legal limits on individual contributions to the fund. "I think the House ethics committee would frown on the practice," said one Republican elections lawyer.

What happens next?

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content//article/2005/04/27/AR2005042702053.html
Now that it's clear that his controversial private-paid trips abroad will be put under a microscope in Congress, Tom DeLay is in serious danger of being declared in violation of House ethics rules, legal experts say.

House Republicans are rewriting Democratic amendments to make them sound outrageous and silly (thanks to Atrios for the link)

http://rawstory.com/exclusives/byrne/gop_rewrites_dem_amendments_427.htm

http://www.discourse.net/archives/2005/04/house_gop_sinks_to_new_low.html
What’s the right name for this sort of behavior? Dishonest seems too weak. . .

Why is Bush backing DeLay in a way he never backed Trent Lott?

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/04/26/AR2005042600113.html

Bush’s Social Security pitch has been so bad that even businesses don’t support him!

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2005_04_24.php#005542

Rumspeak (always good for a laugh)

http://www.first-draft.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=2968&mode=thread&order=0&thold=0
Asked during the briefing "are we winning" the war, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld did not directly respond.

"The United States and the coalition forces, in my personal view, will not be the thing that will defeat the insurgency," Rumsfeld said.

"So, therefore, winning or losing is not the issue for 'we,' in my view, in the traditional, conventional context of using the word 'winning' and 'losing' in a war. The people that are going to defeat that insurgency are going to be the Iraqis."

More: http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room/index.html?blog=/politics/war_room/2005/04/27/iraq_progress/index.html

A useful typology of Bush lies on Iraq

http://www.juancole.com/2005/04/guest-comment-bush-is-lying-by-kevin.html
[Kevin McMillan] "(1) outright lies (even in the "lawyer's" sense of the term);

"(2) serious distortions and deliberate obfuscations with respect to known facts and existing evidence;

"(3) claims which strictly/literally were true but which were crafted with a deliberate intent to deceive and to suggest something quite different;

"(4) deliberate omission of critical information when presenting claims (information that would seriously undermine the force of those claims);

"(5) deliberate ambiguity about verb-tense in order to create a false impression that current facts were being referred to when in fact only long-past ones -- invariably pre-1991 -- were;

"(6) false assertions of certainty about matters that were anything but certain (in many cases highly controversial or purely speculative);

"(7) deliberate and systematic misrepresentation of others' claims (most notably UNSCOM and UNMOVIC reports);

"(8) unequivocal assertions about matters for which no evidence was ever provided; and so on and on.

The GOP operative who apparently called upon a fake "Secret Service agent" to oust participants at the Denver town hall meeting was the chair of the Colorado Young Republicans. The real Secret Service is investigating

http://dailykos.com/storyonly/2005/4/27/13916/6154
[Kos] Remember, this is a taxpayer-funded event, and they've got Young Republicans running "security".

More, and a photo: http://www.first-draft.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=2976

http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room/index.html?blog=/politics/war_room/2005/04/27/denver_three/index.html

Over to you, Scotty

http://www.first-draft.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=2978
Q Back on March 21st, the President was in Denver doing an event. At that event three Denver residents were removed by somebody working on behalf of the President who is now being investigated for impersonating a Secret Service officer. I understand the White House knows who this person is. Will you tell us who this is? And will you, more importantly, explain what role the White House has in recruiting --

MR. McCLELLAN: Sure.

Q -- and training volunteers at these events? Is the White House encouraging people to screen or expel people from the President's events based on their point of view?

MR. McCLELLAN: Let me -- and I think I've talked about this issue before. But, first of all, let me just walk back through it because I think that's the best place to start. My understanding that a volunteer at this event -- and let me -- I need to back up before that. We use a lot of volunteers at events to help us in a number of different areas because you obviously have -- you tend to have a lot of people come into the event, a lot of logistical support that you need, and so we do rely on volunteers to help in a lot of different ways at events.

Now, in terms of this issue, my understanding is a volunteer was concerned that these three individuals were coming to the event solely for the purpose of disrupting it. And if people are coming to the event to disrupt it, they are going to be asked to leave. There are always protest areas set up outside the events where people can express their views.

These three individuals acknowledged that they were coming to the event to disrupt it. They stated that publicly in some of the initial reports. And so my understanding is the volunteer was concerned about these individuals, and that's why he asked them to leave.

Q Does the White House have any role in telling volunteers at these events, screen people that you think might be disruptive?

MR. McCLELLAN: I don't know if I'd view it that way. If we think people are coming to the event to disrupt it, obviously, they're going to be asked to leave. And if they do disrupt it, they will be asked to leave, as well. There's plenty of opportunity for people to express their views outside the event. That's why areas are set up for that sole purpose.

But again, these three individuals acknowledged that they were coming to the event to disrupt it. And in terms of who this individual was, I don't think that really serves any purpose to get into that publicly, other than to help advance the political agenda of these three individuals.

Funny story: one of the judges currently being filibustered is the son of the man who filibustered Abe Fortas under the Johnson administration

http://dailykos.com/storyonly/2005/4/26/204448/459

[NB: The serious aspect of this story is not to buy the current GOP claptrap that no judges have ever been filibustered before the mean old Democrats started blocking poor George’s “highly qualified” nominees. The Republicans have bottled up and blocked more judges from receiving an up-or-down vote (when in the minority) than the Democrats ever have]

Frist’s legacy: the end of the Senate as a deliberative “cooling plate” – he’s made it as rancorous and partisan as the House has always been

http://lsolum.blogspot.com/archives/2005_03_01_lsolum_archive.html#111065613035636414
Amending the rules over the objection of the minority will do little to restore the spirit of cooperation that is vital to the Senate’s role as the “cooling plate” for the “hot tea” produced by the House.

[NB: This is the serious long-term consequence of killing the filibuster. The Senate is different because a committed minority CAN block votes (not just a minority party, but any coalition that can muster 40 votes) -- this forces compromise and deliberation over controversial issues. When the majority can basically ignore and override the minority any time it wants, the Senate becomes just like the House.]

How bad are Priscilla Owen and Janice Rogers Brown? You won’t believe how bad

http://talkleft.com/new_archives/010511.html

Another smashing of Senate tradition: if Bolton fails to pass the Foreign Relations Committee, they’re planning to bring it to the full Senate for a vote anyway (Nuclear Option Two)

http://www.warandpiece.com/blogdirs/001962.html
If they can't win playing by the rules, then their next move is ... to change the rules.

http://www.thewashingtonnote.com/archives/000531.html

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2005_04_24.php#005544

More: http://www.nytimes.com/2005/04/27/politics/27cnd-bolton.html

[NB: Watch, if this happens, for the first test of whether the Frist gang will immediately extend the Filibuster Buster not only to judicial appointments, but to other presidential appointments too – something they have promised not to do]

“Jeff Gannon”: no one seems to know exactly how often he came to the White House, how long he was there, who he talked to, or where he went. In a security-conscious era, how did this happen?

http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room/archive.html?blog=/politics/war_room/2005/04/27/gannon/index.html

[NB: No, you won’t find me making any cheap jokes about a gay prostitute hanging out in the White House without his movements being accounted for. Nope, not me]

Bonus item: imagine this (thanks to Michael Froomkin for the link)

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/4056.html
[E. J. Dionne Jr.] [I]n an amusing but revealing question, the pollsters asked how Americans would vote in a contest between Bill Clinton and George W. Bush if the Constitution were changed to allow them to run in 2008. Clinton beat Bush, 53 percent to 43 percent — a rather decisive judgment on our two most recent political legacies.

Go ahead, try and deny how much you’d love to watch that race. I dare you. If they put the debates on pay-per-view, it’d be worth millions

***If you enjoy PBD and support what we are doing, you can help by forwarding a copy of this issue to your friends (using the envelope link below) or by sending them a copy of its URL (http://pbd.blogspot.com).

I don't get anything personally out of this project, except the satisfaction of doing it (I don't run ads, etc). The credit really all goes to the people whose material I copy and redistribute. But if I do have a "mission," it is to get this information into the hands of as many people as I can.***
- posted by Nick Burbules @ 6:28 AM

 
LOSING BY WINNING

This is quite a collection of stories today. On four different fronts: Social Security, Bolton, DeLay, and the filibuster, Bush and the GOP leadership have carved out positions that are wildly unpopular, dropping in credibility by the day, and opposed by a substantial number of members of their own party. Yet in every case the public line is “we will win,” and in every case a decisive win/lose vote is continually being put off (because right now they would lose), as they work the ropes behind the scenes to line up support among an increasingly suspicious and reluctant party. It appears that their only real argument (since in each case people really do disagree with them on the merits) is a combination of brute pressure and/or an appeal that “you can’t let us lose on this one.” Bullying or pleading – which is more politically desperate?

And why are we brought to this point? Two simple facts: (1) this is an administration that never learned how to compromise, and their “my way or the highway” approach is wearing thin; (2) they have always relied on the perception of inevitability for driving support for their policies, and so they are concerned that once they are shown to be vulnerable and capable of picking the wrong horse they will lose the iron grip of control they have gotten used to wielding over their own party

I think they will lose on all four of these issues. But most interesting, to me, is that even if they “won” them: privatizing Social Security, sending Bolton to the UN, saving DeLay, and killing the filibuster, polls show decisively that they would lose even more public support as a consequence. Or maybe they’ve stopped caring about that

Of course, the ultimate example of losing by winning has been Iraq. . .

Frist rejects the Reid compromise on judicial nominations and suffers a serious defeat (even though he doesn’t seem to realize it yet)

http://www.cnn.com/2005/POLITICS/04/26/filibuster.fight.ap/index.html
Reacting to a Democratic offer in the fight over filibusters, Republican leader Bill Frist said Tuesday he isn't interested in any deal that fails to ensure Senate confirmation for all of President Bush's judicial nominees.

[NB: Read that again. Bush nominates, and the Senate MUST confirm. Now we know why the Bush people hand-picked Frist as their boy for Majority Leader. Do you think he cares if he is destroying the Senate’s traditions and its advise and consent role? He’ll be gone in a year to start his Presidential campaign]

http://dailykos.com/storyonly/2005/4/26/133311/075
Reid just engaged Frist in a game of chicken, and Frist blinked first.

Reid has been extremely effective in whipping up opposition to the Nuclear Option, garnering strong grass- and netroots support, editorial board support, and popular support (as the latest polls show scant appetite for ending the filibuster).

But in order to avoid looking like obstructionists, Democrats had to make efforts to "find a compromise", lest the chattering class get the vapors from such Democratic intransigence.

Had Frist accepted the offers for compromise, Bush would've gotten the majority of his judges through, and Democrats would've gotten -- who knows what. . .

So Reid got the Democrats to look conciliatory, forcing Frist and his Republicans to look even more inflexible than before.

Just in case you have any doubts about who is pulling Frist’s strings

http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room/index.html?blog=/politics/war_room/2005/04/26/rove/index.html
Karl Rove is injecting himself into the Senate's deliberations over George W. Bush's judicial nominees. In an interview with USAToday, Rove says he's opposed to any compromise on the "nuclear option" that would involve anything less than up-or-down floor votes on every one of the president's judicial nominees.

[NB: What jurisdiction does Rove have to direct Senate policy on its own procedures? Good question. But read on!]

Rove's point: The president has already compromised. "Rove said Bush tried to end the stalemate when he renominated just seven of the 10 nominees who had been blocked last year," USAToday reports. Those obstructionist Democrats didn't reciprocate. "I saw no change in tone," Rove said. "The flamethrowers ... came out within moments."

It's a nice story Rove tells about the president's attempt to make peace with the Democrats; it's just not exactly true. When the White House announced in December that Bush would re-nominate the seven judges, White House officials told the New York Times that Bush had offered all of the stalled judges the chance to be re-nominated. Two of them, Carolyn Kuhl and Claude Allen, declined. A third, Charles Pickering, who Bush had placed on the Fifth Circuit through a recess appointment, chose to retire rather than seek Senate confirmation again.

http://www.first-draft.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=2954
Rove also offered further evidence that he has lost his touch by:

• Claiming that Chimpy was making progress with the public in his efforts to destroy Social Security.

• Predicting that John Bolton would be confirmed by the Senate.

• Predicting that Tom DeLay would keep his job as majority leader

Republican hubris: act like you have the advantage even when you don’t

http://www.prospect.org/web/page.ww?section=root&name=ViewWeb&articleId=9604
Here we are at another prescribed deadline for Bill Frist's detonation of the “nuclear option” to end judicial filibusters. And here we are, watching that deadline get postponed once more.

Early last week, everyone in the know seemed sure that the majority leader would pull the trigger in the last days before the Senate begins its weeklong recess on April 29. But by yesterday, April 25, Frist aides had put out word that nuclear action would not, in fact, occur this week, so lawmakers can focus their energies on the highway bill and on conference reports for the Iraq War supplemental and the budget.

This cycle of leaked reports touting nuclear action as imminent, followed by inevitable postponement, has recurred a few times during the 109th Congress. (“Senate Republican leaders have decided to begin their use of the ‘nuclear option’ … about a month from now,” wrote Bob Novak -- on February 5.) There are three reasons why the showdown keeps receding into the horizon. . .

http://www.prospect.org/weblog/archives/2005/04/index.html#006259
On January 4, [Frist] said in no uncertain terms that the following month he would bring a nominee to the floor and deploy the nuclear option if that nominee did not receive an up-or-down vote. But it was three months before Frist brought the first nominee to the floor. . .

Talk about deadlines receding into the horizon. . .

http://www.prospect.org/weblog/archives/2005/04/index.html#006247
[Matt Yglesias] If you're looking for reasons to believe that the Bush political machine is losing its deft touch then look no further than Bloomberg News' report that the President will be extending his Social Security privatization world tour beyond the initial 60-day timeframe. This is an absolutely baffling thing to do. By all objective standards, the tour has been a catastrophic failure. He's induced zero new legislators to back his agenda. Privatization's numbers have sunk further in the polls. Indeed, the best polling evidence available suggests that the more people focus on the issue, the less they like the president's ideas. . . I have trouble believing his team would do anything as dumb as a tour extension clearly seems to be. Maybe they've got some trick up their sleeve so brilliant that I can't grasp it. Certainly if there's a trick here I'm not seeing what it's supposed to be. . .

Don’t laugh (okay, laugh)

http://www.first-draft.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=2959
Q Scott, what does the President think of polls that show two-thirds of people disapprove of his handling of Social Security?

MR. McCLELLAN: Well, I think you have to keep in mind what we're in. One, we are still in the early phase of our efforts to strengthen Social Security and get something done this week [sic]. And the goal of the initial phase has been to educate the American people about the problems facing Social Security.

[NB: In the “early phase”? Recall that Bush has already been in campaign mode on this issue for MORE than 60 days. And, as noted, the more people know the LESS they like Bush’s ideas about Social Security. So what is gained by putting more time and money into these pointless road shows? Stubbornness? A plan to turn public opinion? Or something else?]

As Congressional Republicans try to form an alternative to Bush’s proposal, the issue continues to tear them apart

http://www.thehill.com/thehill/export/TheHill/News/Frontpage/042605/gop.html
A Senate Republican leadership aide expressed frustration with conservative groups’ rhetoric. While Bush and GOP congressional leaders say they are open to many ideas, conservatives have panned the everything-is-on-the-table approach.

“We should have no conditions before we start talking,” the Senate leadership staffer said. “If you start narrowing the ideas, there’s nothing left to negotiate.”

“There is a splinter in the Republican Party on how this should be addressed,” another Senate Republican aide said.

Rep. Clay Shaw (R-Fla.), a senior Ways and Means Committee member, said he has noticed “some negative stuff coming out” of certain groups, which he declined to name.

“They don’t understand that politics is the art of compromise,” he added.

Shaw’s Social Security reform plan proposes “add-on” accounts instead of “carve-outs” favored by many conservatives. The carve-outs would be financed from diverting payroll taxes, while add-ons would be paid for through tax credits.

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2005_04/006193.php
[WP] On the eve of the first congressional hearing on the restructuring of Social Security, Republicans on the Senate Finance Committee signaled that they will not insist that personal accounts be part of the legislation and that they will not seek further details from President Bush about his plans for the government-run retirement program. . . In yesterday's briefing, the committee official asserted that the contours of Bush's plan for Social Security are already well known and that the panel did not believe the release of further details of the plan would be helpful.

[Kevin Drum] Am I missing something? Or did this guy basically ask President Bush to please shut up and stop making things worse?

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/04/26/AR2005042600213.html
A badly divided Senate Finance Committee yesterday held the first hearing examining President Bush's efforts to restructure Social Security. While the Democrats remained united in their opposition, there were signs of cracks in the Republicans' support for the president.

After months of political positioning, the stakes were high as the committee took up Bush's signature domestic issue for his second term. The White House has framed the Social Security debate as a matter of political courage, challenging both parties to secure the program's long-term solvency. . . With that highly charged backdrop, Republican divisions at the hearing had added significance.

One GOP witness repeatedly disparaged the White House's approach to Social Security changes, bolstering Democratic contentions that it would lead to politically untenable benefit cuts. Sen. Craig Thomas (R-Wyo.) questioned the wisdom of adding trillions of dollars in federal debt in the coming decades to finance the president's plan. And Sen. Olympia J. Snowe (R-Maine) seemed to signal intractable opposition to converting part of the defined Social Security benefit to variable returns from stock and bond investments.

Bush court nominee lights the “faith war” fuse

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-brown26apr26,1,2263009.story
Just days after a bitterly divided Senate committee voted along party lines to approve her nomination as a federal appellate court judge, California Supreme Court Justice Janice Rogers Brown told an audience Sunday that people of faith were embroiled in a "war" against secular humanists who threatened to divorce America from its religious roots, according to a newspaper account of the speech.

[NB: This just goes to show her judicious temperament, I suppose. How tactful to give a speech like this in the middle of her confirmation fight!]

And get this: Frist’s “statesmanlike” statement disavowing the rabid anti-judicial screeds of DeLay et al. (while appearing before an audience of people who by and large have fostered such hatred toward judges) seems to have cost him both ways. Defenders of an independent judiciary saw it as calculated and disingenuous; the rabid right saw it as craven and opportunistic

http://www.prospect.org/weblog/archives/2005/04/index.html#006245
[Matt Yglesias] This observation set off a torrent of conservative grumbling from fringe religious leaders and House Republican backbenchers. The Times reports that it was understood as a veiled swipe at Tom DeLay who "said last month that judges who denied appeals by Terri Schiavo's relatives who were trying to keep the brain-damaged Florida woman alive must 'answer for their behavior.'" It could just as easily be read as a swipe at the much broader and increasingly demented conservative anti-judge campaign in its entirety. My colleague Sam Rosenfeld has brought to my attention the Declaration of Constitutional Restoration put out by the Judeo-Christian Council for Constitutional Restoration. It not only calls on the Senate Republicans to go nuclear, it also demands that Congress strip the federal courts of jurisdiction over questions of marriage and establishment clause cases, calls for the impeachment of judges who make rulings they don't like, and most wackily states that "where appropriate, Congress should reduce or eliminate the funding of federal courts, the salaries of judges excepted, that overstep their constitutional authority."

They want, in other words, retaliation. Social conservatives seem to have been content to get mild rhetorical support of their agenda and essentially no policy substance from George W. Bush during the 2000 and 2004 campaigns. But it looks like the 2008 GOP contenders are going to need to bid pretty high to get this crowd in their corner.

In Iraq, Jaafari forms Cabinet compromise: will it hold?

http://www.juancole.com/2005/04/breaking-news-jaafari-presents-cabinet.html

(Not for long: I didn’t even finish composing the blog and the story has already been reversed!)

http://www.juancole.com/2005/04/unbreaking-news-just-saw-al-jazeerahs.html

What?! Allawi accused of serving as a puppet for U.S. interests? Stop the presses!

http://www.juancole.com/2005/04/talabani-fears-baath-military-pentagon.html
Al-Hayat also says that the Sadr Movement has charged Iyad Allawi with implementing "an American game" in attempting to obstruct the formation of a government. Ahmad al-Qurayshi, head of the higher council for the Sadrists, told al-Hayat that "the goal of Allawi is to rob the Shiite alliance in order to make them withdraw the names of cabinet ministers who are not liked in Washington.". . . A high-ranking member of the Shiite Dawa Party told the newspaper that he intended to resort to "demonstrations and a popular uprising to force the formation of a government if the Americans continued to intervene behind the scenes to derail the process."

History will judge

http://atrios.blogspot.com/2005_04_24_atrios_archive.html#111453149635737165
[E&P] Half of Americans, exactly 50%, now say the Bush administration deliberately misled Americans about whether Iraq had weapons of mass destruction, the Gallup Poll organization reported this morning.

“This is the highest percentage that Gallup has found on this measure since the question was first asked in late May 2003,” Gallup observed. “At that time, 31% said the administration deliberately misled Americans. This sentiment has gradually increased over time, to 39% in July 2003, 43% in January/February 2004, and 47% in October 2004.”

Also, according to the latest poll, more than half of Americans, 54%, disapprove of the way President George W. Bush is handling the situation in Iraq, while 43% approve.

More: http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room/archive.html?blog=/politics/war_room/2005/04/26/wmd_poll/index.html

Numbers can lie: but no numbers is the finest lie of all

http://www.warandpiece.com/blogdirs/001959.html
Major terrorist attacks tripled worldwide in 2004, according to a new US government count. That is one reason why Condoleezza Rice has suppressed further publication of Patterns of Global Terrorism, as reported originally by Knight Ridder's Jonathan Landay. It's such increasingly frequent displays by Rice of suppressing the truth that makes one lose respect for her rather quickly all over again.

Is this how you treat your allies?

http://www.first-draft.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=2950
The Bush assministration sends a message to any would-be allies by claiming that it was the Italians' fault that U.S. soldiers shot them while they were slowly traveling on the road to the Baghdad Airport.

More: http://www.nytimes.com/2005/04/27/international/europe/27italy.html

Ugly, vicious, mean-spirited. . . no, don’t stop me. . . hateful, cruel, callous. . . I’m not done yet. . . malicious, malevolent, venomous. . .wait, one more. . .EVIL, pure evil

http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room/archive.html?blog=/politics/war_room/2005/04/26/spitting/index.html
Debbie Schlussel, a right-wing political "commentator" and self-proclaimed heiress to Ann Coulter, has a truly nasty piece appearing in David Horowitz's hysteric Front Page Magazine, in which she asserts that humanitarian activist Marla Ruzicka deserved to die at the hands of Iraqi terrorists. . .

"There are plenty of young American men and women Ruzicka's age and younger who've been brutalized or killed in Iraq and Afghanistan. But none of them got the wall-to-wall fawning coverage that Ruzicka got -- unless they were anally raped or formerly played pro football," writes Schlussel. "While it's a sad day when any American gets killed by Islamic terrorists, it's measurably less sad when that American aided and abetted them -- and belittled our troops. . . For Marla Ruzicka," she concludes, "some might call it poetic justice."

Afghans don’t want permanent U.S. bases in their country either

http://www.first-draft.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=2958

Starting with Cheney’s line the other day, I think we are seeing Phase Two of the Bolton campaign: hey, he’s just a tough boss

http://www.smh.com.au/news/World/Cheney-backs-aggressive-Bolton/2005/04/24/1114281451180.html
"If being occasionally tough and aggressive were a problem, there are a lot of members of the US Senate who wouldn't qualify," Mr Cheney said in a speech, echoing an increasingly common defence of Mr Bolton.

http://yglesias.typepad.com/matthew/2005/04/bolton_whats_it.html
[Bill] Kristol knows perfectly well what the charges against Bolton are. And yet here's how he sums up the case against: "Bolton disagreed with--he even disliked!--a couple of bureaucrats. He challenged them." That's absurd. The relevant point here isn't that Bolton was brusque with some lower-tier officials. It's that the behavior -- however you want to characterize it -- was aimed distorting the intelligence assessments received by the American people and by the President of the United States. That's not the only charge against Bolton, but it's one of the very most important ones. If Bolton had some subordinates who were trying to misrepresent Intelligence Community views on Syrian (and Cuban, etc.) WMD programs and he got really, really mad at them in an effort to stop them, nobody would be complaining. But he did the reverse. At any rate, Kristol knows this, he's just choosing to lie about it. . .

More on Kristol’s lies: http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2005_04/006192.php

http://www.warandpiece.com/blogdirs/001956.html
[Laura Rozen] Yesterday I wondered aloud on this site, why the pro-Bolton pushback had been so curiously silent on the substantive issues and concerns raised about Bolton, in particular his well documented manipulation and exaggeration of intelligence, and retaliation against those intelligence analysts and negotiators whose professional judgment conflicted with Bolton's ideological views. While Bolton's supporters accuse his critics of engaging in character assassination, they studiously avoid answering some of the chief substantive policy-process concerns raised about Bolton, and they themselves keep the focus squarely on Bolton's style ("blunt, but effective") (and the character of his many critics).

So, why won't Bolton's conservative supporters just stand up and say they wholeheartedly endorse Bolton's record of grossly exaggerating rogue state proliferation threats far beyond the best professional judgment of the intelligence community?. . .

Bolton's conservative supporters in and out of the administration are therefore in the absurd position of blaming the entire pre-war hype and misjudgment on Iraq's non-existent WMD stockpiles on the US intel community, hype of which they were the cheerleaders in chief. . . Now, in the current Bolton nomination debate, out comes - surprise, surprise! -- a well-documented pattern of John Bolton's exaggeration and politicization of the WMD threat posed by nations like Cuba and Syria to the consternation of the US intelligence community. But wait! That's precisely what Bolton's supporters like about Bolton. He exaggerates and politicizes the threat for ideological reasons, running up time and again against the judgment and patience of the professional US intelligence community. But -- shhhh -- after the Iraq WMD intel fiasco, the Bush line is, that such hype was (c'mon, you know the chorus) “all the US intelligence community's fault.” Black is white, folks.

Bolton: “the last straw”?

http://www.thewashingtonnote.com/archives/000528.html

Nope, it gets even worse!

http://www.thewashingtonnote.com/archives/000529.html
Trying to find out the U.S. officials named in the NSA intercepts is going to be complicated and difficult -- particularly because they are highly classified and also because the State Department and Bush administration are working over-time to try and prevent Members of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee from seeing them.

There is no more important evidence in the John Bolton nomination than those transcripts -- and it is my understanding, though I admit to not having complete information -- that Senator Lugar's staff is now getting stonewalled by the administration as well.

What I do have from a confidential and highly placed source is at least one name who appears in the NSA documents, and it is someone I had not previously considered.

Quite astoundingly, reports are that Governor Bill Richardson -- who previously served as a Member of the U.S. Congress, as U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, and as Secretary of Energy -- was named in the transcripts dealing with diplomatic efforts he was making with North Korea.

Senate panel to WIDEN its Bolton probe

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/04/27/politics/27bolton.html
In a widening of the inquiry into John R. Bolton's nomination to be ambassador to the United Nations, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee intends to conduct formal interviews in the next 10 days with as many as two dozen people, Congressional officials said Tuesday. . . The expanded questioning is an unusual approach for a committee that has already held confirmation hearings and at one point appeared to be on the verge of voting to approve the nominee.

Meanwhile, even as the daily details of serious malfeasance continue to grow, the backroom pressure on Repubs to back Bolton DESPITE EVERYTHING is, from all appearances, getting brutal

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/04/27/politics/27strategy.html
Vice President Dick Cheney and Karl Rove, the White House deputy chief of staff and the president's powerful political adviser, are playing a central and aggressive role in trying to salvage Mr. Bolton's prospects.

More: http://www.warandpiece.com/blogdirs/001961.html

Plame: as predicted, the likely defense will be “I leaked her name, but didn’t know she was a covert agent.” But that shouldn’t get Bush Co. off the hook. Here’s why

http://www.needlenose.com/node/view/1319
[Murray Waas] Although several administration officials admitted to disseminating negative information about Wilson and Plame, they also asserted that they did not know that Plame was a clandestine CIA operative. Federal investigators have been skeptical of those accounts, according to sources close to the case, but unable to prove them false.

[Swopa] But aren't there any other loose ends Fitzgerald can tug on? In an interview posted on Daily Kos, Plame's husband, Joseph Wilson, suggests one:

. . . the leakers were probably not the decision-makers. They just carried out the decisions of their superiors. . . The intriguing question is: Who gave the name to the White House in the first place? Who in the intelligence community offered up my wife's name and why?

This angle is similar to the one I suggested in mid-October 2003, when I tried to figure out an overall theory of how the leak happened:

As part of the decision to leak the information about Valerie Wilson, Libby or whoever passes along some rationale -- correct or not -- by which the people who do the leaking won't be liable for blowing a CIA agent's cover. Perhaps he says she isn't covert, or finds some loophole in the way he got the information.

As I describe in way too much greater detail in that post, the fact that the calls by Karl Rove and others to reporters stopped as soon as Wilson explained on TV that "Valerie Plame" was the name under which his wife had done undercover work

. . . leads me to believe that Karl Rove et al. may have been caught by surprise by what Wilson said -- they didn't know "Valerie Plame" wasn't his wife's current name, or that it had greater meaning in terms of previous covert work (which they also may not have known about). They just got suckered into it by Lewis Libby, or someone else with a sizable ax to grind against the CIA.

But, as I also noted, whoever gave Rove and others the name "Valerie Plame" -- the name under which Wilson's wife had been a covert agent -- almost certainly did know her true role, and so is guilty of disclosing classified information. That's the line of investigation Fitzgerald should be pursuing.

Scotty on Bush’s embrace of DeLay

http://www.first-draft.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=2959
Q Scott, why -- Tom DeLay is not from Galveston, why is he riding back with the President today? And what's the signal that the President is trying to send by inviting him on Air Force One?

MR. McCLELLAN: Well, he is from the area. Galveston is near his district and we typically invite members of Congress to events in their area. . .

Q Does DeLay's district touch on Galveston at all?

MR. McCLELLAN: No

Q Okay.

Q Does this have something to do with his ethics problems?

MR. McCLELLAN: What's that?

Q Is it helping him with his ethics problem?

MR. McCLELLAN: This has to do with an event that is occurring in his area and the fact that the President appreciates his leadership in the House and that we work very closely with him, as well as other congressional leaders, on the agenda for the American people. . .Leader DeLay, along with other leaders in the House and the Senate, is someone who is committed to getting things done on our shared priorities. . .

DeLay can’t survive this: new disclosures on just how cozy his ties to Abramoff were

http://atrios.blogspot.com/2005_04_24_atrios_archive.html#111456566531732467
[Time] Lobbyist Jack Abramoff gave expensive gifts to key members of then-House Majority Whip Tom DeLay's staff, which the aides accepted in apparent violation of House ethics rules, according to two sources who worked at Abramoff's law firm at the time Abramoff made the gifts. The gifts included high-end golf equipment, tickets to sporting events and concerts and, in the case of one high-ranking DeLay staff member, a weekend getaway paid for by Abramoff's own frequent flyer and hotel points, two sources who had direct knowledge of the transactions tell TIME.

The two sources say that one recipient of the gifts, including the weekend trip and expensive golf clubs, was Tony C. Rudy, who worked for DeLay for five years and served at various times as DeLay's press secretary, policy director, general counsel and deputy chief of staff when DeLay was House Majority Whip. When Rudy left DeLay's office in 2002, he joined Abramoff at Greenberg Traurig, the firm that hired Abramoff in December 2000. Rudy now works at Alexander Strategy Group, a lobbying firm headed by former DeLay Chief of Staff Ed Buckham.

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20050426/ap_on_go_co/delay_lobbyist&e=2
Tom DeLay and his top aides were often in daily contact with lobbyist Jack Abramoff during the mid-1990s as the lobbyist made campaign contributions and arranged travel for the House leader while seeking legislative help for a multimillion-dollar client, according to law firm records made public for the first time.

DeLay's office kept Abramoff, now under criminal investigation, routinely apprised of congressional efforts to block new regulations on his client, the Northern Mariana Islands.

Abramoff's firm reported it drafted legislative materials for DeLay, and Abramoff boasted to island leaders he could use his close ties to Republican leaders to block legislation from receiving a House vote.

Chalk up another victory for a united Democratic front

http://www.prospect.org/weblog/archives/2005/04/index.html#006260
[WP] House Republican aides said yesterday for the first time that they believe they will have to reverse or modify the ethics rules that were passed on a party-line vote in January and have caused Democrats to refuse to allow the ethics committee to organize. Republican leaders had been trying to avoid a new floor vote over the rules, but aides said they now are convinced that they need to get the committee going so that Democrats cannot accuse them of squelching an investigation of DeLay.

http://slate.msn.com/id/2117539/fr/rss/
"We fumbled the ball badly," one "senior Republican official" told the NYT.

http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2005-04-26-delay-donations-ethics_x.htm
All five Republicans on the House ethics committee have financial links to Tom DeLay that could raise conflict-of-interest issues should the panel investigate the GOP majority leader.

Public records show DeLay's leadership political action committee (PAC) gave $15,000 to the campaign of Rep. Melissa Hart, R-Pa. — $10,000 in 2000 and $5,000 in 2002. Hart would chair a panel to investigate DeLay if the committee moves forward with a probe.

The same political committee, Americans for a Republican Majority, also has donated to the campaigns of ethics Chairman Doc Hastings of Washington, Judy Biggert of Illinois and Tom Cole of Oklahoma. They are among scores of Republicans DeLay has contributed to. Cole and the remaining committee Republican, Lamar Smith of Texas, contributed to DeLay's legal defense fund.

