NICE WORK IF YOU CAN GET IT

George Bush: ten vacations a year

http://makeashorterlink.com/?W2321278B
[USA Today] Bush plans 50th ranch trip in five years

http://www.cnn.com/2005/POLITICS/07/30/bush.physical.ap/
President Bush was pronounced "fit for duty" after an annual checkup Saturday. . . A four-page medical summary issued by the White House said Bush remains in the "superior" fitness category for a man of his age. . .

"He's in superior health," White House spokesman Dana Perino told reporters after Bush returned to the White House. "I think you all know he's got a terrific fitness routine. . . "

Jean Schmidt, running for the Ohio Second district seat, is the essence of the modern Republican: hateful, simple-minded, and message-scripted to within an inch of her life. Listen to this clip, if you have the stomach for it, and ponder how we reached a point where people like this were judged worthy for some of the most important political positions in our country

The mean and angry version: http://www.crooksandliars.com/2005/07/30.html#a4231

The John Aravosis version: http://americablog.blogspot.com/2005/07/shes-crazy.html

Yes, you heard that right, questioning the patriotism of a returning Iraq war veteran (sound familiar?). And what gives her the right to do that?

http://americablog.blogspot.com/2005/07/ohio-gop-us-house-candidate-using-dead.html
When asked about Democratic House candidate Paul Hackett's obvious experience with the Iraq question, he served as a US soldier in Iraq, his Republican opponent, Jean Schmidt, responded that she just got back from a memorial for a local soldier who died.

[NB: If you listen to this, you will also hear, among other crazy things, this explanation for why we never found WMD in Iraq: There weren’t any WMD in Iraq. We were listening to a thug, Saddam Hussein, and he lied to us about having them. He wouldn’t let people come in to inspect [which is untrue]. So when we got there, we didn’t find any.]

More: http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2005_07_24_digbysblog_archive.html#112274254773653947

http://billmon.org/archives/002067.html

The New Iraq

http://www.needlenose.com/node/view/1710
[WP] Iraq's transportation minister, a Shiite Muslim, has ordered a ban on alcohol sales at Baghdad International Airport, declaring that the facility is "a holy and revered" piece of Iraq, a spokesman said Friday. . .

The New Pakistan

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/07/31/opinion/31kristof.html
[NYT] Then on Jan. 2, Dr. Shazia woke up in the middle of the night, and at first she thought she was having a nightmare. "But this person was really pulling hard on my hair, and then he started pressing on my throat so I couldn't breathe.”. . . He tied the telephone cord around my throat. I resisted and struggled, and he beat me on the head with the telephone receiver. When I tried to scream, he said, 'Shut up - there's a man standing outside named Amjad, and he's got kerosene. If you scream, I'll take it and burn you alive.'. . . Then he took my prayer scarf and he blindfolded me with it, and he took the telephone cord and tied my wrists, and he laid me down on the bed. I tried hard to fight but he raped me."

The man spent the night in her room, beating her, casually watching television, raping her again and boasting about his powerful connections. A 35-page confidential report by a tribunal describes Dr. Shazia tumbling into the nurse's quarters that morning: "semiconscious ... with a swelling on her forehead and bleeding from nose and ear." Officials of Pakistan Petroleum rushed over and took decisive action.

"They told me to be quiet and not to tell anybody because it would ruin my reputation," Dr. Shazia remembers. One official warned that if she reported the crime, she could be arrested.

That was a genuine risk. Under Pakistan's hudood laws, a woman who reports that she has been raped is liable to be arrested for adultery or fornication - since she admits to sex outside of marriage - unless she can provide four male eyewitnesses to the rape. . .

"When I treat rape victims, I tell the girls not to go to the police," Dr. Shershah Syed, a prominent gynecologist in Karachi, told me. "Because if she goes to the police, the police will rape her."

That's the way the world works for anyone unfortunate enough to be born female in much of the world. . .

Jimmy Carter’s unusually harsh assessment of another President’s policies (thanks to Buzzflash for the link)

http://www.nynewsday.com/news/nationworld/world/wire/sns-ap-britain-carter,0,4438597.story
"I think what's going on in Guantanamo Bay and other places is a disgrace to the U.S.A.," he told a news conference at the Baptist World Alliance's centenary conference in Birmingham, England. . .

"What has happened at Guantanamo Bay ... does not represent the will of the American people," Carter said Saturday. "I'm embarrassed about it, I think its wrong. I think it does give terrorists an unwarranted excuse to use the despicable means to hurt innocent people.". . .

"I thought then, and I think now, that the invasion of Iraq was unnecessary and unjust. And I think the premises on which it was launched were false," he said Saturday.

How bad is the Energy Bill? Here it is, chapter and verse (thanks to Susan Madrak for the link)

http://spewingforth.blogspot.com/2005/07/energy-bill-gift-from-best-legislators.html

More from Susan

http://susiemadrak.com/2005/07/30/11/13/still-waiting/
[WP] On the same day that the White House announced that President Bush is nominating California billionaire Roland E. Arnall to be ambassador to the Netherlands, the company he controls said it would set aside $325 million for a possible settlement of allegations of predatory lending tactics.

Arnall’s company, Ameriquest Mortgage Co., is being investigated by regulators in 30 states. A $325 million settlement would be one of the largest ever in a predatory lending case. . .

Arnall is the firm’s principal shareholder. He, his wife and their companies have been the biggest political contributors to Bush since 2002.

Life in a banana republic

http://yglesias.tpmcafe.com/story/2005/7/30/11038/2094
Just a few New York Times headlines that popped out at me this morning:

• Senate Approves Bill Protecting Gun Businesses

• Lawmakers' Pet Projects Find Home in Bill

• Unending Graft Is Threatening Latin America

[Matthew Yglesias] I think it would be a mistake to construe the political forces governing the United States at the present moment as representing "conservatism" in any sort of traditional sense as one might find in a book on political theory. A graft-ridden banana republic, on the other hand, is not a terrible model.

The end of the Freedom of Information Act? (thanks to Buzzflash for the link)

http://mediachannel.org/blog/node/397
During the Clinton administration, federal agencies were urged to resolve FOIA requests by erring on the side of releasing, not withholding, government information.

Ashcroft changed that policy by making federal agencies carefully consider national security and law enforcement concerns before releasing information. His memo said information sought under FOIA should be released "only after full and deliberate consideration of the institutional, commercial, and personal privacy interest that could be implicated by disclosure of the information."

More than 4 million FOIA requests were made to the federal government last year by the public and the media. Many requests drag on for years without resolution.

President Bush said last spring he would look at ways to speed FOIA responses, conceding that there is "suspicion" his administration is too security-conscious.

Problems with military recruiting? It’s the educators’ fault

http://www.thewashingtonnote.com/archives/000852.html

How are Republicans reacting to Frist’s flip-flop on stem cells? One group, predictably, is condemning him as a traitor to the cause. The other group is bending over like a pretzel trying to explain how this is all perfectly consistent for him

http://www.redstate.org/story/2005/7/29/162820/956

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2005/7/30/191227/663

Lincoln Chafee (R-RI): too little, too late on Bolton

http://www.thewashingtonnote.com/archives/000849.html

Bonus item: NYT publishes a good review of NASA’s failures to deal adequately with safety issues, but fails to mention one key name

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/07/31/science/space/31foam.html

http://www.nasa.gov/about/highlights/AN_Feature_Administrator.html

http://www.spaceref.com/news/viewnews.html?id=764
[After Columbia] “There is no question about this - this accident happened on my watch. I am accountable for this activity. And I am going to be accountable for the conduct of this whole review. And I am going to be accountable at the end of the day on how well we achieve the objective I talked about earlier - finding out what the problem was, fix it, and getting back to flying safely. That is an accountability that I will definitely feel every day - and have since the day this started."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/columbia/story/0,12845,1120962,00.html

http://www.theagitator.com/archives/012309.php

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- posted by Nick Burbules @ 7:39 AM

 
IN YOUR FACE

Another reminder of Rove 101: When your back is against the wall, heighten your belligerence and arrogance. When you are failing and under criticism, press on with even more audacious acts. What matters is to be SEEN as someone in control, so act like it even when it isn’t true

A good summary by Dan Froomkin: which way is the arrow pointing for W?

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/blog/2005/07/29/BL2005072900853.html
August is just around the bend and while it's a notoriously slow time for news in Washington, it's hot times for presidential prognostication.

So after the dust settles from this busy week and the assessments start to pour in, how will President Bush measure up?

Will the defining moment turn out to be his putting down of a Republican rebellion against a small trade pact? Or will it be the defiance of the Senate majority leader on the urgent and divisive issue of stem cell research?

When evaluating progress on Bush's domestic agenda, will the focus be on his success in pushing through pork-filled energy and highway bills? Or on his failure to achieve his top legislative priorities -- including the transformation of Social Security and the tax code?

On the foreign policy front, will his rebranding of the war on terror and talk of possible troop pullouts buy him some good will? Or will the continued violence in Iraq, the renewed threat from al Qaeda, and the controversy over the treatment of detainees still plague him?

Will his decision to nominate John G. Roberts Jr. for the Supreme Court still be seen as a master stroke once Roberts's potentially outside-the-mainstream views on civil rights are more fully fleshed out?

And when the next shoe drops on the CIA leak case, how big of a shoe will it be? And upon whom will it drop?

Bush to appoint Bolton on Monday: and even though a recess appointment is TEMPORARY, they’ve already started the b.s. machine

http://wireservice.wired.com/wired/story.asp?section=Breaking&storyId=1068664&tw=wn_wire_story
[Reuters] "We need our permanent representative in place at the United Nations at this critical time. There is an effort under way to move forward on comprehensive reform," [McClellan] said.

"And it's a critical time to be moving forward on this. The United Nations will be having their General Assembly meeting in September, and it's important that we get our permanent representative in place," he said.

http://www.prospect.org/weblog/archives/2005/07/index.html#007252
[Matt Yglesias] I seriously do think there was a time when lying to Congress was considered problematic. . . Needless to say, it doesn't seem that any Senate Republicans find this troubling. And why should they? They've made it clear that executive branch oversight and the prerogatives of Congress are small things to sacrifice for the greater good of shielding the Bush administration from damaging information. Meanwhile, though this is hardly the essence of the case against Bolton, you really, really need to wonder if anyone on the right genuinely believes he's the best man for this job.

http://www.tpmcafe.com/story/2005/7/29/154855/679
Most of the Senate Dems just sent the following letter to the president on the Bolton matter. . .

Mr. Bolton's excuse that he "didn't recall being interviewed by the State Department's Inspector General" is simply not believable. How can you forget an interview about an issue so important. . .

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=10000103&sid=a9FQLWvcL6ac&refer=us
[Bloomberg] Senator Richard Lugar, the Indiana Republican who chairs the Foreign Relations Committee, said the disclosure doesn't change his mind about supporting Bolton. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice told him today during a telephone conversation that Bolton is ``correcting the record,'' Lugar said. . . Senator Lincoln Chafee, a Rhode Island Republican who supported Bolton in the committee, said the latest disclosure might cause him to reconsider. . . Chafee said “it would be a mistake'' for Bush to give Bolton a temporary appointment. “The nomination is so controversial I think it deserves a Senate vote,'' he said.

More on Chafee. He is shocked, truly shocked, to find out what a bad guy Bolton actually is: http://www.thewashingtonnote.com/archives/000845.html

Of course, CNN manages to cover the recess appointment story without even mentioning the fact that we just found out that Bolton lied to Congress

http://www.cnn.com/2005/POLITICS/07/28/bolton.appointment/index.html

It’s the little lies

http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2005/07/20050729-5.html
Q First on Bolton, and then another question about today's discussion. Is the President concerned about the apparent error on Mr. Bolton's questionnaire to the Senate. . .

MR. McCLELLAN: No, I think the State Department addressed that last night and it was John Bolton who pointed that out.

[NB: Of course, that is utterly untrue: according to the State Dept’s OWN letter, Bolton recalled nothing about the interview until after being "reminded" by Biden’s letter (that’s the generous interpretation, of course). But by any account, neither Bolton nor the State Dept acknowledged the discrepancy until they were forced to: http://talkingpointsmemo.com/docs/state.bolton.letter.pdf]

Well, you can look at it this way

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2005/7/29/232732/959
[Hunter] I have mixed feelings about such an appointment. Well, not really -- at this point, I mostly welcome it, and I think most administration critics have been coming to roughly the same conclusions. If you're out to prove spectacular Bush administration incompetence and corruption, Bolton is the yellowcake-dusted gift that keeps on giving. . .

Already, it looks like we're in for quite a ride. You have to marvel at the corporate desk-thumping audacity of rallying against the bloated bureaucracy of the U.N. -- claiming it wouldn't make much of a difference if the U.N. lost ten floors -- and taking on, as your first act (while your battered nomination is still resting deep in the cold ground), the doubling in size of your own ambassadorial office. Does that sound like a powerful voice of reform, or a corporate management guy who wants to make sure he has the biggest desk and the rollingest chair?

Mostly, however, he's going to be ineffective -- and I expect given the visibility of the post, comically so. No, I'm not thinking Bolton is going to start any wars, any more than I think he's going to "reform" the ambassadors around him. There's not like there's any goodwill among the international community left to squander, so he can expect to be treated, by both friend and foe, with lazily shaded revulsion. They've been following the stories closer than any of us have. They know what they're getting. And, to be honest, John Bolton fits the studious non-diplomacy of George W. Bush like a furry glove. Short of nominating a horse wearing diapers to be his next U.N. Ambassador, I'm not sure how Bush could make his contempt for the international community any more clear.

Honestly, the most remarkable part about all of this -- actually, about most of the administration and Senate events of the last week, all told -- is the utter childishness of it all. Bolton, if appointed to the post, will be installed there because the Bush administration refuses to give the Senate a mere handful of documents which, according to prevalent rumor, demonstrate Bolton to be even worse than we already knew. And even without the additional documents, Bolton doesn't have enough support in the Senate to move forward even another inch because of underground Republican wariness, not just Democratic opposition.

Now, Bush could do what every other modern President has done when a nominee has gone so badly sour; dump him, and nominate someone else. (Even Newt Gingrich has been named as a possible replacement, here.) But Bush is less loyal, his handlers' signature praise line, than just preternaturally lazy. This is, truly, the CEO Presidency, and Bush is the CEO that many of us know far too well from the business world. Can't make decisions. Can't listen to complex issues. Can't handle basic personnel problems or staff infighting to save his life. At this point it looks like the objections to Bolton are near unanimous around those who have worked with and above him -- but Bush doesn't have any way of dealing with it other than giving Bolton what Bolton wants and hoping it just works out somehow. . .

A recess appointment is an act of political weakness, since it accomplishes through fiat what the president doesn't have the coattails to accomplish even through his obsessively loyal Republican-run Senate. And given the eyes on Bolton, I'm betting dollars to donuts such an appointment is going to backfire spectacularly. . .

So. Let me be among the first to welcome you to your new, highly visible, highly critical post, John Bolton; look forward to working at you.

[NB: It's not my way here to offer predictions, but let me hazard a little guess that we may see a big anti-Bolton story leaked in the next day or two by one of the many, many people -- including Republicans -- who don't want to see Bolton over at the U.N.]

Judith Miller: why is she in jail, and what does the NYT know about the facts of her Plame involvement?

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/theblog/archive/arianna-huffington/judy-miller-how-deep-do_4845.html
[Arianna Huffington] The more I'm reading about Judy Miller and her actions leading up to and during the early days of the war, and then through the unfolding Plame-Rove-Libby-Gonzalez-Card scandal, the more I’m struck by the special access and relationships she enjoyed with many of the key players in the Iraq debacle (which, at the end of the day, is really what Plamegate is all about).

For starters, of course, we have her still unfolding involvement in the Plame leak. Earlier this month, Howard Kurtz reported that Miller and Libby spoke a few days before Novak outed Plame -- and I’m hearing that the Libby/Miller conversation occurred over breakfast in Washington. Did Valerie Plame come up -- and, if so, who brought her up? There is no question that Miller was angry at Joe Wilson… and continues to be. A social acquaintance of Miller told me that, once, when she spoke of Wilson, it was with “a passionate and heated disgust that went beyond the political and included an irrelevant bit of deeply personal innuendo about him, her mouth twisting in hatred.”

Miller’s special relationships go much further than Scooter Libby, Richard Perle and the rest of the neocon establishment. Take her involvement as an embedded reporter during the war with the Pentagon’s Mobile Exploitation Team (MET) Alpha -- the unit charged with hunting down Saddam’s WMD. As extensively reported by both Kurtz and New York Magazine’s Franklin Foer, Miller’s time with the unit was highly unusual.

First, there was the fact that she landed the plum assignment in the first place. It would give her first dibs on the biggest story of the war… the hoped-for reveal of Saddam’s much-touted WMD (with much of the touting done by Miller herself and her special sources). Was this the reward for her pro-administration prewar reporting?

Foer cites military and New York Times sources as saying that Miller’s assignment was so sensitive that Don Rumsfeld himself signed off on it. Once embedded, Miller acted as much more than a reporter. Kurtz quotes one military officer as saying that the MET Alpha unit became a “Judith Miller team.” Another officer said that Miller “came in with a plan. She was leading them. . . She ended up almost hijacking the mission.” A third officer, a senior staffer of the 75th Exploitation Task Force, of which MET Alpha was a part, put it this way: “It’s impossible to exaggerate the impact she had on the mission of this unit, and not for the better.”

What did Miller do to create such an impression? According to Kurtz, she wasn’t afraid to throw her weight around, threatening to write critical stories and complain to her friends in very high places if things didn’t go her way. “Judith,” said an Army officer, “was always issuing threats of either going to the New York Times or to the secretary of defense. There was nothing veiled about that threat.”

In one specific instance, she used her friendship with Major General David Petraeus to force a lower ranking officer to reverse an order she was unhappy about. (Can we stop for a moment and take the full measure of how unbelievable this whole thing is?) . . .

Miller apparently ended up developing an especially close relationship with Chief Warrant Officer Richard Gonzalez, the leader of the MET Alpha unit. Along with puffing him up in some of her dispatches. . . Miller took the unusual step of taking part in the ceremony where Gonzalez was promoted, actually pinning his new rank to his uniform (has the bizarreness of all this hit you yet?).

Later, when Miller’s reporting came under serious fire, Gonzalez was only too happy to return the favor, writing an impassioned response to the Times’ Iraq reporting mea culpa. “We have been deeply disturbed,” Gonzalez wrote in a letter to the Times that was co-signed by a pair of his colleagues, “by the mischaracterizations of the operation and of [Miller’s] reporting. . . [We] remain firmly supportive of the accuracy of her accounts of the events she described, as well as other articles she wrote while embedded with our unit.” Wow. I’m kinda surprised he didn’t sign it “JM + MET Alpha, N.A.F (Now and Forever)”. . .

More on Miller: http://markschmitt.typepad.com/decembrist/2005/07/now_that_ms_huf.html

Other Plame updates

http://www.davidcorn.com/2005/07/rove_scandal_qu.php
[David Corn] [Cliff] May maintained that before Bob Novak on July 14, 2003, published a column identifying Valerie Plame as a CIA "operative," a former government official "mentioned" to May the CIA identity of Joseph Wilson's wife "in an offhanded manner, leading me to infer it was something that insiders were well aware of."

Well, who said this?. . . [N]o such source has come forward. And May has not identified his source. May works for the neoconnish Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, a pro-Iraq war outfit that features as advisors such ex-government officials as R. James Woolsey (former CIA director), Newt Gingirch, Richard Perle and Bill Kristol. That is, May is surrounded by people with close ties to the White House and the intelligence community. Who can know which one of his comrades, if any of this crowd, shared the supposedly open-secret secret with May?

http://www.ericumansky.com/2005/07/its_confirmed_r.html
[Eric Umansky] Forget for a moment whether Rove's chatting about breaks the law about outing an agent. Forget even the enticing possibility he perjured himself. Those are both still hypotheticals. What isn't a hypothetical is that Rove leaked classified info and that is, what's the word, illegal. Over to David Corn, who links to a letter the CIA sent Rep. John Conyers:

In it, [the CIA] told Conyers that the CIA on July 30, 2003--two weeks after the Plame/CIA leak first appeared in Bob Novak's column--"reported to the Criminal Division of DoJ a possible violation of criminal law concerning the unauthorized disclosure of classified information." Once more, here is proof that Valerie Wilson's employment status at the CIA was classified information. . . Which means that when Karl Rove and Scooter Libby told at least two reporters (Novak and Time's Matt Cooper) that Joseph Wilson's wife worked at the CIA they were disclosing classified information. Case closed. . .

Condi Rice? http://talkleft.com/new_archives/011680.html

A truly disturbing trend. In their never-ending effort to cow and control the press, the latest Bush ploy is to provide privileged leaks to reporters, but only if they promise not to get any Democratic responses or question any other sources – guaranteeing an uncritical and one-sided report. And guess what? They are finding reporters happy to make such deals

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2005/7/29/185212/004
[Kos] What's particularly egregious about the Roll Call piece is that her Republican source demanded Whittington not talk to any other sources and she agreed, a gross violation of standard journalistic practices. Furthermore, Whittington failed to disclose that arrangement in the story, which ended up being a one-sided affair at the insistence of the Republicans. Whittington essentially wrote a GOP press release for them in a journalistic publication. . .

More: http://atrios.blogspot.com/2005_07_24_atrios_archive.html#112265311146566025

Bush’s incoherent and futile policy toward North Korea

http://www.thewashingtonnote.com/archives/000846.html

How we let Bin Laden escape from Tora Bora: and why you haven’t heard the whole story (yet)

http://www.cnn.com/2005/LAW/07/28/cia.book.ap/index.html

New bill protects gun manufacturers from lawsuits: because this is a priority for what the country needs right now

http://nytimes.com/2005/07/30/politics/30cong.html

Apparently the Secret Service isn’t that concerned about people impersonating their agents

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/wire/sns-ap-bush-colorado,1,3797013.story

http://talkleft.com/new_archives/011687.html

How things get done in today’s GOP

http://susiemadrak.com/2005/07/29/16/56/truth-justice-and-the-american-way/
[NB: edited for sequence] U.S. Attorney Gregory White, a leader in a multiagency task force investigating powerful Republicans in Ohio, asked for help from Gov. Bob Taft’s office to get the federal post he now holds. . . Mr. White asked the governor to call President Bush on his behalf in August, 2002. . .

On Aug. 21, 2002, Mr. White requested, through Mr. Hicks, that the governor call President Bush and touted his help as a local leader in the Bush-Cheney 2000 campaign. In the e-mail, Mr. White expressed frustration with an interview for the post that had gone poorly.

“I wonder what it is that went so badly. This is very frustrating to me,” Mr. White wrote. “I believe that my record speaks for itself, and I doubt there are too many county chairs for the Bush Campaign that worked harder.”. . .

A week later, top Bush aide Karl Rove was given the phone numbers of Brian Hicks, the governor’s former chief of staff.

In February, 2003, after Mr. White was named interim U.S. attorney. . .

Jean Schmidt (R – OH2) not just a crook, but a petty crook

http://atrios.blogspot.com/2005_07_24_atrios_archive.html#112272569425065653
[Toledo Blade] Jean Schmidt, a former Republican state representative from the Cincinnati area, also appealed to the governor's office on behalf of a Web-based lottery. Ms. Schmidt is currently running for Congress against Paul Hackett, a Democrat who served in the Iraq War.

The race has attracted national attention.

In a November, 2001, e-mail, Jon Allison, a staff member for Governor Taft, complained that Ms. Schmidt "continues to bug me on Internet lottery."

One year later, her state representative re-election campaign garnered a $1,000 donation from Mr. Ach.

Ms. Schmidt said through a spokesman that she does not remember any conversations with the governor's office about an online lottery, although she does remember that this was a significant issue at the time.

"The documents indicate that she is lobbying the governor on behalf of Roger Ach," said her opponent, Mr. Hackett. "After doing their bidding, she takes a $1,000 donation. That is the culture of corruption - documented."

More: http://www.crooksandliars.com/2005/07/29.html#a4225

Duke Cunningham (R-CA) says, 1000 DOLLARS?! Jean, Jean, Jean. . . let me show you how we do things in the REPUBLICAN party. . .

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2005_07_24.php#006192

Member of Cheney’s 2001 Task Force, who helped let corporations write US energy policy, rewarded with chair of Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (thanks to Buzzflash for the link)

http://jasonleopold.blogspot.com/2005/07/repost-in-light-of-passage-of-energy.html

DeLay vs Frist: the coming war within the Republican party over stem cell research

http://www.crooksandliars.com/2005/07/29.html#a4221

Whoa: this is about as nasty as it gets in the WH briefing room. During a discussion of stem cell policy. . .

http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2005/07/20050729-5.html
Q The Republican Party appears to be moving away from this President on this issue. How does he react to that?

MR. McCLELLAN: I think that there are many Americans that share the President's view. . .

Q Okay, let me just interrupt. Most Americans --

MR. McCLELLAN: Hang on, hang on.

Q Most Americans don't support the President's decision, according to polls.

MR. McCLELLAN: Hang on. This is a difficult issue. . .

Q As an individual, does he support the private research that's going forward on embryonic stem cells?

MR. McCLELLAN: Well, the President -- the decision he made was relating to taxpayer money.

Q I understand that. I'm asking if as an individual --

MR. McCLELLAN: And the President is someone who believes we shouldn't be creating life for the sole purpose of destroying it. And he stated that position.

Q Separate issue.

MR. McCLELLAN: Well, I think that addresses your question.

Q One factual thing here. Well, let me just get an answer to this first part. The fact is that the Republican Party is moving away from this President. . .

MR. McCLELLAN: Okay, I'm going to disagree with you right now on saying the Republican Party is moving away. The Republican Party is united and moving forward to implement important priorities for the American people. This week has been one of the most successful weeks --

Q On stem cell -- I'm talking about this issue.

MR. McCLELLAN: No, no, you made a general statement that they're moving away.

Q No, no, I meant on this issue. I meant on this issue.

MR. McCLELLAN: Well, but let me talk about this issue, because some of you in this room, and some of your colleagues, two months ago, were saying that this President is facing lame duck status. . .

Q Let's not divert off of that, Scott. I was specific to this issue. Let's not get off on that.

MR. McCLELLAN: Of course, you don't want to talk about it.

Q That was your opening statement, you had time about that. No, the Republicans support you on any number of things, I can list them --

MR. McCLELLAN: You don't want to talk about it.

Q I'd love to talk about it, let's lengthen the briefing, but one question about --

MR. McCLELLAN: I'm not going anywhere. . . Now I want to back up, because I do think it's important to talk about the accomplishments. Maybe you don't want to talk about it, because a number of people in the media were saying just two months ago --

Q Don't start with that.

MR. McCLELLAN: No, let's start with that.

Q Don't take me on like I don't want to talk about it. That's ridiculous. You want to make your statement, make your statement. I was asking you a specific question on a specific issue, and don't try to turn this into a screed about the media.

MR. McCLELLAN: Then don't make a broad statement, like you did.

Q I corrected myself. I meant on this issue.

MR. McCLELLAN: Of course you don't want to talk about it, because you don't want the American people to hear about the great progress that we're making on the legislative front.

Q I thought I heard your opening statement pretty clearly.

MR. McCLELLAN: I'm sure you'll be reporting on it later tonight.

Q Watch the broadcast tomorrow.

[David Gregory, NBC – in case you were wondering. Video available at CSPAN]

Bonus item: Thucydides, right then, and still right now

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2005_07/006820.php
“The meaning of words had no longer the same relation to things, but was changed by them as they thought proper. Reckless daring was held to be loyal courage; prudent delay was the excuse of a coward; moderation was the disguise of unmanly weakness; to know everything was to do nothing. Frantic energy was the true quality of a man.”

***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 @ 9:14 AM

 
“INACCURATE”

Bolton filed a false report to Senate confirmation committee. WH response? “Whoops – no biggee”

http://thinkprogress.org/2005/07/28/breaking-biden/
[Joe Biden, to Condoleezza Rice] It has just come to my attention that then-Undersecretary of State John Bolton was interviewed on July 18, 2003 by the State Department Office of the Inspector General in connection with a joint State Department/CIA IG investigation related to the alleged Iraqi attempts to procure uranium from Niger. This information would appear to be inconsistent with information that Mr. Bolton provided to the Committee on Foreign Relations during the Committee’s consideration of his pending nomination to be Permanent Representative to the United Nations.

The Committee on Foreign Relations expects all nominees to provide to it accurate and timely information. Indeed, in submitting the Committee’s questionnaire, all nominees are required to swear out an affidavit stating that the information provided is “true and accurate.” It now appears that Mr. Bolton’s answers may not meet that standard.

http://www.thewashingtonnote.com/archives/000825.html
[AP] John Bolton, the nominee for U.N. ambassador, inaccurately told Congress he had not been interviewed or testified in any investigation over the past five years, the State Department said Thursday, responding to a Democratic critic.

Bolton was interviewed by the State Department inspector general as part of a joint investigation with the Central Intelligence Agency related to Iraqi attempts to buy nuclear materials from Niger, State Department spokesman Noel Clay said.

When Bolton filled out a Senate questionnaire in connection with his nomination, "he didn't recall being interviewed by the State Department's inspector general. Therefore, his form, as submitted, was inaccurate," Clay said. "He will correct it."

* * *
The new information does not change the Bush administration's commitment to Bolton's nomination, said a senior State Department official who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the political sensitivity of the subject.

[NB: This was an Inspector General investigation of the forged Niger documents, not the Plame investigation per se – but still falls under what Bolton was required to disclose. So what, did he FORGET? http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2005_07_24.php#006183]

By the way, it looks like the State Dept “forgot” about their own Inspector General’s investigation too (this stinks to high heaven)

http://www.thewashingtonnote.com/archives/000824.html
[Stygius] Yesterday, July 27, Senator Biden sent a different letter to Rice asking. . .

. . . whether Mr. Bolton did, in fact, appear before the grand jury, or whether he has been interviewed or otherwise asked to provide information by the special prosecutor or his staff in connection with this matter, and if so, when that occurred.

The State Department today [before Biden’s SECOND letter, above] answered that question thus:

They'd asked whether or not the nominee has been interviewed or asked to supply any information in connection with any administrative, including an Inspector General, congressional or grand jury investigation within the past five years, except routine Congressional testimony. Mr. Bolton, in his response on the written paperwork, was to say no. And that answer was truthful then and it remains the case now.

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2005_07_24.php#006185
[Josh Marshall] Of all the things for John Bolton to forget about, he forgets that he was interviewed for the Joint State-CIA IG Report on the Niger forgeries.

Here's a question, though. My impression is that you don't just fill these confirmation disclosure forms out one evening in the den over a cup of tea.

I think it's a thorough process, with a team that goes over details, checks over specifics and so forth.

Presumably it was a team of people from State, though I don't know whether they were from his shop or congressional liaison or what. Bolton can't have been the only one who knew he'd been interviewed as part of that investigation, for he wasn't a minor player in the case the Inspectors General were investigating. And he certainly wasn't the only one who reviewed that form.

http://wireservice.wired.com/wired/story.asp?section=Breaking&storyId=1068664&tw=wn_wire_story
In a letter to Bush, California Democratic Sen. Barbara Boxer said Bolton's admission was "too little, too late" and urged Bush to withdraw the nomination.

"A recess appointment of a man who did not tell the truth to the (Senate Foreign Relations) committee and only admitted the truth when he was caught would send a horrible message," Boxer wrote.

"It seems unusual that Mr. Bolton would not remember his involvement in such a serious matter. In my mind, this raises more questions that need to be answered. I hope President Bush will not make the mistake of recess appointing Mr. Bolton," Biden said in response to the admission that Bolton's information was inaccurate.”

ANOTHER instance of perjury by a Bush nominee? Ho-hum, you can scour the mainstream press for hours and find no mention of this

http://news.yahoo.com/s/huffpost/20050728/cm_huffpost/004832/nc:742

And ANOTHER

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-flanigan29jul29,1,6786183.story

The CAFTA “victory” – won’t do much good for anyone else, but it sure meant a lot for George Bush

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/blog/2005/07/28/BL2005072800924.html
[Dan Froomkin] Is it good news or bad news for the president when he is only barely able to eke out a victory on a key bit of legislation -- even after an orgy of deal-making and arm-twisting -- in a chamber where his party enjoys a 30-vote majority?

The answer: Extremely good news. Because Democrats were ready to officially declare Bush's second term politically moribund if he failed, and the press might well have gone along and run his obituary.

But it wasn't an easy victory.

Not easy, for sure. Look what it took to get it through

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2005_07_24.php#006174
We all know what happened the last time the White House told the House GOP leadership that it had to pass a certain bill, despite significant resistance from GOP backbenchers. Lots of offers were made that couldn't be refused. And that was when out-going Rep. Nick Smith got hit with a mix of bribes and threats on the floor of the House itself.