More: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/04/26/AR2005042601295.html

Let him stay? Another county heard from

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2005_04/006195.php

Lou Dobbs!

http://bestoftheblogs.com/2005/04/lets-hear-it-for-lou-dobbs-on-usnews.html
“Compassionate conservatism has been the catchphrase of George W. Bush since the presidential campaign of 2000, but those two words must now ring hollow to the more than 100 million Americans who make up our middle class. There is nothing conservative about our rising record budget and trade deficits. There is nothing compassionate about the president's idea of Social Security reform, the rollback of coverage for ever more costly healthcare for working Americans, or the most recent assault on the middle class: the new bankruptcy reform bill that Bush signed into law last week.”

What can be done about election fraud?

http://www.crisispapers.org/essays-p/election-fraud.htm

Branding the Democrats

http://dailykos.com/storyonly/2005/4/26/12465/7926
“Democrats are the party for people who work for a living”

[NB: Like it?]

Bonus item: The Family Research Council on filibusters

http://mediamatters.org/items/200504260005
MSNBC host Keith Olbermann noted that the Family Research Council (FRC), which is currently campaigning to stop filibusters of President Bush's judicial nominees by Senate Democrats, was quite vocal in the late 1990s in defending the right to filibuster another presidential nominee, James C. Hormel, who was nominated by President Clinton as ambassador to Luxembourg. . .

OLBERMANN: Yesterday, it was opposed to filibusters. Seven years ago, it was in favor of them. That's when Clinton and a then-Democratic plurality in the Senate wanted a man named James Hormel to become the ambassador to Luxembourg. Hormel, of the Spam-and-other-meats Hormels, was gay, as the Senate minority bottled up Hormel's nomination with filibusters and threats of filibusters, minority relative to cloture, to breaking up a filibuster. . .

The Family Research Council's senior writer, Steven Schwalm, appeared on National Public Radio at the time and explained the value, even the necessity, of the filibuster. . . "The Senate," he said, "is not a majoritarian institution, like the House of Representatives is. It is a deliberative body, and it's got a number of checks and balances built into our government. The filibuster is one of those checks in which a majority cannot just sheerly force its will, even if they have a majority of votes in some cases. That's why there are things like filibusters, and other things that give minorities in the Senate some power to slow things up, to hold things up, and let things be aired properly."

More: http://talkleft.com/new_archives/010493.html
People For the American Way has developed a chart compiled from Congressional Research Service data that lists the judicial and executive branch nominees filibustered prior to the Bush administration. Twenty-six of the filibusters – more than three-quarters of the total – were initiated by Senate Republicans. . .

Double bonus: the funniest “nuclear option” locution yet

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2005_04_24.php#005536
[WSJ] With a vote expected soon on what the Democrats (borrowing a term from Trent Lott) call the "nuclear option," suddenly they are talking compromise.

[NB: So, even though we admit that TRENT LOTT invented the term, it’s still the Democrats’, see?]

***If you enjoy PBD and support what we are doing, you can help by forwarding a copy of this issue to your friends (using the envelope link below) or by sending them a copy of its URL (http://pbd.blogspot.com).

I don't get anything personally out of this project, except the satisfaction of doing it (I don't run ads, etc). The credit really all goes to the people whose material I copy and redistribute. But if I do have a "mission," it is to get this information into the hands of as many people as I can.***
- posted by Nick Burbules @ 6:13 AM

 
EXIT STRATEGIES

Promises of significant troop reductions in Iraq may have been premature

http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room/archive.html?blog=/politics/war_room/2005/04/25/quagmire/index.html
Developments in Iraq haven't been too positive of late -- though pronouncements from the U.S. military have, with forecasts for reduced U.S. troop levels, and confident appraisals of an insurgency weakened and on the run. . . But as a new surge of violence rattles Baghdad and beyond, some in the military are expressing deep concern (not on the record, of course) that the mission may be in serious trouble.

"Senior military strategists, speaking privately, said they worry that insurgents are making inroads toward sparking a full-blown sectarian war and offered cautions about recent predictions that the United States could significantly reduce its forces from the current 142,000 within a year," reported the Boston Globe yesterday.

"'One of the insurgency's strengths is its capacity to regenerate," retired Army General John Keane, who returned recently from a fact-finding mission in Iraq, told the Globe. "We have killed thousands of them and detained even more, but they are still able to regenerate. They are still coming at us."

On WMD, the last, final little squeak

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/2002253241_iraqdig26.html
In his final report, the CIA's top weapons inspector in Iraq said yesterday that the hunt for weapons of mass destruction has gone "as far as feasible" and has found nothing. . .

(They aren’t in Syria either)

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2005_04/006191.php

Support the troops!

http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room/index.html?blog=/politics/war_room/2005/04/25/gulf_vets2/index.html
The Bush administration long ago turned its back on a group of American POWs tortured by Saddam Hussein's regime during the Gulf War, and now the U.S. Supreme Court has, too. Its refusal to hear their case today kills the vets' last hopes for reparation.

Bush Co. decides to “get tough” with Venezuela. I guess trying to overthrow the democratically elected govt of Hugo Chavez wasn’t tough enough?

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/04/26/international/americas/26venezuela.html

On Priscilla Owens, the prime Test Case for Bush’s new “highly qualified” court appointees: read what Alberto Gonzales said about her in 1999-2000

http://www.first-draft.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=2932

http://www.pfaw.org/pfaw/general/default.aspx?oid=1726

Let’s see, Frist keeps making the argument that overturning the filibuster is promoting the will of the People. So how do the People feel about it?

http://dailykos.com/storyonly/2005/4/25/183221/932
[WP]
Support - 26%
Oppose - 66%

http://atrios.blogspot.com/2005_04_24_atrios_archive.html#111447595189148348
[Atrios] Only 26% of the country support "changing the Senate rules to make it easier for the Republicans to confirm Bush's judicial nominees?". . . I'm one who pegs Bush's base support at about 35%. By base, I mean "would rather eat sh-t and die than oppose dear leader." So, to get anything falling below that is truly stunning.

Just how bad is the GOP’s hypocrisy on filibusters?

http://dailykos.com/storyonly/2005/4/25/223731/035

http://www.startribune.com/stories/1519/5364574.html

Reid offers a true compromise on judicial nominees (one I expect Frist to reject) – but this is the kind of savvy move that sets up a useful response later, if the nuclear option does come to pass

Yes:
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-dems26apr26,1,2812637.story
Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) and Minority Whip Richard J. Durbin (D-Ill.) said that under such a deal, Democrats would allow a vote on some of President Bush's seven controversial nominees to the federal bench, while others would be withdrawn by the White House. . . The Democrats stressed that any deal would have to include a pledge by the GOP leadership not to try to change Senate rules that allowed for filibusters of judicial nominees.

http://politicalwire.com/archives/2005/04/25/compromise_proposed_to_end_filibuster_stalemate.html

No:
http://dailykos.com/storyonly/2005/4/25/23248/6491
There are twitters today about a possible compromise between Reid and Frist on the seven nominations. I don't think it's going to happen, but the process of negotiation is necessary theater for both sides. Here's why I think we're headed for the showdown: first, because Frist and the rest of the GOP have wedged themselves between a rock and a hard place. Second, because Sen Harry Reid and associates have set the framework for the coming battle perfectly. . .

Maybe:
http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2005_04_24.php#005523
So, to pull this all together, I'm not saying Democrats shouldn't keep up the pressure on their senators. They must. And any deal that doesn't put the nuclear option off the table in a permanent and meaningfully binding way is a joke. But let's remember what this is about. It's about whether the Democrats retain their significant lever of power to block President Bush's most extreme judicial nominees. Democrats give that up, they lose. Republicans give that up, they lose. It's really that simple. A couple judges passed through are a secondary matter. From having watched so far, I get the sense that Sen. Reid sees all those moving parts. So I'm inclined to give him the room for maneuver he needs to back these folks into a ghastly trap.

Dick Durbin, our guy!

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2005_04_24.php#005521
GWEN IFILL: Does Sen. Frist have the votes in order to force this nuclear option?

SEN. JOHN KYL: Well, I'm not going to characterize it as a nuclear option. That's what the opponent....

GWEN IFILL: Or a constitutional option. Whatever term we're using today.

SEN. JOHN KYL: It is a constitutional option because the Senate has the right to provide its own precedents. That's what would be done. I won't predict vote, but I don't think we'd go forward unless we thought we had the votes.

GWEN IFILL: How about that. Sen. Durbin, what's your nose count these days?

SEN. DICK DURBIN: Well, I can tell you it's very close; it's down to one or two Republican senators. And they understand the basics. First, this term nuclear option was coined by Trent Lott, a Republican. It's not a Democratic way to try to color this debate.

More polls

http://dailykos.com/storyonly/2005/4/25/175752/955
Bush Sinking Like a Stone

http://www.markarkleiman.com/archives/george_bush_and_campaign_2004_/2005/04/heh_indeed_dept.php

Fred Barnes, GOP mouthpiece, says it’s time to start looking for a Social Security exit strategy

http://www.prospect.org/weblog/archives/2005/04/index.html#006232
“Bush can deny them that issue with the right exit strategy. He could say he tried his best to alert Americans to the coming crisis in Social Security, and that Democrats not only opposed him in the most partisan and irresponsible fashion possible but failed to present a plan of their own for modernizing the system. Sadly, he could add, the matter must now be left to future presidents and Congresses.”

[NB:I doubt this would work. First, Bush has said it is a crisis that requires an emergency response. Throwing up his hands and quitting now looks pretty pathetic. Second, HE NEVER PROVIDED A PLAN. He never even had strong support within his own party. Third, he was the one to set inflexible conditions on the negotiations that guaranteed that no compromise was possible. If he were ever really in problem-solving mode, he would have given up on private accounts and explored other possible solutions]

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2005_04/006188.php
[LAT] Invariably, when Bush talks to Republicans about Social Security, he sends an important political message: He's not going to give up this fight any time soon. . . "He gives you a lot of confidence he's not going to leave you out on a limb," said Sen. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.), who rode with Bush on Air Force One to the senator's home state last week. "He's going to stick with this issue....Until the last day in office he's going to keep doing this."

I like this: Bush asks DeLay to help him make the Social Security case. (If he could get Bolton to join them too, that would be the trifecta!)

http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&e=4&u=/ap/20050426/ap_on_go_pr_wh/bush&sid=84439559

[NB: Hey George, tighten those handcuffs a little stronger, okay?]

Senate committee to try to develop its own Social Security plan

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/04/26/politics/26finance.html

http://www.first-draft.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=2946
Sen. Charles Grassley is ready to tackle Social Security without Bush's beloved private accounts or any input from the Chimp at all.

Harry Reid: soft-spoken Mormon from Nevada, but hell on George Bush (read this: it will do your heart good)

http://dailykos.com/storyonly/2005/4/25/133951/651

http://www.mydd.com/story/2005/4/25/132925/832

I like this guy

http://dailykos.com/storyonly/2005/4/25/134319/005
As a matter of comity, the Minority in the Senate traditionally defers to the Majority in the setting of the agenda. If Bill Frist pulls the nuclear trigger, Democrats will show deference no longer.

Invoking a little-known Senate procedure called Rule XIV, last week Democrats put nine bills on the Senate calendar that seek to help America fulfill its promise.

If Republican's break the rules Democrats will use the rule to bring to the Senate floor an agenda that meets the needs of average Americans, such as lowering gas prices, reducing the cost of health care and helping veterans.

"Across the country, people are worried about things that matter to their families - the health of their loved ones, their child's performance in schools, and those sky high gas prices," said Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid. "But what is the number one priority for Senate Republicans? Doing away with the last check on one-party rule in Washington to allow President Bush, Senator Frist and Tom Delay to stack the courts with radical judges. If Republicans proceed to pull the trigger on the nuclear option, Democrats will respond by employing existing Senate rules to push forward our agenda for America."

Democrats have introduced bills that address America's real challenges. (Details attached)

More: http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2005_04/006190.php

[NB: This is smart stuff. Instead of being labeled as “obstructionist,” the Dems will put forth an alternative agenda, and simply refuse to debate anything else]

House Dems divided? I’m not seeing it

http://politicalwire.com/archives/2005/04/25/house_democrats_divided.html

How Bush alienated Congressional support: he had to work at it

http://americablog.blogspot.com/2005/04/bush-tries-to-get-chummy-with_25.html
[LAT] In a 2001 budget meeting still fresh in congressional memories, Bush antagonized a bipartisan group of senior members who were seeking additional funding for domestic security. Bush bluntly threatened a veto and, rather than respond to lawmakers' arguments, abruptly left the meeting.

"I was flabbergasted and amazed," said Rep. David R. Obey (D-Wis.). "We expected it was going to be a working meeting instead of a 'my way or the highway' meeting."

Republicans again saw an adamant, table-pounding Bush when he tried to persuade lawmakers in 2003 to support full funding for rebuilding Iraq. "I'm not here to debate you," Bush said at one meeting, interrupting one senator. . .

Bush Co. finds a handy and oh-so-familiar way to solve the health care crisis: they change the numbers to drop 20% from the not-insured list

http://suburbanguerrilla.blogspot.com/2005/04/through-looking-glassim-sorry-i-cant.html

DeLay gets another free ride

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2005_04_24.php#005517
[Reuters] "In a show of support, President Bush will give embattled House of Representatives Republican leader Tom DeLay an Air Force One ride to Washington from Texas on Tuesday, a White House spokesman said."

[NB: Hmmmm. . . I find this more interesting than Josh does. Isn’t this the friendly way Bush would deliver the bad news, in private, that DeLay is going to have to voluntarily step aside? “I’m your President and your troubles are interfering with the wider agenda we all support. For the good of the Party, you need to temporarily put aside Majority Leader until these allegations are settled.”]

Despite DeLay’s threats, House GOP has no plans to investigate or intimidate sitting judges

http://www.first-draft.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=2941

Bolton: I’m sure there are people in the Cheney/Rumsfeld axis who admire his tough-guy approach

http://americablog.blogspot.com/2005/04/bolton-this-is-starting-to-tick-me-off.html
The most serious charge against Bolton is that he pressured intelligence analysts to change their findings to suit his political aims and -- when they said they'd given him all the leeway they could -- he harassed them and tried to get them fired. Bolton's fights were not with one or two recalcitrant intelligence analysts that proved annoying.

According to these emails, Bolton fought with and tried to strong arm and inspired complaints from:
1. The State Department's bureau of intelligence and research (INR)
2. The National Security Agency
3. Defense Intelligence Agency
4. Central Intelligence Agency

These are serious, serious allegations and yet the media keeps playing this off as if Bolton's just some sort of jerky boss. . .

Wow. It turns out that govt officials reviewing NSA intercepts is a lot more common than you might imagine

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2005_04/006186.php
[LAT] The National Security Agency, which eavesdrops on electronic communications around the world, receives thousands of requests each year from U.S. government officials seeking the names of Americans who show up in intercepted calls or e-mails. . .

More: http://www.warandpiece.com/blogdirs/001952.html

http://www.thewashingtonnote.com/archives/000523.html

More revelations today

http://www.thewashingtonnote.com/archives/000524.html
John Bolton seems to have inflated virtually every threat into which his office came into contact. I take that back. He seems to have underestimated the threat of potential rogue nuclear materials in Russia as Senators Pete Domenici (R-NM) and Peter Fitzgerald (R-IL) questioned his delinquency on that front several years ago.

But on Cuba, Syria, Iraq, and Iran, John Bolton spent a lot of time at war with intelligence analysts. Certainly, all of these nations are threats, but overestimating threats can be as dangerous as underestimating them.

I have known a number of people who worked around John Bolton, and in mid-2003, one of these people made an off-hand comment, which perhaps should not be taken too seriously but nonetheless was chilling. He said, "if my boss had his way, would be at war with North Korea right now.". . . The Six Party Talks were probably the most critical diplomatic initiative underway at the time, and John Bolton spent a lot of political capital trying to undermine them and position the U.S. in a much more belligerent stance towards North Korea.

Bolton has apparently done much the same with Syria, according to an important report by the New York Times' Douglas Jehl. . .

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/04/26/politics/26bolton.html

Ouch!

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-bolton26apr26,1,6657389.story
Another former high-ranking State Department official has urged senators not to approve John R. Bolton as United Nations ambassador, saying Bolton has "no diplomatic bone in his body" and is "unworthy of your trust.". . Frederick Vreeland, a former U.S. ambassador to Burma and Morocco appointed by President George H.W. Bush, joined a growing chorus of ex-officials taking sides on Bolton. . . "If it is now U.S. policy not to reform the U.N. but to destroy it, Bolton is our man"

Does any of this matter any longer? Bush Co. seems to be arguing to wavering Senators now that no matter how bad a choice Bolton is, they NEED this one (because withdrawing it would lose face for them)

http://dailykos.com/storyonly/2005/4/25/121515/042

Bob Novak

http://www.first-draft.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=2942
“The White House and Republican Senate leaders have a little better than two weeks to save John Bolton as ambassador to the United Nations after last Tuesday's fiasco in the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. All that can be promised is that their efforts on Bolton's behalf will be tougher and better organized than they have been so far. That should not be difficult because they could hardly be worse. . . Republicans, weak and disorganized, were ground down by the Democratic juggernaut.”

A new (and constitutionally dubious) wrinkle: ignore what the Foreign Relations Committee does, and bring the Bolton vote to the full Senate anyway (thanks to Josh Marshall for the link)

http://modern-esquire.blogspot.com/2005/04/gop-filibuster-snowball.html
"I think the best policy is to have his nomination come to the full Senate, not decided by a committee because the Constitution says that advice and consent are the province of the Senate itself," said Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pa., on CNN's "Late Edition."

Credit where credit is due

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2005_04_24_digbysblog_archive.html#111445769570623696
[Digby] I haven't written much about the Bolton nomination because I pretty much said everything I thought about him in the first year of this blog, when I railed considerably about the bizarre notion that an insane, Jesse Helms protege should be in charge of arms control. . . [I]f he isn't confirmed for the UN, he just goes back to the State Department where he can do even worse damage in his current position. Remember, he was given the UN nomination in order to get him out of there in the first place.

I have no reason to believe that the loyal Bolton will be shamed into quitting the administration entirely. Has anyone? It just doesn't happen. . . Nobody leaves a Bush administration official in the corner. . . any Bush administration. Hell, they've revived Eliot Abrams and John Negroponte. Unless Bolton wants to leave, nobody will ask him to.

More: http://www.prospect.org/weblog/archives/2005/04/index.html#006225

IOKIYAR

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2005_04_24_digbysblog_archive.html#111445004403924393
Matt Yglesias wonders why the Republicans have been so blase about nominees lying outright to the Senate during their confirmation hearings when they may very well be at the mercy of Democrats in the future. Yesterday, Bill Frist righteously rebutted the argument set forth by some Republicans that the nuclear option would leave them powerless when Democrats came into power, by saying that if it was wrong for Democrats today it would be wrong for Republicans tomorrow. In truth it doesn't matter.

The trouble is that the IOKIYAR (it's ok if you're a republican) phenomenon is not just a little blogospheric joke. It's quite real and it's been demonstrated over and over again. There is absolutely no reason for the Republicans to fear that they will be held to the same standard as they hold Democrats, ever. These lies by Bush appointees are not going to be investigated and they will always remain in the realm of he said/she said, old news, whyareyoubringingthisupnow. Fuggedaboudit.

A thought experiment. Just imagine a left-wing equivalent of these comments, and what would happen to a “serious” commentator on a nationally syndicated radio network who routinely said such things

http://americablog.blogspot.com/2005/04/gop-radio-host-michael-savage-says.html
[Michael Savage] The ACLU, National Lawyers Guild, and MoveOn.org: "I believe it's time for the heads of left-wing agitation groups who are using the courts to impose their will on the 'sheeple' to be prosecuted under the federal RICO statutes."

[NB: Let’s see, “arrest the NRA?” “drag the Family Research Council into court?” “shut down the Christian Coalition?” How would that play?]

Graham Larkin gives David Horowitz what for: always a fun read

http://insidehighered.com/views/2005/04/25/larkin
David Horowitz’s War on Rational Discourse

Bonus item: Your President

http://www.first-draft.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=2939
Q What do you expect to get out of this meeting, sir?

THE PRESIDENT: Do you like the footpath?

Q Let's talk about the meeting.

THE PRESIDENT: This is an important relationship -- personal relationship with the Crown Prince is important. I look forward to talking with him about a variety of subjects. I'm glad you're here. Thank you for coming. I hope you're enjoying this day.

Q How much progress can you make on oil prices?

THE PRESIDENT: I'll be glad to answer those questions at a later time.

Q Later today?

THE PRESIDENT: No. No, of course I'll talk about energy. And the Crown Prince understands that it's very important for there to be a -- make sure that the price is reasonable. A high oil price will damage markets, and he knows that. I look forward to talking to him about that. But as well as -- you know, we'll talk about his country's capacity. It's an important subject.

[NB: It didn’t work: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/04/25/AR2005042500376.html]

Double Bonus: how the Repubs love to blame overzealous underlings for their own failures

http://www.salon.com/comics/tomo/2005/04/25/tomo/index1.html

***If you enjoy PBD and support what we are doing, you can help by forwarding a copy of this issue to your friends (using the envelope link below) or by sending them a copy of its URL (http://pbd.blogspot.com).

I don't get anything personally out of this project, except the satisfaction of doing it (I don't run ads, etc). The credit really all goes to the people whose material I copy and redistribute. But if I do have a "mission," it is to get this information into the hands of as many people as I can.***
- posted by Nick Burbules @ 7:43 AM

 
PAYBACK

U.N. inspector uncovering prisoner abuse fired under U.S. pressure

http://www.warandpiece.com/blogdirs/001950.html

http://news.independent.co.uk/world/politics/story.jsp?story=632719
The UN's top human rights investigator in Afghanistan has been forced out under American pressure just days after he presented a report criticising the US military for detaining suspects without trial and holding them in secret prisons.

Cherif Bassiouni had needled the US military since his appointment a year ago, repeatedly trying, without success, to interview alleged Taliban and al-Qa'ida prisoners at the two biggest US bases in Afghanistan, Kandahar and Bagram.

Mr Bassiouni's report had highlighted America's policy of detaining prisoners without trial and lambasted coalition officials for barring independent human rights monitors from its bases.

In Iraq, U.S. soldiers shoot first, ask questions later

http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/story.jsp?story=632439
It is very easy to be accidentally killed in Iraq. US soldiers treat everybody as a potential suicide bomber. If they are right they have saved their lives and if they are wrong they face no penalty.

"We should end the immunity of US soldiers here," says Dr Mahmoud Othman, a veteran Kurdish politician who argues that the failure to prosecute American soldiers who have killed civilians is one of the reasons why the occupation became so unpopular so fast. . .

Every Iraqi has stories of friends or relatives killed by US troops for no adequate reason. Often they do not know if they were shot by regular soldiers or by members of western security companies whose burly employees, usually ex-soldiers, are everywhere in Iraq. . .

It was obvious to many American officers from an early stage in the conflict that the Pentagon's claim that it did not count civilian casualties was seen by many Iraqis as proof that the US did not care about how many of them were killed. . .

U.S. still trying to manipulate formation of Iraqi govt (thanks to Jan Pieterse for some of these links)

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/04/25/international/middleeast/25iraq.html

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/GD21Ak02.html

http://www.juancole.com/2005/04/jaafari-decides-to-exclude-allawi-al.html

"I'm a uniter, not a divider" (G.W. Bush)

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1053595,00.html
The Inter-American Telecommunication Commission meets three times a year in various cities across the Americas to discuss such dry but important issues as telecommunications standards and spectrum regulations. But for this week's meeting in Guatemala City, politics has barged onto the agenda. At least four of the two dozen or so U.S. delegates selected for the meeting, sources tell TIME, have been bumped by the White House because they supported John Kerry's 2004 campaign.

The State Department has traditionally put together a list of industry representatives for these meetings, and anyone in the U.S. telecom industry who had the requisite expertise and wanted to go was generally given a slot, say past participants. Only after the start of Bush's second term did a political litmus test emerge, industry sources say. . .

Frist holds his Sunday service, starts lying from the get-go

http://dailykos.com/storyonly/2005/4/24/14642/5369
[AP] Frist also said that the Democrats' filibuster against Bush's nominees was the first time ever that "a judicial nominee with majority support had been denied an up-or-down vote."

That is a complete lie of course and good on AP for pointing it out:

Republicans held a Senate majority for six of President Clinton's eight years in office and frequently prevented votes on his court appointments by bottling them up in the committee, knowing the nominees would be confirmed if allowed to go to a vote by the full Senate. . . One nominee, Richard Paez, a district court judge when he was nominated, waited more than four years before being confirmed to the appeals court.

One AP failing - failed to mention that Frist voted in favor of filibustering Judge Paez. Frist is a lying hypocrite.

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2005_04_24_digbysblog_archive.html#111439133470846182
It is important for people to understand how the Republican Party sold its soul to these radicals. . .

Frist’s comments try to draw a line separating him from the “hate the judiciary” comments of Tom DeLay and others. But by aligning himself with their wider cause, he should be held accountable for the climate of viciousness they have fostered

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2005_04_24.php#005507
You'll note that in coverage of Frist's speech many reporters have bought into his spinners' claim that Frist is coming out against threats against the judiciary. But of course he's giving a speech at a pep rally for the people orchestrating the most extreme attacks on the judiciary. And he's doing nothing but dishing out praise for them. So as I said, Frist is trying to position himself on both sides of the threats against members of the judiciary debate. But actions speak louder than words.

More: http://americablog.blogspot.com/2005/04/will-msm-hold-frist-accountable-for.html

Senate majority whip claims to have the votes

http://www.boston.com/news/nation/washington/articles/2005/04/25/partisan_showdown_looms_on_filibusters

One more time about the term “nuclear option”

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2005_04_24.php#005508
[Frist] Now if Senator Reid continues to obstruct the process, we will consider what opponents call the “nuclear option.” Only in the United States Senate could it be considered a devastating option to allow a vote. Most places call that democracy.

[Josh Marshall] As you can see, Frist is pushing the bogus argument that "nuclear option" is a phrase coined by Democrats whereas in fact, as he certainly knows, it is a phrase coined by Republicans. . . [I]t's worth taking note of Frist's knowing falsehood because it is quite evidently part of a larger RNC push over the course of the last week.

I've been made privy to the internal communications of a number of national news organizations at which there are now running arguments over whether to go along with the Republican claim that 'nuclear option' is a Democratic epithet or term of abuse which should be banned except in cases where Democrats are directly quoted using it. . . So, as you're reading the coverage in the coming days, watch to see which news outfits have fallen in line with the RNC-directives.

http://atrios.blogspot.com/2005_04_24_atrios_archive.html#111439273749971672
November 14, 2004

FRIST: Oh, it's clearly one of the options. I've always said it's one of the options. . . What it basically -- it's called the nuclear option. . .

November 16, 2004

Sen. FRIST: If we continue to see obstruction where one out of three of the president's nominees to fill vacancies in the circuit court are being obstructed, then action would be taken. One of those is the nuclear option. . .

More: http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2005_04_24.php#005510

More on David Broder’s proposed “compromise” on judicial filibusters

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2005_04_24.php#005509
Broder's editors at the Post gave the piece the deeply Broderian title: "A Judicious Compromise.". . . Opinion page editors at Iowa's Quad-City Times gave it a read and decided they'd run it with a more apt title: "Democrats should back down."

More: http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2005_04_24.php#005506

Bolton: the hits just keep coming

http://www.warandpiece.com/blogdirs/001949.html
[Time] In the meantime, Bolton's confirmation looks far from assured. That has not prevented the nominee, however, from moving through his to-do list. Government sources tell TIME that after he was nominated in early March, Bolton requested that all American employees of the U.S. mission to the U.N. submit their resumes for review. The move cast a chill over the operation, where some saw it as presumptuous. It may also have been premature.

http://www.cnn.com/2005/POLITICS/04/24/bolton.nomination/index.html
Bolton is not responding to allegations in the media while his confirmation process is under way.

[NB: Ha! And when SHOULD he be responding to these allegations?]

Bolton urged to withdraw

http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/wireStory?id=699066
Sen. Christopher Dodd, D-Conn., was asked if he thought Bolton should withdraw from consideration. "I would hope he would," Dodd told CBS' "Face the Nation."

"I think he's going to embarrass the president. I think he's going to … have a very difficult job serving if he's confirmed narrowly by the Senate. He should withdraw or the president ought to withdraw this nomination. There are plenty of other good people who embrace his ideological views who can go up" and achieve the major changes that Bush is pressing for at the United Nations. "John Bolton is not that individual."

http://yglesias.typepad.com/matthew/2005/04/when_did_lying_.html
When Did Lying To Congress Become Okay?
[Matt Yglesias] Lurking in this Steve Clemons post on the Bolton nomination is a key observation: "TWN is also alarmed at the seeming indifference that Senators Lugar and others have attached to the fact that John Bolton seems to have lied to the Committee on a broad number of questions -- and seems to have lied in a robust, emphatic manner." Right. When did lying to Congress become okay? It seems to have happened when George W. Bush decided to appoint all manner of Iran-Contra veterans to key posts notwithstanding the fact that some of them had previously been actually found guilty of lying to Congress while new evidence made it clear that others (John Negroponte in particular) had, in fact, been lying back in the 1980s. Now it's considered to be of little concern that Bolton pretty clearly lied. . . Bracketing John Bolton and all partisan considerations, this is an odd and distressing development and I think it's genuinely weird that conservatives in general and Senate Republicans in particular are brushing it aside so casually. . .

Backing Bolton

http://www.thewashingtonnote.com/archives/000508.html
Some Bolton allies -- including Michael Ledeen, Frank Gaffney, David Frum, and Cliff May -- have launched ConfirmBolton.com. I'm thrilled. This is assuring that the profile and background of John Bolton become even more widely known. The more debate the better. It's good for the country and for the nation that every nook, cranny, and edge of John Bolton's long career to be perused and investigated before the vote on confirmation.

Bolton nomination a test of WH loyalty

http://www.thewashingtonnote.com/archives/000511.html

Polls (do they matter in this case?)

http://www.thewashingtonnote.com/archives/000509.html
Today, CNN's "Late Edition with Wolf Blitzer" ran another "Quick Vote" on the subject of whether Americans thought John Bolton should be Ambassador to the United Nations. 92% have voted NO.

DeLay’s lame excuse

http://thinkprogress.org/index.php?p=704
Tom DeLay’s defense of his trips to South Korea and the UK, both allegedly funded by registered lobbyists in violation of House rules, is that as far as he knew, the expenses were properly paid by a nonprofit organization, the National Center for Public Policy Research. He claims whatever funds the lobbyists gave over to NCPPR to cover his trips are not his responsibility. In DeLay’s own words, “I can’t - no Member can be responsible for going into the bowels of researching what this organization, how it gets its money or how it’s funded.”. . . But according to today’s Washington Post, not only can House members be responsible for such information – they’re obligated to be responsible:

House ethics rules contain detailed provisions barring the acceptance of any travel funds from private sources if doing so would “create the appearance of using public office for private gain.” They also obligate lawmakers to “make inquiry on the source of the funds that will be used to pay” for any travel ostensibly financed by a nonprofit organization – to rule out the acceptance of reimbursements that come from one organization when a trip is “in fact organized and conducted by someone else.”

Dump him?

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/04/25/politics/25delay.html

Keep him?

http://suburbanguerrilla.blogspot.com/2005/04/delay-must-stayjonathan-alter-and-i.html
[Jonathan Alter] But this smelly hypocrisy — assuming it's not found illegal — merely offends the senses. DeLay's views on muscling the judiciary and ending the separation of church and state (which he believes is a fiction) offend the Constitution. That makes it too important to leave to the media and the rest of the Washington scandal machine to remedy. This job belongs to the voters, who can hammer the Hammer by siding against his many acolytes in Congress. Let's make 2006 a referendum on the right wing. For that, DeLay must stay.

Info central for all matters Plame

http://whateveralready.blogspot.com/
[Murray Waas] "The grand jury uncovered evidence that several administration officials engaged in an aggressive and organized effort to discredit Wilson." And even lower, I write that federal investigators have for some time believed that columnist Novak has very likely lied to shield his sources from potential criminal culpability.

Rice learns the cover-up game

http://www.guardian.co.uk/usa/story/0,12271,1468541,00.html
A state department report which showed an increase in terrorism incidents around the world in 2004 was altered to strip it of its pessimistic statistics. . . Condoleezza Rice, the secretary of state, ordered the report to be withdrawn and a new one issued minus the statistics.

Pope Benedict XVI lays out his credentials for a Bush admin post

http://atrios.blogspot.com/2005_04_24_atrios_archive.html#111435400068074689
Pope Benedict XVI faced claims last night he had 'obstructed justice' after it emerged he issued an order ensuring the church's investigations into child sex abuse claims be carried out in secret. . . The order was made in a confidential letter, obtained by The Observer, which was sent to every Catholic bishop in May 2001. . . It asserted the church's right to hold its inquiries behind closed doors and keep the evidence confidential for up to 10 years after the victims reached adulthood. The letter was signed by Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, who was elected as John Paul II's successor last week.

“Jeff Gannon’s” unusual WH access (thanks to Susan Madrak for the link)

http://rawstory.com/exclusives/byrne/secret_service_gannon_424.htm
Guckert made more than two dozen excursions to the White House when there were no scheduled briefings. On many of these days, the Press Office held press gaggles aboard Air Force One—which raises questions about what Guckert was doing at the White House. On other days, the president held photo opportunities.

On at least fourteen occasions, Secret Service records show either the entry or exit time missing. Generally, the existing entry or exit times correlate with press conferences; on most of these days, the records show that Guckert checked in but was never processed out.

In March, 2003, Guckert left the White House twice on days he had never checked in with the Secret Service. Over the next 22 months, Guckert failed to check out with the Service on fourteen days. On several of these visits, Guckert either entered or exited by a different entry/exit point than his usual one. On one of these days, no briefing was held; on another, he checked in twice but failed to check out. . .