I've been hearing from various sources that what the GOP leadership did in the House last night on CAFTA put that earlier episode to shame. Rep. Early Pomeroy (D) of North Dakota told the local paper: "I've seen the Republican leadership break arms on close votes before, but nothing quite this ugly.". . .

http://www.prospect.org/weblog/archives/2005/07/index.html#007241
[WP] The last-minute negotiations for Republican votes resembled the wheeling and dealing on a car lot. Republicans who were opposed or undecided were courted during hurried meetings in Capitol hallways, on the House floor and at the White House. GOP leaders told their rank and file that if they wanted anything, now was the time to ask, lawmakers said, and members took advantage of the opportunity by requesting such things as fundraising appearances by Cheney and the restoration of money the White House has tried to cut from agriculture programs. Lawmakers also said many of the favors bestowed in exchange for votes will be tucked into the huge energy and highway bills that Congress is scheduled to pass this week before leaving for the August recess. . .

http://www.prospect.org/weblog/archives/2005/07/index.html#007248
[CQ] House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi on Thursday raised the possibility that an ethics inquiry could result from the deals offered by Republicans as they rounded up the votes to pass the implementing language for the Central American Free Trade Agreement (HR 3045).

Pelosi, D-Calif., offered no examples, though, and would not name which Democrats were the recipients of what she considered improper overtures.

“Offers made to Democrats didn’t sound like it passed legal muster to me,” Pelosi said. “Offers were made, that were in my view, questionable. . .”

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2005_07_24.php#006177
Rep. Charles Taylor (R) of North Carolina has just put out a statement about his claim that his "NO" vote last night on CAFTA was not recorded by the House clerk.

More: http://billmon.org/archives/002066.html

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2005_07_24.php#006178

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2005_07_24.php#006182

http://blog.dccc.org/mt/archives/003235.html

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2005/7/29/12124/6754

Another Pyrrhic victory: the Energy Bill

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/07/28/AR2005072800446.html
The House of Representatives today passed an energy bill that includes $14.5 billion in tax breaks and encourages a new wave of nuclear power plant construction.

The bill was hailed by the White House and energy companies, but it drew criticism from environmental and consumer groups. The critics oppose what they regard as giveaways to highly profitable corporations and complain that the bill's provisions will not significantly reduce energy consumption or drive down record high oil prices.

http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2005/07/20050728-3.html
MR. McCLELLAN: This is a good bill. . .

Q Is there anything in this bill, Scott, that will give Americans relief from the high gas prices?

MR. McCLELLAN: Well, Terry, we didn't get into this overnight, and we're not going to get out of it overnight. . .

Q Why did the administration hold back on releasing an EPA report that acknowledges car fuel efficiency has actually decreased?

MR. McCLELLAN: I think you might want to talk to the EPA about that. . .

Q Did the White House ask the EPA to hold it back as a way to ensure that it didn't get in the way of passage --

MR. McCLELLAN: I don't think it really has any relation to the energy bill, but you might want to talk to the EPA about it. . .

Q Is the President concerned about car fuel efficiency and the fact that it's actually decreased and it's not addressed in the energy bill?

MR. McCLELLAN: We've actually increased the standards for light trucks and SUVs. We've taken action to do that, and we continue to consider other ways to improve the energy -- or the fuel economy standards.

Q Is it adequately addressed in the energy bill?

MR. McCLELLAN: The energy bill is, as I just said, is a good piece of legislation. I can't go down every piece of -- or every initiative within the energy bill, but this administration has acted. . .

Q Okay, on another matter. I might have missed it; I wasn't sure if I heard an answer. The energy bill that Congress is going to pass, will it decrease gasoline prices at the pump eventually?

MR. McCLELLAN: As I said, what Terry was asking was what impact this will have on people now. And we didn't get into this overnight; we're not going to get out of it overnight. . .

Q So that's a "yes," it will address the root causes.

MR. McCLELLAN: I just answered it.

Go ahead.

Q Can you give a simple answer, that, yes, it will reduce gasoline prices?

MR. McCLELLAN: No, I think that -- I think you have to look at what has led us to this position today, and go to the root causes of high energy prices, and why we're in this position. . .

Q But what -- this is very interesting, because we've asked you many times what the President is doing to reduce gasoline prices, and you said, well, number one, Congress can pass an energy bill. Now I'm asking you, Congress is about to pass an energy bill -- simple question -- will the energy bill reduce prices --

MR. McCLELLAN: And I just said it goes to address the root causes. We're not going to get out of this overnight. . .

John Hannah: another name you’ve never heard of, which you’ll be hearing a lot about soon (thanks to Susan Madrak for the link)

http://susanhu.dailykos.com/storyonly/2005/7/25/24720/2294
Federal law-enforcement officials said that they have developed hard evidence of possible criminal misconduct by two employees of Vice President Dick Cheney's office related to the unlawful exposure of a CIA officer's identity last year. The investigation, which is continuing, could lead to indictments, a Justice Department official said.

According to these sources, John Hannah and Cheney's chief of staff, Lewis "Scooter" Libby, were the two Cheney employees. "We believe that Hannah was the major player in this," one federal law-enforcement officer said. Calls to the vice president's office were not returned, nor did Hannah and Libby return calls.

The strategy of the FBI is to make clear to Hannah "that he faces a real possibility of doing jail time" as a way to pressure him to name superiors, one federal law-enforcement official said.

More updates on Plame

Karl Rove: http://talkleft.com/new_archives/011678.html
“Fitzgerald Knew It Was Rove All Along”

Judith Miller: http://talkleft.com/new_archives/011669.html

The facts: http://www.tpmcafe.com/story/2005/7/28/213621/867

George H.W. Bush on those who out CIA agents (just in case you haven’t heard it already)

http://thinkprogress.org/2005/07/28/video-bush-i/
“I have nothing but contempt and anger for those who betray the trust by exposing the name of our sources. They are, in my view, the most insidious of traitors.” [Speech at CIA, 4/26/99]

Good news for Karl. It has taken THREE YEARS for the hearings on Richard Shelby’s (R-AL) leak to reach a conclusion, and they’re not finished yet. Will it surprise you to hear that Pat Roberts (R-KS) is a big reason why it has taken so long?

http://www.hillnews.com/thehill/export/TheHill/News/Frontpage/072905/investigation.html
The Washington Post reported in August that federal investigators concluded that Shelby “divulged classified intercepted messages.”

The referral to the Ethics Committee has been widely interpreted to mean that the Justice Department decided not to prosecute Shelby. . . A witness who worked with FBI investigators said federal agents had expressed annoyance over the decision not to prosecute. . .

One reason the investigation has dragged on is because [Pat] Roberts’s continued participation has chilled the cooperation of witnesses. Many who saw Shelby ask questions of Hayden during the closed-door hearing work for the Senate or House intelligence panel.

Two of Roberts’s senior aides, Bill Duhnke and Jim Hensler, were staff director and deputy staff director of the Senate Intelligence Committee under Shelby and may fall under the scope of the ethics investigation.

Frist breaks with Bush, will back stem cell bill. Well, I have to give him credit: he’s acting like a real doctor for once

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/07/29/politics/29stem.html

L-I-A-R-S

http://www.americanprogressaction.org/site/apps/nl/newsletter2.asp?c=klLWJcP7H&b=917053
"The White House said [yesterday] that under a policy enacted in 2001 it would neither examine Roberts’s tax returns itself nor provide them to the Senate." -- Washington Post, 7/27/05

VERSUS

"We did ask for his [Roberts'] tax returns from the past three years, and we have received those." -- White House Spokesman Scott McClellan, 7/27/05

For once, I agree with Howard Kurtz

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/linkset/2005/04/11/LI2005041100587.html
Whether you love or hate his judicial philosophy, John Roberts is one canny bureaucratic player. . . As you plow through the blizzard of memos he wrote as a government lawyer, you get the sense of a man who is more conservative, more combative and more sarcastic than he has been portrayed in these walk-on-water profiles. . .

You will, by the way, hear almost none of this on TV. Understanding the memos requires walking through the background and legal context of each controversy at the time, and television has no inclination to do that. . .

Roberts is quite familiar with bureaucratic dodges and the art of Washington insincerity, the documents suggest. . .

When Republicans serve in the military, they are National Heroes. When Democrats serve in the military, it’s nothing special – maybe a drawback: Exhibit A (Al Gore) Exhibit B (John Kerry) Exhibit C (Paul Hackett, running for Congress in the Second Ohio District)

http://www.crooksandliars.com/2005/07/28.html#a4196
[Chris Matthews, Hardball] "Will his military service hurt his bid for office?"

http://atrios.blogspot.com/2005_07_24_atrios_archive.html#112257301603339487
This is pretty stunning. You can watch the Hackett segment on Countdown here. What amazed me was what his opponent, Schmidt, said regarding his time in Iraq:

NOVOTNY: His opponent, Republican frontrunner Jean Schmidt, a former state representative who is not convinced that time served in battle can compare to experience at home.

JEAN SCHMIDT, OHIO REPUBLICAN CONGRESSIONAL CANDIDATE: Everything’s local. Of course, it’s more important here. The issues that the people have are more important to those individuals than anything outside of that region.

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2005/7/28/171246/061
When we last saw him, Schmidt campaign consultant Eric Minamyer was disgracefully questioning Paul Hackett's service to this country and the sacrifices made by men and women who have served in civil affairs units in Iraq:

I understand that Hackett did not participate in combat at all. . . Let's just not act as though we led marines in combat if we did not, okay.

Not only was Minamyer insulting, he was also wrong.

The ridiculous re-branding of the “Global War on Terror”

http://www.prospect.org/weblog/archives/2005/07/index.html#007245

http://www.juancole.com/2005/07/war-on-terror-over-bush-administration.html

Scotty sez “2 = 6”

http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2005/07/20050728-3.html
Q Scott, the U.S. has now had three lengthy bilateral meetings in China with the North Koreans. Are you now having direct talks with the North Koreans?

MR. McCLELLAN: I wouldn't say "now." Let me back up and remind you that we have met with the North Korean delegation and other delegations within the context of the six-party talks. . . And in terms of the bilateral discussions that are going on, those are discussions that relate to the modalities of the talks, and it's a way for us, also, to understand North Korea's position and for us to explain our views, as well. . .

Q Oh, come on.

MR. McCLELLAN: -- and this is happening within the context of the six-party talks. . .

Q You have rejected [bilateral talks] time and time again.

MR. McCLELLAN: We have -- we have no intention of negotiating any bilateral agreement with North Korea. . .

Q Since the first time, now, you've had three separate meetings where the North Koreans and Americans have met together alone, in private.

MR. McCLELLAN: We've had meetings with all the delegations. . .

Q I know, but this is not -- it's not comparable. North Korea is the issue, and we have met privately with them. But we've always said we weren't going to. . .

MR. McCLELLAN: Well, the place to negotiate is in the context of the six-party talks and with all parties at the table. . .

Q I'm asking you a specific question. The two sides are getting together privately. Why don't you admit that?

MR. McCLELLAN: I just said it.

Q No, you only say it within -- you're so afraid --

MR. McCLELLAN: Did I not just say that? I think I did.

Q There's always a -- you're afraid to say there's been a change --

MR. McCLELLAN: Go ahead, David. Have a question?

Q -- that's what you're afraid to say.

MR. McCLELLAN: There has been change. We're pursuing this in a multilateral format with all six parties in it, but not in terms of negotiations.

Q They just go together -- (laughter.)

MR. McCLELLAN: I'm not going to get the last word in here. Go ahead, David.

Oooh. Harsh words for Condi

http://www.thewashingtonnote.com/archives/000818.html
[Leon Hadar] In a recent column in the Singapore Business Times (reprinted in antiwar.com), "The Unbearable Lightness of Being 'Condi,'" I suggested that our secretary of state Condoleeza Rice is kind of a, well, lightweight, especially when you compare her to predecessors like, say, George Marshall, John Foster Dulles, Dean Acheson, and of course, Henry Kissinger. Yes, I expected some criticism. But you should have read some of the hate email I've been receiving. I've been accused of, among other things, being a racist and a misogynist, who isn't capable of dealing with the reality of strong women, and a powerful African-American female at that. . .

But no apology from moi, guys. I'm an equal opportunity basher, and proud of being one. As Princeton Professor L. Carl Brown, noted in a review of my earlier book Quagmire: America in the Middle East: "Hadar provides a consistently tough-minded and skeptical examination of the public pieties that pass for policy. His approach reminds of the late Vince Lombardi about whom one of his players observed 'He is very fair. He treats us all like dogs.' Such is the Hadar touch." Indeed, many of the neocons, who happen to be members of my own Hebrew tribe, have been grilled to death in my new book, Sandstorm: Policy Failure in the Middle East.

So if I think that America's top diplomat, who happens to be a black female, has done a lousy job, I'm going to say so. . . In fact, as a national security advisor Rice was a disaster of historic proportions. She was responsible for the advice reaching the White House and for the disinformation coming out of it before 9/11 and in the months leading up to the war in Iraq, and had failed to coordinate the Bush administration's preparation for the postwar occupation of the country. Now she seems to be managing U.S. foreign policy, a reward for a job well done, as a Paris Hilton-style television reality show, with her uninterrupted globetrotting covered 24/7 by the embedded and sycophantic media. . .

Will Iraq become more like Turkey or more like Iran?

http://www.needlenose.com/node/view/1704
[WP] Iraq's constitution will enshrine "a significant role for religion in the state," the Shiite Muslim Arab who is leading the drafting of the charter said Wednesday. . . Constitution committee chairman Humam Hammoudi, in statements backed by Shiites and Kurds working with him on the document, described a system that would steer Iraq between the Muslim secularism of neighboring Turkey and the Muslim theocracy of neighboring Iran. . .

Statements from Hammoudi and other members of the committee, as well as proposed language circulating in Baghdad, have made clear that the draft is going further in embracing religious law than the preliminary national code drawn up in the first year of the U.S. occupation. . . The interim charter officially describes Islam as one main source of Iraqi law. Leaders now are debating designating Islam as the only principal source of new legislation. . .

A yet-to-be-established constitutional court would decide whether specific laws were in conflict with Islamic law, Hammoudi said. . . Clerics and religion would have a "guiding role in enhancing the unity and the strength of this state," he added. . . "Religion is the organizer of the state now.''

Oh, and on Iran: the story about the new President being part of the 1979 hostage crisis? Watch Scotty dance around the truth (again)

http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2005/07/20050728-3.html
Q On another matter, does the White House have an update on the investigation into Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's role in the Iran hostage crisis?

MR. McCLELLAN: . . . We know he was a leader of the student movement that organized the attack on the embassy and the taking of American hostages. However, we are still looking into whether or not he was actually one of the hostage-takers. . .

Q Scott, what -- Scott -- just hold on a second. He was a leader of the student movement that orchestrated the attack on the embassy and the taking of the hostages, but you don't know if he was a leader of it? That sounds like --

MR. McCLELLAN: We don't know if he was explicitly one of the hostage-takers.

Q But he organized the attack that led to the hostage-taking.

MR. McCLELLAN: He was a leader, is the way I would describe it, of the student movement that organized the attack and the taking of American hostages. . .

Q As a substantive matter, if he was the leader of an organization that led to a hostage-taking, what does it matter if he was actually there physically doing it?

MR. McCLELLAN: Well, remember, I told you I don't think it should surprise anyone, given the nature of the regime in Iran, that he might have been involved in this kind of activity. But, again, there were people that were actually the hostage takers and carried it out, and we're still looking into that. . .

Q Scott, let me just circle back to the '79 Iranian hostage-taking. Does this White House consider that to be an act of terrorism?

MR. McCLELLAN: Again -- you're talking about the hostage taking?

Q Yes.

MR. McCLELLAN: Well, that was sovereign American territory that was violated. That was -- we all remember well the hostages that were taken and held for so long.

Q Was it an act of terror?. . .

MR. McCLELLAN: It was certainly a violation of international laws and obligations. . . .

Q I'm just wondering if you considered that particular incident --

MR. McCLELLAN: No, I know, I heard your question.

Q -- to be an act of terrorism, because --

Q -- because then it opens up the question of what is Ahmadinejad's status under the Bush Doctrine?

MR. McCLELLAN: Well, that's why I was pointing out that Iran --

Q That's why you were avoiding answering it. . .

The nutty upside-down world of right-wing paranoid denial: the innocent Brazilian killed by police in London was. . . actually part of an Al Qaeda set-up to MAKE the police kill a dark-skinned person in order to. . . oh hell, just read and laugh

http://www.crooksandliars.com/2005/07/28.html#a4210

Bonus item: Top Ten List

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2005/7/28/91220/1146
Top Ten George W. Bush Solutions For Global Warming...

10. NASA mission to turn down the sun's thermostat

9. Federal subsidies to boost production of Cool Ranch Doritos

8. Fast track Rumsfeld's "Colonize Neptune" proposal

7. Convene Blue-Ribbon Committee to explore innovative ways of ignoring the problem

6. Let Hillary worry about it when she takes over

5. I dunno---tax cuts for the rich?

4. Give the boys at Halliburton 90-billion dollar contract to patch hole in ozone

3. Switch to Celsius so scorching 98 becomes frosty 37

2. Keep plenty of Bud on ice

1. Invade Antarctica

[Late Show with David Letterman]

***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 @ 7:00 AM

 
FAIR GAME

Wow. We all knew Tom DeLay was corrupt, but this is breathtaking (I guess he’s rushing to get one more big scam pushed through before they come after him)

http://thinkprogress.org/2005/07/27/delay-dirty-tricks/
Tom DeLay thinks the federal treasury is his personal piggy bank. DeLay slipped “a $1.5 billion giveaway to the oil industry, Halliburton, and Sugar Land, Texas” into the energy bill.

But this isn’t a normal case of government pork. DeLay has completely dispensed with the democratic process. From a letter Rep. Henry Waxman just sent Speaker Dennis Hastert:

The provision was inserted into the energy legislation after the conference was closed, so members of the conference committee had no opportunity to consider or reject this measure.

The $1.5 billion won’t be administered by the government but by a private consortium in DeLay’s district:

The subtitle appears to steer the administration of 75% of the $1.5 billion fund to a private consortium located in the district of Majority Leader Tom DeLay. Ordinarily, a large fund like this would be administered directly by the government.

Hastert and DeLay need to explain themselves immediately. No member of Congress who takes taxpayer dollars seriously should vote for the energy bill until this matter is resolved.

Incredible: Bush admin efforts to redefine interrogation rules, justifying torture and abuse, were actually OPPOSED by the military’s own lawyers

http://crookedtimber.org/2005/07/27/professional-ethics/

More: http://www.nytimes.com/2005/07/28/politics/28abuse.html

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/07/14/AR2005071402187.html

The memos: http://balkin.blogspot.com/jag.memos.pdf

After months of refusing to set a timetable for withdrawal in Iraq, Bush Co. gets an earful from the leaders of that country

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/07/27/AR2005072700431.html
Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld met with Iraqi Prime Minister Ibrahim Jafari and the top U.S. commander in Iraq Wednesday and discussed specific steps to speed preparations for the withdrawal of some of the 135,000 U.S. troops in Iraq beginning as early as next spring.

The tone of statements by Rumsfeld and Jafari, as well as the commander of U.S. forces in Iraq, Gen. George Casey, suggested a heightened determination and immediacy to planning for the U.S. troop reduction. . . "The great desire of the Iraqi people is to see the coalition forces be on their way out as they take more responsibility," Jafari said. . .

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/07/27/international/middleeast/27cnd-rumsfeld.html
Gen. George W. Casey Jr. reaffirmed to reporters his statement in March that the Pentagon will be able to make "some fairly substantial reductions" in troops by next spring if the political process remains on track and Iraqi forces assume more responsibility for securing their country. . .

More: http://www.needlenose.com/node/view/1701

http://www.juancole.com/2005/07/on-how-us-troops-arent-coming-home-any.html

Flip-flop?

http://www.needlenose.com/node/view/1700

Scotty sez. . .

http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2005/07/20050727-1.html
Q The Iraqi Prime Minister called today for a speedy withdrawal of U.S. troops. Was the President surprised that this happened at a time when insurgency shows no signs of abating?

MR. McCLELLAN: Well, I think everybody wants our troops to come home, and I know the Iraqi people want to be able to have full responsibility for their future. . .

Q And when General Casey says that substantial pullout will take place next summer or next spring, tell us why this doesn't send a wrong message to the insurgents --

MR. McCLELLAN: I think General Casey said that it would be based upon conditions on the ground. . .

Q Does the President share General Casey's views?

MR. McCLELLAN: General Casey said that it would be based on conditions on the ground, is what I saw that he said.

Q I understand. I'm asking you, is that consistent with what the President believes? Was he speaking, in effect, for the President?

MR. McCLELLAN: That it would be based on conditions on the ground?

Q What he said today --

MR. McCLELLAN: What he said in terms of being based on conditions --

Q -- setting a timetable based on those conditions.

MR. McCLELLAN: The President's view is that we will look to the commanders on the ground. General Casey is one of our commanders on the ground, and we will make decisions based on what they say, and they make decisions based on the conditions and the progress that's being made on the ground.

We all want to see our troops come home. The President wants to see our troops come home. . .

Q So the President is comfortable with the timetable that General Casey discussed, provided that those various markers are met? Is that accurate?

MR. McCLELLAN: We look to our commanders on the ground, and the President has always said that we will make decisions based on what they say.

[NB: Robot-boy sure has that repetition thing down pat, eh? The problem of course, is that you can’t maintain both that the withdrawals depend on conditions on the ground AND that you expect to start withdrawing troops in the spring. There is no way to know what the conditions on the ground will be at that time. . .unless, of course, you intend to declare WHATEVER the conditions are in the spring a propitious time to begin withdrawal – which seems to be exactly what they plan to do]

Fox News breaks a story that speaks volumes about the Republican view of the world. Apparently Valerie Plame bought tickets to a Bruce Springsteen concert that was a fundraiser for Kerry (or in the words of Fox, an “anti-Bush group”). Now you might think (a) she has a right to do this, which she does, (b) maybe she just wanted to go hear Bruce, or (c) who the hell cares? But you would be wrong. Because in the Fox/Rush/Rove subtextual universe, it’s okay to out a CIA agent, ruining her career and possibly putting her life in danger, IF SHE’S A DEMOCRAT

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,163777,00.html

What? You think that’s too cynical an interpretation?

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2005/07/19/opinion/main710046.shtml
Hamburger's and Wallsten's sources tell them that Karl Rove's animus toward Wilson was so intense that curiosity arose within the White House about it. When asked about this, Rove reportedly said, "He's a Democrat.”

Pat Roberts (R-KS) reverses self, won’t hold Plame hearings any time soon (thanks to Susan Madrak for the link)

http://www.philly.com/mld/philly/news/special_packages/election2004/12238817.htm

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2005_07/006806.php

Why is Judith Miller REALLY in jail?

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/theblog/archive/arianna-huffington/judy-miller-do-we-want-_4791.html
[Arianna Huffington] Not everyone in the Times building is on the same page when it comes to Judy Miller. The official story the paper is sticking to is that Miller is a heroic martyr, sacrificing her freedom in the name of journalistic integrity.

But a very different scenario is being floated in the halls. Here it is: It's July 6, 2003, and Joe Wilson's now famous op-ed piece appears in the Times, raising the idea that the Bush administration has "manipulate[d]" and "twisted" intelligence "to exaggerate the Iraqi threat." Miller, who has been pushing this manipulated, twisted, and exaggerated intel in the Times for months, goes ballistic. Someone is using the pages of her own paper to call into question the justification for the war -- and, indirectly, much of her reporting. The idea that intelligence was being fixed goes to the heart of Miller's credibility. So she calls her friends in the intelligence community and asks, Who is this guy? She finds out he's married to a CIA agent. She then passes on the info about Mrs. Wilson to Scooter Libby (Newsday has identified a meeting Miller had on July 8 in Washington with an "unnamed government official"). Maybe Miller tells Rove too -- or Libby does. The White House hatchet men turn around and tell Novak and Cooper. The story gets out.

This is why Miller doesn't want to reveal her "source" at the White House -- because she was the source. Sure, she first got the info from someone else, and the odds are she wasn't the only one who clued in Libby and/or Rove (the State Dept. memo likely played a role too)… but, in this scenario, Miller certainly wasn't an innocent writer caught up in the whirl of history. She had a starring role in it. This also explains why Miller never wrote a story about Plame, because her goal wasn't to write a story, but to get out the story that cast doubts on Wilson's motives. Which Novak did.

This version of events has divided the Times into two camps: those who want to learn everything about this story, and those who want to learn everything as long as it doesn't downgrade the heroic status of their "colleague" Judy Miller. . .

And what’s up with this?

http://talkleft.com/new_archives/011660.html
[NY Daily News] Famed editor Jason Epstein, husband of jailed New York Times reporter Judith Miller, has lately been making himself scarce at the federal facility in Virginia where his wife has been incarcerated for the past three weeks....In a frothy social column yesterday about a celeb-glutted Mediterranean cruise, featuring everyone from Isabella Rossellini to J.K. Rowling aboard the ocean liner Silver Shadow, the New York Sun's A.L. Gordon revealed:

"One passenger with his mind soberly on home is the literary icon Jason Epstein. . . Ms. Miller would have been on the cruise had she not gone to jail."

His wife's in the slammer and he cruises the Med?

The NYT reminds us that the WH was actively pushing the Plame story, not just passively responding to or confirming press inquiries

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/07/28/politics/28leak.html

More: http://www.markarkleiman.com/archives/valerie_plame_/2005/07/doug_jehl_reports_the_whole_story.php

And a reminder that there is ANOTHER source, described by Novak as “no partisan gunslinger” (which rules out Rove, Libby, and Fleischer)

http://www.warandpiece.com/blogdirs/002311.html
(Then-Deputy National Security Advisor Stephen Hadley?)

GOP gearing up to slime Fitzgerald

http://www.observer.com/opinions_conason.asp

A move to can him? (I can't really believe this)

http://www.tpmcafe.com/story/2005/7/27/232930/764

More: http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/chi-0507280207jul28,1,3555005.story

Why there is no govt interest in investigating who forged the Niger documents that started this whole mess

http://www.hillnews.com/thehill/export/TheHill/Comment/JoshMarshall/072805.html

Plame struggle reveals longstanding tensions between the WH and the CIA, State Dept.

http://www.needlenose.com/node/view/1695

http://www.ericumansky.com/2005/07/flashback_tenet.html

Portrait of the Supreme Court Justice as a Young Man

http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2005/07/20050727-1.html
MR. McCLELLAN: Well, I actually talked about that yesterday. I think that the files that you're referring to mostly are from about 20 years ago, and I think what those files show is a young White House staffer helping to provide legal analysis in support of the President's agenda, President Reagan's agenda. I think that's what they show. . .

Q You're not suggesting that the legal views expressed in a document when he was a young lawyer at the Justice Department do not reflect his own legal views, are you?

MR. McCLELLAN: Well, I think you have to look at his record. . .

Q You continue to say, he was young. You've used those words consecutively for a couple of days. Are you aware of something that is getting ready to come out in the 65,000 documents from the Reagan era that will make this administration say, well, that was when he was young and he has now changed his mind, because there's a major --

MR. McCLELLAN: Okay, let me address that -- let me address that very quickly: No. (Laughter.)

Q Well, why do you continue to preface, he was young, then? Why do you continue to say that, because you lead us to believe that --

MR. McCLELLAN: Because I'm stating a fact.

Q Don't be smart about it. I'm looking for a serious answer.

MR. McCLELLAN: Ken, go ahead.

Q No, no, no, I'm looking for a serious answer, not anything just off the cuff. I want to know why you continue to say this man was young. We don't know anything about his philosophy, and it seems that you are trying to preface this now, so when this happens --

MR. McCLELLAN: At the period of the early '80s?

Q This administration must know something that is coming out to preface us, to get us to understand this was when he was young, and he may have changed his mind.

MR. McCLELLAN: No, not all.

Q What are you aware of? Is it about abortion, Roe v. Wade?

MR. McCLELLAN: Not at all. . .

Maybe “youthful” recommendations like these

http://atrios.blogspot.com/2005_07_24_atrios_archive.html#112247102747285904

http://slate.msn.com/id/2122875/fr/rss/

Or, more recently

http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/news/state/12230971.htm
U.S. Supreme Court nominee John Roberts played a broader behind-the-scenes role for the Republican camp in the aftermath of the 2000 election than previously reported -- as legal consultant, lawsuit editor and prep coach for arguments before the nation's highest court, according to the man who drafted him for the job.

All the documents the WH is “releasing” on Roberts are already-available public domain materials. They haven’t given up one thing that Senators couldn’t have accessed for themselves

http://www.tpmcafe.com/story/2005/7/27/172211/202

Robot-boy receives some well-deserved snark

http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2005/07/20050727-1.html
MR. McCLELLAN: [Blah blah blah] he is someone who will be an impartial judge who is committed to interpreting our Constitution and our laws, and not trying to make law from the bench.

Q Right, I understand all that. I've heard that a million times, with all respect.

MR. McCLELLAN: Well, maybe people that are watching haven't heard that, so I think it's important --

Q Well, you say it every day. My question --

MR. McCLELLAN: -- I think it's important for them to know about that.

Q I understand that. Everybody has said that repeatedly, which doesn't tell us very much.

The Dems just don’t seem to have their head in the game sometimes

http://www.americanprogressaction.org/site/pp.asp?c=klLWJcP7H&b=100480
After no challenge or questioning, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee yesterday "unanimously approved the nomination of Karen Hughes...as the State Department's top public relations official."

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2005_07_24_digbysblog_archive.html#112248747583152493

Joe Biden (D-DE) asks Rice: did Bolton testify, or not?

http://thinkprogress.org/2005/07/27/biden-did-bolton-testify-in-leak-investigation/

Bush’s Medicare plan too complicated, can’t work: and these are the people who want to “fix” Social Security too?

http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2005-07-24-medicare_x.htm

CAFTA vote to be held after midnight (trying to hide anything, GOP?)

http://www.prospect.org/weblog/archives/2005/07/index.html#007234

(Yes they were)

http://slate.msn.com/id/2123535/fr/rss/
As only the Post emphasizes, last night legislators at first voted to defeat the bill; then Republican leaders held the vote open for an hour. After the leaders made some members of Congress offers they couldn't refuse, the bill finally passed at about midnight, 217 to 215. Holding the vote open for so long goes against congressional tradition, but Republicans seem to be making a habit of it. They made the same move with the prescription drug bill.

Walmart, defender of our freedoms (thanks to the Center for American Progress for the link)

http://www.pensacolanewsjournal.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20050724/OPINION/507240314/1020#
You can't buy the Pensacola News Journal at Wal-Mart anymore. . . The store ordered us off their property, told us to come pick up our newspaper racks and clear out. . .

Some managers at Wal-Mart didn't appreciate a column Mark O'Brien wrote last month about the downside of the cheap prices that Sam Walton's empire has brought to America. . .

Bonus item: Quick – describe George Bush in a single word. Then click the link

http://www.mydd.com/story/2005/7/27/12352/8746

***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 @ 7:22 AM

 
MISTER ROBERTS

In their never-ending bid to assert maximal secrecy over the release of govt documents, the Bush gang now invents an “attorney-client privilege” to shield John Roberts’ work while he worked in the Solicitor General’s office. Problem is, there IS no attorney-client privilege there

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/07/26/politics/politicsspecial1/26cnd-confirm.html
The dispute has to do with documents related to Judge Roberts's work in the solicitor general's office from 1989 to 1993, under the first President George Bush. Democrats say they need the documents because they could shed light on the nominee's thinking about issues that may come before the Supreme Court. . . The White House and its Republican allies say Democrats are not entitled to those papers because they are covered under the attorney-client privilege. The solicitor general acts as the lawyer for the federal government.

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/07/26/politics/politicsspecial1/26confirm.html
The Bush administration plans to release documents from Judge John G. Roberts's tenure in the White House counsel's office in the mid-1980's and his earlier job working for the attorney general, but will not make public papers covering the four years he spent as principal deputy solicitor general starting in 1989, two senior administration officials said Monday. . . The officials said the administration had decided to waive any claim to attorney-client privilege from those documents because the papers are covered by the Presidential Records Act, the law that governs the disposition of presidential papers. . . One of the officials, both of whom sought anonymity to speak candidly about a decision that had not yet been made public, said the White House had reviewed some of the papers from Judge Roberts's work in the counsel's office and saw nothing in them that could create problems for his confirmation. . . "We don't have concerns," the official said.

[NB: So the WH CLAIMS attorney-client privilege for both positions (it applies to neither), but is willing to “waive” it when they do not see any confirmation problems with the documents. Plus, there is a little problem with the LAW (the Presidential Records Act) which they "agree to" abide by in this instance - and which they have already flouted in other cases - but it appears that they are laying the groundwork for selectively ignoring it in the future as well.]

http://nitpicker.blogspot.com/2005/07/hasnt-this-been-decided-already.html
The Office of the Solicitor General, as others have pointed out, works not for the president but for the people of the United States. This was already decided legally during the Clinton administration.

One reason they don’t want the Deputy Solicitor General docs released

http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1000991994
Emerging as a hot button issue is the holding back of Roberts documents from his days in the Bush I administration as a deputy in the Solicitor General's office, on grounds of client-attorney privilege. Democrats are looking for any scrap of evidence on Roberts' views of Roe v. Wade. But of extra interest here, for some Democrats, is what advice Roberts might have offered leading up to President George H.W. Bush's pardon of Caspar Weinberger and others in the Iran-Contra scandal.