Others who have covered the White House say not checking in or out with the Secret Service is unusual, especially in the wake of Sept. 11. The Secret Service declined to comment. . . Guckert declined to comment, directing all questions to the Service.

Bonus item: “Astroturf” is the current term for coordinated, fake grassroots letters to the media: the text is provided by some central office and people can copy it and send it in under their own names (hence you get identical Letters to the Editor in newspapers all around the country). But astroturf is, at least, sent by real people: what do you call it when the names are as phony as the text?

http://dailykos.com/storyonly/2005/4/24/142719/291

***If you enjoy PBD and support what we are doing, you can help by forwarding a copy of this issue to your friends (using the envelope link below) or by sending them a copy of its URL (http://pbd.blogspot.com).

I don't get anything personally out of this project, except the satisfaction of doing it (I don't run ads, etc). The credit really all goes to the people whose material I copy and redistribute. But if I do have a "mission," it is to get this information into the hands of as many people as I can.***
- posted by Nick Burbules @ 6:54 AM

 
UNSTABLE

The longer Iraq is without a permanent stable govt, the worse the violence will be: so then why is Allawi continuing to undermine the duly constituted Jafaari administration?

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/iraq/la-fg-iraq24apr24,0,6987317.story
The protracted delay in forming an Iraqi government is imperiling the appointment of its prime minister, providing a new impetus for the insurgency and fanning renewed suspicion of the U.S. role here, Iraqi and Western observers say.

One Western official said the equivalent of a filibuster had emerged in an attempt to thwart efforts by newly appointed Prime Minister Ibrahim Jafari, of the majority Shiite Muslim bloc, to form his government. If he fails to do so within two weeks, he will be replaced as premier. . . Ethnic Kurds and loyalists of outgoing Prime Minister Iyad Allawi are said to have allied to stop Jafari, several Shiite insiders charge.

Violence escalates

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A12417-2005Apr23.html
Violence is escalating sharply in Iraq after a period of relative calm that followed the January elections. Bombings, ambushes and kidnappings targeting Iraqis and foreigners, both troops and civilians, have surged this month while the new Iraqi government is caught up in power struggles over cabinet positions.

http://www.boston.com/news/world/articles/2005/04/24/us_military_worried_over_change_in_iraq_attacks/
Insurgents in Iraq have staged increasingly sophisticated attacks in recent weeks, according to US military assessments, moving beyond roadside bombings and suicide attacks to mount large-scale assaults against US and Iraqi forces and civilians. . . The greater coordination and larger scope of the attacks has prompted some commanders to reexamine their belief that the insurgency was on the wane. . .

War crimes

http://www.first-draft.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=2921
Drawing largely on news reports and publicly available military reviews, the group, Human Rights Watch, concluded that there was "overwhelming evidence that U.S. mistreatment and torture of Muslim prisoners took place not merely at Abu Ghraib, but at facilities throughout Afghanistan and Iraq as well as at Guantánamo and at 'secret locations' around the world in violation of the Geneva Convention and the laws against torture."

The report found no indication that Mr. Rumsfeld warned those under his command to halt abusive treatment of detainees and said that he should be investigated for abuses under a doctrine of "command responsibility." Mr. Rumsfeld has said he made it clear to subordinates that he did not condone mistreatment.

The report found that Mr. Tenet had been responsible for policies that sent detainees to countries where they were tortured, which made him potentially liable as an accomplice to torture. Mr. Tenet has not addressed the issue publicly, but C.I.A. officials have long said that Mr. Tenet insisted that agency personnel carefully follow the law.

A special prosecutor was needed to investigate these matters, the report said, because Alberto R. Gonzales, the attorney general, had a conflict of interest because he "was himself deeply involved in the policies leading to these alleged crimes."

More calls for a special prosecutor: http://talkleft.com/new_archives/010449.html

What does Halliburton have to do before they are investigated for the fraud, corruption, and war profiteering that have been rampant under Bush/Cheney?

http://atrios.blogspot.com/2005_04_17_atrios_archive.html#111427721294253455
The Halliburton corporation, already the Iraq war's poster child for "waste, fraud and abuse", has been hit with a new double whammy. A report from the US State Department accuses the company of "poor performance" in its US$1.2 billion contract to repair Iraq's vital southern oilfields. . . And a powerful California congressman is charging that Defense Department audits showing additional overcharges totaling $212 million were concealed from United Nations monitors by the administration of President George W Bush.

Bolton: dead man walking?

http://www.thewashingtonnote.com/archives/000504.html
[Steven Clemons] That means we will either see something that looks like a 12-6 or even 13-5 vote against Bolton, or we will see a 10-8 vote in favor of Bolton. One Senator can make the difference, but once one Senator unambiguously moves and indicates a decision to oppose, then several other Senators will quickly move as well.

The White House is the driver here -- and Lugar is feeling excruciating pressure not to have his committee collapse on this nomination, and it is nearly "abusive" of the White House to be doing this to Lugar and the Senate Foreign Relations Committee because the battle will soon not be cast as one between Democrats and the White House -- but rather between the White House and the Senate on whether the President will respect the role and function of the Senate confirmation process.

. . . There is new material on the way. . . There is a story brewing regarding John Bolton's role as a disruptive force in the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom that involves a well-respected scholar, Jeremy Gunn. Dr. Gunn resigned his positions as Director of Research and Deputy General Counsel of the Commission because of matters that "related to Mr. Bolton."

TWN does not know more, but knows that Mr. Gunn has decided to share his experiences with Mr. Bolton with the Senate Foreign Relations Committee so as to have a more complete record of John Bolton's profile.

There is also a case of another still-closely-held, serious abuse incident that occurred at the State Department. TWN has no idea who the individual is -- but just that the incident is as offensive as the one involving Christian Westermann. For reasons I don't understand, this incident is still blacked out and serious political players in D.C. are trying to bring the incident and matter into the public record on Bolton -- while still protecting otherwise innocent people who might be harmed when matters are disclosed. This sort of issue is complicated -- as there seem to be many victims of Bolton abuse in Washington, but coaxing them to come forward and speak requires time and investigation. To be fair, John Bolton should also be given opportunity to respond.

TWN also believes that the most serious challenges regarding John Bolton are not his pattern of "serial abuse" but rather his pattern of delinquency and recklessness regarding national security objectives and delicate diplomatic initiatives. TWN is also alarmed at the seeming indifference that Senators Lugar and others have attached to the fact that John Bolton seems to have lied to the Committee on a broad number of questions -- and seems to have lied in a robust, emphatic manner. . .

http://www.warandpiece.com/blogdirs/001946.html
Bolton had to be taken out of the Libya policy chain of command at Tony Blair's insistence, Newsweek reports, for it to succeed. . .

On several occasions, America's closest ally in the war on terror, Britain, was irked by what U.S. and British sources say were efforts by Bolton to undermine promising diplomatic openings. Perhaps the most dramatic instance took place early in the U.S.-British talks in 2003 to force Libya to surrender its nuclear program, NEWSWEEK has learned. The Libya deal succeeded only after British officials "at the highest level" persuaded the White House to keep Bolton off the negotiating team. . .

Read the Newsweek piece which is testimony to the fact that the US's most significant ally, Britain, refuses to work with Bolton because of the destructive role he has played in sensitive negotiations to persuade countries like Libya and Iran to abandon their nuclear programs. We already have the principal US negotiators on North Korea coming forward to say Bolton was a dangerous disaster on North Korea -- and the proof is in the pudding. These are substantive policy failures, where the combination of Bolton's inability to work with others who don't share his ideological worldview, and gross misuse of intelligence made him a danger and a hindrance for US policy goals.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/worldlatest/story/0,1280,-4958508,00.html
“This nomination is not doomed, but it's on life support and the plug may well be pulled any day,'' said Allan J. Lichtman, a political history professor at American University.

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2005_04/006180.php
Douglas Jehl writes in the New York Times today about "recently declassified" email exchanges between John Bolton's staff and various intelligence officials. . . It's not really a smoking gun, but it's pretty clear that Bolton was hell bent on saying whatever he wanted to say about Cuba, regardless of what every intelligence agency in town was telling him about our actual state of knowledge. . . I give him until Tuesday, maybe Wednesday.

More: http://www.warandpiece.com/blogdirs/001944.html

http://americablog.blogspot.com/2005/04/white-house-fears-bolton-nomination.html

DeLay: the smoking credit card

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A12416-2005Apr23.html
The airfare to London and Scotland in 2000 for then-House Majority Whip Tom DeLay (R-Tex.) was charged to an American Express card issued to Jack Abramoff, a Washington lobbyist at the center of a federal criminal and tax probe, according to two sources who know Abramoff's credit card account number and to a copy of a travel invoice displaying that number.

DeLay's expenses during the same trip for food, phone calls and other items at a golf course hotel in Scotland were billed to a different credit card also used on the trip by a second registered Washington lobbyist, Edwin A. Buckham, according to receipts documenting that portion of the trip.

House ethics rules bar lawmakers from accepting travel and related expenses from registered lobbyists. DeLay, who is now House majority leader, has said that his expenses on this trip were paid by a nonprofit organization and that the financial arrangements for it were proper. He has also said he had no way of knowing that any lobbyist might have financially supported the trip, either directly or through reimbursements to the nonprofit organization.

http://www.markarkleiman.com/archives/corruption_in_washington_/2005/04/toast.php
Sure, taking airfare, hotel, and thousands of dollars in greens fees from a registered lobbyist is utterly trivial compared to the many serious ways Tom DeLay has disgraced his office and damaged this country. But it's also a bright-line violation of House rules.

Yesterday we talked about the Republican effort to attribute the “nuclear option” to Democrats while calling their own overturning of 200 years of legal practice “the constitutional option.” No way the media would fall for such a transparent and cynical attempt to redefine history, right? Think again

http://dailykos.com/storyonly/2005/4/23/164823/703
So here's the deal for journalists. If you get bamboozled one more time on this - we will be left with only two possibilities in thinking about you: (1) you are a bought and paid-for GOP whore; or (2) you are a hopeless incompetent. . . Update: CNN, already a recognized GOP Whore, does not disappoint, as pointed out in comments below:

Frist's plan has been dubbed the "nuclear option" because Democrats have promised to retaliate by blocking the rest of Bush's legislative agenda -- excluding spending and highway bills and national security measures.

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2005_04_17.php#005499
[LA Times] "Frist is expected to try as early as next week to push the Senate to ban filibusters on judicial nominations — a move so explosive that Democrats are calling it the 'nuclear option.'"

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2005_04_17.php#005497
[NY Times] "Democrats call this the nuclear option, while Republicans call this a constitutional option."

But. . .

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2005_04_17.php#005497
[New Yorker, March 7] [S]oon enough, a group of Republican aides began to talk about changing the rules. It was understood at once that such a change would be explosive; Senator Trent Lott, the former Majority Leader, came up with “nuclear option,” and the term stuck.

Many more examples: http://atrios.blogspot.com/2005_04_17_atrios_archive.html#111429479120067896

Finally. . .

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2005_04_17.php#005498
TPM Reader RR makes an inspired suggestion which, I think, more faithfully captures what's in play than either 'nuclear' or 'constitutional'. . . It's the Crybaby Option.

As he puts it, "Oh, boo-hoo, we only got 95% of what we wanted so we're changing the rules. Waaaaah!"

(p.s. the votes aren’t there)

http://yglesias.typepad.com/matthew/2005/04/elsewhere_on_th.html

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-judges24apr24,1,7710550.story

Will the Dems cut a deal? David Broder thinks they should

http://www.liberaloasis.com/archives/041705.htm#042205

http://dailykos.com/storyonly/2005/4/24/44228/6514

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2005_04_24.php#005502

[NB: I think they shouldn't. They are WINNING this issue. Frist can't even get the votes to end the filibuster in his own party. And even if they could pass it, the public doesn't like the appearance that the GOP is rewriting the rules to advance an extremist, theocratic agenda. Read on]

Bill Frist’s “Justice Sunday”

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/04/24/opinion/24rich.html
[Frank Rich] While Sinclair Lewis wrote that Gantry, his hypocritical evangelical preacher, "was born to be a senator," we now have senators who are born to be Gantrys. One of them, the Senate majority leader, Bill Frist, hatched plans to be beamed into tonight's festivities by videotape, a stunt that in itself imbues "Justice Sunday" with a touch of all-American spectacle worthy of "The Wizard of Oz."

Like the wizard himself, "Justice Sunday" is a humbug, albeit one with real potential consequences. It brings mass-media firepower to a campaign against so-called activist judges whose virulence increasingly echoes the rhetoric of George Wallace and other segregationists in the 1960's. . .

The fraudulence of "Justice Sunday" begins but does not end with its sham claims to solidarity with the civil rights movement of that era. "The filibuster was once abused to protect racial bias," says the flier for tonight's show, "and now it is being used against people of faith." In truth, Bush judicial nominees have been approved in exactly the same numbers as were Clinton second-term nominees. Of the 13 federal appeals courts, 10 already have a majority of Republican appointees. So does the Supreme Court. It's a lie to argue, as Tom DeLay did last week, that such a judiciary is the "left's last legislative body," and that Justice Anthony Kennedy, a Reagan appointee, is the poster child for "outrageous" judicial overreach. Our courts are as highly populated by Republicans as the other two branches of government.

The "Justice Sunday" mob is also lying when it claims to despise activist judges as a matter of principle. Only weeks ago it was desperately seeking activist judges who might intervene in the Terri Schiavo case as boldly as Scalia & Co. had in Bush v. Gore. . .

Anyone who doesn't get with this program, starting with all Democrats, is damned as a bigoted enemy of "people of faith." But "people of faith," as used by the event's organizers, is another duplicitous locution; it's a code word for only one specific and exclusionary brand of Christianity. . .[read on!]

More word games

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2005_04/006182.php
A couple of days ago Jon Chait wrote that Republicans have won at least one great victory in the Social Security debate: they have forced the media to abandon the phrase "private accounts" in favor of "personal accounts". . . But anecdotes aside, has the use of "private accounts" really declined in the past few months?

Will the new Pope help the Bush gang advance their theocratic agenda?

http://www.first-draft.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=2922
[Maureen Dowd] As fundamentalism marches on - even Bill Gates seems to have caved to a preacher on gay rights legislation because of fear of a boycott - U.S. conservatives are thrilled about the choice of Cardinal Ratzinger, hoping for an unholy alliance. They hope this pope - who seems to want a smaller, purer church - encourages a militant role for Catholic bishops and priests in the political process.

Cardinal Ratzinger did not shrink from advising American bishops in the last presidential election on bringing Catholic elected officials to heel. He warned that Catholics who deliberately voted for a candidate because of a pro-choice position were guilty of cooperating in evil, and unworthy to receive communion. Vote Democratic and lose your soul.

Sunday talk show line-ups

http://dailykos.com/storyonly/2005/4/23/21953/2129
Face the Nation: Chris Dodd and Mitch McConnell

This Week: Joe Biden and Jon Kyl

Late Edition: Ahmed Chalabi; Arlen Specter and Patrick Leahy; Al Haig

Fox News: Lindsey Graham and Dick Durbin; FRC Shill Tony Perkins.

Meet the Press: An All Catholic Clergy lineup to discuss the new Pope

The National Security State

http://www.boston.com/news/nation/washington/articles/2005/04/24/in_terror_wars_name_public_loses_information/
Federal agencies under the Bush administration are sweeping vast amounts of public information behind a curtain of secrecy in the name of fighting terrorism, using 50 to 60 loosely defined security designations that can be imposed by officials as low-ranking as government clerks. . .

Bonus item: “Bush’s War on the Press”

http://www.thenation.com/doc.mhtml?i=20050509&s=alterman
[Eric Alterman] Make no mistake: The Bush Administration and its ideological allies are employing every means available to undermine journalists' ability to exercise their First Amendment function to hold power accountable. In fact, the Administration recognizes no such constitutional role for the press. White House Chief of Staff Andrew Card has insisted that the media "don't represent the public any more than other people do.... I don't believe you have a check-and-balance function."

Bush himself, on more than one occasion, has told reporters he does not read their work and prefers to live inside the information bubble blown by his loyal minions. Vice President Cheney feels free to kick the New York Times off his press plane, and John Ashcroft can refuse to speak with any print reporters during his Patriot-Act-a-palooza publicity tour, just to compliant local TV. As an unnamed Bush official told reporter Ron Suskind, "We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you're studying that reality--judiciously, as you will--we'll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that's how things will sort out. We're history's actors...and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do." For those who didn't like it, another Bush adviser explained, "Let me clue you in. We don't care. You see, you're outnumbered two to one by folks in the big, wide middle of America, busy working people who don't read the New York Times or Washington Post or the LA Times."

But the White House and its supporters are doing more than just talking trash--when they talk at all. They are taking aggressive action: preventing journalists from doing their job by withholding routine information; deliberately releasing deceptive information on a regular basis; bribing friendly journalists to report the news in a favorable context; producing their own "news reports" and distributing these free of charge to resource-starved broadcasters; creating and crediting their own political activists as "journalists" working for partisan operations masquerading as news organizations. . .

***If you enjoy PBD and support what we are doing, you can help by forwarding a copy of this issue to your friends (using the envelope link below) or by sending them a copy of its URL (http://pbd.blogspot.com).

I don't get anything personally out of this project, except the satisfaction of doing it (I don't run ads, etc). The credit really all goes to the people whose material I copy and redistribute. But if I do have a "mission," it is to get this information into the hands of as many people as I can.***
- posted by Nick Burbules @ 7:19 AM

 
A HOUSE DIVIDED

I think we are in an interesting moment politically. There are several big battles going on: Bolton, DeLay, the filibuster fight, Social Security, and the deficit. In each case the main struggle is not between the Democrats and the Republicans, but between two segments of the Republican party: between the Bush absolutists (“our way or the highway”) and the few remaining Republicans who really believe in the rule of law, in reasoned public debate, in secular government, in an independent judiciary, in fiscal or moral accountability. The Bush gang is bringing out the heavy rhetorical artillery, not to sway Democratic votes, but to pressure Republicans who are increasingly alarmed by the extremism and inflexibility of Bush’s commitment to personnel decisions and policy goals for no other reason than because, having carved out a stance, he simply refuses to back down or compromise. Yet in each case public sentiment is strongly against the Bush position, and more than a few Republicans are refusing to drink the Kool-aid because unlike Bush they actually have to face the voters again. Of course the Democrats are squeezing every ounce of political advantage they can from these crises – but in actuality they are not driving events (except by refusing to give Bush’s policies bipartisan cover, which is a lesson they ought to have learned a long time ago). Bush, DeLay, et al are blaming the Democrats (the liberal media, and the tooth fairy), but their most serious opponents are in their own party

http://www.warandpiece.com/blogdirs/001913.html
[Chris Nelson] If the fight over John Bolton’s UN nomination were just about John Bolton, he’d be history already. But this isn’t about Bolton, it’s about the exercise of power. Same thing with House Majority Leader Tom DeLay. If this was even 5 years ago, he’d be toast. We are at the point now where the Republican Leadership refuses to allow the possibility of a loss on anything, regardless of the merits. This renders “debate” meaningless, since nothing said actually matters, so truth is irrelevant. “Science” depends on faith; everything is a test of power. Oppose something the President wants, and you aren’t just wrong, you are betraying the Party. The underlying message is that you are also offending a very particular definition of God.

The sad, sorry Bolton/DeLay spectacles are about total war, the kill-the-prisoners exercise of power that national US politics has become since the 2000 election. If it were merely about power, it wouldn’t be so terrifying. Washington is used to that...it’s what we exist for. But the fear, the self-loathing, the pathetic, cowardly, sniveling, excuse-making drivel from such “leaders” as Lugar, Hagel, Chafee, the entire House Republican Leadership under DeLay...and the ever-so-very carefully expressed angst of the Democrats...is about something far more dangerous to the Republic than mere political power. What we are seeing is a fight for the political soul of the nation. We’ve had these before, in the existential sense...in my political lifetime, the civil rights movement, the anti-Vietnam war movement, the women’s rights versus, to a certain extent, the right to life movement. But this time it’s totally and completely a fight about God...specifically, whether God is going to rule in the United States. . .

http://www.tnr.com/doc.mhtml?pt=oc33pgsKUtBeq6q0a8yCZR%3D%3D
[Andrew Sullivan] Conservatism isn't over. But it has rarely been as confused. Today's conservatives support limited government. But they believe the federal government can intervene in a state court's decisions in a single family's struggle over life and death. They believe in restraining government spending. But they have increased such spending by a mind-boggling 33 percent in a mere four years. They believe in self-reliance. But they have just passed the most expensive new entitlement since the heyday of Great Society liberalism: the Medicare prescription-drug benefit. They believe that foreign policy is about the pursuit of national interest and that the military should be used only to fight and win wars. Yet they have embarked on an extraordinarily ambitious program of military-led nation-building in the Middle East. They believe in states' rights, but they want to amend the Constitution to forbid any state from allowing civil marriage or equivalent civil unions for gay couples. They believe in free trade. But they have imposed tariffs on a number of industries, most famously steel. They believe in balanced budgets. But they have abandoned fiscal discipline and added a cool trillion dollars to the national debt in one presidential term. . .

Let me be rash and describe the fundamental divide within conservatism as a battle between two rival forms. . . Call one the conservatism of faith and the other the conservatism of doubt. They have co-existed in the past but are becoming less and less compatible as the conservative ascendancy matures. Start with the type now dominant in Republican discourse: the conservatism of faith. This conservatism states conservative principles--and, indeed, eternal insights into the human condition--as a matter of truth. Because these conservatives believe that the individual is inseparable from her political community and civilization, there can be no government neutrality in promoting such truths. Either a government's laws affirm virtue or they affirm vice. And the meaning of virtue and vice can be understood either by reflecting on the Judeo-Christian moral tradition or by inferring from philosophical understandings what human nature in its finest form should be. These truths are not culturally relative; they are universally valid.

The state, therefore, has a duty to protect, at a minimum, all human life, meaning it must regulate abortion and end-of-life decisions. The conservatism of faith sees nothing wrong with channeling $2 billion of public money to religious charities, as the Bush administration boasts; or with spending government money to promote sexual abstinence as a moral good; or with telling parents in government literature that a gay child may need therapy. Science must be hedged by faith, as the teaching of evolution is questioned and pharmacists are allowed to refuse prescriptions for contraception on religious grounds. And public education must have a moral component. As President Bush said in his first State of the Union, "Values are important, so we have tripled funding for character education to teach our children not only reading and writing, but right from wrong." The "we" referred to here is the federal government. The alternative, in the eyes of faith-conservatives, would be to allow those with a different morality to promote a rival agenda. Since neutrality is impossible, conservative truths trump secular values. . .

What other kind of conservatism is there? The alternative philosophical tradition begins in precise opposition to the new conservatives' confidence in faith and reason as direct, accessible routes to universal truth. The conservatism of doubt asks how anyone can be sure that his view of what is moral or good is actually true. Conservatives of doubt note that even the most dogmatic of institutions, such as the Catholic or Mormon churches, have changed their views over many centuries, and that, even within such institutions, there is considerable debate about difficult moral issues. They understand that significant critiques of human reason--Nietzsche, anyone?--have rendered the philosophical quest for self-evident truth even more precarious in the modern world. Such conservatives are not nihilists or devotees of what Pope Benedict XVI has called "the dictatorship of relativism." They merely believe that the purported choice between moral absolutism and complete relativism, between God and moral anarchy, is a phony one. Their alternative is a skeptical, careful, prudential approach to all moral questions--and suspicion of anyone claiming to hold the absolute truth. Since such an approach rarely provides a simple answer persuasive to everyone within a democratic society, we live with moral and cultural pluralism. . .

A fourth Republican is wavering on Bolton (thanks to Laura Rozen for some of the links)

http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/wireStory?id=694945
A spokeswoman for Sen. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska said the senator felt the committee "did the right thing delaying the vote on Bolton in light of the recent information presented to the committee.". . . Asked if Bolton had Murkowski's support, spokeswoman Kristin Pugh said, "I can't speculate on how she would vote.". . . She said Murkowski was traveling and could not be reached.

http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/wireStory?id=694945&page=2
Vice President Dick Cheney urged members of the Republican National Lawyers Association to lobby for the nomination. . . "I've looked at all of the charges that have been made. I don't think any of them stand up to scrutiny. And if being occasionally tough and aggressive and abrasive were a problem, a lot of members of the United States Senate wouldn't qualify," Cheney told the lawyers' group. "They're all friends of mine."

http://www.warandpiece.com/blogdirs/001934.html
[Joe Conason] What must be clear to anyone observing this process is that Democrats alone could scarcely have stalled Bolton, let alone inflicted what may be fatal damage to his nomination. . . If Bolton's prospects have been dimmed by "politics," however, the troubles appear to reflect a growing division within the president's own party. . . From the beginning, the president's advisors have pretended not to see or hear dissident Republicans. That insulting arrogance, which mirrors Bolton's own behavior, may well be the ultimate mistake in this misbegotten episode.

http://www.warandpiece.com/blogdirs/001932.html
[Laura Rozen] You know what this is really all about? Far more than a partisan fight between Republicans and Democrats as the White House would have us believe, this is really all about a fight within the Republican party about whether all Republicans have to robotically be in lockstep with the White House on every issue, every nomination, or not. Are they allowed a smidgen of independence, ever? Now the WSJ is serving happily as the "fashion police" for the White House on how forcefully Republican Senators need to speak about a nominee Sen. Lugar has every substantive reason and right to consider unfit for that job. And for that matter, that he did almost all in his power to push through committee. He just didn't look happy enough about it for the White House. Is this a trial balloon, a threat, that Lugar could lose his committee chair, a la Arlen Specter, as Chris Nelson suggested earlier this week, if he doesn't manage somehow to push Bolton through? How truly incredibly stifling.

More on Colin Powell’s role behind the scenes: http://www.cnn.com/2005/POLITICS/04/22/senate.bolton/index.html

Armitage too: http://www.thewashingtonnote.com/archives/000502.html

Bolton vote May 12, and he won’t be called back to testify (that’s a revealing development, since they clearly are assuming that further questioning will make him look worse, not better)

http://www.warandpiece.com/blogdirs/001936.html

Every day brings a new Bolton revelation (and you know what that means)

http://www.first-draft.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=2911

White House worried: http://www.warandpiece.com/blogdirs/001941.html

Bolton’s role in the 2000 Florida recount (great photo)

http://dailykos.com/storyonly/2005/4/22/221225/706
It's just a reminder, because a number of people have expressed incredulousness at the lengths the White House will go to arm-twist fellow Republicans into supporting this Benard-Kerik-style walking disaster: Loyalty, young grasshoppers. Loyalty to The Movement over all else. They don't care what he's done. Or, more to the point, they like what he has done, and want him to continue doing it.

http://dailykos.com/storyonly/2005/4/22/185229/072
In both the filibuster threats and the Bolton nomination, both on the floor of the Senate and during this weekend's Cirque du Spongebob or whatever the hell they're calling it, that's it in a nutshell. Ninety-five percent agreement with administration/conservative/religious policies is not enough, ninety-nine percent is not enough: you are either supportive of The Movement in every particular, without reservation or question, or you are a traitor.

How far is the Religious Right prepared to go to control judges? You won’t believe how far

http://www.americanprogressaction.org/site/pp.asp?c=klLWJcP7H&b=100480#2
This past March, two radical right-wing evangelical leaders – Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council and James Dobson of Focus on the Family – met privately with supporters at a conference in Washington. The Los Angeles Times obtained an explosive audio recording of that meeting in which the two leaders laid out their strategy to stack the courts, bypass the Constitution and destroy the system of checks and balances in the federal government. As Perkins said, "There's more than one way to skin a cat, and there's more than one way to take a black robe off the bench." Their idea? Perkins and Dobson want to skip the constitutional process of impeachment and remove judges who don't toe their ultra-right partisan line using a back door method: stripping funding from their courts to hamstring their work until they are forced out. Dobson spelled it out, saying, "Very few people know this, that the Congress can simply disenfranchise a court. They don't have to fire anybody or impeach them or go through battle. All they have to do is say the 9th Circuit doesn't exist anymore and it's gone."

More: http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-strategy22apr22,1,991543,print.story

Ted Olsen, former Bush Solicitor General and a Prime Loyalist, breaks ranks big time

http://www.first-draft.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=2914
Every day, thousands and thousands of judges -- jurists whose names we never hear, from our highest court to our most local tribunal -- resolve controversies, render justice, and help keep the peace by providing a safe, reliable, efficient and honest dispute resolution process. The pay is modest, the work is frequently quite challenging, and the outcome often controversial. For every winner in these cases, there is a loser. Many disputes are close calls, and the judge's decision is bound to be unpopular with someone. But in this country we accept the decisions of judges, even when we disagree on the merits, because the process itself is vastly more important than any individual decision. Our courts are essential to an orderly, lawful society. And a robust and productive economy depends upon a consistent, predictable, evenhanded, and respected rule of law. That requires respected judges. Americans understand that no system is perfect and no judge immune from error, but also that our society would crumble if we did not respect the judicial process and the judges who make it work.

We have recently witnessed tragic violence against judges, their families and court personnel in Chicago and Atlanta. These incidents serve as reminders of how vulnerable the judiciary is to those who may be aggrieved by judges' decisions. Violence and intimidation aimed at judges is plainly intolerable; all of us can, and should, be unequivocally unified on the proposition that judges must be protected from aggrieved litigants and acts of terrorism. The wall between the rule of law and anarchy is fragile; if it is penetrated, freedom, property and liberty cannot long endure.

[snip]

[A]bsent lawlessness or corruption in the judiciary, which is astonishingly rare in this country, impeaching judges who render decisions we do not like is not the answer. Nor is the wholesale removal of jurisdiction from federal courts over such matters as prayer, abortion, or flag-burning. While Congress certainly has the constitutional power, indeed responsibility, to restrict the jurisdiction of the federal courts to ensure that judges decide only matters that are properly within their constitutional role and expertise, restricting the jurisdiction of courts in response to unpopular decisions is an overreaction that ill-serves the long-term interests of the nation. As much as we deplore incidents of bad judging, we are not necessarily better off with -- and may dislike even more -- adjudications made by presidents or this year's majority in Congress.

Calls to investigate judges who have made unpopular decisions are particularly misguided, and if actually pursued, would undermine the independence that is vital to the integrity of judicial systems. If a judge's decisions are corrupt or tainted, there are lawful recourses (prosecution or impeachment); but congressional interrogations of life-tenured judges, presumably under oath, as to why a particular decision was rendered, would constitute interference with -- and intimidation of -- the judicial process. And there is no logical stopping point once this power is exercised.

http://www.prospect.org/weblog/archives/2005/04/index.html#006217
[Jeffrey Dubner] It makes me wonder, though -- why do we never hear Olson's name floated as a possible Supreme Court nominee? He can match any prospective nominee on three of the most important attributes to this administration: He's one of the most conservative and partisan lawyers in the country; he's got a touching personal story (his wife, Barbara Olson, died on Flight 77 on September 11); and he was a top official in George W. Bush's first term, a trait Bush seems to value highly. The obvious strikes against him are his age (64, older than any of the frontrunners); his long, ugly paper trail; and the difficulty he had getting confirmed as solicitor general in the first place. For all I know there's a backstory to his departure from the administration that hasn't been reported, too. Still, another one of these feints toward reasonableness and it'll be hard not to speculate.

Barry Goldwater, 1981

http://dailykos.com/storyonly/2005/4/22/15152/3881
However, on religious issues there can be little or no compromise. There is no position on which people are so immovable as their religious beliefs. There is no more powerful ally one can claim in a debate than Jesus Christ, or God, or Allah, or whatever one calls this supreme being. But like any powerful weapon, the use of God's name on one's behalf should be used sparingly. The religious factions that are growing throughout our land are not using their religious clout with wisdom. They are trying to force government leaders into following their position 100 percent. If you disagree with these religious groups on a particular moral issue, they complain, they threaten you with a loss of money or votes or both. I'm frankly sick and tired of the political preachers across this country telling me as a citizen that if I want to be a moral person, I must believe in 'A,' 'B,' 'C,' and 'D.' Just who do they think they are? And from where do they presume to claim the right to dictate their moral beliefs to me? And I am even more angry as a legislator who must endure the threats of every religious group who thinks it has some God-granted right to control my vote on every roll call in the Senate. I am warning them today: I will fight them every step of the way if they try to dictate their moral convictions to all Americans in the name of 'conservatism.'

John F. Kennedy, 1960

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2005_04_17.php#005494
"I believe in an America where the separation of church and state is absolute -- where no Catholic prelate would tell the President (should he be Catholic) how to act, and no Protestant minister would tell his parishioners for whom to vote -- where no church or church school is granted any public funds or political preference ... I believe in an America that is officially neither Catholic, Protestant nor Jewish -- where no public official either requests or accepts instructions on public policy from the Pope, the National Council of Churches or any other ecclesiastical source -- where no religious body seeks to impose its will directly or indirectly upon the general populace or the public acts of its officials." - president John F. Kennedy.

At the time, the speech was regarded as an attempt to refute anti-Catholic prejudice. Today, wouldn't the theocons regard it as an expression of anti-Catholic prejudice? Wouldn't Bill Frist see president Kennedy as an enemy of "people of faith"? Just asking.

Cheney comes out against the filibuster rule; Harry Reid fires back

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/04/23/politics/23judges.html
Vice President Dick Cheney plunged the White House into the judicial confirmation battle on Friday by saying he supported changing the Senate rules to stop the Democrats from blocking judicial nominees and would, if needed, provide the tie-breaking vote.

http://americablog.blogspot.com/2005/04/reid-blasts-bush-for-not-being-honest.html
“In the span of three minutes, the vice president managed to reinvent 200 years of Senate history and ignore the fact that Congress has already approved 205 of this administration’s nominees. Apparently, a 95 percent confirmation rate is not enough for this president. He wants it all, even if it means shattering the checks and balances in our government in order to put radical judges on the bench.