But some feel that that client-attorney privilege argument may not hold, legally, so the White House may also be prepared to deny documents on “national security” grounds. . .

They won’t release Roberts’ tax records?!??!!

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/07/26/AR2005072601879.html

http://talkleft.com/new_archives/011648.html

Republicans now scrambling to obscure the issue of Roberts’ religious faith and the power it should wield over his judicial opinions

http://americablog.blogspot.com/2005/07/is-john-roberts-faith-off-limits.html
[Michael in New York] But the far right wants to pretend that simply asking a candidate about their faith and how it might conflict with their role as a public servant is wrong. Ridiculous. As a Supreme Court justice and a Catholic, Roberts will be faced with issues where voting one way could expose him to refusal of Communion and even excommunication from his Church. That is extraordinary and NEW pressure that Catholics have never faced before. In the past, the Church went out of its way to dismiss as absurd any idea that Catholic politicians would be puppets of Rome. Now the Church says very explicitly that politicians MUST do as Rome says or suffer the consequences. This is a BRAND NEW situation that has never been in effect. Roberts is the FIRST Supreme Court nominee who will be put into his lifetime position with this added pressure weighing down on him.

More: http://www.prospect.org/weblog/archives/2005/07/index.html#007214

http://americablog.blogspot.com/2005/07/questions-for-john-roberts.html

Our coming theocracy: Gonzales hints that religious beliefs trump “stare decisis”

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2005/7/26/194545/793

Roberts’ role in the Reagan Revolution

http://www.boston.com/news/nation/washington/articles/2005/07/27/roberts_showed_way_to_shift_the_debate/

The threat posed by the Federalist Society agenda

http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=05/07/26/1419244

Washington Post offers a large “state of the investigation” report on Plame – nothing new, except confirmation that Fitzgerald’s scope of inquiry is “expanding.” In light of comments here yesterday, let’s see if the GOP Excuse Brigade seizes on this to argue that Fitzgerald is exceeding the scope of his proper investigative role (i.e., looking into the Plame leak only)

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/07/26/AR2005072602069.html
The special prosecutor in the CIA leak probe has interviewed a wider range of administration officials than was previously known, part of an effort to determine whether anyone broke laws during a White House effort two years ago to discredit allegations that President Bush used faulty intelligence to justify the Iraq war, according to several officials familiar with the case.

More: http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2005_07/006801.php

One other thing in the WP story: the CIA is furious, and looking for blood

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2005/7/27/02513/4417

Bush refuses to pull Rove’s security privileges based on “rumors in the media” (rumors like the public comments of ROVE’S OWN LAWYER) – but look at what Bush did in 2001

http://americablog.blogspot.com/2005/07/funny-bush-had-no-problem-pulling.html

More: http://thinkprogress.org/2005/07/26/bush-pulls-security/

A new line of defense for Rove (thanks to Buzzflash for the link)

http://www.consortiumnews.com/2005/072605.html

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2005_07/006798.php
[Kevin Drum] Two years ago, when the Valerie Plame affair first surfaced, the conservative response was largely one of yawning silence. Still, the conservatives who did speak up mostly conceded that, yes, if someone in the White House exposed the identity of a CIA agent, it was a bad thing to do. And if it was done as part of a political campaign to discredit a critic, it was an especially bad thing to do.

During the past month, however, the growing evidence that someone in the White House really did expose Plame has caused more than a bit of panic — and a change of heart. We've already heard from Fox's John Gibson, who not only thinks it was OK to expose the identity of a covert CIA agent to the press, but apparently thinks it was a positive social good. Valerie Plame "should have been outed by somebody," he said, and Karl Rove deserves a medal for being the only guy with the guts to do it.

Since then, the proposition that it wasn't a big deal even if the White House did out Plame, has become a routine talking point. Over at QandO, Jon Henke nicely summarizes the now standard conservative position:

If a White House official 1) consciously knew that Valerie Plame was a covert agent 2) whose identity ought to have been protected, and 3) that White House official initiated a leak of her name to the press 4) in order to disclose her identity, then he ought to be removed from his position and prosecuted.

In other words, if Rove's failure was merely that he didn't care enough to check on Plame's status, then he did nothing wrong. If he knew she was covert but didn't realize that the CIA prefers its covert agents to stay covert, then he did nothing wrong. If he knew that too, but outed Plame in a conversation that someone else initiated, then he did nothing wrong. And finally, even if he knew all those things, but his motivation was merely to score points against Joe Wilson, rather than to ruin Valerie Plame's career, then he did nothing wrong. These criteria essentially justify in advance virtually anything that Rove might plausibly have done.

Nearly every conservative blog now follows this line. Plame wasn't really all that covert. Rove was merely engaged in a longrunning turf battle with the CIA. Hell, somebody had to smear Joe Wilson. The guy had it coming. If that required the exposure of Plame, her front company, and potentially every source she's ever worked with, that's the way it goes. After all, we don't know for sure that anything bad came of this, do we?

The moral bankruptcy at the core of this argument is truly stunning, but this weekend it got even worse. Senator Pat Roberts, the Republican chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, announced that he "intends to preside over hearings on the intelligence community's use of covert protections for CIA agents and others involved in secret activities."

Let that sink in. Does it sound like Roberts is concerned about CIA agents being exposed in the press? Of course not. Instead, Roberts is preemptively defending Rove by implying that perhaps the real problem is that the CIA overuses clandestine cover for its agents. The gall is almost beyond belief, especially coming from the party that keeps telling us they're the ones who are serious about national security. . .

Plamegate has now turned into the public relations task of convincing the public that even if Rove did out Plame, outing a covert CIA agent is a perfectly acceptable thing for a White House aide to do. . . Welcome to the modern Republican Party.

No joke

http://www.markarkleiman.com/archives/valerie_plame_/2005/07/the_simple_truth.php
[The Onion] “Bush Awaits Orders From Rove On Handling Of Rove Scandal”

Ari Fleischer: “Periphery”?! (I don’t think so)

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/07/27/politics/27leak.html
“Ex-White House Aide on Periphery of Leak Inquiry”

Meanwhile, in the WH Press Briefing room, another through-the-looking-glass moment

http://www.first-draft.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=3773&mode=thread&order=0&thold=0
Q Scott, in the wake of the Valerie Plame incident, on which you will not comment. . . isn't it necessary to do something more than simply stonewalling all discussion of the incident in order to restore confidence?

MR. McCLELLAN: And I'll reject your characterization. What we're doing is helping to advance the investigation forward. . . We have for a long time said that we want to help them get to the bottom of this and the best way to do that is to cooperate fully in that investigation. And that means not commenting on it here from this podium.

One from Susan Madrak

http://susiemadrak.com/2005/07/26/17/20/flounder-in-the-raw/
Q Scott, on another topic, former President Bill Clinton spoke to the “Today Show” recently and he basically called the CIA leak issue terrible. And he said, “Rove is a brilliant political strategist and he’s proved brilliantly effective at destroying Democrats, personally.” He says, “I mean they’ve gotten away with murder and he’s really good at it. He’s good at playing psychological head games that damage our side.” What are your comments to that?

MR. McCLELLAN: What I’ve said previously, and I don’t have anything else to add to what I’ve said previously.

Q Former President Clinton, a friend of the first President Bush and a friend of this President Bush, has said “they’ve gotten away with murder.”

MR. McCLELLAN: Well, thank you. And you know our response on questions related to the investigation.

Q This is not a question. I’m asking you what are your thoughts as it relates to this quote from a former President of the United States.

MR. McCLELLAN: That’s a question.

And this, which must have been fun to watch: remember Bush’s much-touted “Mars mission” (which he announced to much fanfare, then promptly ignored)?

http://www.first-draft.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=3773&mode=thread&order=0&thold=0
Q So the President supports a Mars mission?

MR. McCLELLAN: Well, this is a long-term mission that the President outlined, John, so I think you have to look at the overall perspective in what the President said. But he wanted to make sure that there's a clearly defined mission for our space program, and there is. And he believes it's important to continue to advance space exploration and for the United States to continue to lead the way. And that's what we are doing. . .

Q And how is the Mars program going?

MR. McCLELLAN: NASA can probably update you on the effort. Again, this is a long-term program, and you can sit there and smirk about it, but the President felt it was important -- (laughter) -- the President felt it was important to outline a clearly defined mission for NASA. . .

http://www.newyorker.com/talk/content/?040202ta_talk_hertzberg
[Hendrik Hertzberg, January 2004] George W. Bush says he wants to go to Mars—a motion that many of his fellow-citizens would heartily second—but he probably doesn’t mean it. The speech in which he announced his “New Vision for Space Exploration” was exceedingly vague about how and when the trip was to be made. It did say that in 2015 or maybe in 2020 Americans would be going back to the moon, where they would build a base for “human missions to Mars and to worlds beyond.” An official likened this speech to President Kennedy’s address of May 25, 1961, in which he asked the nation to “commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the moon and returning him safely to the earth.”. . . A week later came Bush’s State of the Union address, the text of which one scans in vain for any mention of Mars, the moon, or space exploration. The subject has already been dropped. . .

Sleazy! Slimy! Such attacks should be beneath us! (I agree, but here it is anyway. . .)

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2005/7/26/161729/354
[Radar Online] As a string of foes from John McCain to Richard Clarke can attest, Karl Rove has never been shy about using personal attacks for political gain. But as the Valerie Plame scandal rages on, the Bush administration's in-house bulldog may be forced to endure a taste of his own medicine. . . For years, political insiders in the Lone Star State have whispered about Rove's close friendship with lobbyist Karen Johnson, a never-married, forty-something GOP loyalist from Austin, Texas. . .

The Bush PR meisters decide it’s time to. . .sorry. . .I’m trying not to. . . hold on a second. . .CHANGE THE NAME of the “war on terror”

http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room/index.html?blog=/politics/war_room/2005/07/26/newname/index.html
From now on, the United States is no longer engaged in a "global war on terror," and instead, we're fighting a "global struggle against violent extremism.". . . [read on!]

[NB: Isn’t this what they used to call “mission creep”?]

Frist, dependable WH lapdog, blocks further consideration of the Defense appropriations bill because it still contains anti-torture restrictions the Bush gang doesn’t want (ironically – ?? – they advance an NRA-friendly gun bill instead)

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-defense27jul27,1,2532073.story

http://makeashorterlink.com/?Z6302628B

http://www.cnn.com/2005/POLITICS/07/26/congress.guns.ap/index.html

More than half the people now believe that Bush “deliberately lied” to them about Iraq

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2005/7/27/1744/79951

(The media yawns) http://atrios.blogspot.com/2005_07_24_atrios_archive.html#112241224913804976

Not really a surprise, but an established link between Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo torture and abuse practices (but Gen. Geoffrey Miller’s name doesn’t come up until the last paragraph?)

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/07/26/AR2005072601792.html

Chris Cox? SEC? Is anyone paying attention to this?

http://www.prospect.org/web/page.ww?section=root&name=ViewPrint&articleId=9991
If confirmed, as he almost surely will be, Cox could very well be Bush’s single most destructive regulatory appointee. Financial markets are one of the very few areas where even laissez-faire types concede that a measure of regulation is necessary. But Cox is a true believer who imagines that financial markets can police themselves. He has been a relentless foe of even the modest regulation enacted by the outgoing Republican SEC chairman, William Donaldson. The two other Republican commissioners are ideological clones of Cox, who will have a working majority to do whatever he wants. It is widely expected that he will preside over the evisceration of the commission. Says a former commissioner, “This is the worst thing to happen in the SEC’s 70-year history.”. . .

Talk about a recess appointment for Bolton won’t go away – meanwhile, Steve Clemons keeps piling up the lies. Have the Bushies thought about what happens if a story comes out showing Bolton lied during his Senate testimony AFTER they've appointed him to the U.N.?

http://www.tpmcafe.com/story/2005/7/26/211835/509

http://www.thewashingtonnote.com/archives/000807.html

http://www.thewashingtonnote.com/archives/000806.html

http://www.thewashingtonnote.com/archives/000803.html

Is there an opportunity for the Dems to retake Congress?

http://politicalwire.com/archives/2005/07/26/a_handful_of_house_races_could_tip_control.html

Bonus item: No more “liberal media,” says Ann Coulter (who should know – thanks to Atrios for the link)

http://www.oliverwillis.com/2005/07/26/ann-coulter-we-have-the-media-now/
AC: “we have the media now”

***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 @ 8:13 AM

 
DEFERRED SUCCESS

Interesting. Mr. Integrity spends only a few days in the company of these lying weasels and is already turning into the same kind of truth-hedging spinmeister as the rest of them. Why is John Roberts lying about his membership in the Federalist Society? It’s a reactionary group, sure, but half of Bush’s administration are members, and any likely Bush nominee (even the “moderate” Edith Clement) would be. Besides, Roberts was openly described as a member long before his latest nomination: what changed?

http://www.detnews.com/2004/politics/0403/28/a07-105331.htm
[Gannett, March 28, 2004] If President Bush has the chance to choose a Supreme Court nominee, his candidate is likely to be a bright conservative and — if influential conservatives have their way — will be a member of the Federalist Society, a legal organization with growing political clout. . .

Federalist Society members in high government positions include Scalia and fellow Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, Attorney General John Ashcroft, and Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, head of the Senate Judiciary Committee. Some, like newly appointed U.S. Circuit Judge Bill Pryor, joined the society in law school. Others, like former Whitewater prosecutor Kenneth Starr and Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala., joined when they had established themselves as lawyers. . . A network of at least two dozen senior-level Federalist Society members in the Bush administration also might help stack the cards in favor of a nominee with ties to the organization, Brown said. . .

If Bush does have an opportunity to choose a Supreme Court nominee, conservatives want him to consider Michael Luttig. A Federalist Society member, Luttig, 49, sits on the Richmond, Va.-based 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals along with J. Harvie Wilkinson III, 59, another conservative judge who reportedly is on Bush’s short list. . . The Senate has confirmed other appeals court candidates who are members of the Federalist Society even though Democrats criticized their records. These include Jay Bybee, Michael McConnell, John Roberts and Jeffrey Sutton. Court watchers consider Sutton, who now serves on the Cincinnati-based 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, as Supreme Court material.

http://www.cnn.com/2005/POLITICS/07/18/federalist.society.ap/
[CNN, July 18, 2005] Olson himself has been mentioned as a potential nominee. Newly confirmed appellate Judge Janice Rogers Brown, also mentioned as a possible future justice, was among those in the luncheon audience recently.

Others on President Bush's reputed short list include Federalist Society members John Roberts and Michael McConnell, both appellate court justices. Still others on the list have addressed the group, including appellate Judges J. Harvie Wilkinson, Emilio Garza, Edith Hollan Jones and Samuel Alito, and Attorney General Alberto Gonzales.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/07/20/AR2005072002431.html
[WP July 21, 2005: Charles Lane] Everyone knows that, like all good Republican lawyers, John G. Roberts Jr. is a member of the Federalist Society, the conservative law and public policy organization where right-of-center types meet to denounce liberalism and angle for jobs in the Bush administration.

And practically everyone -- CNN, the Los Angeles Times, Legal Times and, just yesterday, The Washington Post -- has reported Roberts's membership as a fact. One liberal group opposed to Roberts's nomination, the Alliance for Justice, has noted it on its Web site. But they are wrong. John Roberts is not, in fact, a member of the Federalist Society, and he says he never has been.

"He has no recollection of ever being a member," said Dana Perino, a White House spokeswoman who contacted reporters to correct the mistake yesterday.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/07/24/AR2005072401201.html
[WP July 25, 2005: Charles Lane] Supreme Court nominee John G. Roberts Jr. has repeatedly said that he has no memory of belonging to the Federalist Society, but his name appears in the influential, conservative legal organization's 1997-1998 leadership directory. . . It lists Roberts, then a partner at the law firm Hogan & Hartson, as a member of the steering committee of the organization's Washington chapter and includes his firm's address and telephone number.

http://www.cnn.com/2005/POLITICS/07/25/roberts.records.ap/index.html
Supreme Court nominee John Roberts declined Monday to say why he was listed in a leadership directory of the Federalist Society. . . Roberts, nominated by Bush last week to replace retiring Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, was asked by a reporter about the discrepancy during a morning get-acquainted meeting with Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-California. . . He smiled but didn't reply.

[NB: This is how you create a scandal where there doesn’t have to be one. As far as I can see, all he has to do is admit his connection – by saying he “doesn’t recall,” the escape hatch for guilty witnesses everywhere, he creates suspicion about why he is hiding something and whether he is truthful about other matters as well. Membership in the Federalist Society is hardly a disqualification – but lying and deception are. So what’s going on here?]

More: http://americablog.blogspot.com/2005/07/is-supreme-court-nominee-roberts-lying.html

Other members of the Federalist Society in Bush’s administration and the GOP establishment

http://www.dkosopedia.com/index.php/Federalist_Society
• Spencer Abraham (Secretary of Energy)
• Alex Acosta (Deputy Assistant Attorney General)
• John Ashcroft (Attorney General)
• William Barr
• Bradford Berenson (Associate Counsel to the President)
• Robert Bork
• Ralph Boyd (Assistant Attorney General)
• Jay Bybee (Circuit Judge, U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, 9th C.)
• Linda Chavez
• Michael Chertoff (Assistant Attorney General)
• Jeffrey Clarke (Deputy Assistant Attorney General)
• Paul Clement (Principal Deputy Solicitor General)
• Daniel Collins (Associate Deputy Attorney General)
• R. Ted Cruz (Associate Deputy Attorney General)
• Viet Dinh (Assistant Attorney General)
• John Engler (former Governor of Michigan)
• Noel Francisco (Associate Counsel to the President)
• Sarah Hart (Director, National Institute of Justice)
• Orrin Hatch (Senator)
• Brian Jones (General Counsel, Education Department)
• Brett Kavanaugh (Associate Counsel to the President)
• William Kristol
• Edwin Meese
• Charles Murray (author of The Bell Curve)
• Gale Norton (Secretary of the Interior)
• Ted Olson (Solicitor General)
• William Rehnquist (Chief Justice, U.S. Supreme Court)
• Thomas Sansonetti (Assistant Attorney General)
• Antonin Scalia (Associate Justice, U.S. Supreme Court)
• Eugene Scalia (Solicitor, Department of Labor)
• Kenneth Starr
• Larry Thompson (Deputy Attorney General)
• Edward Whelan (former Principal Deputy Assitant Attorney General)
• John Yoo (former Deputy Assistant Attorney General, Office of Legal Counsel)

More: http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn?pagename=article&node=&contentId=A30099-2001Apr17

http://www.pfaw.org/pfaw/general/default.aspx?oid=3149#2

http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room/archive.html?blog=/politics/war_room/2005/07/25/roberts/index.html

Let’s listen in as Scotty tries to explain it all away

http://www.first-draft.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=3767&mode=thread&order=0&thold=0
Q It was reported, as you know, that he was in the Federalist Society, which is an important legal group in the conservative -- on the conservative side. Then the White House said, no, it was not the case. And now it appears that he was part of the leadership group. What is the real story here?

MR. McCLELLAN: He has no memory of ever joining or paying dues to the Federalist Society. He has no recollection of that. He has participated in events and panel discussions. He's given speeches at Federalist Society forums. But he doesn't have any recollection of ever paying dues or joining the organization.

Q Isn't that kind of a simple thing to nail down, prior to now?

MR. McCLELLAN: Well, David, he's answered this over the last few years the issue has come up, and he certainly has participated in some of the events that they've sponsored or that they've hosted. But he just doesn't have any memory of ever paying any dues to the organization. . .

But here is the blockbuster story about Roberts: if true it is probably a disqualification on its face. (Have you heard about it?)

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-turley25jul25,0,3148446.story
[Jonathan Turley] Judge John G. Roberts Jr. has been called the stealth nominee for the Supreme Court - a nominee specifically selected because he has few public positions on controversial issues such as abortion. However, in a meeting last week, Roberts briefly lifted the carefully maintained curtain over his personal views. In so doing, he raised a question that could not only undermine the White House strategy for confirmation but could raise a question of his fitness to serve as the 109th Supreme Court justice.

The exchange occurred during one of Roberts' informal discussions with senators last week. According to two people who attended the meeting, Roberts was asked by Sen. Richard Durbin (D-Ill.) what he would do if the law required a ruling that his church considers immoral. . .

Renowned for his unflappable style in oral argument, Roberts appeared nonplused and, according to sources in the meeting, answered after a long pause that he would probably have to recuse himself.

It was the first unscripted answer in the most carefully scripted nomination in history. It was also the wrong answer. In taking office, a justice takes an oath to uphold the Constitution and the laws of the United States. A judge's personal religious views should have no role in the interpretation of the laws. . .

More: http://www.prospect.org/weblog/archives/2005/07/index.html#007205

On the absurd claim that you can’t ask SC nominees about their legal views

http://www.prospect.org/weblog/archives/2005/07/index.html#007192

John Roberts: the early years (maybe he always WAS a truth-hedging spinmeister)

http://susiemadrak.com/2005/07/25/09/23/ah-yes-a-republican-from-the-beginning/
[LAT] There was another young John in those days too, the one at the Notre Dame Catholic elementary school in Michigan City, Ind., who one day found himself sitting in the principal’s office.

His parents were called in and John was asked to explain how an orange had come to be smashed against the freshly painted cafeteria wall.

“Did you throw the orange?” his parents asked.

“Yes,” he said.

“Did it hit the wall?”

“Yes. It splattered all over the place. But it wasn’t my fault.”

His parents looked confused. “You threw the orange. You hit the wall. But it wasn’t your fault?”

He explained: “Tommy ducked. It’s Tommy’s fault. I had no intention of hitting the wall. I had every intention of hitting him in the face.”

Young John Roberts, already the litigator.

Okay, okay. I hate to admit these things. The Huge Disclosure trumpeted here yesterday, that Gonzales had told Andrew Card about the imminent Justice Dept investigation twelve hours before announcing it to the staff, does invite a lot of suspicious speculation. But the fact is, we already knew about it.

But in researching this issue, I reread this amazing October 1, 2003 press briefing. It contains a lot of important information, considering what has transpired since then. So please excuse the lengthy posting

http://www.fas.org/irp/news/2003/10/wh100103.html
[October 1, 2003] Q: Scott, when did the President first find out that someone in his administration had outed an undercover CIA official? What was his reaction? What did he do about it?

MR. McCLELLAN: Well, one, there's an allegation that that has happened, at this point.

[NB: Question asked, and not answered]

Q: It was an undercover official who has now been exposed; that's fact, right?

MR. McCLELLAN: Oh, I'm sorry -- an allegation that a senior administration official did that, that's what I'm referring to. . . And the Department of Justice is looking into it. I don't know the specific time period, but the process was followed, and the President expects the process to be followed, and that process was followed, and that what the President expects, because leaking classified information is a very serious matter.

Q: That's what I'm asking about. He said that -- I want to know what he's done about it. This story broke in July. Did he know in July that an undercover CIA official had been outed and that the person who outed that undercover CIA official attributed it to senior administration officials?

MR. McCLELLAN: I think there -- no, I understand what you're saying. But I think there are certain assumptions you're still making in your remarks. . .

Q: Fair enough. But when did the President know it?

MR. McCLELLAN: But, see, that's what I just told you, Terry. The process is in place, and it followed that process. I don't know, in answer to your first part of your question. . .

[NB: “I don’t know.” Really?]

Q: Fair enough. If you get a chance, if you could establish for us when it came to the President's --

MR. McCLELLAN: Terry, that was back in July and I --

Q: Is that not knowable? That's knowable, right? It's checkable?

MR. McCLELLAN: -- just don't know. I looked into it and I just don't know. . .

[NB: The question was, will you check into it? What does that mean "I looked into it"? He asked Bush, and Bush wouldn't tell him?]

Q: Would you know? Would you know? Are you trying to stay away from it?

MR. McCLELLAN: I don't have any reason -- I don't have any reason to. That's the Department of Justice, that's their role, and the criminal division over there. . .

[NB: The original question was: when did the President know? Why wouldn’t Scotty have “a reason to” find out the answer to this question (unless he didn’t want to know?)]

Q: Scott, in the past, the Justice Department has used polygraph examinations in sensitive leak investigations. The President has said he expects full cooperation. If I work at the White House and down the road in this investigation the Justice Department came to me and said, we want you to submit to a polygraph investigation, the President would expect the answer to be?

MR. McCLELLAN: I appreciate the hypothetical, but that is a hypothetical and that is not where the process is. The process is that the Justice Department has asked the White House to preserve any and all material related to the specific information they put in their letter. And that's --

Q: Well, let's set that specific hypothetical aside. . .

[NB: Well, let’s just pick it up again now, shall we? Has anyone seen any discussion of whether Rove and others were asked to take a polygraph? And whether they “fully cooperated” or not?]

Q: Ambassador Wilson says that he was told by a reporter that Karl Rove said, "Wilson's wife is fair game." I know you've spoken with Karl, does he deny that?

MR. McCLELLAN: I'm sorry?

Q: Does he deny that he ever used those words, "Wilson's wife is fair game"?

MR. McCLELLAN: Look, the issue here, and this came up earlier, the issue here is whether or not someone leaked classified information. That is a serious matter and it should be pursued to the fullest. . . The issue here is did someone leak classified information, and, if so, who was that person, and then the appropriate action should be taken.

Q: You have said previously from the podium that these types of accusations against Karl are "ridiculous."

MR. McCLELLAN: Yes.

Q: On the very line that Ambassador Wilson says that Karl used, "Wilson's wife is fair game," is that wrong?

MR. McCLELLAN: I've just said, he has said a lot of things and then backed away from what. . .

Q: Does Karl deny that he said that?

MR. McCLELLAN: What were the words again?

Q: "Wilson's wife is fair game."

MR. McCLELLAN: And who did he say it to?

Q: To a reporter that then repeated it to Wilson.

MR. McCLELLAN: Again, this is -- the issue here -- what is the issue here? Did someone leak classified information? Is that the issue?

Q: It could be about changing the tone, too.

MR. McCLELLAN: All of a sudden now, we're trying to change the topic in this room.

Q: There's a legal issue, there's an ethical issue, too. Going after a man's wife is unethical. . .

[NB: Well, yes, SOMEONE is trying to change the topic]

Q: Yes. I'm asking if there's any concern now about that -- an effort that appears to be, if it was not an intentional leak of classified information, it was, one could argue, an attempt to belittle his credentials by saying he got the job because of his wife. And I'm just saying, is there a concern about that, as well as the classified?

MR. McCLELLAN: The President doesn't condone any such activity and, you know, I have not seen any information brought to our attention to suggest that. . .

Q: Scott, the President used the words, "come forward," yesterday. Does he not want anybody to 'fess up to him or to Andy Card or somebody --

MR. McCLELLAN: To the Department of Justice. To the Department of Justice.

Q: He doesn't want to know --

MR. McCLELLAN: The Department of Justice is investigating this, they're the appropriate agency. As I have said earlier in the week, that is where information should be reported. . .

[NB: Gee, a naïve person would hear this and think that Bush DOESN’T want to know]

Q: Okay. To follow up on what Terry was asking about earlier, what changed between July 14th and yesterday that accounts for the President not having spoken out then, where he is speaking out on this now?

MR. McCLELLAN: Well, for the very reason I've already said, and the very reason I said back in July, is that there was an anonymous source making allegations. . .

Q: But isn't the underlying question --

MR. McCLELLAN: And as soon as the Justice Department contacted us and said that an investigation is underway, and then the President was informed, he made it very clear that he expects the White House to cooperate fully.

Q: But the question remains, if he feels so strongly about this, why was there nothing earlier? Why was there nothing in July and August?

MR. McCLELLAN: Because there was no information -- there was no information brought to our attention beyond an anonymous source in media reports to suggest that there was White House involvement, that's why. . .

[NB: And why wouldn’t even that level of information be enough to trigger some concerns? Are we really supposed to believe that for two months this was never discussed in the WH? I am learning a little Scotty 101 here – the more he repeats something, the less likely it is to be true]

Q: There's also been some suggestion that White House aides may have pointed reporters toward that story after it was published, toward the name --

MR. McCLELLAN: Yes, here we go. I mean, this is -- I understand that this is the way Washington, D.C. operates, and all of the sudden --

Q: Well, let me --

MR. McCLELLAN: -- the first allegation, well, maybe it was shaky, and then they go to the next allegation and then the next allegation. . .

Q: Did the President think there was anything wrong with that?

MR. McCLELLAN: The real issue here is that this President thinks the leaking of classified information is a very serious matter and it should be pursued to the fullest. And the President does not condone the kind of activity you talked about.

Q: He does not condone the -- people pointing reporters toward classified information that's been released; he would not condone that either? Is that what you're saying?

MR. McCLELLAN: The President doesn't condone the activity that you're suggesting, absolutely he does not. . .

[NB: Okay, so take this down for future reference: the President doesn’t condone leaking classified information, but he ALSO doesn’t condone recycling it further once it’s been leaked, or treating someone’s wife as “fair game.” Hear that, Karl?]

Q: According to the chronology you outlined yesterday, there was this, approximately an 11-hour time lag between the time the Counsel's Office was notified by Justice on Monday night and the memo and messages went out to staffers. . . Who in the Counsel's Office got the call Monday night? And who did they then notify?

MR. McCLELLAN: I think I'll leave it that the Counsel's Office was contacted by the Department of Justice -- I'm not getting into all the names -- at approximately 8:30 p.m. on Monday evening. I mean, the White House staff was not notified at that point because they said, it's fine to notify them tomorrow morning.

So I don't think -- you know, it wasn't known amongst the White House staff that there was an investigation underway until the next morning.

Q: Who was notified? Did the person in the Counsel's Office who got the call, call Mr. Gonzales --

MR. McCLELLAN: I think you can expect that the Chief of Staff would have been notified.

Q: The Chief of Staff was notified. And did he -- did he then send the information to anyone else?

MR. McCLELLAN: No, it was -- the President was informed of the investigation the next morning.

Q: So nobody else -- it went from the Counsel's Office to the Chief of Staff on Monday night, and --

MR. McCLELLAN: That's what I know. What I just told you is what I know. I don't know beyond that. But I know that the White House staff was not contacted. It went to Counsel's Office and I think Counsel, appropriately so, would inform the Chief of Staff at that point. . .

[NB: Well, there seem to be a lot of things that Scotty doesn’t know. But why limit his comments to WH staff? Was anyone NOT on the WH staff contacted? In any event, we first heard about the Gonzales-Card conversation here]

Q: Scott, this is not hypothetical at all. You say the issue is leaking classified information. So my question is did Karl Rove or any others in the White House talk with reporters, not leak classified information, but talk with reporters about Mr. Wilson's wife and her CIA status after the initial report by Robert Novak?

MR. McCLELLAN: After his initial report? Again, you're -- now the issue is changing. The issue was --

Q: No --

MR. McCLELLAN: The issue is, did someone leak classified information. That's a serious matter.

Q: Right. But if someone --

MR. McCLELLAN: That's being investigated. Do people talk about what's in the news? That's a whole a different -- that's on a different --

Q: There is talk about a woman who's still undercover.

MR. McCLELLAN: And I just made clear. . .

Q: My question is pretty straightforward. Did Karl Rove or others have conversations with reporters about Mrs. Wilson?

MR. McCLELLAN: In what way?

Q: And her CIA status.

MR. McCLELLAN: There's an investigation going on in asking everybody to preserve any information they would have related to some of the issues you bring up. I'm not -- there's been no information brought to our attention to suggest that anyone leaked classified information, and the President certainly doesn't condone the leaking, or the tactics you're suggesting.

Q: You seem to be suggesting that perhaps they had conversations, but weren't leaking classified information.

MR. McCLELLAN: Well, there's an investigation going on to pull together all the information. But the issue is, did someone leak classified information? That's a serious issue. And I just made it -- I made it clear early, you brought up Karl's name. Let's be very clear. I thought -- I said it was a ridiculous suggestion, I said it's simply not true that he was involved in leaking classified information, and -- nor, did he condone that kind of activity. This has been answered, and now we're trying to get in a whole bunch of issues, separate and apart from that.

Q: Did your conversation with Rove include whether or not he had tried to highlight that story for reporters?

MR. McCLELLAN: I'm sorry?

Q: Did your conversation with Rove include asking him whether or not he had tried to highlight that story for reporters, the Novak story?

MR. McCLELLAN: I made it very clear -- I have spoken with him. I have spoken with him. I made it very clear that it's not true that he was involved in the leaking of classified information or that he condoned some of what you're suggesting.

Q: No, but did he -- did he participate in that? Because then it would make sense that he said, she's fair game now, if it was after the fact. Did you ask him whether or not he participated in that --

MR. McCLELLAN: I think the individual who said that has already backed away from other previous comments.

Q: I'm asking what you asked Rove.

MR. McCLELLAN: And I made it very clear that the issue was regarding the leaking of classified information. And the issue was -- and someone asked about condoning that information. I made it very clear that he didn't condone that kind of activity and was not involved in that kind of activity.