“Last week, I met with the president and was encouraged when he told me he would not become involved in Republican efforts to break the Senate rules. Now, it appears he was not being honest, and that the White House is encouraging this raw abuse of power.

David Brooks, “the reasonable Republican,” lies through his teeth about the filibuster

http://dailykos.com/storyonly/2005/4/22/115348/276
"Every few years another civilizing custom is breached. Over the past four years Democrats have resorted to the filibuster again and again to prevent votes on judicial nominees they oppose. Up until now, minorities have generally not used the filibuster to defeat nominees that have majority support. They have allowed nominees to have an up or down vote. But this tradition has been washed away."

[Armando] This is a bald faced f-ing lie. And Brooks knows it. A deliberate lie. One of many. The fact is that the Senate never required the actual invocation of the filibuster very often precisely because Senators could stop a nomination, either secretly in committee, or before the nomination was brought to a vote. Brooks knows this. F-ing liar.

Frist keeps putting off the “imminent” vote on the filibuster (and you know what THAT means)

http://www.prospect.org/weblog/archives/2005/04/index.html#006213

Meanwhile, we’re back in one of those vocabulary battles

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2005_04_17.php#005496
[Josh Marshall] Are things going even worse for the GOP on judges than I thought?

If you're conversant with the Republican national political debate taxonomy, you know that there is a point at roughly 15 to 16 days after the GOP starts losing a debate that crack teams of specially trained GOP spinmeisters are sent out to bamboozle gullible newspaper editors and TV producers into changing their vocabulary to make it conform to the latest findings of GOP focus groups.

And it seems they've found their first easy mark.

At the tail end of David Kirkpatrick's piece in Saturday's Times is this graf. . .

Current Senate rules require 60 votes to close debate on a confirmation, allowing Democrats to thwart the action by mustering 41 votes. Republicans want to lower the threshold for closing debate on all nominations to a simple majority. Democrats call this the nuclear option, while Republicans call this a constitutional option.

Now, maybe I'm just selective in my memory. But I seem to remember Republicans and Democrats using this phrase all the $%*#%&@ time. Needless to say, what's happened now is that Republicans are getting bad results in the polls. So they've come up with a new smiley-face vocabulary and they're hitting all the newsrooms telling editors that it's an example of bias to use the phrase 'nuclear option' since that's a slur devised by Democrats.

So is it really true that only Democrats use this phrase?

Well, setting aside that everyone who's listened to this debate for more than ten seconds knows that most Republicans used this phrase as their preferred one until about ten days ago, I still wanted to go back to the records and check. And I needed some way to narrow down the search. So I tried searching the Weekly Standard for any articles which included the word 'filibuster' and 'nuclear option'.

I came up with four hits, the first of which was from September 2004.

In the first article you don't have to go too far beyond the title: "Full Court Press; Will Senate Republicans 'go nuclear' over judges?"

Down into the article, author Duncan Currie writes, "With 10 nominations now blocked by filibuster, many GOP senators say it's time to use the 'nuclear option'--or, as they prefer to call it, the 'constitutional option.'" But even Currie seemed unable to keep a straight face for this early example of GOP word game bamboozlement since he continued to use the 'nuclear option' phrase through the rest of the article.

In December of last year, Currie was again writing about the subject and again using the phrase "nuclear option."

Then less than two weeks ago, on April 7th, Currie used this as the third line of yet another judges article: "Republicans talk of a 'nuclear option' to break the impasse."

The fourth example seems particularly apt since it actually takes place in the future -- the publication date is April 25th. In an editorial penned for the editors Philip Terzian, the first graf reads ...

THE SENATE MAJORITY LEADER, Bill Frist, and his Republican colleagues, face a momentous decision: Do they allow the Democratic minority to prevent the Senate from voting on judicial nominees, or do they invoke the "nuclear option"--that is, change the rules so a simple majority of 51 can force a vote?

Now, let's be frank. There's no intrinsic reason why banning filibusters for judicial nominations should be called the 'nuclear option'. And if Republicans want to start referring to it as the 'judicial act of love' they can do that. But one side in a debate shouldn't be able to order the refs in the game to rewrite the lexicon just because people don't like what's happening. And yet that's just what's happening. Republicans are now making a concerted push at a whole slew of news organizations, trying to convince them to stop using the term in their coverage, on the argument that it's an attack phrase concocted by the Democrats. And it would seem the editors and producers are either too ignorant or too lily-livered not to let them have their way.

Perhaps we can just call ending filibusters 'privatization'.

The latest on Plame: reportedly, a Bush admin official has admitted to leaking information on Plame and Wilson, but NOT the fact that she was a CIA agent

http://www.prospect.org/web/page.ww?section=root&name=ViewWeb&articleId=9588

Rick Santorum, wanting to prop up private, commercial weather services, proposes to restrict National Weather Service information – which we all pay for already (that guy, he has the shrewd political instincts of a. . . of a. . .what? a dense thundercloud?)

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2005_04_17.php#005493

http://www.palmbeachpost.com/news/content/news/epaper/2005/04/21/m1a_wx_0421.html

Charles Grassley announces plans to develop a Republicans-only bill on Social Security. I say, be my guest. . .

http://www.j-bradford-delong.net/movable_type/2005-3_archives/000774.html

Analysis: http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2005_04_17.php#005489

Bush’s next Bright Idea: “tax reform” (aka flat tax)

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2005_04_17.php#005491

The Army officially clears all top command of any responsibility for Abu Ghraib abuse and torture

http://www.discourse.net/archives/2005/04/so_much_for_command_responsibility_army_clears_gen_sanchez.html

More: http://apnews.myway.com/article/20050422/D89KOOI80.html

The Democrats FINALLY get serious about an investigation into “extraordinary rendition” (aka outsourcing torture)

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A8008-2005Apr21.html

In Iraq: govt stability still far off

http://www.needlenose.com/node/view/1313
Some leading Kurdish political figures are trying to stall the formation of a new Iraqi government in an effort to force out Ibrahim al-Jaafari, the Shiite chosen two weeks ago as prime minister, Iraqi and Western officials said.

. . . [An] American official said Friday that he expected that a new government would be formed within the next week with Dr. Jaafari as prime minister.

But several Iraqi political figures said they doubted that would happen. They cited strong opposition to Dr. Jaafari in the Kurdish alliance, which has agreed to form a coalition government with the Shiite majority. Under Iraq's transitional law, Mr. Jaafari will automatically lose his position if he does not name a cabinet by May 7, a month after his appointment.

"The Kurds are intent on delaying the government so that Jaafari will fall," said Sami al-Askari, a member of the Shiite alliance. A Western diplomat in Baghdad confirmed the effort to "filibuster" the negotiations.

Rumsfeld to quit soon?

http://politicalwire.com/archives/2005/04/23/rumsfeld_leaving.html

Bonus item: oh-oh, don’t bring in the junior flunky liar when you need a professional liar

http://www.first-draft.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=2918
Q What was the President's reaction to former Secretary Powell talking to Republican senators on the Hill about Bolton?

MS. PERINO: Scott McClellan addressed this with the pool this morning. We are not going to respond to anonymous sources. I would reiterate, though, that the President said yesterday that the Senate needs to put partisan politics aside and confirm John Bolton to be the U.N. Ambassador. Mr. Bolton is the right person at the right time for this important position.

Q But, Dana, it's not "anonymous sources," I mean, Powell's office put out a statement saying that, indeed, he's had conversations with at least two Republican senators about his reservations about the Bolton job.

MS. PERINO: "Anonymous sources" in terms of what those conversations were, that they had conversations is not --we don't know what those conversations were and "anonymous sources" we're not going to comment on, in terms of the content of them.

***If you enjoy PBD and support what we are doing, you can help by forwarding a copy of this issue to your friends (using the envelope link below) or by sending them a copy of its URL (http://pbd.blogspot.com).

I don't get anything personally out of this project, except the satisfaction of doing it (I don't run ads, etc). The credit really all goes to the people whose material I copy and redistribute. But if I do have a "mission," it is to get this information into the hands of as many people as I can.***
- posted by Nick Burbules @ 7:34 AM

 
LEAKING

As US troop casualties go down, the perception seems to be that this means the war in Iraq is going better. But the facts on the ground don’t support this

http://dailykos.com/storyonly/2005/4/21/143749/505

http://stevegilliard.blogspot.com/2005/04/looking-at-iraq.html

http://www.mydd.com/story/2005/4/21/132920/652

http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2005/04/21/iraq_suicide_bombs/

On Bolton, Scotty’s broken record repeats verbatim what he said yesterday: the difference is that the press has decided to actually question him about it. Notice however that the questions asked have no impact whatsoever on the answers Scotty actually gives

http://www.first-draft.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=2905&mode=thread&order=0&thold=0
Q You said the President was 100 percent in his backing of Bolton today. Can we infer from that, that the President simply doesn't believe these allegations that have been made about Bolton?. . . Does the President simply not believe the allegations that are out there, or does he feel that whether they're true or not, it's so important to have Bolton at the U.N. that just -- he should be confirmed?

MR. McCLELLAN: These are unsubstantiated accusations that Senate Democrats continue to bring up. They have been addressed by John Bolton in testimony before the Senate. . . It is time to move forward on his nomination, and the President wanted to make it clear today that the Senate needs to quit playing politics, and they need to move forward and confirm this person.

Q And the President simply does not believe the allegations.

MR. McCLELLAN: John, these are unsubstantiated accusations against John Bolton. John Bolton is a strong, effective diplomat who has a proven record of getting things done. . .

Q Scott, you say John Bolton gets things done, and yet, some U.S. officials are expressing today that they believe part of the reason why North Korea walked away from the six-party talks had -- in some part, had to deal with the strong language that John Bolton used in his speech in 2003 when he described North Korea as a "hellish nightmare." Given that, are you concerned that the longer this nomination takes to put through that there may be more reasons that might emerge for people not to vote for John Bolton?

MR. McCLELLAN: I disagree with that view, first of all. And second of all, as I stated, we're confident that he's going to be confirmed. We want to see him confirmed as quickly as possible because this is an important position that has a lot of important challenges that need to be addressed at the United Nations. . .

Q Scott, you said that these allegations against Mr. Bolton -- Secretary Bolton are unsubstantiated. . .

MR. McCLELLAN: . . . I think that these accusations are unsubstantiated. I think they have been addressed by John Bolton himself. And John Bolton is someone who has proven himself as a manager and proven himself as someone who has earned respect of those who he's worked with because he's someone that is committed to achieving meaningful results.

Will GOP Senators force the WH to withdraw Bolton’s nomination?

http://www.first-draft.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=2895

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/04/21/politics/21cnd-bolton.html

Or will Colin Powell? BIG development. (I think we’ve reached the tipping point)

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2005_04_17.php#005487
Articles in Friday's NYTimes and Post describe how the former Secretary of State (and Bolton's boss in the first administration) has been doing what amounts to behind-the-scenes lobbying against Bolton's nomination.

The truth is that Powell is very much not the only Republican foreign policy heavyweight working in private to scuttle Bolton's nomination. But the degree to which he's going public is sort of extraordinary. While giving no comments himself and not explicitly stating he's bad-mouthing Bolton, Powell did authorize his spokesperson to confirm on the record that he has had recent phone conversations with Sens. Chafee and Hagel about Bolton while quite pointedly giving no reason to think much of anything he said was positive. If you look further into the articles you can see pretty transparently that on background Powell's people confirmed in some detail just what the former Secretary is doing.

That may well be fatal to Bolton's nomination. The foothold Bolton's supporters have in this fight is their contention that the only reason Bolton's in trouble is that Democrats are trying to take him down to score political points. Indeed, President Bush made that argument just yesterday. But Powells now-public lobbying knocks that argument right out of the park.

More: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A7420-2005Apr21.html

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/04/22/politics/22bolton.html

[NB: Recall that Powell was the one former GOP Sect’y of State who did NOT sign a petition endorsing Bolton: http://www.warandpiece.com/blogdirs/001915.html. That Colin has surely learned the Washington art of driving the shiv in without leaving fingerprints]

Typical: even though the cause of the hold-up of Bolton is a lack of Republican support, the WH steals a page from Tom DeLay’s book and blames the Dems for “partisanship” (by which they mean, stubbornly refusing to lie down for the Republican agenda)

http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room/archive.html?blog=/politics/war_room/2005/04/21/bolton/index.html

http://www.warandpiece.com/blogdirs/001932.html
Far more than a partisan fight between Republicans and Democrats as the White House would have us believe, this is really all about a fight within the Republican party about whether all Republicans have to robotically be in lockstep with the White House on every issue, every nomination, or not. Are they allowed a smidgen of independence, ever?

http://www.thewashingtonnote.com/archives/000500.html
Bush's team is trying to make this about White House infallibility.

Chafee: moving again

http://www.thewashingtonnote.com/archives/000499.html

More reports of Bolton’s bullying and intimidation

http://www.warandpiece.com/blogdirs/001929.html

http://www.thewashingtonnote.com/archives/000498.html

Did Bolton lie under oath?

http://atrios.blogspot.com/2005_04_17_atrios_archive.html#111413173864815041

More: http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-bolton22apr22,0,2694252.story

http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room/index.html?blog=/politics/war_room/2005/04/21/more_bad_bolton/index.html

But if the WH doesn’t pull it, here’s what will eventually kill Bolton’s nomination: the NSA intercepts story

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2005_04/006167.php
“Bolton was running his own counterintelligence operation, was using the intelligence to figure out how he can get back at people.”

http://www.warandpiece.com/blogdirs/001931.html

Why the Frist appeal to evangelical support in order to break the filibuster rule for Bush judges represents such an ominous trend (thanks to Kathy Martin for the link)

http://www.sojo.net/index.cfm?action=sojomail.display&issue=050421#3

What should progressives think about the filibuster (even if right now it serves our interests)?

http://www.discourse.net/archives/2005/04/the_filibuster.html

The Republicans’ new identity politics

http://www.prospect.org/weblog/archives/2005/04/index.html#006211

Bad internal polling gives the GOP pause about their plan to oust the filibuster

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2005_04_17.php#005483
GOP aides said Santorum has made known to the leadership reasons for why Republicans should not move forward on the nuclear or constitutional option.

“He was concerned that too many things are competing in the same area and you couldn’t get a clean shot at it,” a GOP aide said. The aide cited the “fallout” from congressional Republicans’ intervening in a Florida court’s decision to remove Terri Schiavo’s feeding tube and the subsequent controversy caused by House Majority Leader Tom DeLay’s (R-Texas) statement that “the time will come for the men responsible for this to answer for their behavior.”

Democrats portrayed that statement as an incitement against judges, and it resulted in a spate of media critiques of DeLay and Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas), who made a speech on the Senate floor raising the question of why judges are targets of violence.

Senate and House Democrats have woven the Republican intervention in the Schiavo issue, DeLay’s statement about judges who declined to save her life, and GOP consideration of the nuclear option into a broad message that Republicans are abusing power.

http://dailykos.com/storyonly/2005/4/21/122047/030
Santorum and other Senate sources concede that, while a majority of Americans oppose the filibuster, the figures show that most also accept the Democratic message that Republicans are trying to destroy the tradition of debate in the Senate.

http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room/archive.html?blog=/politics/war_room/2005/04/21/nuclear/index.html
While some Republicans no doubt consider the Schiavo case Exhibit A in the need for the nuclear option, others see the risk that voters will view the nuclear option as part and parcel of the party's unpopular intervention in the case and some of its members' ill-advised comments in the wake of Schiavo's death.

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2005_04/006164.php
Let's face it: most Americans don't know or care much about any judge below the level of the Supreme Court, and most Americans don't know what a filibuster is either. To the extent they do, they probably associate it with a heroic James Stewart in Mr. Smith Goes to Washington. . . But they do know what Tom DeLay said and did in the Terri Schiavo case and they have heard about his wild attacks on the judiciary since then. And I imagine most of them don't like it much. Hell, I'll bet there are plenty of Republican senators who don't like it much either. Regardless of ideology, they think the Republican leadership has gone too far.

This morning: the poll leaks!

http://dailykos.com/storyonly/2005/4/22/05432/0157
Their party discipline is fraying at the edges. Leaking this poll is disastrous for Frist's efforts to overturn traditional Senate protections for minority rights.

These officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, said a recent survey taken for Senate Republicans showed 37 percent support for the GOP plan to deny Democrats the ability to filibuster judicial nominees, while 51 percent oppose.

Additionally, the survey indicated only about 20 percent of Americans believe the Republican statement that Bush is the first president in history whose court appointees have been subjected to a filibuster, a tactic in which opponents can prevent a vote unless supporters gain 60 votes. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity, noting the survey data has not been made public [...]

Republican strategists concede their efforts to swing public opinion behind their move suffered in the wake of congressional intervention in the case of Terri Schiavo, the brain-damaged woman in Florida who was being kept alive with a feeding tube. The survey suggested the GOP faces a challenge if it hopes to gain significant public support before moving ahead on banning judicial filibusters.

Hastert: Dems don’t want to investigate DeLay because it will shine a light on their own misdeeds. (Uh-HUH)

http://www.cnn.com/2005/POLITICS/04/21/hastert.ethics/index.html

The DeLay web of scandal is now catching up Ralph Reed and Grover Norquist

http://americablog.blogspot.com/2005/04/this-delay-thing-gets-more-and-more.html

http://blog.dccc.org/mt/archives/002654.html

http://www.warandpiece.com/blogdirs/001930.html

How has DeLay survived even this long? And will he survive now?

http://www.prospect.org/web/page.ww?section=root&name=ViewPrint&articleId=9537
DeLay will fight. The strategy was laid out to The Washington Post’s Mike Allen in mid-April: Leak stories that raise questions about Democrats and denounce the bias of the liberal media. Top Republican aides have daily conference calls to plot strategy and decide how to leak and to whom. Meanwhile, a handful of corporations stand at the ready to rush to DeLay’s defense, contributing thousands to his legal fund. . .

The school of thought holding that DeLay will go looks to recent history as a guide. When Nixon became too much of a liability, it was Republicans who came to him and said the gig was up. By this logic, the same dynamic will kick in at some point; probably sooner rather than later, and for the good of the party, DeLay will step down as majority leader and slither down to the back bench.

But this scenario makes two assumptions that one should be careful about making these days. The first is that recent history is a reliable guide. Nixon was a filthy and venal politician, but he was operating in a very different time, when Democrats controlled Congress and liberals actually did run the media. The second and related assumption is that today’s conservatives have some sense of shame that correlates roughly to the shame felt in 1974 by Republicans who thought Nixon had gone too far. Those Republicans -- late in the game, granted -- actually did put the integrity of their party ahead of even power itself.

Today’s crop is a very different cast of characters. Hence, the DeLay-will-survive school of thought: There’s no source of pressure that can make him go. The media can’t do it, unless they find an immense scandal; he and the people who believe in him pay no attention to the media. His fellow Republicans in Congress can’t make him go; he has too much power over them (and, probably, dirt on enough of them to enforce their loyalty). The White House -- ah, the White House. The White House can make him go. If DeLay steps down, it will be because Karl Rove decided he became a liability. One shudders when wondering what that would require.

And if DeLay goes, there will be people in Washington congratulating themselves on having been part of a system that, once again, “worked,” fumigating itself of an intruder who went too far and didn’t accept the rules.

Nonsense. The system isn’t working by a long shot. If the system had worked, DeLay would have been exposed long ago -- first by the media, which would have done far more to reveal the ethical and procedural corruption of his regime, and second by moderate Republicans, who could have made a difference if they’d had the nerve, en bloc, to stand up and say something. . .

DeLay helps ram through an Energy Bill provision protecting MTBE polluters. (MTBE is a virulent carcinogen that leaks into water supplies)

http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2005/04/21/energy/index.html

http://www.ewg.org/reports/lapdog/

http://www.needlenose.com/node/view/1308

House GOP committee chair says what he really thinks about a key provision of the Energy bill

http://www.cnn.com/2005/POLITICS/04/21/energy.bill.pambo/index.html
House Resources Committee Chairman Richard Pombo, R-California, a key proponent of drilling for oil in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska, whispered, "This is bulls--t," to House Majority Whip Roy Blunt as the two men stood listening to Rep. John Doolittle, R-California, talk about the benefits of hydrogen fuel at a crowded Capitol Hill news conference. . . The remark, which was meant to be private, was overheard by a CNN reporter standing next to Blunt.

Bush, while using high gas prices to sell his lousy Energy Bill, admits that passing it will do nothing to bring prices down – and what he could do to lower prices if he really wanted to

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A6885-2005Apr21.html

http://buzzflash.com/
Bush says he lacks the power to stop rising gas prices. Maybe President Cheney can step in and get something done.

I’m not sure I follow the logic of all this, but it makes sense that the U.S. fiscal crisis and rising oil prices are, in effect, taxing our economic rivals in Asia to channel money to our allies in the Middle East, which then goes to prop up our sagging currency (thanks to Jan Pieterse for the link)

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Asian_Economy/GD09Dk01.html

Bush jokes about the collapse of the Social Security Trust Fund

http://www.first-draft.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=2903
“First, as I travel the country, I find out some people think there's such thing as a Social Security trust. By that I mean we collect your money through the payroll tax, and we hold your money for you, and then when you retire, we give you your money back. No -- (laughter) -- that's not the way it works. That's what you call a -- it was set up as a pay-as-you-go system, in other words, you pay and we go ahead and spend. (Laughter.)”

[NB: Hilarious, isn’t it? Payroll taxes collected since 1982, which if kept and invested in the Trust Fund would have secured its solvency as far into the future as the eye can see, have been used to fund ordinary govt expenses, including Bush’s massive tax cuts. Now that money is gone and Bush is seriously hinting at default. Ha, ha, ha]

With the stock market tanking, this probably isn’t the best time to try to convince people of a higher rate of return for private accounts: but does that stop Bush’s shameless lies?

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-bush22apr22,1,7793374.story

Greenspan tells Congress they need to do something about the deficit. Not the White House. Congress

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/04/21/business/21cnd-fed.html

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2005_04/006165.php
Alan Greenspan has yet again testified that budget deficits are out of control. Yet again he urged Congress to do something about it. And yet again he refused to acknowledge that Republican tax cuts on billionaires are making the problem ever worse.

In Denver, an investigation into who posed as Secret Service agents to boot audience members from a Bush town hall meeting

http://dailykos.com/storyonly/2005/4/21/232831/611

How the media gets bullied into conservative-friendly news coverage

http://billmon.org/archives/001848.html

Bonus item: Hey, Bin Laden has rights too! Bush admin invokes privacy rights to avoid responding to FOIA request

http://dailykos.com/storyonly/2005/4/21/223830/459

[NB: I bet a dollar to a donut that this is about protecting the privacy of Bin Laden family members and other closet supporters, not Bin Laden himself]

***If you enjoy PBD and support what we are doing, you can help by forwarding a copy of this issue to your friends (using the envelope link below) or by sending them a copy of its URL (http://pbd.blogspot.com).

I don't get anything personally out of this project, except the satisfaction of doing it (I don't run ads, etc). The credit really all goes to the people whose material I copy and redistribute. But if I do have a "mission," it is to get this information into the hands of as many people as I can.***
- posted by Nick Burbules @ 7:35 AM

 
A TWO-FRONT WAR

Yes, you heard it right: Condi Rice orders State Dept employees not to reveal any information that could hurt Bolton’s candidacy for the UN

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A1691-2005Apr19.html
On Monday, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice told her senior staff she was disappointed about the stream of allegations and said she did not want any information coming out of the department that could adversely affect the nomination, said officials speaking on the condition of anonymity.

http://thinkprogress.org/index.php?p=678
18 U.S.C. Section 1505:

Whoever corruptly, or by threats or force, or by any threatening letter or communication influences, obstructs, or impedes or endeavors to influence, obstruct, or impede…the due and proper exercise of the power of inquiry under which any inquiry or investigation is being had by either House, or any committee of either House or any joint committee of the Congress -- Shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than five years, or both.

Doesn’t Lincoln Chafee recognize that this statement about the Bolton vote is an indictment of himself?

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/04/20/politics/20bolton.html
The second Republican, Lincoln Chafee of Rhode Island, did not make his views known at the hearing, but told reporters later that he was glad that the vote had been postponed. . . "I don't know if I've ever seen, in a setting like this, a senator changing his mind as a result of what other senators said," Mr. Chafee said. "The process worked. It's kind of refreshing."

[NB: How can Chafee say “the process worked” when, by his own words, he was prepared up until that moment to vote for someone whom he admitted was "absolutely not" the best choice for the job? He should be ashamed that Voinovich stood up when he himself did not. And attaching himself in some indirect way with Voinovich now, after the fact, just underscores his cowardice. However, there may be signs that Chafee is tilting against Bolton (again): http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A6101-2005Apr20.html]

Scotty throws his meager weight into the fight to defend Bolton, alleging “unsubstantiated allegations” (that’s rich: even Bolton’s defenders admit that the stories about him are basically true). And if they’re “unsubstantiated,” wouldn’t you want MORE hearings to discredit them against the facts?

http://www.first-draft.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=2889
I think what you're seeing is some Democrats on the committee trumping up allegations and making unsubstantiated accusations against someone the President believes will do an outstanding job at the United Nations. . . Senate Democrats on the committee continue to bring up these allegations that are unsubstantiated, that are unfounded, that John Bolton has addressed in his testimony. . . I think he has responded to the questions. He responded in more than eight hours of testimony to some of the accusations that were made. . . people are playing politics with his nomination. . . I think that you had some Democrats on the committee that continue to lower the discourse and bring up unsubstantiated accusations. They continued to trump this up. . . Democrats on the committee are playing politics with this nomination.

What will the next phase of investigation look into?

http://www.warandpiece.com/blogdirs/001927.html
[Chris Nelson] Word today is that Ranking Democrat Biden, and chairman Lugar have agreed there will be a bipartisan staff investigation, starting tomorrow (Thursday) to look more deeply into a host of issues already raised, and to pursue many new issues raised, but not investigated...all to be consolidated into a “bill of particulars”.

-- our understanding is that the staff investigation will be bipartisan so long as there is mutual agreement on the questions. If one or the other side decides not to investigate a certain issue, however, the side urging that question will be free to do so on its own. What might the initial list of issues look like?

** testimony from the State Department legal counsel on which Taft staffer was subjected to pressure aimed at firing him?

** a deeper look into Sen. Hagel’s staffer, Rexon Ryu, whose firing was allegedly pursued with some vigor by Bolton;

** a legal deposition from the former AID staffer whose lurid tale of physical abuse at Bolton’s hands, back in 1994, has been in the press, but not investigated by the Committee;

** a deeper look into allegations Bolton sought NSA intercepts for information to use against colleagues;

** clarification of State’s claim that there were 400 requests for names from the NSA while Bolton was Undersecretary, but that only 10 came from Bolton, with a goal of determining if most of the requests were from intelligence staff, and therefore not potentially controversial, or exculpatory of Bolton...also why State is currently refusing to clarify this question;

** information on whom/why/if true Bolton tried to have a staff member of the International Religious Freedom Commission fired (an allegation similar to many already raised during the hearings);

** clarification from Secretary Rice that her pronouncement against “leaks” was not intended, and will not be interpreted by State personnel, as an “order” not to testify, or otherwise fail to cooperate with the Senate in this investigation...the subject of a letter to Rice today from Biden;

** “open” testimony from past or present State Department officials, including former Ambassador to S. Korea Tom Hubbard, who has been quoted in the press as denying Bolton’s claim that he “cleared” a controversial Bolton speech on N. Korea policy.

. . . Sources indicate that the above is just a partial list from the projected “bill of particulars” to be negotiated at Thursday’s staff meeting. If the nomination is not withdrawn, the earliest another Committee vote could occur would be the week of May 9, at the conclusion of a recess. As to today’s perhaps paranoid rumor that the White House might decide to give Bolton a “recess appointment”, observers think this highly unlikely (however ill-advised) given the Cabinet status accorded the UN job. . .

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-bolton21apr21,1,4363619.story
Republicans were bracing Wednesday for a "barrage" of new allegations against John R. Bolton, President Bush's choice for U.N. ambassador, as Democrats planned to expand an investigation of the controversial nominee. . .

More: http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&e=5&u=/ap/20050420/ap_on_go_co/un_ambassador&sid=84439559

Voinovich can’t be bullied

http://www.warandpiece.com/blogdirs/001926.html

Why the fight over Bolton matters

http://markschmitt.typepad.com/decembrist/2005/04/why_the_bolton_.html

http://www.thewashingtonnote.com/archives/000497.html

Will the WH lose this one?

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/04/21/politics/21bolton.html

http://www.thewashingtonnote.com/archives/000495.html

Chair of the House Ethics Committee offers to open an investigation into DeLay’s dealings (given, of course, rules that allow the GOP members to control and limit the investigation and declare it a closed matter any time they want, once the heat is off)

http://www.cnn.com/2005/POLITICS/04/20/house.ethics.ap/index.html

More: http://americablog.blogspot.com/2005/04/house-gop-tries-to-trick-dems-into.html

http://www.first-draft.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=2890

http://www.prospect.org/weblog/archives/2005/04/index.html#006189

http://www.prospect.org/weblog/archives/2005/04/index.html#006185

The Democrats respond

http://blog.dccc.org/mt/archives/002649.html
[Steny Hoyer] "This proposal on the ethics process by the Republican leadership is a charade and an absolute non-starter with Democrats, who reject it out of hand. It is a calculated attempt to divert attention from the fact that the Republican Majority has neutered the Ethics Committee in the House by imposing partisan rules that hamstring any meaningful inquiry, sacking the former Chairman and two other Republican Members of the Committee, and firing non-partisan professional staffers.

"While the American people are surely interested to see that Tom DeLay's fellow Republicans agree that his behavior demands investigation, this offer does not address the fact that Republicans are in a position to block other investigations on a party line vote. This issue is bigger than the Majority Leader, it is about the integrity of the entire House now and in the future.

"In addition, Rep. Hastings's personal assurances on ethics rules and practices - even if put in writing - cannot be the basis for resolving the Republican roadblock on the ethics process. The House ethics process should be based on bipartisan compromise that is supported by both parties, not on personal agreements between individuals that can be made irrelevant by a change of heart or chairmanship.

"The one true thing that this proposal demonstrates is that the Republican leadership is worried that the American people see right through its empty excuse for gutting the ethics process. They are starting to feel the heat for bypassing the Ethics Committee itself and revoking the bipartisan ethics rules that had served this institution and its Members well since 1997.

"The Democratic position on this issue is crystal clear: We should reinstate the bipartisan ethics rules as called for in the Mollohan-Hefley bill, or at the very least the Speaker ought to appoint a bipartisan task force to examine ethics rule changes and report back to the Members."

Another savage, partisan attack on Tom DeLay

http://dailykos.com/storyonly/2005/4/21/4734/52792
"The time has come that the American people know exactly what their Representatives are doing here in Washington. Are they feeding at the public trough, taking lobbyist-paid vacations, getting wined and dined by special interest groups? Or are they working hard to represent their constituents? The people, the American people, have a right to know...I say the best disinfectant is full disclosure, not isolation."
[Tom DeLay, November 16, 1995]

From DeLay’s lengthy, whiney self-defense report

http://dailykos.com/storyonly/2005/4/19/171532/219
0: References to DeLay ally and corrupt lobbyist Jack Abramoff

25: Number of times the email portrays DeLay opponents as "partisan" or politically-motivated

0: References to high-profile criticisms from the Wall Street Journal, David Brooks, Newt Gingrich, Bob Dole, Reps. Christopher Shays and Tom Tancredo, and at least ten conservative ex-congressmen

4: Number of times the email claims that the media is treating him unfairly.

4: Number of times the same email quotes major media sources to purportedly bolster DeLay's case.

4: References to Travis County District Attorney Ronnie Earle as "partisan"

12: Number of Democrats prosecuted by Earle during his 27 year career

3: Number of Republicans prosecuted by Earle

6: References to the fact that former Rep. Chris Bell (D-TX) was found to have violated procedural rules when he included inflammatory language in his formal complaint against DeLay

0: References to the fact that the Ethics Committee accepted Bell's complaint because "it also contained allegations that warranted Committee consideration."

2538: Total number of words

1273: Words devoted to complaining about other people's conduct

And ANOTHER new scandal emerges

http://beta.news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20050420/ap_on_go_co/delay_skybox&printer=1
[AP] House Majority Leader Tom DeLay treated his political donors to a bird's-eye view of a Three Tenors concert from an arena skybox leased by a lobbyist now under criminal investigation.

DeLay's political action committee did not reimburse lobbyist Jack Abramoff for the May 2000 use of the skybox, instead treating it as a type of donation that didn't have to be disclosed to election regulators at the time.

The skybox donation, valued at thousands of dollars, came three weeks before DeLay also accepted a trip to Europe — including golf with Abramoff at the world-famous St. Andrews course — for himself, his wife and aides that was underwritten by some of the lobbyist's clients. . . Two months after the concert and trip, DeLay voted against gambling legislation opposed by some of Abramoff's Indian tribe clients.

House ethics rules require lawmakers to avoid the appearance of any conflict of interest. . . "I would say it deserves closer scrutiny by the ethics committee," said Kathleen Clark, a former congressional lawyer and now a government ethics expert at Washington University in St. Louis. . .