Q: Just to be clear, whether Rove condoned it or not, he did -- he also did not participate in that type of activity, as far as you're aware? Is that correct?

MR. McCLELLAN: There is an investigation going on to pull together all that information. . .

Q: Are you saying that after the fact, after such a --

MR. McCLELLAN: Well, now we're getting into -- well, let me put it in perspective. Now we're getting into issues such as, did anyone talk about what was in the news, what was reported in the paper, things of that nature. That can go down a whole lot of different roads. And that's why I think it's important to let the investigation take place. And the investigation is specifically about potential leak of classified information. And you're asking me to try to determine information that's going to be pulled together by the Department of Justice. . .

Q: What I'm asking very specifically is, is it okay, in the President's view, to discuss -- for a staffer to discuss, after the fact, classified information --

MR. McCLELLAN: That is such a broad question. . .

Q: I'm not asking you that. I'm just asking, as a matter of policy, does the President draw a distinction between a leak of classified information --

MR. McCLELLAN: And talking about news articles?

Q: -- which includes --

MR. McCLELLAN: That's why I want to be clear what you're asking. In talking about news articles?

Q: Peddling them.

Q: A specific news article that contained a piece of classified information. Is that okay in the President's view?

MR. McCLELLAN: Was it known that that information was classified?

Q: Well, as a matter of policy --

MR. McCLELLAN: I think that's an important question. Was it known that information was classified information?. . .

[NB: Well, clearly he is trying to limit the discussion to only that one question. But given what we know now, these responses give us the outline from the beginning of what Scotty must have already known about Rove’s involvement. Someone should ask him now, GIVEN these comments, how he knew these things at the time. From Rove, or somewhere else?]

Q: Scott, you said that the first the White House Counsel's Office was notified of the investigation was Monday night. Attorney General Ashcroft said yesterday that the investigation was launched Friday, and that prior to that, there was a certain amount of legal activity that went -- involved before they decided to launch the investigation. What contacts were there between the White House Counsel's Office during that period of time and after the Sunday report --

MR. McCLELLAN: Well, keep in mind that our Counsel's Office on a lot of issues is in contact with the Department of Justice. What I said, that the first contact about the investigation -- as far as I know, and I've checked on this -- was when the Counsel's Office was contacted by the Department of Justice Monday evening.

Q: So during this period of time, this sort of 48 hours between when The Washington Post reported that an investigation was under consideration and that Monday night, there was no contact between the White House Counsel's Office and the Department of Justice concerning the scope or whether there was going to be an investigation on it?

MR. McCLELLAN: To the best of my knowledge. To the best of my knowledge, that's correct.

[NB: “But, then again, maybe I just don’t know”]

Why can’t Scotty answer questions about what he has ALREADY said – at the very least, “do you still stand by these comments”?

http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room/archive.html?blog=/politics/war_room/2005/07/25/mcclellan/index.html

Read this: http://www.markarkleiman.com/archives/000006.html

Why Gonzales’s excuse, that the delay was approved by the Justice Dept, “doesn’t cut it” – because Karl Rove’s longtime boss was head of the Justice Dept!

http://thinkprogress.org/2005/07/25/gonzales-excuse/

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2005_07_24.php#006155

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/4796.html
On Friday, Sept. 26, 2003, the CIA directed the Justice Department to launch a criminal probe into the leak. Three days later, on Monday, Sept. 29, 2003, the WH counsel's office was formally notified about the investigation. And then 12 hours after that, Gonzales told White House staff to preserve materials. In other words, the amount of time Bush aides were given to, perhaps, discard and destroy relevant evidence after the DoJ began its work wasn't just 12 hours; it was several days.

It's not as if the Gonzales notification — on the morning of Tuesday, Sept. 30, 2003 — told Rove & Co. something new. MSNBC told the world about the investigation that Friday night. This means Rove & Co. learned on Friday night that they were being investigated, but weren't formally told to start securing relevant materials until Tuesday morning. In case the MSNBC report wasn't clear enough, a front-page article was published in the Washington Post about the Justice Department's criminal investigation a full 48 hours before WH staffers were told to preserve potentially incriminating evidence.

More: http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room/index.html?blog=/politics/war_room/2005/07/25/gonzales_gap/index.html

Why Rove’s (and his defenders’) excuses about his not “knowingly” revealing the identity of a covert CIA agent may have NOTHING to do with what he is eventually charged with

http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room/archive.html?blog=/politics/war_room/2005/07/25/plametwist/index.html

Will Fitzgerald extend the grand jury (six months)? And does he have to tell Rove and Libby if they are targets of the investigation? (answer: no he doesn’t)

http://talkleft.com/new_archives/011626.html
[Jeralyn Merritt] The Wall Street Journal reports today that Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald could extend the term of the grand jury by six months. But there is little information other than speculation by outside lawyers as to whether he will.

The article also contains this statement.

Lawyers for both Mr. Rove and Mr. Libby said in recent days that prosecutors haven't told them their clients are targets of the investigation.

Would Fitzgerald notify the lawyers of their clients' changed status? I don't think so. Here are the rules from the U.S. Attorney's Manual on notification to targets.

Libby and Rove have been told they are subjects, not targets of the grand jury. Both have already testified. Thus the provision in the rules that says if a target has not been subpoenaed and has not asked to testify, the prosecutor is encouraged, before indicting the target, to notify him and give him an opportunity to testify, does not apply.

Once it appears a target will not be indicted, Fitzgerald has the discretion to tell them of their changed status under the rules. But again, Rove and Libby have not had target status to date.

I don't see anything in the rules that says when a subject who has testified before the grand jury evolves into a target and is likely to be indicted, that the prosecutor has to provide notice of this.

So I don't think the fact that Rove and Libby's lawyers haven't been told by Fitzgerald in recent days that their status has changed to that of targets means anything.

And the growing sense that sooner or later we’re going to be talking about what Bush knew, and when. . . or if he didn’t, why he didn’t. Once you get past the original leak to perjury and cover-up, his involvement looks more and more inevitable

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/blog/2005/07/25/BL2005072500724.html
[Dan Froomkin] Bush and Cheney were not placed under oath -- the reasoning apparently being that they had no direct involvement in the potential criminal activity under investigation: the leak itself. We don't know much about either interview, beyond the fact that Bush had his personal attorney at his side.

But now Fitzgerald's investigation appears to have turned its focus to discrepancies in the testimony of White House senior adviser Karl Rove and vice presidential chief of staff I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby. Fitzgerald may be trying to determine whether evidence exists to bring perjury or obstruction of justice charges.

And that raises the issue of what -- if anything -- Rove and Libby told Bush and Cheney about their roles.

So does that mean Fitzgerald might call Bush and Cheney to testify before the grand jury -- under oath? Might he even have done so already? We have no idea, of course, because the White House isn't saying anything at all about the investigation anymore.

Either way, the CIA leak story is taking on more and more of the trappings of the classic Washington political scandal -- the saving grace for Bush being that his party controls Congress, and that thus far, Republicans have closed ranks behind him.

More: http://www.needlenose.com/node/view/1684

Can you believe it? Dependable WH water boy Pat Roberts (R-KS), whose Intelligence committee did NOT bother to investigate the misuse of intelligence to justify the Iraq war, and did NOT bother to investigate who leaked classified information from the WH, announces a new investigation.

This investigation will (apparently) explore: Why doesn’t the CIA do a better job of protecting their agents from getting exposed? Was Valerie Plame really “covert”? Is Patrick Fitzgerald’s investigation proper? I suppose this is good news, because it shows how terrified they are of the indictments that are coming. But I can imagine two things being set up here. One, refusing to extend the term of the grand jury if Fitzgerald requests it, and two, laying the groundwork that any charges outside of the narrow question of who leaked Plame’s identity are beyond the scope of his authorized inquiry, and constitute an abuse by a “runaway prosecutor.” We’re in a race now, with the GOP determined to “frame” in advance whatever comes out of Fitzgerald’s office.

And if this all seems too transparent to succeed, consider that they may not have any choice. Fitzgerald’s indictments, when they come, are going to decimate the inner core of the WH, and raise immediate questions about why these people weren’t fired sooner and what discussions took place about protecting them (“What should we tell the press?” for example). These discussions HAD to include Bush and Cheney at some point. I think they think they are really in trouble this time, and it is total war to block or discredit Fitzgerald’s investigation in any way that they can

http://www.boston.com/news/politics/president/bush/articles/2005/07/25/congress_plans_to_scrutinize_plame_related_issues/
[Boston Globe] Little said the Senate committee would also review the probe of special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald, who has been investigating the Plame case for nearly two years.

http://www.markarkleiman.com/archives/valerie_plame_/2005/07/hearings_at_long_last.php
[Mark Kleiman] Actually, the news, on balance, makes me happy. The hearings will help keep the story alive until the indictments are ready, and give the Democrats lots of opportunities to ask nasty questions. And the more the Republicans in Congress defend the indefensible, the worse things will be for them in 2006 and 2008.

More on what an unbelievable hack (Pat) Roberts is

http://americablog.blogspot.com/2005/07/republican-senator-covert-agents-are.html

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2005_07_24_digbysblog_archive.html#112232185859051182

http://billmon.org/archives/002063.html

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2005/7/25/191620/049

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2005_07_24.php#006157

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2005_07_24.php#006156

http://www.tpmcafe.com/story/2005/7/25/201539/521

Bolton recess appointment? (I’ll believe it when I see it)

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20050725/ap_on_go_pr_wh/un_ambassador

http://www.thewashingtonnote.com/archives/000801.html

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2005/7/25/17755/2858

http://www.thewashingtonnote.com/archives/000802.html
There are now rumblings, given what has been reported in the media, that various Senators may request the State Department to clarify whether or not Mr. Bolton met with the grand jury and/or its investigators. If he did so, they may ask when this took place.

Good. GOP Senators press ahead with anti-torture rules despite WH pressure, veto threat

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-detainees26jul26,1,4411957.story

Army admits it falsified quotes

http://edition.cnn.com/2005/WORLD/meast/07/25/military.release/index.html

After saying for months, in response to Democratic demands, that a specified timetable for withdrawal in Iraq would do nothing but serve the enemy (those traitorous Democrats), Bush announces plans to. . . set a specified timetable for withdrawal

http://billmon.org/archives/002061.html

“Deferred success”

http://billmon.org/archives/002060.html
LONDON (Reuters) - The word "fail" should be banned from use in British classrooms and replaced with the phrase "deferred success" to avoid demoralizing pupils, a group of teachers has proposed.

Members of the Professional Association of Teachers (PAT) argue that telling pupils they have failed can put them off learning for life.

A spokesman for the group said it wanted to avoid labeling children. "We recognize that children do not necessarily achieve success first time," he said. "But I recognize that we can't just strike a word from the dictionary."

WASHINGTON (AP) - The word "fail" should be banned from use in U.S. newspapers and cable news shows and replaced with the phrase "deferred success" to avoid demoralizing presidents, a group of editorial columnists has proposed.

Members of the Professional Association of Pundits (PAP) argue that telling presidents they have failed can put them off learning for life.

A spokesman for the group said it wanted to avoid labeling incompetent U.S. politicians. "We realize that presidents do not necessarily achieve success first time," he said. "We also recognize that we can't strike a word from the dictionary. But, with our oligopolistic position in the U.S. corporate media, we think we can come pretty damn close."

Somebody remind the Washington Post that these days when you say “Congress did it” you mean “the Republicans did it”

http://www.prospect.org/weblog/archives/2005/07/index.html#007191

The increasingly conservative slant of the news networks BESIDES Fox News

http://yglesias.tpmcafe.com/story/2005/7/25/95843/4964

Bonus item: The Plame Clock

http://democrats.senate.gov/leak.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 @ 6:52 AM

 
MIND THE GAP!

Bob Schieffer breaks big news on “Face the Nation”

http://americablog.blogspot.com/2005/07/rovegate-12-hour-gap.html
[John Aravosis] Two points to Frank Rich for resuscitating an issue that I knew about, then forgot about. Namely, that then- White House counsel Alberto Gonzalez knew about the Justice Department investigation of the Valerie Plame leak but then didn't ask the White House staff to preserve all evidence until 12 hours later. In the mean time, he told Andy Card, White House chief of staff about it. . .

Here's Arianna's blog's take on the gap:

On Face The Nation, Gonzales said the Justice Department contacted him at 8pm and, after responding by saying something to the effect that everyone had gone home for the night, Gonzales asked if it would be okay if he waited until 8am the next day to notify The White House Staff to "preserve all records" etc. Gonzales got permission to do so, but then - again this is Gonzales speaking on Face The Nation - he said he contacted Andrew Card to informally tell him what had happened.

I wish you could have seen Bob Schieffer's face as he came back from commercial break to his next guest, Senator Joe Biden, who he then took up this issue with. Bob Schieffer said to Joe Biden (I'm paraphrasing here...I'll post the transcript when it's available) "You know, everyone in The White House has these BlackBerrys. And you have to wonder what sort of message Andrew Card emailed at 8pm to the other people in The White House...what sort of documents could have been shredded in those 12 hours." There was little Joe Biden needed to add to what Bob Schieffer said. . .

More: http://www.discourse.net/archives/2005/07/it_starts_to_come_around_at_last.html

http://www.americanpolitics.com/

http://atrios.blogspot.com/2005_07_24_atrios_archive.html#112222434865057338
While we're walking down memory lane, we must also remember that the documents were also vetted by Gonzales before they even got to the Justice Department.

Oh, and uh, one other little question that might be asked. . .

http://thinkprogress.org/2005/07/24/gonzales-raises-questions-for-andy-card-to-answer/
If the Attorney General of the United States can answer questions on the ongoing investigation, why can’t the White House?

The GOP breaks out the Excuse Brigade – and a pretty lame effort it is

http://americablog.blogspot.com/2005/07/john-mccain-on-rove-it-depends-on-what.html
On ABC's This Week, Stephanopoulos just read the text of the Classified Information NonDisclosure Agreement that White House employees are required to sign:

"I have been advised that any breach of this Agreement may result in the termination of any security clearance I hold; removal from any position of special confidence and trust requiring such clearances; or the termination of my employment..."

Stephanopoulos: Do you believe that this agreement should be abided by?

McCain: I do, but that also implies that someone knowingly revealed...

Stephanopoulos: This covers negligent disclosures

McCain: Again I don't know what the definition of "negligent" is.

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2005/7/24/165518/084
And I must say from a common sense standpoint, driving back and forth to work to the CIA headquarters, I don't know if that really qualifies as being, you know, covert.

- Sen. Pat Roberts (R-KS), on CNN Late Edition, 7/24/05

. . . Pat Roberts is Chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, so he certainly can't claim justifiable ignorance. All the dissembling and spin in the world can't derail Patrick Fitzgerald's investigation, and yet these inveterate liars just still can't help themselves.

[NB: It really is outrageous. The often-repeated canard that Plame wasn’t “really” covert is (a) demonstrably untrue and (b) even if true, irrelevant – you don’t go blabbing about who you know works at the CIA if you don't know whether they’re covert or not. Despite this idiotic quote, Pat Roberts knows better. But desperation does strange things to people: see http://www.tpmcafe.com/story/2005/7/24/134330/592]

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2005_07_24.php#006153
I've told you many times how Sen. Pat Roberts (R) of Kansas, Chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence is a shame to the office, a wholly-owned subsidiary of the White House political operation if there ever was one. . . It's necessary to unpack this one to see just what a lickspittle the Senator from Kansas really is. . .

No one on the outside really knows the details of Plame's service. By definition, her superiors at the CIA do. And they wouldn't have made a criminal referral if the law didn't even apply to the person in question.

Plame leak: ”no big deal” – but (CIA Director) Tenet was furious when he learned about it

http://www.buffalonews.com/editorial/20050723/1063162.asp

Rove's defense brigade (which Rove is probably orchestrating) is leaking MORE secret and classified information. . . to protect him from the charge of leaking classified information

http://www.tpmcafe.com/story/2005/7/23/17470/3140

“What did Bush know and when did he know it?”

http://americablog.blogspot.com/2005/07/what-did-bush-know-and-when-did-he.html
[John Aravosis] McClellan said two years ago that Bush "knows" that Karl Rove wasn't involved in the leak. That means that Bush either relied on McClellan's public statements that Rove had told McClellan he wasn't involved, and Rove lied, or that Bush talked to Rove and Rove lied to the president as well, or that Bush knew the truth and permitted his staff to lie. In the best case scenario for Bush, Rove lied to White House staff about the scandal and let them go public with that lie. How does the president tolerate this?