His defenders say the House leader did nothing wrong in the skybox case. Federal law at the time didn't require DeLay's committee to disclose or reimburse for the skybox gift, they note — though the law was changed to require such disclosure a few months later. . . House Speaker Dennis Hastert came to a different conclusion in recent days, reimbursing Abramoff for a political event two years after the fact. One of Hastert's political committees had used a restaurant partly owned by the lobbyist, and the Hastert committee decided recently to reimburse for the use.

The Department of Homeland Security doesn’t believe there are any right-wing terrorists

http://www.americanprogressaction.org/site/pp.asp?c=klLWJcP7H&b=100480
According to authorities, ten years after the Oklahoma City bombings, the threat from radical-right domestic terrorists "remains strong and is worrisome." – Washington Post, 4/19/05

VERSUS

The Department of Homeland Security lists only left-wing domestic groups as terrorist threats, and "does not mention anti-government groups, white supremacists and other radical right-wing movements." – Congressional Quarterly, 3/2/05

Another lawsuit over NCLB: the rebellion grows

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/04/21/education/21child.html

The WH assault on unions

http://www.prospect.org/weblog/archives/2005/04/index.html#006175

Bonus item: Condi Rice (former Russia specialist at Stanford) tries to show off her facility in Russian, but only makes a fool of herself

http://www.first-draft.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=2878

Double bonus item

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2005_04_17.php#005476
So true, so true. President Bush today, while signing the Bankruptcy Bill: "If someone does not pay his or her debts, the rest of society ends up paying them.". . . Tell it to the Trust Fund.

***If you enjoy PBD and support what we are doing, you can help by forwarding a copy of this issue to your friends (using the envelope link below) or by sending them a copy of its URL (http://pbd.blogspot.com).

I don't get anything personally out of this project, except the satisfaction of doing it (I don't run ads, etc). The credit really all goes to the people whose material I copy and redistribute. But if I do have a "mission," it is to get this information into the hands of as many people as I can.***
- posted by Nick Burbules @ 6:39 AM

 
BOMBSHELLS

Wow. What a day. Frist shuts down the entire Senate to prevent a Democratic maneuver to delay the Bolton vote – then they rush to committee – then opposition from a totally unanticipated source forces a delay after all, and the proceedings devolve into chaos – and now there are three more weeks to dig up scandals from Bolton’s past

http://www.thewashingtonnote.com/archives/000487.html
Because Senator Frist's office feared that a Democratic Senator would object to the Hearings on the Floor of the Senate at 2 p.m., the Republicans -- in order to RAM THE BOLTON NOMINATION THROUGH -- have gone into recess. . . By stopping all Senate business -- ALL business -- and planning to reconvene at 4:30 p.m., the Republican leadership has preempted an option that the minority would have had to make the administration comply with Senator Dodd's request for the National Security Agency intercepts that Bolton may have used to wage war against rival officials in the State Department. . . I don't know how Senator Lugar can tolerate such abuse of the minority. This is a disdainful and cynical move by the White House and Bill Frist. . . It's the ugly, dark side of winning -- and it's "tyranny of the majority" tactics.

http://slate.msn.com/id/2117028/fr/rss/
In nearly 30 years of watching Congress, off and on, I can't remember anything quite like it. . .

Then, at about 4:30 p.m., out of nowhere, George Voinovich, a Republican from Ohio, said that he hasn't attended any of the hearings on Bolton (he claimed to be busy with something or other) but, based on charges that he had just heard today, he would not "feel comfortable" voting Bolton out of committee.

The. . . room seemed to go quiet for a few seconds, then to erupt with buzz. Chafee nervously asked if Lugar still intended to stage a vote, given what Voinovich had just said. Sure, Lugar replied, let's vote. The Republican half of the room started shaking its collective head. Hagel had intoned, a few minutes earlier, that he'd vote for Bolton in committee but might not on the floor (as if that matters, given the Republicans' healthy margin there). Now he shifted. At the start of the session, Sen. Christopher Dodd, D–Conn., had suggested postponing the vote in order to investigate a recent spate of allegations about Bolton. That was when Dodd's side looked like it was about to lose; Lugar shut the motion down. But now Hagel and a few other Republicans said, ahem, maybe we need to take some time and look into these matters after all.

Lugar and Joseph Biden of Delaware, the committee's ranking Democrat, reached an accord. The Democratic and Republican staff members, working together, will investigate the new charges, calling more witnesses for interviews. The senators will go on recess. When they come back, they'll look at the probe's results. Maybe they'll call Bolton back for another hearing, perhaps to defend himself. Then they'll vote. In short, the vote is delayed by at least a couple of weeks. Meeting adjourned.

The White House now faces a question: Is it time to pull the rug out from under this nuisance named John Bolton? Bush is usually, by nature, opposed to giving in under this sort of pressure. Here, though, he may have no choice.

Watch it: http://www.crooksandliars.com/2005/04/19.html#a2537

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/04/20/politics/20bolton.html
"My conscience got me," [Voinovich] said after the stormy two-hour session. He said he had gone to the meeting planning to vote for Mr. Bolton, but changed his mind after hearing the case against the nominee made by Senators Joseph R. Biden Jr. of Delaware and Christopher J. Dodd of Connecticut, both Democrats.

http://www.thewashingtonnote.com/archives/000493.html
Reports have just come in that Senator Voinovich is receiving lots of calls from "out-of-staters" protesting his comments during today's Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearings. . . Most of these calls have been orchestrated by the "Evict the U.N. from U.S. Soil/Pro-John Bolton" campaigners at Move America Forward. This outfit may even start running ads AGAINST Voinovich.

Three weeks to go: http://www.thewashingtonnote.com/archives/000491.html

Alternatives to Bolton: http://www.warandpiece.com/blogdirs/001923.html

The grand summation:
http://www.warandpiece.com/blogdirs/001921.html
http://www.warandpiece.com/blogdirs/001922.html

Stop the presses! Army intelligence ASKED for greater latitude in interrogations

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2005_04/006156.php
Army intelligence officials in Iraq developed and circulated "wish lists" of harsh interrogation techniques they hoped to use on detainees in August 2003, including tactics such as low-voltage electrocution, blows with phone books and using dogs and snakes — suggestions that some soldiers believed spawned abuse and illegal interrogations.

Pentagon preparing its legal arguments for making Gitmo permanent

http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room/index.html?blog=/politics/war_room/2005/04/19/gitmo/index.html

“But they all look the same to me. . ."

http://www.needlenose.com/node/view/1301
[T]he National Assembly briefly adjourned after a legislator claimed he had been roughed up at a U.S. checkpoint. . . The alleged mistreatment of the legislator occurred when Fattah al-Sheik, whose small party has been linked to radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, showed his identity card at a checkpoint outside the heavily fortified Green Zone and was asked to get out of his car, legislator Tourkit al-Ta'i said.

In an emotional speech to the 275-member legislature, al-Sheik sobbed as he said the American soldier had kicked his car, mocked the legislature, handcuffed him and held him by the neck. . . "What happened to me represents an insult to the whole National Assembly that was elected by the Iraqi people. This shows that the democracy we are enjoying is fake. Through such incidents, the U.S. Army tries to show that they are the real controlling power in the country, not the new Iraqi government, and that they can impose their rules on every Iraqi," he said.

Is he telling the truth? http://www.tnr.com/blog/iraqd?pid=2636

More consequences of Christianizing the military

http://first-draft.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=2875&mode=thread&order=0&thold=0
Less than two years after it was plunged into a rape scandal, the Air Force Academy is scrambling to address complaints that evangelical Christians wield so much influence at the school that anti-Semitism and other forms of religious harassment have become pervasive. . . There have been 55 complaints of religious discrimination at the academy in the past four years, including cases in which a Jewish cadet was told the Holocaust was revenge for the death of Jesus and another was called a Christ killer by a fellow cadet.

Excluding non-Bush supporters from his (taxpayer-funded) “meet the people” sessions is admitted to be an intentional WH order, not the actions of a few overzealous volunteers. This is big news

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,153720,00.html
The unceremonious ouster of three people from a recent White House Social Security event in Colorado has critics wondering how far President Bush will go to ensure friendly, sympathetic audiences at his town hall-style forums and rallies. . . “He is the president, and regardless of affiliation, everybody should have the opportunity to go and see the president,” said Aaron Johnson, spokesman for Rep. Marilyn Musgrave, R-Colo. “It shouldn’t be the job of anybody to make sure the crowd is 100 percent sympathetic.”. . .

“There is an active campaign underway to try and disrupt and disturb his events in hopes of undermining his objective of fixing Social Security,” White House spokesman Trent Duffy told FOXNews.com. “If there is evidence there are people planning to disrupt the president at an event, then they have the right to exclude those people from those events.”

But Linda Coates, a Fargo, N.D., city commissioner with an openly liberal background, said the administration is going way beyond protecting the president from hecklers and security threats. In fact, she found herself on a list of North Dakotans "banned" from a February Bush rally days before the event. . . The list reportedly was found in boxes of tickets for distribution. It included two high school students, a librarian, a Democratic campaign manager and several university professors — the majority of whom had connections to a local group called Democracy for America. . . . After a local media uproar, the 42 people on the list were allowed to attend. The White House later said that the list was a mistake and may have been generated by its advance team — a mix of White House staffers and state and local volunteers. But Coates said she believes the list is a way for the White House to screen out people who disagree with the president's policies before they reach the meeting hall. . .

Duffy said the White House sends advance teams to deal with logistics for any official event. These teams typically handle the screening for speakers and audience members who will be sitting with or addressing the president during the event. . . He said he did not have further information on the Denver incident, but “from what I was told it was fairly obvious to them that they had plans to disrupt the event. ... It was a judgment call. . . It’s easy for anyone to say, ‘You only include those who support the president,’ but that’s just not the case,” he said. “A lot of people come in with open minds, they listen to the president and continue to ask questions.”

Duffy did not indicate how citizens chosen to speak or ask questions are screened. . . "There are steps being taken to ensure the president has a degree of order at these events," he said. "I think the president of the United States deserves to have a level of respect when he holds town meetings or any other forum.”

[NB: People they think are potentially likely of possibly doing or saying something that might be construed as disruptive. From the party of pre-emptive war, a new policy of pre-emptively blocking freedom of speech]

Bush gets Pickled

http://www.j-bradford-delong.net/movable_type/2005-3_archives/000751.html
[Nedra Pickler, AP] President Bush on Monday pitched for his Social Security overhaul in this Republican-friendly state, yet a Republican congressman made clear that Bush still faces resistance within his party. . . Rep. Gil Gutknecht, R-Minn., said during an editorial board meeting with the (Rochester) Post-Bulletin that Bush must overcome a 'credibility problem' to revamp Social Security. The congressman said many people think the president underestimated the cost of the Iraqi war, then overestimated the benefits of Medicare's prescription drug plan. 'And now, all the sudden, they wonder why people are a bit skeptical of their. . . plan on Social Security,' he said. 'It's partly a credibility problem.'

Get ready for a new Social Security buzz-word: “modernization”

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/4004.html

And this

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A997-2005Apr19.html
[Bush] "I don't know if you've ever heard of Dutch Fork High School in Irmo. I met a very innovative teacher who assigned her students this assignment: Why don't you write letters to the editor about their impressions of Social Security? Here's what one of her students wrote: 'By the time my generation gets to the age to draw Social Security, there will be no money left for us to draw on.' This is a young high school student writing that. This isn't a professor in economics. This is a high school student.”

[NB: Well, THAT certainly convinces me. You could barely find clearer evidence that they view this whole process as image manipulation and NOT as objective economic analysis]

Incredibly outrageous

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-delay20apr20,1,6536615.story
House Majority Leader Tom DeLay intensified his criticism of the federal courts Tuesday, singling out Supreme Court Justice Anthony M. Kennedy's work from the bench as "incredibly outrageous". . . DeLay said he thought there were a "lot of Republican-appointed judges that are judicial activists."

"Absolutely," DeLay told Fox News Radio's "The Tony Snow Show." "We've got Justice Kennedy writing decisions based upon international law, not the Constitution of the United States? That's just outrageous. And not only that, but he said in session that he does his own research on the Internet? That is just incredibly outrageous."

Well, the mounting accusations against DeLay have had one benefit

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-delay20apr20,1,6536615.story
A transcript of the interview released by Fox showed DeLay was asked how the recent scrutiny has affected him. . . "Well, it certainly has gotten me closer to God," DeLay said.

Bush’s “support” of DeLay looking more and more attenuated

http://www.first-draft.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=2871

Tantalizing hints that Novak named names in the Plame investigation

http://www.first-draft.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=2874

Frist tries to sneak in the filibuster change by “promising” it would never be used against normal legislation (whereas no one can promise such a thing once the precedent is set – and there can be little doubt that these extremists would eventually find a way to rationalize just such a thing). And while arguing that it should only be used in judicial appointments, they have never clarified whether it could apply to non-judicial appointments as well (Bolton, for example). Can’t you imagine the “national security exception” already?

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=512&ncid=703&e=2&u=/ap/20050419/ap_on_go_co/filibuster_fight

[NB: The fact is that the case for the filibuster is EVEN STRONGER in the case of judicial appointments, which are lifetime and irreversible decisions, than in regular legislation]

Politicizing Schiavo

http://www.mydd.com/story/2005/4/19/193231/431
Political Money Line reports the following information about Santorum's March trist down to Florida to appear with the Schiavo family and then raise approximately $250,000.

Sen. Rick Santorum (R-PA) reported raising $104,500 from individuals and PACs in Florida during the first three months of 2005. . . Of the itemized Florida donors they received $84,300 on 3/31. . . About $42,000 of the 3/31intemized donations came from the Miami area, possibly from a 3/29 dinner in Miami. . . . Tampa itemized donors on 3/31 over $6,000 including $3,000 from the PAC of Outback Steakhouse. These may have come from a 3/30 luncheon in Tampa hosted by Outback according to news reports. The PAC had already given $5,000 in January. . . .Orlando area itemized donors on 3/31 gave over $25,000 possibly at a luncheon in Orlando on 3/29. . . . Palm Beach area itemized donors on 3/31 gave over $10,000, possibly at a 3/30 dinner hosted by executives of Revlon according to news reports.

Itemized disbursements did not show any expenditures in Florida, nor reimbursements for the use of a Wal-Mart jet (news reports), although they did reimburse $364.90 to UST Public Affairs Inc on 2/4 for airfare.

There are a few gems in the story. First, the fact that there's no reimbursement for the use of the Walmart jet may mean that Santorum used his Senate account to pay for the trip under the guise of meeting with the Schiavo family though in reality it appears most of his time was actually spent raising money for his Senate campaign. . .

Utah pulls out of NCLB

http://suburbanguerrilla.blogspot.com/2005/04/no-child-left-behind.html

Ratzinger

Overviews

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/04/20/international/worldspecial2/20crowd.html
http://www.workingforchange.com/article.cfm?itemid=18920

On other religions
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/04/20/international/worldspecial2/20profile.html
His congregation's 2000 declaration "Dominus Jesus" - "Lord Jesus" - said other religions could not offer salvation, and were "gravely deficient."

Intervened in 2004 US election
http://americablog.blogspot.com/2005/04/ratzinger-intervened-in-us-2004.html
http://talkleft.com/new_archives/010420.html

Helped cover-up pedophile priests
http://americablog.blogspot.com/2005/04/ratzinger-accused-of-cover-up-in.html
http://www.cathnews.com/news/212/27.php
He said: "I am personally convinced that the constant presence in the press of the sins of Catholic priests, especially in the United States, is a planned campaign, as the percentage of these offences among priests is not higher than in other categories, and perhaps it is even lower."

His Nazi past
http://americablog.blogspot.com/2005/04/ratzinger-as-nazi.html
http://billmon.org/archives/001841.html

Bonus item: Rove on the US media

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A997-2005Apr19.html
Asked to give a lecture last night about "The Polarized Press: Media and Politics in the Age of Bush," Karl Rove was blunt: It's all the press's fault. . . Speaking at a forum at Washington College, Karl Rove said the influx of media outlets and the shrinking shelf life of news in a 24-hour news cycle are to blame. . . Rove "said the press corps is 'less liberal than it is oppositional' and admitted to being a listener of National Public Radio.". . . The White House is not releasing the text of Rove's remarks. . .

***If you enjoy PBD and support what we are doing, you can help by forwarding a copy of this issue to your friends (using the envelope link below) or by sending them a copy of its URL (http://pbd.blogspot.com).

I don't get anything personally out of this project, except the satisfaction of doing it (I don't run ads, etc). The credit really all goes to the people whose material I copy and redistribute. But if I do have a "mission," it is to get this information into the hands of as many people as I can.***
- posted by Nick Burbules @ 7:15 AM

 
OMERTA

Silence

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A63182-2005Apr18.html
The State Department announced yesterday that it will no longer publish annual statistics for international terrorism, a year after it was forced to withdraw its study and correct its assertion that terrorist acts had declined in 2003 when in fact they were at their highest level in years. . . Critics said the decision would leave the public without an official assessment of progress in fighting terrorism

More: http://wilsonhellie.typepad.com/for_the_record/2005/04/bad_news_is_no_.html

Frist gains another vote on ending the filibuster (Richard Lugar, who somehow maintains his stature as a plain-spoken man of integrity; Hagel on the fence)

http://www.cnn.com/2005/POLITICS/04/18/senate.filibusters.ap/index.html

Bolton vote today (Lugar and Hagel again)

http://www.warandpiece.com/blogdirs/001914.html

http://www.thewashingtonnote.com/archives/000480.html
An important new poll conducted by Zogby International and commissioned by Citizens for Global Solutions has just been released. . . What is amazing is that 4 out of 5 people in Rhode Island oppose the nomination. . . This must be even more disconcerting for Senator Chafee, who is reportedly already 20 points down in polls handicapping the next U.S. Senate race in Rhode Island.

http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room/index.html?blog=/politics/war_room/2005/04/18/bolton/index.html
Appearing on CNN Sunday, Nebraska Sen. Chuck Hagel said that he's prepared to vote for Bolton for now, but he added: "I have been troubled with more and more allegations, revelations, coming about his style, his method of operation." Referring to a "disturbing pattern of things that have come out about Bolton's management style, this intimidation," Hagel said: "We cannot have that at the United Nations."

http://talkleft.com/new_archives/010400.html
Conservatives in Washington believe that, in effect, a vote against Bolton would put an end to any hopes for higher political office that Sen. Hagel may harbor.

http://www.warandpiece.com/blogdirs/001911.html
I find it very interesting the one sentence here that Rice has excluded Bolton from discussions on Iran. That issue arguably is the most important item in the portfolio of the Undersecretary for Arms Control and International Security, Bolton's current position. If the Secretary of State does not have confidence in Bolton to do his current job, what makes her think he would be an effective UN Ambassador?. . .

This nomination, and the media coverage surrounding it, is quickly reaching critical mass -- the drip-drip of daily revelations is telling. If the Dems can succeed in having tomorrow's vote delayed, then for the first time, I would rate the likelihood that Bolton will be defeated as more likely than not. It's clear that civil servants at State and other political opponents of Bolton who have been bullied and intimidated for the past four years now view this time as open season on Bolton -- and are spilling everything to the press. I doubt that a Chuck Hagel or a Linc Chafee can justify a yes vote with another week's worth of news coverage. So the committee vote tomorrow is really key -- if it happens, then Bolton may still skate by with the skin of his teeth.

[I]t's clear who Bolton is working for -- always has been: the Vice President.

Where’s Colin Powell? It only takes one word from him to shut down this entire travesty

http://www.warandpiece.com/blogdirs/001915.html
On Monday, one of former Secretary of State Colin L. Powell's top aides spoke out in opposition to Mr. Bolton. . . .[Lawrence Wilkerson, who served as Mr. Powell's chief of staff]. . . “[D]o I think John Bolton would make a good ambassador to the United Nations? Absolutely not," Mr. Wilkerson said. "He is incapable of listening to people and taking into account their views. He would be an abysmal ambassador."

Neither Mr. Powell nor Richard L. Armitage, who served as deputy secretary of state under Mr. Powell, have commented publicly about Mr. Bolton's nomination. Their offices have not replied to repeated inquiries. Mr. Powell was not among a group of five Republican former secretaries of state who sent the committee a letter that endorsed Mr. Bolton's nomination.

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/04/19/politics/19bolton.html
The top Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee will ask the panel's Republican majority to delay a vote scheduled for Tuesday on the nomination of John R. Bolton as ambassador to the United Nations, according to Democratic Senate officials.

The Democrat, Senator Joseph R. Biden Jr. of Delaware, will urge Republicans to allow the panel more time to review allegations that Mr. Bolton has acted abusively toward subordinates and others, the Democratic officials said.

However, the panel's Republican chairman, Senator Richard G. Lugar of Indiana, plans to urge the panel to vote in favor of Mr. Bolton. "I do not think the concerns raised about Secretary Bolton warrant our rejection of the president's selection for his own representative to the U.N.," Mr. Lugar said in a statement. . . Mr. Lugar has said he expects all 10 Republicans on the panel ultimately to vote in favor of the nomination.

What is at stake

http://www.thewashingtonnote.com/archives/000481.html
[Chris Nelson] If the fight over John Bolton's UN nomination were just about John Bolton, he'd be history already. But this isn't about Bolton, it's about the exercise of power. Same thing with House Majority Leader Tom DeLay.

If this was even 5 years ago, he’d be toast.

We are at the point now where the Republican Leadership refuses to allow the possibility of a loss on anything, regardless of the merits. This renders "debate" meaningless, since nothing said actually matters, so truth is irrelevant.

"Science" depends on faith; everything is a test of power. Oppose something the President wants, and you aren't just wrong, you are betraying the Party. The underlying message is that you are also offending a very particular definition of God.

The sad, sorry Bolton/DeLay spectacles are about total war, the kill-the-prisoners exercise of power that national US politics has become since the 2000 election. If it were merely about power, it wouldn't be so terrifying. Washington is used to that. . .it's what we exist for. But the fear, the self-loathing, the pathetic, cowardly, sniveling, excuse-making drivel from such "leaders" as Lugar, Hagel, Chafee, the entire House Republican Leadership under DeLay. . .and the ever-so-very carefully expressed angst of the Democrats. . .is about something far more dangerous to the Republic than mere political power.

What we are seeing is a fight for the political soul of the nation. We've had these before, in the existential sense. . .in my political lifetime, the civil rights movement, the anti-Vietnam war movement, the women’s rights versus, to a certain extent, the right to life movement. But this time it's totally and completely a fight about God. . .specifically, whether God is going to rule in the United States.

The Constitution says that would be illegal, and any serious expert can tell you that not only were the Founders liberal in their interpretation of the Deity, but they intentionally enshrined a purely secular civic government, including the courts. They didn't think that Jesus had an official plan for us, much less did they think that politicians who defined their duties in secular terms were defying the word of God.

Tom Delay manifestly believes this, and it sounds like any number of Senate Republicans either agree, or lack the imagination or moral courage to disagree. . .why else would some endorse threats against Republican-appointed judges who dare to interpret the law in secular terms? This is what the Bolton fight is really about: you can't dump him, because that lets the Democrats win on both the facts and principle. . .fatal notions to a desire to pack the courts with religious and secular policy extremists.

Why else would there be the constant drumbeat of attacks on the "liberal media", except to undermine public trust in the Constitutionally provided mediator between the politicians and the people?

The Founders knew how to protect what they intended; this crowd has figured out how to undermine the very rule of law in the United States. Listen to what DeLay is arguing...that his excesses have nothing to do with his "persecution", interesting choice of word, by the Democrats and their "liberal press allies". If a majority of Congressional Republicans don't, in their hearts, see the hypocrisy of all this, the Republic is doomed. . .

More: http://www.warandpiece.com/blogdirs/001913.html

http://yglesias.typepad.com/matthew/2005/04/whats_at_stake_.html

Rove on DeLay

http://www.cnn.com/2005/POLITICS/04/18/rove.delay/index.html
The White House stands "strongly" behind Tom DeLay amid ethical questions over the House majority leader's fund- raising and overseas trips, deputy chief of staff Karl Rove said Monday.

Rove. . . said DeLay, a Texas Republican, has been the target of partisan attacks by "desperate" Democrats. . . "Tom DeLay is going to continue to be a strong and effective majority leader for the Republicans in the House," he said on CNN's "Inside Politics." . . .

Former Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott said Sunday the White House needed to speak up on DeLay's behalf. . . "I do think the White House needs to remember that people who fight hard for you as a candidate and for your issues as a president deserve your support," the Republican from Mississippi said on ABC's "This Week."

[NB: This illustrates the most important thing about the DeLay misconduct: he isn’t an extremist wacko out on his own – he is a direct instrument of the Bush/Rove agenda, and they WANT to be associated with him. If the Dems can’t find leverage on this, they aren’t trying hard enough]

http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room/index.html?blog=/politics/war_room/2005/04/18/delay/index.html
When Trent Lott starts lecturing the Bush White House about loyalty, you know that things are starting to get interesting. Lott, who is providing advice to Tom DeLay as the House majority leader struggles through waves and waves of ethics allegations, said Sunday that the White House "needs to remember that people who fight hard for you as a candidate and for your issues as president deserve your support, aggressive support.". . . It's not like the White House has thrown DeLay over the side just yet. Although one senior White House official tells Time that DeLay is handling his troubles "like an idiot," the White House is more or less standing behind the Hammer publicly.

Another liberal newspaper

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/opinion/chi-0504180095apr18,1,391889.story
House Majority Leader Tom DeLay apologized last week for his assault on the federal judiciary, though it sounded like an apology more for his style than his substance. "... I said something in an inartful way, and I shouldn't have said it that way, and I apologize for saying it that way." Yes, that's what he said.

DeLay had suggested that the judiciary would be in the crosshairs of Congress because the courts didn't rule DeLay's way in the tragic case of Terri Schiavo. DeLay's comments looked to all the world like an effort to intimidate the judges because he didn't like the way they upheld the rule of law.

The guess here is that DeLay felt the need to back down because he's starting to get some heat from some fellow Republicans, who aren't happy that DeLay's various troubles are making the party look very bad. . . Even when DeLay apologized for lashing out at what he had called an "arrogant, out-of-control, unaccountable" federal judiciary, he didn't say he was wrong. He only said he didn't express himself clearly. He still wants Congress to look into judicial activism.

The problem for Republicans is that DeLay's troubles only seem to mount, and the notion that he's the victim of a Democratic Party/liberal media witch hunt just doesn't hold water. DeLay was admonished by the House Ethics Committee three times last year. That would be the Republican-controlled House Ethics Committee.

For the good of his party, DeLay needs to answer the questions that dog him about campaign contributions and lobbyist-paid trips and nepotism hires--and step aside as majority leader.

DeLay understands the stakes: do his opponents?

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-delay19apr19,1,2075582.story
House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-Texas), dogged by questions about his ethics, is fighting back by telling supporters that Democrats have targeted him in an effort to derail the conservative agenda. . . In a five-page single-spaced "briefing document" sent to supporters, DeLay contends that "Democrats have made clear that their only agenda is the politics of personal destruction."

"They hate Ronald Reagan conservatives like DeLay and they hate that he is an effective leader who succeeds in passing the Republican agenda," the document says under the heading "Fact Versus Fiction: The Left-Wing 'Case' Against Tom DeLay."

The briefing document and an accompanying letter, sent to supporters last week by DeLay's reelection committee, signal a more aggressive effort by the congressman to solidify his support among his Republican colleagues.

[NB: In some ways, I’m happier to see him hang around. He’s very effective for the GOP internally, of course, but he’s widely unpopular and makes a good poster child for GOP corruption and arrogance. If they did oust him, they could proclaim their own commitment to integrity and good government – by tying themselves to DeLay even more closely, they reveal themselves to be hypocrites even by their own standards. And if they keep him around, what happens when the next revelation hits? He’ll never survive THAT. Won’t they look all the more craven and corrupt for having turned a blind eye to his pattern of misconduct then?]

We have investigated ourselves and concluded, once again, that we didn’t do anything wrong. Feel better?

http://dailykos.com/storyonly/2005/4/18/14483/1186
A report by the Education Department's inspector general has cleared the agency of ethical breaches in hiring a commentator to promote President Bush's top education initiative but did not address whether the deal amounted to illegal propaganda.

Left unanswered by the report released Friday: how much the White House knew about the $240,000 paid to commentator Armstrong Williams. . .

Higgins also found that David Dunn, a special assistant to President Bush, participated in at least four conversations about the Williams contract with Education Department officials last summer. . . During at least two of those conversations, Education officials voiced "strong" concerns about "the inherent conflict of Mr. Williams' role as both a public relations executive and commentator," the report says. . .

The inspector general's findings run counter to a statement made by Bush on Jan. 26, about three weeks after USA TODAY first disclosed the deal with Williams. At a news conference, Bush said of the contract, "We didn't know about this in the White House."

http://www.first-draft.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=2849
The Bush administration refused to allow Higgins to question Dunn about his time as a presidential policy adviser. White House spokeswoman Dana Perino said the inspector general lacks the authority to interview White House staffers. . . Education Secretary Margaret Spellings, who also served as an adviser to the president and took over the department after the Williams deal became public. . . called the deal “stupid (and). . . ill-advised. It showed a lack of judgment.” Spellings subsequently hired Dunn as her chief of staff. He declined interview requests.

The politics of Schiavo

http://dailykos.com/storyonly/2005/4/18/22195/7565
Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean said Friday that his party would wield the Terri Schiavo case against Republicans in the 2006 and 2008 elections, but for now needed to stay focused battling President Bush on Social Security. . . "We're going to use Terri Schiavo later on," Dean said of the brain-damaged Floridian who died last month after her feeding tube was removed amid a swarm of political controversy. . .

Tracey Schmitt, a spokeswoman for the Republican National Committee, said Dean's "outrageous remarks help underscore why Dean is the leader of the minority party. . . Terri Schiavo was never about partisan politicking, but instead about a woman's life," she said.

The legal counsel to Sen. Mel Martinez (R-Florida) resigned this month after acknowledging he had written a memo calling the Schiavo case "a great political issue" for Republicans.

Martinez still lying about the memo

http://dailykos.com/storyonly/2005/4/18/13291/4033
Despite calls by campaign advisers and supporters of Sen. Mel Martinez, the Florida Republican is not going to overhaul his staff in the aftermath of "memogate."

Sources say the Senator does not plan to make any more staff changes beyond that of Martinez's counsel, Brian Darling, who left the office. Darling belatedly admitted circulating a memo that urged Republicans to get involved in the Terri Schiavo case, in part because it could yield political benefits.

Martinez's press secretary, Kerry Feehery, continues to insist that that Schiavo memo was written "unilaterally" by one aide. . . However, a Republican source close to the situation said the claim is "preposterous."

The source told HOH that he knows "for certain" that two other senior Martinez staffers helped Darling write the memo and circulate it to other Republican Senators. "Those three were really working it," the source said.

False linkages

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A62897-2005Apr18.html
Stung by a dramatic fall in his approval ratings at least partially due to public distress over rising gas prices, President Bush used his weekly radio address on Saturday to announce a new "first order of business": Getting Congress to pass his controversial and long-stalled energy bill.

"American families and small businesses across the country are feeling the pinch from rising gas prices," he said. "In the coming days and weeks I'll talk more about what we need to do in Washington to make sure America has an energy policy that reflects the demands of a new century."

But what has one got to do with the other?

The president, famous for his implied linkages (remember Saddam and September 11?) certainly appears to be suggesting that passage of the energy bill would lower gas prices. . . But energy experts agree that the bill's effects wouldn't be felt for years, and that gas prices in particular might not be affected much at all.

Bush cares

http://americablog.blogspot.com/2005/04/does-anyone-really-believe-this.html
Washington Post has a piece today about why many Americans aren't interested in adding private accounts to Social Security. There is one passage that made me laugh out loud. Of course, it came from the Bush spokesperson:

"I'm 1,000-percent convinced of this: The president cares the most about this $10-an-hour person," said Allan B. Hubbard, director of the White House National Economic Council. "And what he gets most irritated by is when it is suggested, 'Oh the $10-an-hour person isn't sophisticated enough to deal with a personal retirement account.' "

Given the track record of the Administration, does anyone, besides Allan B. Hubbard, really believe George Bush cares most about the $10-an-hour person? Does he even know any?

Bonus item: Time’s smooch-a-thon for Ann Coulter – another low point for decent journalism

http://atrios.blogspot.com/2005_04_17_atrios_archive.html#111383792712955873
I guess I shouldn't expect anything from journalists who think it's cute to put an advocate of murdering other journalists on their cover, but in addition to that rather shocking lack of judgment they're really really stupid. . . and, predictably, even though Time magazine wrote her a love letter she's still going to complain about how they were unfair to her (Warning, drudge). When will the liberal media learn...

http://atrios.blogspot.com/2005_04_17_atrios_archive.html#111385287901835746
One of the most egregious passages in Time's Ann story, because it demonstrated just how either lazy or dishonest the reporter is was this one:

Coulter has a reputation for carelessness with facts, and if you Google the words ‘Ann Coulter lies,’ you will drown in results. But I didn’t find many outright Coulter errors.

http://thinkprogress.org/index.php?p=668
What a joke. Below are just a few of Ann’s most recent outright errors, distortions, and lies:

Coulter lied and distorted to defend fake reporter “Jeff Gannon"; falsely attacked President Clinton’s remarks on the tsunami relief effort; falsely claimed that the New York Times op-ed page “outed” gays and quoted NYT columnists out of context to defend inauguration costs; distorted and attacked Sen. Kennedy’s major Iraq speech; claimed that reports of hundreds of tons of munitions being looted in Iraq were “false"; distorted a 2002 article by New York Times columnist Nicholas D. Kristof that predicted the difficulties of the Iraq war; falsely implied that the group behind a December 21 attack on American soldiers in Mosul was not linked to Al Qaeda; defended Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld by falsely claiming that a reporter had devised a controversial question a soldier posed to Rumsfeld; falsely claimed that the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights was unable to identify any African-Americans in Florida who had been wrongly disenfranchised during the 2000 election ("We’ve found more WMDs in Iraq than we’ve found disenfranchised blacks in Florida"); and printed scores of errors (as well as specious ‘corrections’ of those errors) in her books.

http://dailykos.com/storyonly/2005/4/18/125241/426
Time uses fake photo for Coulter story

http://mediamatters.org/items/200504180001
"[Y]ou don't know the real Ann Coulter," Time magazine declares in teasing its cover story on the right-wing pundit. . . But after reading the magazine's nearly 6,000-word profile of Coulter, readers still don't know the real Ann Coulter. They don't know the real Ann Coulter because Time carefully hid her from view, glorifying her legal work, whitewashing her habitual lies, and downplaying her -- at best -- grossly inappropriate rhetoric. . .

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/features/2001/0111.coulterwisdom.html
The Wisdom of Ann Coulter

Double bonus: The Vast Left Wing Conspiracy

http://salon.com/comics/tomo/2005/04/18/tomo/index1.html

***If you enjoy PBD and support what we are doing, you can help by forwarding a copy of this issue to your friends (using the envelope link below) or by sending them a copy of its URL (http://pbd.blogspot.com).

I don't get anything personally out of this project, except the satisfaction of doing it (I don't run ads, etc). The credit really all goes to the people whose material I copy and redistribute. But if I do have a "mission," it is to get this information into the hands of as many people as I can.***
- posted by Nick Burbules @ 6:41 AM

 
PAY AS YOU GO

The last refuge of scoundrels

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2005_04_17.php#005455
Tom DeLay: "It is unfortunate in our electoral system, exacerbated by our adversarial media culture, that political discourse has to get so overheated that it's not just arguments, but motives are questioned."

Even DeLay’s home district is unhappy with him

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/04/17/politics/17delay.html
[Patricia] Baig, 57 - who identifies herself as a fellow Republican of Mr. DeLay, the House majority leader, and is one of his constituents - took out a full-page advertisement on Wednesday in the 62,000 copies of the weekly free Fort Bend Southwest Sun. It urged demonstrators "who want ethical reform" to rally against Mr. DeLay's speech Saturday night to the National Rifle Association convention in Houston, "to protest the actions of Representative DeLay and ask for his resignation”. . .

Another Republican, who runs the other weekly county paper, has also been openly hostile to Mr. DeLay, and a poll two weeks ago for The Houston Chronicle found nearly 40 percent of 501 voters saying that their opinion of Mr. DeLay had declined since last year, with 11 percent saying their opinion of him had improved. His Democratic opponent from 2004 has already declared a rematch next year, and Mr. DeLay could even have a primary opponent.

In Austin, a state judge may rule as soon as this week in a lawsuit by five losing Democratic candidates against the treasurer of a political action committee, formed by Mr. DeLay, that the Democrats say improperly funneled corporate money to state races. A criminal investigation is pending. . .

"Tom DeLay is not representing his district," said Ms. Baig as she buttonholed neighbors on Friday in support of the rally. "Tom DeLay is taking care of Tom DeLay. He has become an embarrassment to his district. It's time for him to go."

DeLay: sinking fast

http://atrios.blogspot.com/2005_04_17_atrios_archive.html#111374262355524847
[Time] DeLay’s travel arrangements may be drawing the interest of the Justice Department. . .

More: http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1050216,00.html

Why DeLay is so eager to have his case buried in the Ethics Committee

http://www.cnn.com/2005/POLITICS/04/17/delay/index.html
Democratic leaders took aim at changes made to the House Ethics Committee, saying the revisions were aimed at preventing an investigation from determining whether DeLay has violated House rules. . . After the 10-member committee admonished DeLay three times in 2004 and talk of a possible probe by the committee grew, Republican leadership in the House changed a central rule [NB: and replaced a number of dangerously independent GOP members]. The committee can now launch an investigation only if a majority of members support the idea. . . Given that the panel is evenly divided between the parties, that would require at least one Republican member agreeing to investigate DeLay. . . In response to the changes, Democratic members have refused to let the committee meet.

http://americablog.blogspot.com/2005/04/tom-delay-hits-trifecta-on-sunday.html
Rep. Barney Frank had the best line. He said he'd been the focus of ethics probes fifteen years ago because he'd "behaved inappropriately." But here's the difference. . . "I changed my behavior," said Frank. "Tom DeLay changed the ethics committee."

More: http://www.nytimes.com/2005/04/18/politics/18ethics.html

http://slate.msn.com/id/2116872/fr/rss/
Apparently some Repubs (led by some former lawmakers who call themselves, ahem, "the revolting elders") are now pushing House Speaker Denny Hastert to consider compromises, arguing that the issue benefits the Dems especially by denying Majority Leader Tom DeLay a process by which he could clear his name.

Hagel sounding more likely to oppose Bolton

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-bolton18apr18,1,6985071.story
A key Republican member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee suggested Sunday that he might oppose John R. Bolton as U.N. ambassador if more allegations come out about the nominee's character and behavior

You want more? Here you go. . .

http://www.warandpiece.com/blogdirs/001910.html
[WP] Bolton. . . often blocked then-Secretary of State Colin L. Powell and, on one occasion, his successor, Condoleezza Rice, from receiving information vital to U.S. strategies on Iran, according to current and former officials who have worked with Bolton.

In some cases, career officials found back channels to Powell or his deputy, Richard L. Armitage, who encouraged assistant secretaries to bring information directly to him. In other cases, the information was delayed for weeks or simply did not get through. The officials, who would discuss the incidents only on the condition of anonymity because some continue to deal with Bolton on other issues, cited a dozen examples of memos or information that Bolton refused to forward during his four years as undersecretary of state for arms control and international security.

Two officials described a memo that had been prepared for Powell at the end of October 2003, ahead of a critical international meeting on Iran, informing him that the United States was losing support for efforts to have the U.N. Security Council investigate Iran's nuclear program. Bolton allegedly argued that it would be premature to throw in the towel. "When Armitage's staff asked for information about what other countries were thinking, Bolton said that information couldn't be collected," according to one official with firsthand knowledge of the exchange.

More: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A61304-2005Apr17.html

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/04/17/politics/17bolton.html

http://www.thewashingtonnote.com/archives/000471.html
[Steve Clemons] Any Senator -- any and all -- who votes to confirm John Bolton on Tuesday this week (though there may be a further delay) not only has to sign off on the issue of Bolton's pattern of abusive behavior, they must also sign off on the connection of such abuse to the mismanagement of intelligence and his habitual role as a "loose cannon" undermining delicate and high-stakes national security efforts of other diplomats.

In addition, they must sign off on the fact that he lied under oath. Bolton got very pointed with Senators Dodd, Obama, and Biden -- as well as Boxer -- that he never sought to have an intelligence official removed or fired and that issues of difference with staff were over "management questions," not "substance."

There is overwhelming evidence bubbling out in the national press that this is simply not true. Lincoln Chafee's comments that he heard about a troubling anecdote during the hearings with Carl Ford but saw no pattern of behavior now can't be seriously entertained. Chafee's comment that the Democrats' case against Bolton wasn't stronger also doesn't pass the laugh test -- AS THERE SEEMS TO BE ENOUGH OUT THERE THAT THERE IS NEW MATERIAL ON BOLTON UNEARTHED EVERY DAY. . .

I am presently at a foreign policy conference called the CSIS Think Tank Summit. . . with a broad array of intellectuals who think about Transatlantic issues, the National Defense University, NATO, and national security strategy. I am here with people from AEI, the Monterey Institute, Harvard's Kennedy School, CSIS, the Washington Institute on Middle East Policy, NATO, SWP in Germany, IISS, RAND Corporation, the German Marshall Fund, the Hoover Institution, and more. . . The spectrum of perspective here is very wide -- but I have not found a single defender of John Bolton. . . not one.

Bush: 44/56, and dropping

http://dailykos.com/storyonly/2005/4/18/12538/3494

PAYGO used to be a conservative policy: today it looks like a radical challenge to the GOP mode of governance

http://www.j-bradford-delong.net/movable_type/2005-3_archives/000731.html

The shockingly irresponsible fiscal policies of this administration

http://billmon.org/archives/001836.html
For the financial markets, last week had a ugly feel to it, both on Wall Street and globally. It wasn't a crash, certainly, but also more than just a garden-variety correction. It felt like the preliminary stages of a sea change. . .

http://www.j-bradford-delong.net/movable_type/2005-3_archives/000729.html
[Matt Yglesias] It's hard to detect much seriousness there. Rather than addressing, say, the massive budget deficits that are leading to the unusual currency situation, or trying to do something that would reduce American oil consumption, they're getting serious by asking the government of China to float their currency.

The GOP assault on the Constitution

http://dailykos.com/storyonly/2005/4/16/231656/280
[Jeffrey Rosen] Imagine that the interpretation of the Constitution was frozen in 1937. Imagine a country in which Social Security, job-safety laws and environmental protections were unconstitutional. Imagine judges longing for that. Imagine one of them as the next Supreme Court nominee. . .

More: http://www.nytimes.com/2005/04/17/magazine/17CONSTITUTION.html

http://dailykos.com/storyonly/2005/4/17/141336/824
As a part of their increasingly fervent and shrill jihad against the federal courts, wingers have resorted to the canard that judicial review has no place in our constitutional system and Marbury v. Madison was wrongly decided. . . The thing is, they're all wrong, and the historical evidence isn't mixed. It's clear: judicial review isn't just an appropriate part of our government; it was critical to the system the Founders designed.

The GOP’s hidden and not-so-hidden ties to radical right groups (thanks to Buzzflash for the link)

http://www.mediatransparency.org/stories/secretsandties.html
Now that the GOP has a strangle-hold on political power, secret meetings with the Family Research Council and the closed door activities of groups like the Council for National Policy and the Values Action Team raise serious questions about how public policy is being crafted, Barry Lynn pointed out. "When public policy is involved, the public has a right to know what is going on behind those closed doors."

The remaking of “neoconservatism”

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A57779-2005Apr15.html

There has been a lot of comment over whether Howard Dean was the right person to head up the DNC. I think the key question is whether he is prepared to subvert his own ambitions in order to put his energies into promoting the party. He has always struck me as smart enough, tough enough, and, yes, ruthless enough to beat the GOP by their own rules. Here’s a start

http://americablog.blogspot.com/2005/04/howard-dean-gets-it.html

Josh Marshall: the Dem’s weakness isn’t strategy, it’s policy

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2005_04_17.php#005458

Are the Dems feeling pressure to negotiate on Social Security?

http://www.guardian.co.uk/worldlatest/story/0,1280,-4941919,00.html
[AP] Democrats say they are united in opposing a plan they contend would break a social contract by shifting Social Security from a government-guaranteed benefit to a personal investment subject to the risks of the market.

“I'm happy, we're happy, to talk to the president about Social Security if privatization is taken off the table, period,'' Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid of Nevada told reporters last week.

Behind the scenes, both sides appear to be reaching for a lifeline. Bush's top economic adviser said the White House would be willing to consider personal accounts atop the current Social Security taxes and benefit checks, instead as a replacement for part of each.

“We haven't ruled it out, we haven't ruled it in, but we're certainly willing to discuss it,'' said Allan Hubbard, head of the National Economic Council. “It really comes down to what the proposal is.''

“Some Republican lawmakers, in meetings with Bush, have urged him to focus less on his idea for private accounts and instead offer ideas for addressing the program's looming insolvency."

Bonus item: “1984” (hyperbole? judge for yourself)

http://bestoftheblogs.com/2005/04/i-think-weve-found-their-playbook-book.html
"If the Party could thrust its hand into the past and say this or that event, it never happened -- that, surely, was more terrifying than mere torture and death." --pg 32

"And if all others accepted the lie which the Party imposed -- if all records told the same tale -- then the lie passed into history and became truth. 'Who controls the past' ran the Party slogan, 'controls the future: who controls the present controls the past.'" -- pg 32

"Day by day and almost minute by minute the past was brought up to date. In this way every prediction made by the Party could be shown by documentary evidence to have been correct; nor was any item of news, or any expression of opinion, which conflicted with the needs of the moment, ever allowed to remain on record. All history was a palimpsest, scraped clean and reinscribed exactly as often as was necessary." – pg 36

http://dailykos.com/storyonly/2005/4/17/182311/225
[David Sirota] Knight-Ridder reports today that the Bush administration announced yesterday that it has "decided to stop publishing an annual report on international terrorism after the government's top terrorism center concluded that there were more terrorist attacks in 2004 than in any year since 1985, the first year the publication covered."

When unemployment was peaking in Bush's first term, the White House tried to stop publishing the Labor Department's regular report on mass layoffs.

In 2003, when the nation's governors came to Washington to complain about inadequate federal funding for the states, the Bush administration decided to stop publishing the budget report that states use to see what money they are, or aren't, getting.

In 2003, the National Council for Research on Women found that information about discrimination against women has gone missing from government Web sites, including 25 reports from the U.S. Department of Labor's Women's Bureau.

In 2002, Democrats uncovered evidence that the Bush administration was removing health information from government websites. Specifically, the administration deleted data showing that abortion does not increase the risk of breast cancer from government websites. That scientific data was seen by the White House as a direct affront to the pro-life movement.

***If you enjoy PBD and support what we are doing, you can help by forwarding a copy of this issue to your friends (using the envelope link below) or by sending them a copy of its URL (http://pbd.blogspot.com).

I don't get anything personally out of this project, except the satisfaction of doing it (I don't run ads, etc). The credit really all goes to the people whose material I copy and redistribute. But if I do have a "mission," it is to get this information into the hands of as many people as I can.***
- posted by Nick Burbules @ 6:14 AM

 
TRUE COLORS

Bill Frist (DOESN’T rhyme with “Christ”) has apparently decided that his 2008 ambitions rest upon becoming the candidate of the Religious Right

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/04/16/opinion/16sat1.html
Right-wing Christian groups and the Republican politicians they bankroll have done much since the last election to impose their particular religious views on all Americans. But nothing comes close to the shameful declaration of religious war by Bill Frist, the Senate majority leader, over the selection of judges for federal courts. . . The message is that the Democrats who oppose a tiny handful of President Bush's judicial nominations are conducting an assault "against people of faith." By that, Senator Frist and his allies do not mean people of all faiths, only those of their faith.

It is one thing when private groups foment this kind of intolerance. It is another thing entirely when it's done by the highest-ranking member of the United States Senate, who swore on the Bible to uphold a Constitution that forbids the imposition of religious views on Americans. Unfortunately, Senator Frist and his allies are willing to break down the rules to push through their agenda - in this case, by creating what the senator knows is a false connection between religion and the debate about judges.

A few reactions across the political spectrum

http://dailykos.com/storyonly/2005/4/15/20105/9052
John Cole:

This is so patently offensive that I don't have adequate words to describe how truly wrong this is: [...]

If you don't share our politics, you hate the baby Jesus.

If you don't share our politics, you hate religious people.

If you don't share our politics, you are evil.

Congrats, Republicans.

Joe Gandelman:

[T]he "nuclear option" on filibusters. . . has the potential of enmeshing the GOP in charges that it's ushering in a new, dangerous area of theocratic McCarthyism. . . it'll be a watershed moment -- a transformational moment for the GOP...marking the political death of a dominant part of its party. [...]

Isn't this ushering in a new LOW in American political demonization? Isn't this akin to labeling those with whom we disagree Communists or Communist stooges? Isn't this throwing out all pretensions of the kind of intellectual, civilized discourse and debate taught in universities, law schools and practiced daily by Americans on the right and left who sit down for drinks or coffee and agree to differ on issues but maintain respect?

Hunter:

The Republican Party of the United States, led by Sen. Bill Frist, is professing that not giving President Dubya every single one of the judicial nominations he's requested is being "against people of faith". . . Frist has made a political calculation. He and his party has mandated that any dissent from Pres. Bush's wishes -- even in a single vote -- is not to be tolerated, and if dressing Bush in the mantle of infallible God will gain him a few more legislative trinkets, that's exactly what he'll do.

http://atrios.blogspot.com/2005_04_10_atrios_archive.html#111361812290486889
Rabbi David Saperstein:

The news that Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist plans to join a telecast whose organizing theme is that those who oppose some of President Bush’s judicial nominees are engaged in an assault on “people of faith” is more than troubling; it is disingenuous, dangerous, and demagogic. We call on him to reconsider his decision to appear on the telecast and to forcefully disassociate himself from this outrageous claim. . . Senator Frist must not give legitimacy to those who claim they hold a monopoly on faith. They do not.

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2005_04_10_digbysblog_archive.html#111360247907050476
[Digby] The filibuster is being used against people of faith? Man, these wingnuts are feeling their oats. . . I cannot stress enough how important I think it is to draw the contrasts between the Democrats and Republicans right now. . . All we need to do is say we are defending the constitution. Most people may know nothing about civics in this country anymore, but they know damned well that disemboweling one branch of government is not business as usual.

http://atrios.blogspot.com/2005_04_10_atrios_archive.html#111360237959690138
Harry Reid:

I am disappointed that in an attempt to hide what the debate is really about, Senator Frist would exploit religion like this. Religion to me is a very personal thing. I have been a religious man all my adult life. My wife and I have lived our lives and raised our children according to the morals and values taught by the faith to which we prescribe. No one has the right to judge mine or anyone else’s personal commitment to faith and religion.

God isn’t partisan.

As His children, he does ask us to do our very best and treat each other with kindness. Republicans have crossed a line today. America is better than this and Republicans need to remember that. This is a democracy, not a theocracy. We are people of faith, and in many ways are doing God’s work. But we represent all Americans, regardless of religion. Our founding fathers had the superior vision to separate Church and State in our democracy. It is a fundamental principle that has allowed our great, diverse nation to grow and flourish peacefully. Blurring the line between Church and State erodes our Constitution, and our democracy. It is a blatant abuse of power. Participating in something designed to incite divisiveness and encourage contention is unacceptable. I would hope that Sen. Frist will rise above something so beyond the pale.

http://dailykos.com/storyonly/2005/4/16/125843/526
Abraham Lincoln:

But you say you are conservative - eminently conservative - while we are revolutionary, destructive, or something of the sort. What is conservatism? Is it not adherence to the old and tried, against the new and untried? We stick to, contend for, the identical old policy on the point in controversy which was adopted by "our fathers who framed the Government under which we live;" while you with one accord reject, and scout, and spit upon that old policy, and insist upon substituting something new. . . . Not one of all your various plans can show a precedent or an advocate in the century within which our Government originated. Consider, then, whether your claim of conservatism for yourselves, and your charge or destructiveness against us, are based on the most clear and stable foundations. . . Your purpose, then, plainly stated, is that you will destroy the Government, unless you be allowed to construe and enforce the Constitution as you please, on all points in dispute between you and us. You will rule or ruin in all events.

http://americablog.blogspot.com/2005/04/what-exactly-is-theocrats-real-agenda.html
What is the moral code they want to impose on America. What exactly is it that the theocrats want? It's surely about a lot more than judges. . .

http://www.prospect.org/weblog/archives/2005/04/index.html#006141
As Matt noted, Bill Frist '08 (is it too soon to append "'08" to the end of his name? He is, after all, running the Senate on the sole basis of what might appeal to primary voters) and the religious right will frame the nuclear-option battle as a matter of religious freedom and anti-Christian persecution. . . We've reached a bizarre place where no conservative religious belief can be challenged in polite society. Pat Buchanan spent last night's Scarborough Country interviewing Marty Minto, a pastor who believes Pope John Paul II will not make it to heaven because he wasn't born again. Minto said that he doesn't believe Jews or, say, the Chinese can get to heaven either. It's no exaggeration to say that this sort of uncompromisingly intolerant religious belief is now not only given a free pass, but sought out and promoted -- particularly on cable television. . .

What astounds me, though, isn't that this dynamic exists. It's that nobody sees an upside in challenging this idiocy or in forcing religious extremists and their simpaticos to defend the consequences of their views.

http://www.prospect.org/weblog/archives/2005/04/index.html#006142
Apparently being a "person of faith" is now synonymous with "holding conservative views about constitutional interpretation and the role of precedent in the legal system."

http://dailykos.com/storyonly/2005/4/16/6012/56938
So what does President Bush have to say about the religious war declared by the Republican Party? Does he embrace this crusade by his extreme Right Wing fringe-controlled Republican Party? So far, the Media has not asked, or, at the least, has not received, any answers from Scott McLellan or anyone in the Bush Administration. . . So the question remains, does President Bush endorse the religious jihad declared by the Sen. Frist? The unmasking of the Republican Party proceeds apace. In my view, it should also unmask Bush.

More: http://billmon.org/archives/001835.html

Does Frist have the votes?

http://www.prospect.org/weblog/archives/2005/04/index.html#006145
The calculus on the nuclear option is fairly simple: Bill Frist needs to keep 50 Republican senators on board if he wants to break the rules and keep his nearly stillborn presidential campaign alive. By my count, Frist seems to have 43 definite votes. . . Of the remaining 11, there are three more who are currently "ambivalent" who I can't see bucking the line: Thad Cochran, Mike DeWine, and Pat Roberts. Three Republicans have stated that they'll vote against the nuclear option: Lincoln Chafee, Olympia Snowe, and John McCain. That leaves six swing votes, of whom three need to oppose Frist for the nuclear option to fail:
• Susan Collins
• Chuck Hagel
• Dick Lugar
• Lisa Murkowski
• Arlen Specter
• John Warner

DeLay’s agenda, in black and white

http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room/archive.html?blog=/politics/war_room/2005/04/15/more_delay/index.html
"What I find the most important is to redesign the government, now that we have the opportunity to do that. . . I started an effort to redesign the Appropriations Committee," he noted, "to make it harder to spend -- to make it easier to spend on our priorities and harder to spend on the Democrats' priorities."

DeLay seems to think he can unilaterally declare the accusations against him null and void

http://dailydelay.blogspot.com/2005/04/duck-and-cover-or-shrewd.html
"If you have any questions outside of the scope of the House floor agenda or other legislative issues we're addressing in the House, then I would direct them to my press staff." [DeLay] said this was not a policy change. However, he has answered dozens of questions about the ethics allegations in recent weeks during his weekly press briefings.

Liberal media? Pro-Bush papers come out hard against DeLay

http://mediamatters.org/items/200504150001

Former GOP House members write a petition for DeLay et al. to renew the ethics rules they decimated

http://www.pcactionfund.org/ethics/
We felt grave concern when the Republican leadership changed the ethics rules several weeks ago to require a bipartisan majority vote to even investigate a charge of ethical misconduct. We saw it as an obvious action to protect Majority Leader Tom DeLay who had been admonished three times by the Ethics Committee for well-publicized misuse of money and/or power.

More: http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room/archive.html?blog=/politics/war_room/2005/04/15/spanking/index.html

Bush sticks with him. . .

http://politicalwire.com/archives/2005/04/15/bush_will_stick_with_delay.html
President Bush's "political need" for House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-TX) "transcends his personal distaste and the growing questions about Mr. DeLay's ethical conduct," the New York Times reports. "For that reason, they say Mr. Bush and Karl Rove, the president's chief political strategist, are unlikely to try to jettison Mr. DeLay in the same way that they deposed Trent Lott as Senate Republican leader for racially charged comments Mr. Lott made in 2002."

. . . (sort of)

http://www.first-draft.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=2826
Bush Mouthpiece Little Scottie McClellan, on Monday:

MR. McCLELLAN: I think you've heard from the President, what he has said on the matter, that Majority Leader DeLay is someone the President considers a friend. . .

Bush Mouthpiece Little Scottie McClellan, on Wednesday:

Q Scott, you said a couple days ago that, as the President said, he considers Tom Delay a friend. . .

MR. McCLELLAN: There are a number of congressional leaders that he works closely with on the Hill and he considers a friend, sure.

Q And he considers Tom DeLay a friend?

MR. McCLELLAN: Sure. I mean, I think there are different levels of friendship. . .

Bush Mouthpiece Elisabeth Bumiller, today:

President Bush and Representative Tom DeLay, the much-investigated but still powerful House majority leader, have never been pals. They made that clear in the fall of 1999, when Mr. Bush, the Republican front-runner for president, accused Mr. DeLay of balancing the federal budget on the backs of the poor and Mr. DeLay shot back that Mr. Bush "does not know how Congress works."

In an interview that fall, Mr. DeLay also recalled that, when he first met Mr. Bush, the future president was "oil-field trash - that's an endearing term, by the way." In private conversations afterward, Mr. Bush was heard to express contempt for Mr. DeLay.

Meanwhile, another current GOP House member starts hedging his bets

http://atrios.blogspot.com/2005_04_10_atrios_archive.html#111357150517636780
[Denver Post] Rep. Tom Tancredo says it is "probably not the worst idea" for embattled House Majority Leader Tom DeLay to step down while he deals with ethics allegations. . . Tancredo said that from a political perspective, DeLay has handled the ethics issue "stupidly."

"I don't think we should try to oust him," he said in an interview Thursday at the Capitol. "Right now, I would not encourage him to leave. If he chose to resign as majority leader until these matters are resolved, that's probably not the worst idea."

DeLay finds safe haven

http://www.guardian.co.uk/worldlatest/story/0,1280,-4942857,00.html
“When a man is in trouble or in a good fight, he wants all of his friends around him, particularly armed. . . So I'm in good company tonight.''

Photo: http://talkleft.com/new_archives/010388.html

Bush gobbledygook on Social Security

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2005_04_10.php#005452
In a pitch directed to Democratic lawmakers, who are nearly unanimous in opposing Bush's plan to create Social Security personal accounts, the president called for "political amnesty" for those who joined his drive to retool the retirement program.

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-bush16apr16,1,1038571.story
President Bush came to Ohio on Friday to highlight a state retirement savings system that he said showed that Americans would be better off handling their own old-age investments through personal accounts than relying on traditional Social Security. . . But that state's version of personal accounts has attracted few takers among the people eligible — Ohio's 750,000 public employees. And records show that the most widely chosen version of the state-offered accounts has racked up a five-year earning record of 1.86%, about the same return that the president says Social Security produces.

More: http://www.first-draft.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=2832

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A56290-2005Apr15.html

His “meet the people” sessions are becoming even more exclusionary and scripted

http://www.first-draft.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=2831

Successes everywhere you look

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/04/16/business/16stox.html
Stocks tumbled to their lowest levels since the presidential election yesterday, extending a recent slump that has come amid fears that economic growth is slowing.

No bad news!

http://www.realcities.com/mld/krwashington/11407689.htm
The State Department decided to stop publishing an annual report on international terrorism after the government's top terrorism center concluded that there were more terrorist attacks in 2004 than in any year since 1985, the first year the publication covered.

More: http://www.warandpiece.com/blogdirs/001906.html

WH lied about the Al Qaeda/Hussein link: we knew it, now here’s the proof

http://talkleft.com/new_archives/010384.html
A top Democratic senator has released formerly classified documents that he says undercut top US officials' pre-Iraq war claims of a link between Saddam Hussein's regime and the al-Qaeda terrorist network. "These documents are additional compelling evidence that the intelligence community did not believe there was a cooperative relationship between Iraq and al-Qaeda. . ."

Intelligence overhaul? No time soon

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/04/16/politics/16weapons.html
The presidential commission on intelligence has sharply criticized reform plans drafted by the C.I.A. and F.B.I. at the request of President Bush, saying that glaring shortcomings of both proposals illustrate "the difficulty of bringing about real change" in the nation's spy agencies. . . In a letter to the president, the commission particularly denounced the Central Intelligence Agency for proposing what it described as a vague and slow-paced schedule for changes, noting that some goals were set for 2011 and others had no deadline at all.

http://www.wpherald.com/storyview.php?StoryID=20050415-103901-8936r
Members of the presidential commission that examined U.S. intelligence failures told White House officials they would resign en masse if President Bush did not ensure that the nation's spy agencies cooperated with their inquiry -- and had to repeat the threat more than once. . . Laurence Silberman, the federal judge who was co-chairman of the inquiry said he told officials, "If we did not get support from the White House at any time we ran into any difficulties, I and others would resign. . . I did occasionally have to remind the White House of the commitment I had made to resign," Silberman continued, saying he had done so to "focus their attention."

Human Rights Watch on “extraordinary rendition”

http://talkleft.com/new_archives/010383.html

Weapons plundered from unguarded sites now resurfacing in Iraq

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/04/17/international/middleeast/17equipment.html

The National Security Archive has got the goods on Negroponte (thanks to Eric over at “Correspondent X” for the links)

http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB151/index.htm

http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB151/index2.htm

Gonzales: Plame investigation “moving forward” (uh-huh)

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=615&ncid=703&e=8&u=/nm/20050415/pl_nm/security_plame_dc

http://www.cnn.com/2005/POLITICS/04/15/cia.probe/index.html

The Armstrong Williams cover-up

http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room/index.html?blog=/politics/war_room/2005/04/15/payola/index.html

And we didn't know about this in the White House
--Bush, press conference, January 26, 2005

"During a meeting between the White House and Department officials on July 13, 2004, pertaining to communications strategy, the Special Assistant to the President for Domestic Policy briefly questioned the Deputy Director of OPA about the status of the Williams’ work request..."
--Page 8 Footnote, Inspector General's Report, Department of Education, today

It's there, buried in a footnote at the bottom of Page 8 in the just-released Department of Education Inspector General's report on the Armstrong Williams propaganda fiasco. . . Bush has said that "we didn't know about (the Williams contract) in the White House." Margaret Spellings, Bush's current Education Secretary and former Assistant to the President for Domestic Policy, and then-Special Assistant to the President and Spellings' Chief of Staff now David Dunn both say they didn't know about the contract either. But now we know why the release of the report was held until the Friday afternoon news dump. . . Dunn did know, and probably Spellings too, given their organizational proximity. And given how close Spellings is to Bush, it is likely that Bush did too. . .

And to cap it off, Bush told the gullible White House press corps in January that not only he, but no one in the White House knew about the Williams' contract, when in fact the report approved and issued by his then-Assistant for Domestic Policy for four years and his associate for a decade before that confirms that Dunn and perhaps Spellings did in fact know about it and Dunn asked DOE staff about the status of the payola contract. Does anyone have a transcript of Spellings' confirmation testimony on January 6, 2005 to see if she testified under oath about this matter, because today's report brings responsibility for the payola-for-propaganda scam inside the White House.

More: http://www.ericumansky.com/2005/04/white_house_did.html

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-armstrong16_apr16,1,5759500.story

Hagel wavering: Bolton nomination in big trouble

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-bolton16apr16,0,3939442.story
Republican Sen. Chuck Hagel of Nebraska signaled Friday that his support for the nomination of John R. Bolton as U.N. ambassador was wavering after new reports that Bolton ordered an intelligence analyst removed from his job.

More: http://www.thewashingtonnote.com/archives/000469.html

Chafee?

http://www.thewashingtonnote.com/archives/000470.html
When most observers of the John Bolton jousting match were focusing on whether Lincoln Chafee was going to support or oppose Bolton, many of his advocates and opponents did not realize that the testimony that unfolded in the Senate Foreign Relations Committee as well as other disconcerting reports in the media had seriously shaken other members, particularly Republican members, of the Committee.

The push-back begins

http://www.cnn.com/2005/POLITICS/04/15/bolton.un/index.html

More evidence surfaces about Bolton’s pattern of abuse

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/04/16/politics/16bolton.html
An attempt in 2002 by John R. Bolton to remove the national intelligence officer for Latin America from his post prompted John E. McLaughlin, the deputy director of central intelligence, to intervene against the request, according to current and former intelligence officials.

http://www.prospect.org/weblog/archives/2005/04/index.html#006150
“Within hours of sending a letter to US AID officials outlining my concerns, I met John Bolton, whom the prime contractor hired as legal counsel to represent them to US AID. And, so, within hours of dispatching that letter, my hell began. . . Mr. Bolton proceeded to chase me through the halls of a Russian hotel -- throwing things at me, shoving threatening letters under my door and, generally, behaving like a madman. For nearly two weeks, while I awaited fresh direction from my company and from US AID, John Bolton hounded me in such an appalling way that I eventually retreated to my hotel room and stayed there. Mr. Bolton, of course, then routinely visited me there to pound on the door and shout threats. . . John Bolton put me through hell -- and he did everything he could to intimidate, malign and threaten not just me, but anybody unwilling to go along with his version of events. His behavior back in 1994 wasn't just unforgivable, it was pathological."

More: http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-bolton17apr17,1,6526317.story

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2005_04/006111.php
Steve Clemons points to an illuminating article in The Economist that explores how John Bolton has worked to undermine US foreign policy over the past few years. . .

Bonus item: separated at birth?

http://www.needlenose.com/node/view/1294

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LIARS, CHEATS, and THIEVES

DeLay denies separation of church and state, right to privacy

http://www.mydd.com/story/2005/4/14/121555/279
Mr. DeLay: Not zealous. I blame Congress over the last 50 to 100 years for not standing up and taking its responsibility given to it by the Constitution. The reason the judiciary has been able to impose a separation of church and state that's nowhere in the Constitution is that Congress didn't stop them. The reason we had judicial review is because Congress didn't stop them. The reason we had a right to privacy is because Congress didn't stop them.

Mr. Dinan: How can Congress stop them?

Mr. DeLay: There's all kinds of ways available to them.

Mr. Dinan: You tried two last year on the Defense of Marriage Act and the Pledge of Allegiance, and the Senate didn't go along with those.

Mr. DeLay: We're having to change a whole culture in this - a culture created by law schools. People really believe that these are nine gods, and that all wisdom is vested in them. This means it's a slow, long-term process. I mean, we passed six bills out of the House limiting jurisdiction. We passed an amendment last September breaking up the Ninth Circuit. These are all things that have passed the House of Representatives.

Mr. Dinan: Are you going to pursue impeaching judges?

Mr. DeLay: I'm not going to answer that. I have asked the Judiciary Committee to look at this. They're going to start holding hearings on different issues. They are more capable than me to look at this issue and take responsibility, given the, whatever, the Constitution.

DeLay’s world

http://www.needlenose.com/node/view/1288
Tom DeLay in the Washington Times:
House Majority Leader Tom DeLay accused Democrats of shutting down the chamber's ethics committee to prevent him from being exonerated of the ethics accusations against him. . . "The only way I can be cleared is through the ethics committee, so they don't want one," Mr. DeLay said. . .

LA Times:
The House ethics committee chairman who presided over three rebukes of House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-Texas) was bounced from the job Wednesday and replaced by a Republican congressman from Washington state. . . The new chairman is Rep. Doc Hastings, the committee's second-ranking Republican. He was named by House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.) to take the gavel from Rep. Joel Hefley (R-Colo.). . . In addition, Hastert appointed three new members to the panel, including two — Reps. Lamar S. Smith (R-Texas) and Tom Cole (R-Okla.) — whose political action committees have contributed to DeLay's legal defense fund. Smith's PAC contributed $5,000 in 2001 and an additional $5,000 between July and September 2004; Cole's gave $5,000 between July and September 2004.

Back at the Washington Times:
Asked if he had ever crossed the line of ethical behavior, Mr. DeLay said: "'Ever' is a very strong word. . .”

http://dailykos.com/storyonly/2005/4/14/13111/1844
Umm, Tom? The right answer was "no". . .

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2005_04_10.php#005439
It's such a tough spot for the bug man, having all these unanswered questions swirling at a time when there's no functioning ethics committee. How could he have known that purging the ethics committee of its three non-DeLay loyalists and forcing through a re-write of the committee's rules to prevent it from issuing any more 'admonishments' of his behavior would lead to such an unhappy impasse?

House GOP kills ethics rule

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=536&ncid=536&e=3&u=/ap/20050414/ap_on_go_co/delay_ethics

Bush defends DeLay

http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/nm/20050414/pl_nm/bush_delay_dc

GOP talking points to back their leader

http://www.prospect.org/weblog/archives/2005/04/index.html#006134
The next time Democrats or reporters (or both) question Majority Leader Tom DeLay over ethics-related issues, his allies will be ready to defend him. . .

“House of Scandal” http://houseofscandal.org/

Frist to start the filibuster wars by wrapping himself in religion

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2005_04_10.php#005445

http://dailykos.com/storyonly/2005/4/15/31439/3380

http://talkleft.com/new_archives/010373.html

Toss ‘em all out

http://www.first-draft.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=2817
Q Thank you, Mr. President. We're all aware of the press issues with Armstrong Williams and the video news releases and using government funds to promote true media in journalism. . . do you think that's deceptive to the American people?

THE PRESIDENT: Yes, it's deceptive to the American people if it's not disclosed. . . Armstrong Williams -- it was wrong what happened there in the Education Department. But, no, I think there needs to be full disclosure about the sourcing of the video news clip in order to make sure that people don't think their taxpayer's money is being used to -- in wrong fashion.

http://atrios.blogspot.com/2005_04_10_atrios_archive.html#111350340324780718
The Bush administration is impeding an investigation into the Education Department's hiring of commentator Armstrong Williams by refusing to allow key White House officials to be interviewed, a Democratic lawmaker briefed on the review said Thursday. . . In addition, Rep. George Miller, D-Calif., said Education Secretary Margaret Spellings is considering invoking a privilege that he said would require information to be deleted when the final version is publicly released, which is expected within days.

More: http://www.mydd.com/story/2005/4/14/164031/336
[Chris Bowers] I have little doubt that the rabbit hole is deep and dark. Already, it has been revealed that at least seven columnists were on the Bush administration payroll at one point, and that nearly every single government agency has produced fake news reports under Bush's watch. Throw in the "town halls," Gannon / Guckert, and who knows what else, and it is no wonder the administration wants to impede further investigation into what appears to be an extremely widespread propaganda machine.

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-armstrong15apr15,1,3934832.story

http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room/archive.html?blog=/politics/war_room/2005/04/14/vnr/index.html
The Federal Communications Committee became the latest federal watchdog agency to clamp down on the use of government-produced "video news releases," those look-alike TV news segments the Bush administration has used to hype its policies. Late yesterday, the FCC instructed broadcasters that whenever they air a VNR they must identify the origins of the report in order to avoid any confusion. The ruling comes on the heels of an assessment by the Government Accountability Office, which concluded that VNR's lacking clear disclosure about their production by the government constitute propaganda, and therefore are an illegal use of taxpayer dollars. . . (The Justice Department later stepped in and overruled the GAO's findings.)

Go ahead, dig yourself deeper

http://www.prospect.org/weblog/archives/2005/04/index.html#006125
After yet another little period in which Social Security privatization was looking good and dead, the privateers seem to be preparing for a new assault. Josh Marshall notes new thinking that the House Republicans should press ahead with privatization, abandoning the old "Senate first" strategy. . . Meanwhile, Rick Santorum assures National Review readers that "The GOP won’t drop individual accounts for Social Security.". . . I'm dubious that the votes exist to pass this through the House, and quite certain there's no majority for it in the Senate. The interesting question, at this point, is when the center-right "pain caucus" that dominates conventional wisdom inside the Beltway will wake up to what's going on here. This crowd has long supported privatization on ill-defined fiscal probity grounds. The drive is now being led by people who care nothing for such probity and will, in fact, make the budgetary situation far, far, far worse.

More: http://atrios.blogspot.com/2005_04_10_atrios_archive.html#111351764466904872

Why won’t Bush put forward a specific plan to address the “crisis” he sees with the Social Security fund? Watch Scotty squirm

http://www.first-draft.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=2816
Representative Jim Kolbe, who was in that meeting, said that he told the President that the time has come to start putting forth some ideas about how to deal with the insolvency problem, and that the President should offer his remedy. Is it time for the President to do that?. . .

“I got a lot more time”

http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20050414/ap_on_go_pr_wh/bush_9
"I got a lot more time to tell people that there is a problem," Bush said in a speech to newspaper editors.

More on Bolton’s misuse of National Security Agency intercepts

http://www.thewashingtonnote.com/archives/000463.html

Bolton and North Korea

http://www.thewashingtonnote.com/archives/000464.html

Bolton and Kosovo

http://www.warandpiece.com/blogdirs/001896.html

Bolton: the “anti-Schindler”

http://www.warandpiece.com/blogdirs/001894.html

John Bolton’s role in the 2000 Florida recount

http://www.madison.com/tct/opinion/column/nichols/index.php?ntid=36007

ANOTHER case of abusing a subordinate (does this sound like a “pattern” yet, Mr. Chafee?)

http://www.warandpiece.com/blogdirs/001902.html

Lincoln Chafee

http://www.thewashingtonnote.com/archives/000462.html
"From the evidence we've heard, he's a difficult man to work for," Chafee said Wednesday. Bolton was characterized at Senate hearings this week as treating State Department subordinates harshly. . . The soft-spoken Chafee said Bolton is "absolutely not" the best choice for the job.

Filibuster?

http://www.warandpiece.com/blogdirs/001899.html

Looks like “Jeff Gannon,” who lied about many things (including his name) also lied about his military record

http://dailykos.com/storyonly/2005/4/14/8341/89426

Pro-war pundits like this should be shipped immediately to the front lines

http://dailykos.com/storyonly/2005/4/14/124654/671
The backstory: in late-March, Minnesota native Cpl. Travis Bruce was killed in Iraq "by a rocket-propelled grenade while standing watch on the roof of a Baghdad police station." The Minneapolis Star Tribune reported that Bruce had called his girlfriend the night before his death "and said that he was stationed on the rooftop and increasing the height of the sandbag barricade. `He said they didn't have enough sandbags up there,' she said softly."

Based on this account, Sen. Dayton sent a letter to President Bush calling it "immoral for our command not to provide our soldiers with absolutely everything they need to give them maximum protection: body armor, armored vehicles, sandbags." [Powerline’s] Hinderaker had heard enough.

"First it was body armor, then armored vehicles," Hinderaker complained. "Now it's `immoral' that our soldiers don't have enough sandbags. Am I missing something, or is this ludicrous on its face? I can understand a soldier in Iraq being short of armor. But sand?" He continues: "It is up to soldiers in the field to protect themselves. If they want more sandbags, they should get more sandbags, as Cpl. Bruce apparently did."

Discard after use

http://www.first-draft.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=2805
Amid the chaos of war, Sgt. Roberto Orozco and about 35 other members of the Florida National Guard sent to Iraq relied on what they knew for certain: their military training, the love of their families and their government jobs back home.

Then one day in the combat zone, the men got a letter. When they returned home, the letter read, their jobs as full-time members of the Guard assigned to a federal drug interdiction program would be gone.

"We got shafted," said Orozco, 43, a Miami father of three. "We come home from war, and this is what we get.". . .

Indeed, had the soldiers worked for a civilian firm, and not for the federal government, they might have been covered by the Uniformed Services Employment and Reemployment Rights Act, which protects reservists from discrimination and job loss when called to active duty.

So what DID those military families say to Bush (in the story clipped yesterday)?

http://www.first-draft.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=2810
"I just told him it was very wrong," one of the widows, Linnie Blankenbecler, 47, told me yesterday. "I was not intimidated by the president. My hardest reality was the death of my husband.". . . "I love the U. S. and I am proud of the way my husband died, but I think the way they are treating the families now is a disgrace to my husband and what he believed," she said.

There are two primary ways in which survivors of military personnel killed in action receive benefits: The Survivor Benefit Plan (SBP), which is based on time and service, and Dependency and Indemnity Compensation (DIC), which provides a flat monthly payment for two years after a service-connected death.

Blankenbecler is most upset about two things. . . One is the rule that widows call the SBP-DIC offset, which actually takes away a dollar from one benefit for every dollar they get in the other. . . "It's disgusting," Blankenbecler said.

The second is a provision in a bill Bush signed in December 2003 that added an extra $250 per dependent child to the DIC payment. But widows whose husbands died before the effective date -- Jan. 1, 2005 -- saw little or nothing of that benefit.

Blankenbecler said that's grossly unfair. . . "I told him I was very disappointed that he would sign something like that," she said. "I know that he doesn't understand everything that he signs, completely. So he asked one of his aides if he knew which bill I was talking about, and he told the guy to check into that."

"And he said he was sorry that I was disappointed, and that there's so many bills out there. I just got the impression that he didn't know which one I was talking about, and he probably didn't realize what he had done.". . .

"The first thing he did was he told me he was sorry for the loss of my husband. For a year and a half, I had been wanting him to tell me that he was sorry -- not that I was holding him responsible in any way, but I was wanting to hear those words from him."

. . . I have to wonder what Bush would say -- or has said -- faced with a widow who didn't support the war. . . It might have happened on Tuesday if widow Shelann Clapp had been invited to meet with him. But she wasn't.

Clapp's exclusion apparently had everything to do with the fact that her husband died in a stateside accident -- and nothing to do with her opposition to the war, which until speaking with me yesterday she hadn't talked about in public.

But she's angry. . . "I'm not a good military wife anymore, I'm an angry military wife. I'm an angry military widow," she said.

Her husband of 28 years, Chief Warrant Officer 5 Douglas V. Clapp, died in November in a helicopter crash not far from Fort Hood. The Black Hawk in which he was a passenger was headed to check out equipment being readied for use in Iraq when it hit support wires from a TV transmission tower. He'd served in the military for more than 30 years and had recently returned from a deployment in Iraq.

What Shelann Clapp is angriest about is that she didn't even hear that Bush was meeting with survivor families until the next day. . . "Maybe my husband didn't really count," she said.

More: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A53070-2005Apr14.html

How Texas oil men helped Hussein

http://news.orb6.com/stories/latimests/20041018/usbuyersofhusseinsoilactedtoassistiraq.php
[Oscar] Wyatt came to be a central figure in a small, loosely knit group of Americans who supported policies and activities potentially beneficial to Hussein even as they benefited from the dictator's oil resources, U.S. officials, oil analysts and personal acquaintances said.

Their story provides a revealing glimpse at the politics of oil and the people behind it, operating in a world that mixed diplomacy, intrigue and multimillion-dollar oil deals.

The men, involved in Iraq through professional and personal relationships that in some cases stretched back decades, at times engaged in a secretive campaign of private diplomacy, offering themselves as a communications back channel between Hussein and at least two U.S. administrations, the sources said.

More patriotic Texas oil men

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/04/14/international/middleeast/14cnd-food.html
Dramatically broadening the scandal surrounding the United Nations Oil-for-Food program, federal authorities in New York today charged David B. Chalmers, a Houston oil trader, and his company, Bayoil, with making millions of dollars in illegal kickback payments to Iraq while trading oil under the program.

More: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A54645-2005Apr14.html

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/04/15/international/middleeast/15food.html

Now all we need is to find a link from these guys to DeLay. . .

http://www.prospect.org/weblog/archives/2005/04/index.html#006124

. . . or Bush

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2005_04/006102.php
[Andrew Tobias]
President Bush is an oil man. His pappy is an oil man. His VP is an oil man. His pals and his family’s pals are oil men. His virtual brother, Prince Bandar “Bush,” and the Saudi Royal Family generally, to whom the Bushes are closely tied, are oil men. . . So when you say “energy crisis,” what exactly do you mean? This is a great time to be an oil man! All those guests at the early Cheney energy meetings — the ones whose names the White House would not reveal even after a subpoena from the General Accounting Office? Most of them are likely reveling in this so-called “crisis.”. . . The solution to the “crisis,” according to this administration, is to drill for oil in the Alaska National Wildlife Refuge, not to promote conservation. Drilling for oil is what oil men DO.

Lottsa luck: Trent wants a role back in Senate leadership again

http://dailykos.com/storyonly/2005/4/14/12312/7380

http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room/index.html?blog=/politics/war_room/2005/04/14/lott/index.html

Bonus item: the worst excuse for a journalist in Washington (thanks to Atrios for the FAKE story)

http://www.etc3dot.com/Bumiller.htm
Today President George W. Bush followed his dinner with two scoops of Mama Lucy’s Chocolate Ice Cream. This is not a new thing. Since his inauguration, the President has really enjoyed ice cream a lot!

***If you enjoy PBD and support what we are doing, you can help by forwarding a copy of this issue to your friends (using the envelope link below) or by sending them a copy of its URL (http://pbd.blogspot.com).

I don't get anything personally out of this project, except the satisfaction of doing it (I don't run ads, etc). The credit really all goes to the people whose material I copy and redistribute. But if I do have a "mission," it is to get this information into the hands of as many people as I can.***
- posted by Nick Burbules @ 6:27 AM

 
CHARACTER ASSASSINATION

Bolton vote delayed until next week. (This is good news: more is sure to come out about Bolton’s lies and abuse of those who work for him)

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-bolton14apr14,1,5150055.story

http://www.thewashingtonnote.com/archives/000461.html
[Y]esterday's hearings and Carl Ford's testimony have wounded Bolton's cause -- and now there is a search for more damage done by Bolton in his last position. There are interviews planned with the many people Bolton intimidated, as well as a roster of people whom Bolton had fired -- or pushed out. . . There is also a roster of substantive policy questions that Senators want to pose to Bolton in written form that deal with the question of whether Bolton was consistent with Bush administration policy in many of his public statements, or working against it. Some senators want these questions answered by Bolton before voting on his nomination. . . Time is actually on the side of those doing the investigating -- not those trying to cover up Bolton's record.

Bill Kristol accuses Bolton foes of “character assassination.” And here I thought it was “character recognition”

http://www.thewashingtonnote.com/archives/000460.html
[NYT] The longer John Bolton's Senate hearing for the post of United Nations representative went on, the more outrageous it seemed that President Bush could have nominated a man who had made withering disdain for that world body the signature of his career in international affairs. Some fear that the aim is to scuttle the United Nations. It's more likely, but just as disturbing, that this is another example of Mr. Bush's rewarding loyalty rather than holding officials accountable for mistakes, especially those who helped build the case for war with Iraq. . . Whatever the explanation, the hearing held by the Senate Foreign Relations Committee only added reasons for denying the job to Mr. Bolton. It turned up a third incident (we already knew of two) in which Mr. Bolton tried to have an intelligence analyst punished for stopping him from making false claims about a weapons program in another nation, notably Cuba.

Here’s an example of “character assassination,” I guess

http://www.ericumansky.com/2005/04/lost_in_the_cro.html
When Sen. Paul Sarbanes, D-Md., asked about the treaty, Bolton replied: "The administration has submitted the Law of the Sea Treaty as one of its priorities, and I support that." What was his personal opinion? "Well, I haven't personally read the Law of the Sea Treaty," Bolton said. "I don't think I've ever read it, to be honest with you."

Sarbanes pressed: "Well, now, in an article in a book entitled 'Understanding Unilateralism in American Foreign Relations,' published by the Royal Institute of International Affairs in London, you called the Law of the Sea Treaty 'not only undesirable as a policy, but also illegitimate methods of forcing fundamental policy changes on the United States outside the customary political process.' "

Bolton weaseled: "I don't have the article in front of me, Senator." He explained that President Ronald Reagan was concerned about one provision in the '80s, but Clinton officials "adequately fixed" it in the '90s.

SARBANES: But you wrote this article in 2000.

BOLTON: Right.

What game is Lincoln Chafee playing?

http://www.thewashingtonnote.com/archives/000459.html
"It was strong testimony from Mr. Ford. He used strong language," Chafee said. But "it's all focused on this one incident. We're not really seeing a pattern."

[NB: Of course, if there’s anything we ARE seeing from Bolton, it is exactly that, a pattern: of arrogance, abuse, bullying, and willingness to lie to advance policy aims]

Breaking news this morning: another Bolton scandal

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/04/14/politics/14bolton.html
John R. Bolton, nominated to be the next ambassador to the United Nations, used his position as a senior State Department official to obtain details about intercepted communications involving other American officials that were monitored by the National Security Agency, according to Mr. Bolton's own account.

The identities of American officials whose communications are intercepted are usually closely protected by law, and not included even in classified intelligence reports. Access to the names may be authorized by the N.S.A. only in response to special requests, and these are not common, particularly from policy makers.

Testifying Monday to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Mr. Bolton acknowledged that he had made such requests "on a couple of occasions, maybe a few more."

Newt Gingrich, for his own reasons, gives the kiss of death to Tom DeLay

http://mediamatters.org/items/200504130004
Gingrich said that "DeLay's problem isn't with the Democrats. DeLay's problem is with the country," adding that the Texas Republican needs to "get everything out in the open" and that the burden "is on him to prove [his case]."

BORGER: He's said that this is the liberal media going after him.

GINGRICH: Sure.

BORGER: You agree with that?

GINGRICH: Well, that's the famous Hillary Clinton defense; this is the vast left-wing cor -- you know, conspiracy as opposed to her description of a vast right-wing conspiracy.

BORGER: So he's using --

GINGRICH: I'm saying when you're being attacked, the first thing you naturally do is you describe your attackers. In this case, that won't work.

More: http://cbs2chicago.com/politics/politicsnational_story_103122313.html

DeLay apologizes for inflammatory judge comments (well, no, not really)

http://talkleft.com/new_archives/010359.html
"I said something in an inartful way, and I shouldn't have said it that way, and I apologize for saying it that way," he said. "It was taken wrong. I didn't explain it or clarify my remarks, as I'm clarifying them here. I am sorry that I said it that way, and I shouldn't have."

More: http://www.nytimes.com/2005/04/14/politics/14delay.html

Could DeLay really survive this?

http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room/archive.html?blog=/politics/war_room/2005/04/13/delay/index.html
"Be patient," DeLay said he told the senators. "We'll be fine.". . .

That's the same Tom DeLay who was admonished three times last year by the House ethics committee, the same Tom DeLay whose wife and daughter were apparently paid $500,000 by political organizations he controlled, the same Tom DeLay who, the Wall Street Journal said, "rode to power in 1994 on a wave of revulsion at the everyday ways of big government" but "has become the living exemplar of some of its worst habits.''

. . . "Everyone seems to be looking for a smoking gun, and nobody has been shot," South Carolina Sen. Jim DeMint told the Houston Chronicle.

[NB: Of course, it’s hard to see on this basis what Mr. DeMint WOULD count as evidence]

More: http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2005_04_10.php#005434

Nancy Pelosi drops the hammer (read the whole thing, it will do your heart good)

http://atrios.blogspot.com/2005_04_10_atrios_archive.html#111342125473061955
[Pelosi] The Republican majority promised after the 1994 elections to manage the House in a way that fostered "deliberative democracy," which they defined as the "full and free airing of conflicting opinions through hearings, debates, and amendments." They also pledged in their Contract with America to "restore accountability to Congress" and to "end its cycle of scandal and disgrace." Instead of sticking to their word, they have broken their promises, betrayed the public trust, and abused their power. Specifically, they have undermined the ethics of the House, abandoned any principle of procedural fairness or democratic accountability, and overreached into private family matters and the federal judiciary.

Republicans have created a democracy-free zone. . . Under the current House leadership, floor debate is muzzled, votes are cast with fear of retribution and legitimate amendments never see the light of day. They ram thousands of pages of major legislation through with only a few hours for review. . .

Republicans effectively shut down the ethics process. Republicans made their first order of business for the 109th Congress to attack the Ethics Committee, rewriting many of its bipartisan rules in favor of rules that will make ethics investigations more difficult to pursue. The new rules seriously weaken enforcement by automatically dismissing any ethics complaint after 45 days unless a majority of the bipartisan committee votes to begin an investigation. The GOP rules change allows one party to block the Ethics Committee from investigating the facts of the complaint. The former Republican chairman of the Ethics Committee said: "The rules package adopted by the House in January stands to undermine the committee's mission, not to mention the integrity of the House." (Congress Daily AM, 3/16/05) That the GOP's first priority for the 109th Congress has been to lower the bar of integrity should be a warning to the American people.

Not only did Republicans undermine the ethics process, but they stacked the Ethics Committee. At the beginning of the year, the Republican Leadership dismissed Republican Members of the Ethics Committee, even the Chairman, who had refused to compromise the ethics rules for the party leadership. And then, the newly appointed Chairman unilaterally fired non-partisan Committee staff who assisted in the ethics work in the last session. In a statement to the press, the departing Chairman of the Committee stated "(t)here is a bad perception out there that there was a purge in the Committee and that people were put in that would protect our side of the aisle better than I did," and a replaced Republican Member noted his belief that "the decision (regarding his dismissal) was a direct result of our work in the last session."

Republicans are protecting Majority Leader Tom DeLay, who has been admonished three times by the Ethics Committee. Last fall, the House Majority Leader was admonished three times by the Ethics Committee for: offering political support in return for a vote on the prescription drug bill; misusing federal resources for partisan political purposes; and offering special access for campaign contributor, Westar Energy. These admonishments were unanimous and bipartisan. The Ethics Committee also warned DeLay that it had identified a clear pattern of misbehavior by him and would be on the lookout for additional instances when he pushed the bounds of acceptable conduct in pursuing his legislative and political goals.

Media stories are raising new questions about the conduct of Majority Leader Tom DeLay. In recent weeks, newspaper articles have detailed trips DeLay took to Russia and Scotland that he had reported were funded by nonprofit organizations, but which were directly or indirectly paid for by lobbyists or foreign agents. House rules prohibit members from taking trips funded by such entities. In both cases, lobbyist Jack Abramoff, who is under investigation by the U.S. Department of Justice and the Senate Indian Affairs Committee, was involved in these trips. Tom DeLay's extensive ties with special interest lobbyists are raising serious questions about his conduct.

Even the Wall Street Journal has raised questions. In fact, even conservatives have begun to raise questions about the Majority Leader. As the Wall Street Journal editorial page commented, "The problem...is that Mr. DeLay, who rode to power in 1994 on a wave of revulsion at the everyday ways of big government, has become the living exemplar of some of its worst habits. Mr. DeLay's ties to Mr. Abramoff might be innocent, in a strictly legal sense, but it strains credulity to believe that Mr. DeLay found nothing strange with being included in Mr. Abramoff's lavish junkets." They went on to say, "Whether Mr. DeLay violated the small print of House Ethics or campaign- finance rules is thus largely beside the point. His real fault lies in betraying the broader set of principles that brought him into office, and which, if he continues as before, sooner or later will sweep him out." (Wall Street Journal, 3/28/05). . .

This is rich: old Tom DeLay quotes

http://dailykos.com/storyonly/2005/4/13/125928/966
From 1989:
H.R. 3660, the Government Ethics Reform Act, will strengthen and clarify existing House rules. Issues such as the ban on congressional honoraria, limits on gifts and travel, increased financial disclosure, restrictions on outside income, and conflict of interest rules will all be tightened to reflect the growing and changing role of Government service. . . I am especially pleased to support this comprehensive overhaul of House ethics rules and conflict of interest laws because it is an important first step in enhancing the ethical standards throughout Government and adjusting compensation for individuals whose skills are essential to the quality of service Government provides to the American people. It is my hope that honor will be restored to elected offices so that we can continue to work for the values that we have fought for in the past with quality representation in the future.

From 1992:
Now, the House needs new management, and that is Republican management. In my opinion, it will not do any good to get rid of the present Speaker or the present leadership, because what will happen is more will come in and it is the arrogance of power that we are talking about here. What is going on here is arrogance of power. We need a change in management. . .

And 1994:
Mr. Speaker, I just am saddened by these kinds of issues. I believe very deeply in this institution, and I would hope that others do, too, and understand that, No. 1, the Justice Department is another branch of our Government, that we are empowered and mandated to clean our own house. Yet some in this body do not seem to understand that and would rather see mud thrown at this institution than to get to the bottom of problems in this institution.

WH waffling in its support

http://www.first-draft.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=2800
Q Scott, you said a couple days ago that, as the President said, he considers Tom Delay a friend. I actually went back -- I never saw the President say that anywhere. He said he had confidence in Tom DeLay. And I also noticed that Tom DeLay said when the President was running for President in 2000 -- or 1999 -- that Bush was not a social friend of his. So does Bush consider --

MR. McCLELLAN: There are a number of congressional leaders that he works closely with on the Hill and he considers a friend, sure.

Q And he considers Tom DeLay a friend?

MR. McCLELLAN: Sure. I mean, I think there are different levels of friendship with anybody, so -- (laughter.)

Negroponte: he’ll get his

http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2005/04/13/negroponte/
The man chosen by President Bush to be the new U.S. director of national intelligence Tuesday denied that he had covered up human rights abuses when he was Washington's ambassador to Honduras. John Negroponte came under fierce questioning from the Senate intelligence committee as his nomination for the role was considered.

The questioning coincided with the publication of diplomatic cables sent by Negroponte in the 1980s which indicate that he secretly sought to undermine the peace process in Central America and entertained the head of a group trying to violently overthrow the Sandinista government in Nicaragua. The documents show that he sought to cover up clandestine U.S. involvement in the war in Nicaragua.

Nearly 400 cables and memos sent or received by Negroponte, who was the U.S. ambassador to Iraq and the U.N. before being nominated for his new intelligence position, indicate that he tried to undermine peace efforts, promoted the war against the Sandinistas -- which he referred to as "our special project" -- and gave tips to the State Department on how to cover up the U.S. role.

There is no indication of any concern for the Honduran regime's human rights abuses, or the disappearances of left-wingers at the time, despite much contemporary evidence of atrocities committed by the Honduran military.

CIA contractor aims to prove govt authorization for torture

http://www.first-draft.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=2799

Bush rewrites history (again)

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A49955-2005Apr13.html
President Bush ratcheted up the rhetoric of his revisionist justification for war yesterday at the Fort Hood army base in Texas, calling the taking of Baghdad "one of the great moments in the history of liberty."

"The toppling of Saddam Hussein's statue in Baghdad will be recorded, alongside the fall of the Berlin Wall," he said. . . Then he used a servicemember's words to assert a connection between the war in Iraq and the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. "The men and women of the Phantom Corps know why we are in Iraq," Bush said. "As one First Team soldier, Lieutenant Mike Erwin, put it: 'If we can start to change the most powerful country in the Middle East, the others will follow, and Americans 20 years down the road won't have to deal with a day like September the 11th, 2001.' "

"Hoo-ah!" went the troops.

[NB: And the WMD justifications, the false biological weapons and “smoking mushroom cloud” threats, fade into distant memory. . . ]

Bush meets with families of military casualties, and gets an earful. What did they say to him? Don’t bother asking the press office

http://www.first-draft.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=2792
Little Scottie (who wasn't at the meetings) remembers "one mother said, you know, 'Finish the job -- that's my message to you.' Another wife was saying, 'We support you.'". . . Of course, some. . .”did have some concerns that they expressed".

Q What type of concerns?

MR. McCLELLAN: It varies. The ones that expressed -- some of them expressed some concerns, you know, it can be anything from the benefits to just the help they're getting from the military. I think I'll leave that to those private discussions. But the President always makes sure that we follow up to make sure those concerns are being addressed as best they can be.

Q Does anybody ever raise any concerns about the lack of armor, for example? Is that the kind of stuff that comes up in these talks?

MR. McCLELLAN: I didn't hear that in any of these conversations. Obviously, I didn't hear everything that was being expressed because I try to stand back a little bit and let the President visit individually with the families. . .

Justice Dept stiffs Senate request for information on Patriot Act: Arlen Specter “frustrated”

http://www.first-draft.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=2794

Amazing: House GOP may still try to pass a Social Security privatization bill

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2005_04_10.php#005435
But now it seems a few of the ultras in the House have convinced themselves that it's actually good politics to vote on it, send it over to the senate, and if it dies there blame the Democrats.

More ridiculous and irresponsible fiscal policies from the GOP

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2005_04_10.php#005431

Hire this woman (Athenae)

http://www.first-draft.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=2797
I want to know what the attack ads in 2006 say and I want to know right now.

Republicans: Too Extreme for America, with footage of the jugglers and snakehandlers outside Terri Schiavo's hospice, with footage of anti-abortion protesters screaming and holding up fetuses in jars.

Republicans: Destroying Social Security. Footage of grandma, stirring a can of Hormel on the one stove burner she can get to work, as Santorum's flying monkey chant "hey, hey, ho, ho, social security has got to go!" and a picture of his rictus grin appears.

Republicans: Can't Be Trusted. DeLay's greatest hits. The ballooning deficit. A house getting bulldozed. Republicans waste your money. A pile of money goes up in flames.

. . . Republicans, they can't protect you. Osama's lieutenants are still casing buildings. My husband works in a skyscraper. Bring a video camera over to my house, I'll give you some footage. Republicans can't keep me safe. Not me, not my family, not my friends. Osama's still out there, and Bush doesn't care. . .

Let's run them in all 50 states in every single district where there's a contested race. Let's raise money for that and let's start right now. . .

Let's introduce the Abortion Reduction Act in Congress. . . Let's ask why abortion rates went up under Bush and let's talk about if you want to get rid of abortion, if that's your kink, then these are the people you vote for. . . Let's then put the faces of every Republican who expresses opposition to this on billboards and on fliers that say "Why do Republicans want more abortions?" and post them in every Catholic church and mail them to every priest. I'll help. I swear I'll stick stamps on anything you ask. . .

Let's put Oliver Willis' Brand Democrat on billboards in Nebraska and Mississippi. I've got $20. It's my last $20, but I'm ready to give it for something like that. I'm ready to hit as hard as they are.

Forty percent of Americans online read political blogs

http://politicalwire.com/archives/2005/04/13/forty_percent_read_political_blogs.html

Bonus item: Rush Limbaugh, get your head out of the gutter

http://atrios.blogspot.com/2005_04_10_atrios_archive.html#111341187213523633

***If you enjoy PBD and support what we are doing, you can help by forwarding a copy of this issue to your friends (using the envelope link below) or by sending them a copy of its URL (http://pbd.blogspot.com).

I don't get anything personally out of this project, except the satisfaction of doing it (I don't run ads, etc). The credit really all goes to the people whose material I copy and redistribute. But if I do have a "mission," it is to get this information into the hands of as many people as I can.***
- posted by Nick Burbules @ 5:30 AM

 
WHAT DOES IT TAKE TO GET FIRED IN THIS TOWN?

Bolton: “serial abuser”

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-bolton13apr13,0,2563180.story

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2005_04/006085.php
[T]oday's testimony against John Bolton from former INR chief Carl Ford was devastating.

http://www.thewashingtonnote.com/archives/000458.html
Watch out. The currents of this nomination may have just changed.

“Kiss-up, kick-down”

http://www.needlenose.com/node/view/1284

http://www.prospect.org/weblog/archives/2005/04/index.html

More on Bolton the bully: http://www.warandpiece.com/blogdirs/001882.html

And a liar

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/04/13/opinion/13wed1.html
Mr. Bolton wanted to give a speech saying that "the United States believes that Cuba has a developmental offensive biological warfare program and is providing assistance to other rogue state programs." That sounds scary, but it was not true. Cuba was not doing those things, and U.S. intelligence agencies did not think it was. But according to numerous accounts, Mr. Bolton became enraged when an analyst from the State Department's Bureau of Intelligence and Research pointed out the error and tried to have the analyst removed from his post.

Mr. Bolton's attempts to dodge accountability were almost comical. At one point, explaining a trip to the C.I.A. in which he tried to have an analyst for Latin America on the National Intelligence Council removed for a similar act, Mr. Bolton said he had gone there only to learn what the council does. The explanation was not remotely believable from someone with Mr. Bolton's background in national security.

http://www.thewashingtonnote.com/archives/000457.html
John Bolton not only tried to get intelligence agent Christian Westermann "removed" from Bolton's portfolio (read, "fired") at the State Department, he also seems to have recruited help outside the State Department bureaucracy -- from a U.S. Senator in fact -- in trying to get Ambassador Charles "Jack" Pritchard fired from his position as America's Lead Envoy in negotiating with North Korea.

http://www.warandpiece.com/blogdirs/001884.html
Six years ago, back on March 24, 1999, John Bolton told Bill O'Reilly he thought that the US had no business intervening to stop massive Serb ethnic cleansing and killing of Kosovo Albanians.

But it looks like he’ll be confirmed anyway

http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/wireStory?id=663831

http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2005/04/12/bolton/index_np.html

The next big confirmation fight: Negroponte

http://www.first-draft.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=2776

Another “mandate” – yeesh, don’t they learn?
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A47077-2005Apr12.html

Negroponte’s past
http://www.prospect.org/weblog/archives/2005/04/index.html#006098
Today’s Washington Post has a piece that won't shock those who have followed John Negroponte's rise in the Bush administration. There's still not much information about Negroponte's time as ambassador to Iraq or the UN, but Michael Dobbs has more on that niggling little period in the middle of his long foreign-service career: his time as ambassador to Honduras between 1981 and 1984, and as the acting liasion to the Reagan administration's war on Communism. Just in time for Negroponte's confirmation hearing as national intelligence director, Dobbs has unearthed (via a Freedom of Information Act request) some key cables and telegrams, long secret, that implicate Negroponte. . .

Rummy lectures new Iraq govt

http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room/archive.html?blog=/politics/war_room/2005/04/12/rummy/index.html

Allawi gradually being pushed off the stage he hoped to dominate

http://www.needlenose.com/node/view/1281

More on “extraordinary rendition” – a story the serious media refuses to dig into

http://talkleft.com/new_archives/010335.html

Videos show that hundreds of Republican convention protestors were arrested illegally; and that cops routinely lied in their testimony

http://www.j-bradford-delong.net/movable_type/2005-3_archives/000696.html

http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room/archive.html?blog=/politics/war_room/2005/04/12/protests/index.html

GOP fracturing internally over “nuclear option”

http://politicalwire.com/archives/2005/04/12/republicans_clash_over_filibuster.html
[WSJ] Republicans have a problem. Even with a 55-seat majority, they currently don't have the votes to change the rules

Bob Dole says don’t do it
http://dailykos.com/storyonly/2005/4/12/131441/973

Conservative groups say don’t do it
http://talkleft.com/new_archives/010350.html

What eliminating the Estate Tax will do (thanks to Josh Marshall for the link)

http://www.ndol.org/ndol_ci.cfm?kaid=131&subid=192&contentid=253278

DeLay tries to rally support among Senate GOP

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=536&ncid=536&e=1&u=/ap/20050412/ap_on_go_co/delay_ethics
House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, hoping to hold support among fellow Republicans, urged GOP senators Tuesday to blame Democrats if asked about his ethics controversy and accused the news media of twisting supportive comments so they sounded like criticism. . . Officials said DeLay recommended that senators respond to questions by saying Democrats have no agenda other than partisanship, and are attacking him to prevent Republicans from accomplishing their legislative program. One Republican said the Texan referred to a "mammoth operation" funded by Democratic supporters and designed to destroy him as a symbol of the Republican majority.

Snark: http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2005_04_10.php#005413

But loses another Republican senator anyway

http://dailykos.com/storyonly/2005/4/12/113214/619

More bad news for Tom

http://politicalwire.com/archives/2005/04/12/delays_woes_deepen.html

http://www.prospect.org/weblog/archives/2005/04/index.html#006101

And the White House is clearly hedging their bets on this one

http://www.first-draft.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=2780

Newt running in 2008?

http://www.thehill.com/thehill/export/TheHill/News/Frontpage/041205/newt.html

http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room/archive.html?blog=/politics/war_room/2005/04/12/gingrich/index.html

Jeb still trying to manipulate the Florida voting system

http://www.markarkleiman.com/archives/vote_fraud_/2005/04/there_they_go_again.php

How to regain electoral advantage

http://atrios.blogspot.com/2005_04_10_atrios_archive.html#111333345026055782
[Digby] In order to gain a political majority in this country we need 51%. We have 49%. . .

http://www.prospect.org/weblog/archives/2005/04/index.html#006102

Bonus item: a letter to the Washington Post ombudsman

http://dailykos.com/storyonly/2005/4/12/132047/892
Dear Mr. Getler:

As a reader of the Washington Post, I wish to communicate to you my concerns regarding the reporting of Mr. Howard Kurtz, the Washington Post media reporter. . .

***If you enjoy PBD and support what we are doing, you can help by forwarding a copy of this issue to your friends (using the envelope link below) or by sending them a copy of its URL (http://pbd.blogspot.com).

I don't get anything personally out of this project, except the satisfaction of doing it (I don't run ads, etc). The credit really all goes to the people whose material I copy and redistribute. But if I do have a "mission," it is to get this information into the hands of as many people as I can.***
- posted by Nick Burbules @ 5:32 AM

 
TELL ME ANOTHER ONE

John Bolton, in the proud tradition of Bush nominees, says whatever the hell he has to, to get through the confirmation process. Then, once he’s in the job, he’ll become another one-man wrecking crew – and just the man for it, too

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-041105bolton_lat,0,362518.story
In his opening statement, Bolton pledged "to fulfill the president's vision of working in close partnership with the United Nations," and cited the administration's desire to reform and restore confidence in the world body.

http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room/index.html?blog=/politics/war_room/2005/04/11/bolton2/index.html
We're used to the John Bolton who says things like "there is no United Nations," and "The mindless creation of the United Nations as something different than what is in the United States' interest to do isn't gonna sell here or anywhere else," and "The United States makes the U.N. work when it wants it to work, and that is exactly the way it should be because the only question -- the only question to the United States -- is what's in our national interest. And if you don't like that, I'm sorry, but that is the fact."

A different John Bolton turned up for his confirmation hearing today. The new and improved -- dare we say, "kinder and gentler"? -- John Bolton still had some critical words for the United Nations, but the bombastic oratory was replaced by what we're sure was heartfelt sympathy. Bolton said that, as George W. Bush's ambassador to the United Nations, he would help provide the leadership necessary to make the United Nations all that it can be. "Such leadership in turn must rest on broad bipartisan support in Congress that must be earned by putting to rest skepticism that too many feel about the U.N. system," Bolton said.

http://dailykos.com/storyonly/2005/4/11/123530/148
"Quite frankly I am surprised the nominee wants the job that he's been nominated for given the many negative things he had to say about the U.N., international institutions and international law," Biden added. . .

http://slate.msn.com/id/2116567/
John Bolton, George W. Bush's astonishingly brazen choice to be the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, came off badly at his confirmation hearings today—bloodless, evasive, and mendacious—in ways that should give senators cause to reject him, regardless of whether they agree with the president's policies or even with the substance of Bolton's views.

http://www.prospect.org/weblog/archives/2005/04/index.html#006078
John Bolton has not undertaken a run-of-the-mill confirmation conversion -- he's gone for the moon shot. He embraced in his opening statement the ideas of "reforming" and "strengthening" the United Nations. He declared his absolute desire to abide by the wishes of Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and George W. Bush.

He laid out four principles for the United Nations:
• Promoting and strengthening global democracy;
• Strengthening arms-control agreements;
• Enhancing cooperation against terrorism;
• Resolving humanitarian crisis.

Democrats and some Republicans will certainly question Bolton on his sincerity, since everything he's said today contradicts decades of on-the-record commentary.

For the best roundup of the issues that could still bring Bolton down, see Steve Clemons

http://www.thewashingtonnote.com/
Sadly, none of the Dems hammered Bolton on this and on his near obsessive personal reading of intelligence intercepts of [IAEA Director] ElBaradei's phone calls to see if there was some substantive reason to get other nations on the then-empty bandwagon to dump ElBaradei.

Secondly, and EVEN MORE IMPORTANTLY, Lincoln Chafee stumbled into a huge cache of landmines, in TWN's view. Chafee asked Bolton to go into the issue of his 31 July 2003 speech regarding North Korea and our policy in negotiating over North Korea's nuclear pretensions and program. Chafee brought up the name Ambassador Charles "Jack" Pritchard, now a Visiting Fellow in Foreign Policy Studies at the Brookings Institution.

Bolton essentially said that Pritchard resigned after Bolton's speech because Pritchard was not comfortable with the real, genuine Bush administration policy on North Korea -- as compared to what Pritchard was peddling on behalf of Armitage and Powell. This was incredible...simply incredible. Bolton went so far as to say that Pritchard was not in line with Bush administration policy.

The beaten-up-and-intimidated story of intelligence officer Christian Westermann is certainly important and has generated a lot of smoke.

Jack Pritchard's potential corroboration of Bolton's patterned behavior is the "fire." Bolton may have taken extraordinary steps to try and get others outside of the State Department hierarchy to push Pritchard out. I think someone needs to reach Pritchard -- and just get a chronology and commentary on what he knows about Bolton's behavior.

More: http://www.prospect.org/weblog/archives/2005/04/index.html#006095

http://www.warandpiece.com/blogdirs/001878.html

http://atrios.blogspot.com/2005_04_10_atrios_archive.html#111323612992899361
Isn't the mustache reason enough to vote against him?

The only vote that matters

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A43504-2005Apr11.html
Sen. Lincoln D. Chafee (R.I.), the panel's only Republican who was seen as a possible vote against Bolton, said he is inclined to support the nomination and send it to the full Senate, where the GOP holds a 55 to 45 edge. . . Although Chafee told reporters that he would have preferred another nominee, he said, "I don't think the Democrats have made as strong a case [against Bolton] as I might have expected."

Why have Bush’s pool numbers tanked?

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A43180-2005Apr11.html

What’s ahead on Social Security?

http://www.prospect.org/weblog/archives/2005/04/index.html#006092

Bush keeps sapping other departments’ budgets to fund his pointless road show

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2005_04_10.php#005402

The war in Iraq, aside from its massive present cost, is also piling up huge longer-term costs in equipment replacement (thanks to Holden for the link)

http://www.defensenews.com/story.php?F=772587&C=america
The war in Iraq is burning through U.S. military equipment at five to 10 times the peacetime training rate, and the services will have to spend $13 billion to $18 billion to replace it, congressional budget experts say. . . The services have asked for $12 billion in the 2005 emergency supplemental funding request to replace worn-out vehicles and equipment, but the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO) said current operations are wearing out vehicles at a rate of $8 billion per year.

More fiscal irresponsbility

http://www.juancole.com/2005/04/us-millions-in-iraq-wasted-i-saw-lewis.html
The true cost of the Iraq misadventure is consistently underestimated by the Bush administration, which does not even include the extra funds in the budget deficit! They even sneak the wounded soldiers back into this country so that the public does not get an accurate sense of the war's human costs for Americans.

So in light of the complete uninterest of the US government in the quality of life in much of the United States, an item like the below is especially maddening.

T. Christian Miller of the Los Angeles Times reports that:

Iraqi officials have crippled scores of water, sewage and electrical plants refurbished with U.S. funds by failing to maintain and operate them properly, wasting millions of American taxpayer dollars, according to interviews and documents. . . Hardest hit has been the effort to rebuild Iraq's water and sewage systems, a multibillion-dollar task considered to be among the most crucial components of the effort to improve daily life for Iraqis. Of more than 40 such plants run by the Iraqis, not one is being operated properly, according to the Bechtel Group, the contractor at work on the project. . . The power grid faces similar problems.

Still acting like we’re in charge

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/04/12/international/middleeast/12rumsfeld.html
Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld landed in Iraq just before dawn on Tuesday, bearing warnings for the country's new leaders of government corruption and civil turbulence that could delay a constitution and national elections.

More: http://www.juancole.com/2005/04/competent-intelligence-urged-by.html

The latest DeLay defense is “Democrats do it too.” Why that isn’t true

http://www.prospect.org/weblog/archives/2005/04/index.html

And why it isn’t working (thanks to Buzzflash for the link)

http://csmonitor.com/2005/0412/p02s01-uspo.html
In public, most Republicans say that what's driving the criticism of the House majority leader is politics, not ethics. The Democratic "hit machine" is pouring millions into a campaign to oust the most powerful Republican in Congress. But the real target is the Republican majority and its agenda.

But in private, some senior leaders are saying it's only a matter of time before the most powerful Republican in Congress is forced from office. "Democrats should save their money. Why murder someone who is committing suicide?" said a senior GOP lawmaker, on condition of anonymity.

Got Jesus?

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A43824-2005Apr11.html
Uplifted by the pope's funeral, President Bush on Friday called the seven reporters traveling with him on Air Force One into his airborne conference room, sat them around a table and talked to them about Jesus.

"There is no doubt in my mind there is a living God. And no doubt in my mind that Lord, Christ, was sent by the Almighty. No doubt in my mind about that," he said.

For 47 minutes, Bush and the journalists had an intimate, friendly chat largely about the pope, his legacy and Bush's own "walk with Christ."

Here's the transcript of Bush's conversation with the pool, the rotating group of reporters who travel with the president when there's not enough room for everyone.

Bonus item: how to read headlines

http://americablog.blogspot.com/2005/04/so-which-is-it.html
How easily do headlines shape our opinion of the facts? Here are four newspapers, all providing much the same quotes and facts about Bush meeting with Sharon and discussing the Palestinian question. Given the facts they all shared, which one captured the defining spirit of the event with their headline? Which one is true?

BUSH SUPPORTS PLAN BY SHARON FOR A WITHDRAWAL FROM GAZA -- NYTimes

BUSH PRODS SHARON ON PEACE -- Washington Post

BUSH DEMANDS A HALT TO MORE WEST BANK HOMES -- Times of London

BUSH, SHARON CLASH OPENLY -- LA Times

http://www.juancole.com/2005/04/sharon-defies-bush-ap-headline-gets-it.html
The AP headline gets it right: Sharon dismisses Bush Warning on Settlement Expansion.

***If you enjoy PBD and support what we are doing, you can help by forwarding a copy of this issue to your friends (using the envelope link below) or by sending them a copy of its URL (http://pbd.blogspot.com).

I don't get anything personally out of this project, except the satisfaction of doing it (I don't run ads, etc). The credit really all goes to the people whose material I copy and redistribute. But if I do have a "mission," it is to get this information into the hands of as many people as I can.***
- posted by Nick Burbules @ 6:00 AM

 
POWER PLAYERS

Two leading Republicans come out against DeLay. I guess he can’t say it’s just the Dems and liberal media out to get him any more, can he?

http://www.cnn.com/2005/POLITICS/04/10/delay.ap/index.html

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-delay11apr11,1,6405543.story

Why Santorum?
http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2005_04_10.php#005395

http://atrios.blogspot.com/2005_04_10_atrios_archive.html#111315421534900942

http://americablog.blogspot.com/2005/04/more-trouble-for-delay.html

Why Shays?
http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2005_04_10.php#005391
"Do I think Tom DeLay will be the majority leader by the end of this term? No," Shays [R-CT] went on to say. "I don't think Tom DeLay is going to survive.”

http://www.warandpiece.com/blogdirs/001869.html

http://www.mydd.com/story/2005/4/10/152834/416

Meanwhile, that Newsweek article (linked yesterday) was even more hard-hitting than I realized

http://msnbc.msn.com/id/7446492/site/newsweek/
Jack Abramoff was somber, bitter and feeling betrayed. Once a Washington superlobbyist, Abramoff is now the target of a Justice Department criminal probe of allegations that he defrauded American Indian tribes of tens of millions of dollars in fees. As stories of his alleged excess dribble out—including the emergence of e-mails showing he derisively referred to his Native American clients as "monkeys" and "idiots"—some of Abramoff's old friends have abandoned him and treated him like a pariah. They claim they knew nothing of his questionable lobbying tactics. So last week, glumly sitting at his corner table at Signatures, the tony downtown restaurant he owns that remains his last redoubt, Abramoff lashed out in frustration.

"Everybody is lying," Abramoff told a former colleague. There are e-mails and records that will implicate others, he said. He was noticeably caustic about House Majority Leader Tom DeLay. For years, nobody on Washington's K Street corridor was closer to DeLay than Abramoff. They were an unlikely duo. DeLay, a conservative Christian, and Abramoff, an Orthodox Jew, traveled the world together and golfed the finest courses. Abramoff raised hundreds of thousands for DeLay's political causes and hired DeLay's aides, or kicked them business, when they left his employ. But now DeLay, too, has problems—in part because of overseas trips allegedly paid for by Abramoff's clients. In response, DeLay and his aides have said repeatedly they were unaware of Abramoff's behind-the-scenes financing role. "Those S.O.B.s," Abramoff said last week about DeLay and his staffers, according to his luncheon companion. "DeLay knew everything. He knew all the details." . . .

More: http://dailykos.com/storyonly/2005/4/10/131550/118
This is going to get really, really good. . .

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2005_04/006063.php

http://makeashorterlink.com/?G2F221DDA

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/04/11/politics/11lobby.html

http://www.warandpiece.com/blogdirs/001872.html

Matt Yglesias spoils the party

http://yglesias.typepad.com/matthew/2005/04/twilight_of_the.html
The real nuclear option out there, however, pertains to Tom DeLay. Folks should keep in mind that, by going after DeLay, Democrats and their supporters have broken an unwritten truce regarding the use of ethics charges against incumbents. So far, DeLay and his allies have been content to play defense. Now, however, they're hinting that if DeLay isn't left alone, the right will launch a second-strike -- attacking the ethics of any Democrat they can find. I say, "bring it on." Democrats can counter-escalate, bullets will fly, and at the end of the day we'll see who survives. I'm reasonably confident that a Hill gotterdammerung will, more likely than not, benefit the good guys. But liberals shouldn't fool themselves into thinking that our side won't take any casualties. There are dirty Democrats out there. And there are not-really-dirty Democrats who, caught in the crossfire, may go down for things that don't really merit it. Risks abound. I think a minority party in an institution where the minority has no power has good reasons to be risk-friendly, but I hope people appreciate where this is going.

[NB: “Hammerdämmerung” http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2005_04_10.php#005392]

Wonder what those secret Guantanamo tribunals are like? Read on. . .

http://dailykos.com/storyonly/2005/4/10/102758/607
A terror suspect held at Guantanamo Bay asked his U.S. military judge a pointed question: "Is it possible to see the evidence in order to refute it?" In another case, a judge blurted out: "I don't care about international law.". . .

Feroz Ali Abbasi was ejected from his September hearing because he repeatedly challenged the legality of his detention.

"I have the right to speak," Abbasi said.

"No you don't," the tribunal president replied. . .

First, Eric Rudolph, next Saddam Hussein: could his trial and punishment become a pawn in Iraq’s factional government?

http://www.juancole.com/2005/04/life-imprisonment-for-saddam-are.html

Allawi resigns (finally) – but is still trying to be a power player

http://www.juancole.com/2005/04/allawi-resigns-joins-new-government.html
Allawi was the candidate backed by the CIA and US ambassador John Negroponte. Despite his enormous advantages of incumbency, and his blanket presence on Iraqi television and radio in the run-up to the election, his Iraqiya list got only 14 percent of seats in parliament and did even worse in provincial elections. His only significant support appears to have been the secular-leaning middle classes of Baghdad and Basra, who were easily outvoted by the religious Right among the Shiites. Allawi shot himself in the foot by becoming too associated with the Americans, who are no longer popular in Arab Iraq, and by enthusiastically endorsing the destruction of Fallujah late last fall. . . Allawi's crushing defeat in the open elections engineered by Grand Ayatollah ended President George W. Bush's forward policy in the Middle East.

Troop withdrawals: BS and reality (thanks to Susan Madrak)

BS: http://www.nytimes.com/2005/04/11/politics/11military.html
Two years after the fall of Saddam Hussein, the American-led military campaign in Iraq is making enough progress in fighting insurgents and training Iraqi security forces to allow the Pentagon to plan for significant troop reductions by early next year, senior commanders and Pentagon officials say.

Reality: http://suburbanguerrilla.blogspot.com/2005/04/timetableyou-mean-they-lied-to-usthe.html
THE US Army plans to remain in Iraq until at least 2009, secret documents obtained by the Mirror reveal. . . Contract tender forms for civilian workers disclose a huge expansion of interrogation and detention centres in Iraq to remain in place for a minimum four more years.

U.S. military shipping back casualties so they arrive in the dead of night (thanks to Buzzflash for the link)

http://news.independent.co.uk/world/americas/story.jsp
The Pentagon has been accused of smuggling wounded soldiers into the US under cover of darkness to avoid bad publicity about the number of troops being injured and maimed in Iraq. The media have also been prevented from photographing wounded soldiers when they arrive at hospital. . . Records show that flights from military bases in Germany arrive in the US only at night. Officials say this is purely the result of flight-scheduling pressures and is not a deliberate tactic to minimise detrimental publicity. They also say that by leaving Europe later in the day soldiers are given a better chance to sleep well the night before.

Reconstruction in Iraq: ideology over competence

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2005_04/006057.php
When Jay Garner tried to hire well-regarded experts who had real experience with reconstruction plans, he was turned down because they were too "liberal." When Garner was abruptly replaced by Paul Bremer, Bremer staffed the CPA with inexperienced ideologues recruited from the Heritage Foundation. Foreign contractors were banned from Iraq out of pique, regardless of whether they were the best qualified. Unions were trampled and ignored because they didn't fit the privatization agenda. Naomi Klein, who traveled to Iraq last year to report on the reconstruction for Harper's, found Bremer pursuing plans for Iraq that were so outlandish they tested even her well-known skills for hyperbole. . . The State Department's new report just confirms all the rest: lack of planning, ideological rigidity, and insistence on using administration pals like Halliburton has produced a debacle. Instead of doing what was best for Iraq, the Bush administration has insisted from the beginning on using the war as a means of trying out its pet theories and rewarding its campaign supporters.

Bush’s Social Security lies: even more shameless than you might imagine

http://atrios.blogspot.com/2005_04_10_atrios_archive.html#111318466508716361

Corporate support dwindling: http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2005_04/006069.php

AMT: the tax increase you probably haven’t heard about

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/04/10/business/yourmoney/10view.html

And the VAT: http://atrios.blogspot.com/2005_04_10_atrios_archive.html#111318960501876644

More Bush 101: When the polls are for you, claim a mandate; when the polls are agin’ ya, say that polls don’t matter

http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=politicsNews&storyID=8134590

John Bolton hearings to begin today. Expect fireworks

http://www.thewashingtonnote.com/archives/000447.html

http://www.cnn.com/2005/POLITICS/04/10/bolton.un.ap/index.html

Ah-nuld no longer looks quite so muscular

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-arnold10apr10,0,6750152.story
The broad policy changes that Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger unveiled with a flourish in his State of the State speech in January have foundered amid a series of missteps, compromises and clashes with a well-organized opposition. . .

Fun: http://www.markarkleiman.com/archives/_/2005/04/how_the_thing_is_done.php

The state of war in Congress: bad and getting worse

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-outlook11apr11,1,5331746.column
George W. Bush may be more comfortable operating with a lower public approval rating than any president in modern times. That sounds like a source of strength, but it also may be a weakness that is pushing Bush and the GOP toward a dangerous confrontation with Senate Democrats over the courts.

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-judges11apr11,1,5744462.story
Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), breaking from his party's Senate leadership, said Sunday that he would oppose any move to prohibit filibusters against judicial nominations. . . Appearing on CBS' "Face the Nation," McCain said a ban on filibusters for judicial nominations could spread to other legislative issues, fundamentally changing the Senate.

[NB: That isn't an unintended consequence -- it's the POINT]

http://slate.msn.com/id/2116317/fr/rss/

http://www.boston.com/news/nation/washington/articles/2005/04/11/foes_cite_progress_vs_bush_agenda/

What’s the Matter With Kansas?

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-kline11apr11,1,4172722.story
Atty. Gen. Phill Kline predicts a more righteous future for this nation. A future shaped in Kansas. . . In his future, women facing unwanted pregnancies would receive support, not abortions. Gay couples would not defile marriage by exchanging vows. And citizens with God in their hearts would stand up as one to insist that their government reflect their morality. . .

Clearly, Kline, 45, is no ordinary attorney general. . . He travels the state preaching from church pulpits, with a firebrand charisma that has earned him a reputation as the state's best orator. He declares that some of the laws he's sworn to enforce are repugnant to him — especially a woman's right to abortion. He says he will uphold that right, but he interprets it narrowly. . .

Bad days for the GOP?

http://www.newdonkey.com/2005/04/so-where-were-we.html
If you add it up, the president and his party appear to be in a whole heap o' trouble, with no obvious relief in sight. . .

http://yglesias.typepad.com/matthew/2005/04/hope_for_the_wo.html
Indeed, I think any decent person needs to hope that over the next few years the GOP does things that will wind up making it hard for the Democrats to win. . . If we're lucky as a country, Democrats will really and truly need to address their various political problems to win, which will be difficult, but it's a price well worth paying for good things to happen.

The converse is that I think there's a non-trivial chance that we'll see things go so badly that the Democrats wind up getting swept into power despite their many flaws. In particular, on the economic front between the budget deficit, the current account deficit, the oil situation, and the housing market there's at least some chance that things will really fall apart in the sort of way that just naturally aids the opposition in such an overwhelming manner that they wind up winning no matter what they say and do on the campaign trail. That would be a bad outcome, but it at least could happen, and if it does happen, liberals will want to make the most of it. . .

[NB: Interesting paradox. I think a lot about the contradictions of wishing for the worst, which will really hurt people, just because I want to see Bush and the GOP fail. But since hoping does nothing to actually bring those outcomes to pass one way or the other, there is no moral responsibility (or praise) for hoping per se – it’s a moral freebie. So I work to make things better, but I hope they get worse. That’s just me, I suppose]

How the press failed the nation in its coverage of the stolen 2004 election (thanks to Buzzflash for the link)

http://www.fair.org/index.php?page=2488

Bonus item: What blogs can do that the press can’t, and vice versa

http://slate.msn.com/id/2116498/fr/rss/

***If you enjoy PBD and support what we are doing, you can help by forwarding a copy of this issue to your friends (using the envelope link below) or by sending them a copy of its URL (http://pbd.blogspot.com).

I don't get anything personally out of this project, except the satisfaction of doing it (I don't run ads, etc). The credit really all goes to the people whose material I copy and redistribute. But if I do have a "mission," it is to get this information into the hands of as many people as I can.***
- posted by Nick Burbules @ 6:35 AM

 
OVER THE EDGE

The wackos who want to turn the judiciary into a wholly owned subsidiary of the Republican party are so far out there that even Anthony Kennedy (a Reagan appointee to the Supreme Court) is too moderate for them. Here’s why you should worry

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A38308-2005Apr8.html
[Dana Milbank] Supreme Court Justice Anthony M. Kennedy is a fairly accomplished jurist, but he might want to get himself a good lawyer -- and perhaps a few more bodyguards. . . Conservative leaders meeting in Washington yesterday for a discussion of "Remedies to Judicial Tyranny" decided that Kennedy, a Ronald Reagan appointee, should be impeached, or worse. . .

Ominously, [Edwin] Vieira continued by saying his "bottom line" for dealing with the Supreme Court comes from Joseph Stalin. "He had a slogan, and it worked very well for him, whenever he ran into difficulty: 'no man, no problem,' " Vieira said. . . The full Stalin quote, for those who don't recognize it, is "Death solves all problems: no man, no problem." Presumably, Vieira had in mind something less extreme than Stalin did and was not actually advocating violence. But then, these are scary times for the judiciary. An anti-judge furor may help confirm President Bush's judicial nominees, but it also has the potential to turn ugly.

[NB: Well, we can’t say we haven’t been warned. These are people who invoke Stalin as their model of governance. Bush should be pressed to disassociate himself from them and their views absolutely and without qualification]

http://atrios.blogspot.com/2005_04_03_atrios_archive.html#111308913057056588
[Atrios] As many of noted, the key line in Dana Milbank's article is this one:

This was no collection of fringe characters.

For too long the mainstream media has either ignored these people, marginalized them as kooks, or mainstreamed them by having them on while ignoring their creepier beliefs/statements/pasts. . . I think one reason (and there others) for this is that by cloaking their wingnuttery in religion they shield themselves from criticism. They've fought long and hard to make sure we know that in this overwhelmingly Christian country, anti-Christian bigotry is the number one problem. The media just will not go there.

More: http://americablog.blogspot.com/2005/04/out-of-control-absolutely-out-of.html

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2005_04/006060.php

http://dailykos.com/storyonly/2005/4/9/22422/04135

Harry Frankfurt’s classic essay explains how bullsh-t is worse than lying. If you are wondering why this twenty-year old article is now being republished and quoted everywhere, just reflect on the times in which we live

http://dailykos.com/storyonly/2005/4/9/195544/5246

Bush’s Social Security plan is all but dead, even with his own party

http://www.mydd.com/story/2005/4/9/112913/2583

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/04/10/national/nationalspecial/10social.html
After spending months seeking to convince the nation that Social Security faces serious problems that demand immediate action, President Bush will pivot to a new message next month, working in coordination with Congressional leaders to begin setting out the menu of potentially painful solutions, White House officials said.

Despite polls showing growing resistance to the centerpiece of Mr. Bush's approach to overhauling Social Security, his call for investment accounts, administration officials said they were succeeding in their first goal, which is establishing that Congress needs to act now to deal with the financial strains that the aging population will put on the system in coming decades.

"Phase 1 is heighten the sense that this is a big issue worthy of immediate consideration by Congress," said Karl Rove, the deputy White House chief of staff for policy and Mr. Bush's political strategist. "We have some ways to go in the calendar on that, but the movement on that has been very good."

[NB: Talk about bullsh-t!]

Ouch

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2005_04_03.php#005388
[St. Petersburg Times] "The Bush administration might not appreciate the difference between campaign events that are paid for through private donations and official events put on with the public's money, but the Constitution surely does."

The GOP in Ohio gives a glimpse of how they would handle private accounts for the rest of us if they had their way

http://americablog.blogspot.com/2005/04/major-gop-scandal-developing-in-ohio.html
Since 1998, Ohio has invested millions of dollars in the unregulated world of rare coins, buying nickels, dimes, and pennies. Controlling the money for the state? Prominent local Republican and coin dealer Tom Noe, whose firm made more than $1 million off the deal last year alone. . . The Ohio Bureau of Workers' Compensation has continued to be the sole investor in Mr. Noe's Capital Coin funds despite strong concerns raised by an auditor with the bureau about possible conflicts of interest and whether the state's millions were adequately protected.

More: http://majikthise.typepad.com/majikthise_/2005/04/ohio_portfolio_.html

Read and laugh: A Confidential Business Proposal

http://crookedtimber.org/2005/04/09/confidential-business-proposal/

How DeLay’s corruption continues to spread and infect the entire House GOP membership

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2005_04_03.php#005387

Coming up next: conservatives shackle themselves to DeLay’s ankle (go right ahead, boys)

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A40496-2005Apr9.html
Allies and friends of House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (Tex.) have concluded that public attention to his ethics is unlikely to abate for months to come, and they plan to try to preserve his power by launching an aggressive media strategy and calling in favors from prominent conservative leaders, according to Republicans participating in the strategy sessions.

The Republicans said the strategy combines leaks from DeLay allies about questionable Democratic trips and financial matters; denunciations of unfavorable news stories as biased, orchestrated rehashes; and swift, organized responses to journalists' inquiries.

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2005_04_10.php#005390
According to Mike Allen's piece. . . David Keene and a gaggle of conservative leaders "will show their solidarity by announcing this week that they are holding a tribute dinner for DeLay on May 12 at the Capital Hilton, complete with a film 'summation of what Tom has done for conservatives.' Keene said 1,000 people are expected, and tickets will be about $200.". . . Actually, if I were down in DC on the 12th, I could see laying down $200 to be on hand for this train wreck.

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2005_04_10.php#005389
And if there's any more evidence needed to know that the defining motif of all conservative politics is victimization, see this graf at the end of the piece. . .

Becky Norton Dunlop, a Heritage Foundation vice president who was formerly Virginia's secretary of Natural Resources, attended the meeting, and said charges similar to those that have been made about DeLay could be made about Senate Minority Leader Harry M. Reid (Nev.) or House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (Calif.).

"And yet, these are not happening. Why? Because they're liberals," Dunlop said. "We think that those who are so intent about making charges against Tom DeLay should also take a look at Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi and some of the liberal leaders."

Poor conservatives: embattled and vilified in the town they run.

More: http://americablog.blogspot.com/2005/04/top-right-wing-priority-saving-tom.html

[NB: You don’t think this is total war? The last thing these right wingers will do is back off when they see total domination within their grasp]

And now this. . .

http://www.warandpiece.com/blogdirs/001866.html
[Laura Rozen] "DeLay knew everything," Abramoff tells a lunch companion interviewed by Newsweek's Michael Isikoff. "He knew all the details."

It is a Washington melodrama that has played out many times before. When political figures get into trouble and their worlds collapse, they look to save themselves by fingering others higher in the food chain. Will Abramoff attempt to bargain with federal prosecutors by offering up DeLay—and does he really have the goods to do so? Abramoff has at times hinted he wanted to bargain—possibly by naming members who sought campaign cash for legislative favors, says a source familiar with the probe.

I suspect Abramoff is the kind of guy who has the goods and the bads. Let the fun begin.

In Iraq, tens of thousands protest U.S. occupation: and just remember, the target of their protest isn’t us, but their own new government

http://www.juancole.com/2005/04/up-to-300000-demonstrate-in-baghdad.html
Edmund Sanders reports that the crowds in downtown Baghdad protesting the US troop presence in the country may have been as large as 300,000. If it were even half that, these would be the largest popular demonstrations in Iraq since 1958!