And more importantly, are we to believe that since that time the president never called Karl into his office to find out WHY Karl lied to McClellan and why Karl let McClellan say publicly that "the president knows Karl Rove wasn't involved"? Think about that. Rove's lie made the White House issue a statement that the president himself "knows" Rove wasn't involved. How and why does President Bush tolerate someone who did that, now that we know the truth from Rove's own lawyer, that Rove was the leaker?

Apparently lying to top aides of the president and tricking those aides into publicly making a fool of the president, and a liar of him as well, is no big deal to George Bush.

[September 29, 2003] Q So the President of the United States doesn't know whether or not this classified information was divulged, and he is only getting his information by reading the media?

MR. McCLELLAN: I'm sorry?

Q He does not know whether or not the classified information was divulged here, and he's only getting his information from the media?

MR. McCLELLAN: No, we don't know -- we don't have any information that's been brought to our attention beyond what we've seen in the media reports. I've made that clear.

Q All right. Let me just follow up. You said this morning, "The President knows" that Karl Rove wasn't involved. How does he know that?

MR. McCLELLAN: Well, I've made it very clear that it was a ridiculous suggestion in the first place. I saw some comments this morning from the person who made that suggestion, backing away from that. And I said it is simply not true. So, I mean, it's public knowledge. I've said that it's not true. And I have spoken with Karl Rove --

Q But how does --

MR. McCLELLAN: I'm not going to get into conversations that the President has with advisors or staff or anything of that nature; that's not my practice.

Q But the President has a factual basis for knowing that Karl Rove --

MR. McCLELLAN: I said it publicly. I said that --

Q But I'm not asking what you said, I'm asking if the President has a factual basis for saying -- for your statement that he knows Karl Rove --

MR. McCLELLAN: He's aware of what I've said, that there is simply no truth to that suggestion. And I have spoken with Karl about it.

Fitzgerald doesn’t want to know what WH told Russert; only wants to know what Russert told them (this tells you that they’re skeptical about the claim that Rove and Libby first heard about Plame from the press)

http://msnbc.msn.com/id/8682500/site/newsweek/

Leaks: who’s using whom?

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/07/22/AR2005072202222.html

More: http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2005_07/006786.php

Unbelievable. Will Britain ever forgive us? (thanks to Atrios for the link)

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/2002399039_aswat24m.html
The Justice Department blocked efforts by its prosecutors in Seattle in 2002 to bring criminal charges against Haroon Aswat, according to federal law-enforcement officials who were involved in the case.

British authorities suspect Aswat of taking part in the July 7 London bombings, which killed 56 and prompted an intense worldwide manhunt for him.

But long before he surfaced as a suspect there, federal prosecutors in Seattle wanted to seek a grand-jury indictment for his involvement in a failed attempt to set up a terrorist-training camp in Bly, Ore., in late 1999. In early 2000, Aswat lived for a couple of months in central Seattle at the Dar-us-Salaam mosque.

A federal indictment of Aswat in 2002 would have resulted in an arrest warrant and his possible detention in Britain for extradition to the United States.

"It was really frustrating," said a former Justice Department official involved in the case. "Guys like that, you just want to sweep them up off the street.". . .

At the time, however, federal prosecutors chose not to indict Aswat for reasons that are not clear. Asked why Aswat wasn't indicted, a federal official in Seattle replied, "That's a great question."

The new world of terrorist recruitment

http://www.tpmcafe.com/story/2005/7/24/131353/645

Hey, how’s that constitution-building going? (“consensus collapsing”)

http://www.juancole.com/2005/07/massive-baghdad-bomb-kills-up-to-40.html

http://www.needlenose.com/node/view/1681

http://www.needlenose.com/node/view/1683

What’s in those Abu Ghraib photos and videos that the govt doesn’t want us to see?

http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1000990590

U.S. Army PR recycles quotes from “unidentified Iraqi”

http://www.cnn.com/2005/WORLD/meast/07/24/military.release/index.html
Following a car bombing in Baghdad on Sunday, the U.S. military issued a statement with a quotation attributed to an unidentified Iraqi that was virtually identical to a quote reacting to an attack on July 13. . .

A statement about the attack by Task Force Baghdad 3rd Infantry Division contained a three-sentence quote attributed to an unidentified Iraqi. The statement said the Iraqi called the attackers "enemies of humanity" and vowed to "take the fight to the terrorists."

The quote was virtually the same as a quote contained in a Task Force Baghdad 3rd Infantry Division statement released after a car bombing on July 13. That attack killed several children.

Whoops! A little bump in the fast lane for John Roberts confirmation

http://www.mydd.com/story/2005/7/25/1520/26574
[WP] Supreme Court nominee John G. Roberts Jr. has repeatedly said that he has no memory of belonging to the Federalist Society, but his name appears in the influential, conservative legal organization's 1997-1998 leadership directory.

Having served only two years on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit after a long career as a government and private-sector lawyer, Roberts has not amassed much of a public paper record that would show his judicial philosophy. Working with the Federalist Society would provide some clue of his sympathies. The organization keeps its membership rolls secret, but many key policymakers in the Bush administration are acknowledged current or former members.

[NB: Gee, and I just assumed that membership in the Federalist Society was a REQUIREMENT for a GOP nomination to the bench]

Ironic: Roberts’ law partner couldn’t get an “up or down vote” when Clinton nominated him (thanks to David Noreen for the link)

http://www.slate.com/id/2123131/entry/2123219/

GOP keeps bullying scientists who don’t toe the party line

http://susiemadrak.com/2005/07/24/10/36/your-papers-please/

Justice Dept dodges accountability for their data mining and surveillance activities (like TIA)

http://talkleft.com/new_archives/011618.html

Is this the final word on John Bolton ever going to the UN?

http://www.thewashingtonnote.com/archives/000800.html

http://www.thewashingtonnote.com/archives/000799.html

Ha ha. They didn’t want her to run in the first place, and now that Katherine Harris looks like a sure loser in the Florida Senate race, the WH is scrambling to find an alternative to knock her out of the primary

http://politicalwire.com/archives/2005/07/24/gop_trying_to_push_harris_out_of_race.html

Bonus item: a little bit of good news – MTBE provision to be dropped from energy bill (now the rest of the corporate giveaways can move forward)

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-energy25jul25,1,5739887.story

***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 @ 6:42 AM

 
COMING ATTRACTIONS

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/07/24/politics/24bush.html
[NYT] For all that, it is still not clear what the investigation into the leak of a C.I.A. operative's identity will mean for President Bush. So far the disclosures about the involvement of Karl Rove, among others, have not exacted any substantial political price from the administration. And nobody has suggested that the investigation directly implicates the president.

Yet Mr. Bush has yet to address some uncomfortable questions that he may not be able to evade indefinitely.

For starters, did Mr. Bush know in the fall of 2003, when he was telling the public that no one wanted to get to the bottom of the case more than he did, that Mr. Rove, his longtime strategist and senior adviser, and I. Lewis Libby Jr., Vice President Dick Cheney's chief of staff, had touched on the C.I.A. officer's identity in conversations with journalists before the officer's name became public? If not, when did they tell him, and what would the delay say in particular about his relationship with Mr. Rove, whose career and Mr. Bush's have been intertwined for decades?

Then there is the broader issue of whether Mr. Bush was aware of any effort by his aides to use the C.I.A. officer's identity to undermine the standing of her husband, a former diplomat who had publicly accused the administration of twisting its prewar intelligence about Iraq's nuclear program.

For the last several weeks, Mr. Bush and his spokesman, Scott McClellan, have declined to address the leak in any substantive way, citing the continuing federal criminal investigation.

But Democrats increasingly see an opportunity to raise questions about Mr. Bush's credibility, and to reopen a debate about whether the White House leveled with the nation about the urgency of going to war with Iraq. And even some Republicans say Mr. Bush cannot assume that he will escape from the investigation politically unscathed. . .

Allan J. Lichtman, a presidential historian at American University in Washington, said the lesson of recent history, for example in the Iran-contra case under President Ronald Reagan, is that presidents tend to know more than it might first appear about what is going on within the White House.

"My presumption in presidential politics is that the president always knows," Mr. Lichtman said. . .

A key question: who was on Air Force One (where the State Dept memo was circulated?)

http://talkleft.com/new_archives/011612.html
. . . Condi Rice, Colin Powell, Ari Fleischer, Deputy Foreign Secretary for Africa Walter Kansteiner, and Andrew Card were for sure on the trip. Karl Rove and Lewis Libby for sure weren't. . . Dan Bartlett was on the plane. . .

[NB: Uh, one name you left off. . . George Bush]

Did Plame involvement keep Gonzales off the Supreme Court?

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/07/24/opinion/24rich.html
[Frank Rich] But the scandal has metastasized so much at this point that the forgotten man Mr. Bush did not nominate to the Supreme Court is as much a window into the White House's panic and stonewalling as its haste to put forward the man he did. When the president decided not to replace Sandra Day O'Connor with a woman, why did he pick a white guy and not nominate the first Hispanic justice, his friend Alberto Gonzales? Mr. Bush was surely not scared off by Gonzales critics on the right (who find him soft on abortion) or left (who find him soft on the Geneva Conventions). It's Mr. Gonzales's proximity to this scandal that inspires real fear.

As White House counsel, he was the one first notified that the Justice Department, at the request of the C.I.A., had opened an investigation into the outing of Joseph Wilson's wife. That notification came at 8:30 p.m. on Sept. 29, 2003, but it took Mr. Gonzales 12 more hours to inform the White House staff that it must "preserve all materials" relevant to the investigation. This 12-hour delay, he has said, was sanctioned by the Justice Department, but since the department was then run by John Ashcroft, a Bush loyalist who refused to recuse himself from the Plame case, inquiring Senate Democrats would examine this 12-hour delay as closely as an 18-minute tape gap. "Every good prosecutor knows that any delay could give a culprit time to destroy the evidence," said Senator Charles Schumer. . .

A second track in the investigation: where did that forged Niger memo come from?

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2005_07_17_digbysblog_archive.html#112213845434419309
[Guardian] A source familiar with the inquiry said investigators were examining whether former US intelligence agents may have been involved in possible collaboration with Iraqi exiles determined to prove that Saddam Hussein had a nuclear programme. . .

What Bush’s opposition to anti-torture legislation is all about

http://www.tpmcafe.com/story/2005/7/23/0447/63628
[RINO] The Pentagon is defying a court order to turn over additional Abu Ghraib photos, and Cheney is lobbying senior Senate Republicans to drop amendments that would regulate interrogation methods. This is getting pretty brazen.

More: http://www.mydd.com/story/2005/7/24/221/34797

http://americablog.blogspot.com/2005/07/chickenhawk-cheny-wants-abusive.html
[Chris in Paris] Funny how Mr. "I had other priorities" than Vietnam is taking such a hard line against McCain's push for humane treatment of detainees being held by the US. McCain and others in the GOP are right that something has to change and that abusing prisoners is wrong and counter productive. Cheney and the other chickenhawks prefer looking the other way and ignoring the military CYA program for senior officers involved in the previous abuses and would rather maintain what he considers a right to "cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment."

http://www.tpmcafe.com/story/2005/7/23/192934/969
[Jack Balkin] In the past five years President Bush has pushed hard to maximize his power and limit any oversight, either by Congress or by the courts. Last week Senators Graham, McCain and Warner signaled that they wanted Congress to regulate how the Administration will conduct its military tribunals, who the President can detain as an enemy combatant free from the constraints of the ordinary justice system, and what kind of interrogation techniques the military can use both at Guantanamo Bay and at the secret CIA detention centers around the world.

The Administration was so incensed by this possibility that it threatened to veto the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2006 if it included any such provisions. How dare Congress require any degree of procedural fairness in military tribunals, how dare it limit the President's power to throw people (including American citizens) in military prisons without a hearing, and how dare it tell the President that he may not engage in cruel, inhuman and degrading interrogation practices!

It gets worse. The famous OLC torture memo took the position that Congress has no authority to regulate how the President interrogated prisoners. Let me put that another way: The OLC took the position that Congressional laws banning torture overseas are unconstitutional because they limit the President's power as Commander-in-Chief to torture at his discretion. The President's position is that when it comes to the conduct of foreign affairs, he decides what the law is.

More: http://billmon.org/archives/002058.html

[NB: “War of the Words” indeed]

Torturers, and proud of it – the latest sign of the coming apocalypse

http://www.tpmcafe.com/story/2005/7/23/175947/736

Has there ever been an administration so audacious in lying and breaking the law (solely in order to protect us, of course)? It’s the “Father Knows Best” syndrome

http://talkleft.com/new_archives/011609.html
[TChris] Last month, TalkLeft reported an apparent violation of the Privacy Act by the Transportation Security Administration. The Government Accountability Office has made it official: TSA broke the law.

The Transportation Security Administration violated the federal Privacy Act by creating a database of aviation passenger records that merged airline records with commercial data in an improper way, government auditors said Friday.

Despite its promise not to collect and store passenger data, TSA retained data on more than 43,000 passengers.

We are losing in Iraq. . .

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/07/24/international/middleeast/24insurgents.html
Despite months of assurances that their forces were on the wane, the guerrillas and terrorists battling the American-backed enterprise here appear to be growing more violent, more resilient and more sophisticated than ever. . .

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-insurg23jul23,1,418814.story
Insurgents in Iraq will probably sustain the current rate of bloody attacks for at least six months, through the next elections, and expect the United States to give up on Iraq within five years, senior defense officials in Baghdad said Friday.

Increasingly violent suicide and roadside bombings are expected to continue at a rate of 65 daily — nearly 500 a week. . .

[NB: 500! Gee, where did they get that many explosives?
http://abcnews.go.com/WNT/story?id=206847&page=1]

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/07/24/weekinreview/24burns.html
[NYT] The first signs that America's top officials in Iraq were revising their thinking about what they might accomplish in Iraq came a year ago. As Iraq resumed its sovereignty after the period of American occupation, the new American team that arrived then, headed by Ambassador John D. Negroponte, had a withering term for the optimistic approach of their predecessors, led by L. Paul Bremer III.

The new team called the departing Americans "the illusionists," for their conviction that America could create a Jeffersonian democracy on the ruins of Saddam Hussein's medieval brutalism. One American military commander began his first encounter with American reporters by asking, "Well, gentlemen, tell me: Do you think that events here afford us the luxury of hope?"

It seemed clear then that the administration, for all its public optimism, had begun substituting more modest goals for the idealists' conception of Iraq. How much more modest has become clearer in the 12 months since.

From the moment American troops crossed the border 28 months ago, the specter hanging over the American enterprise here has been that Iraq, freed from Mr. Hussein's tyranny, might prove to be so fractured - by politics and religion, by culture and geography, and by the suspicion and enmity sown by Mr. Hussein's years of repression - that it would spiral inexorably into civil war. . .

Now, events are pointing more than ever to the possibility that the nightmare could come true.

. . . and people are catching up to this fact. . .

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2005_07/006785.php
[Newsday] A growing number of Americans fear the war in Iraq is undermining the fight against terrorism and raising the risk of terrorist attacks in this country, a poll found.

Almost half, 47 percent, say the war in Iraq has hurt the fight against terrorism -- the highest number to say that since the war began in March 2003, according to the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press.

. . . people everywhere

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/07/24/politics/24troops.html
The Bush administration's rallying call that America is a nation at war is increasingly ringing hollow to men and women in uniform, who argue in frustration that America is not a nation at war, but a nation with only its military at war.

From bases in Iraq and across the United States to the Pentagon and the military's war colleges, officers and enlisted personnel quietly raise a question for political leaders: if America is truly on a war footing, why is so little sacrifice asked of the nation at large?. . . "Nobody in America is asked to sacrifice, except us," said one officer just back from a yearlong tour in Iraq, voicing a frustration now drawing the attention of academic specialists in military sociology. . .

John Gibson, Michelle Malkin, humanitarians

http://atrios.blogspot.com/2005_07_17_atrios_archive.html#112214712470704074

http://atrios.blogspot.com/2005_07_17_atrios_archive.html#112217478905118924

House Ethics committee (finally) open for business

http://makeashorterlink.com/?E12425D7B

The Big Chill hits Ohio

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2005_07/006783.php

Another example of distorting scientific research to fit policy priorities – and about such a trivial matter, too

http://americablog.blogspot.com/2005/07/bush-energy-dept-stonewalling-congress.html
Naturally, a House subcommittee investigating these lies had to file a subpoena to get the Energy Dept. to play ball. . .

[NYT] In a dispute that has lasted more than three months, the Energy Department has resisted, and department officials have complained about the committee's earlier release of e-mail messages detailing the falsifications.

In those e-mail messages government workers talked about manipulating their work to meet quality-assurance standards. . .

The heart of the issue is government calculations about how fast radioactive material would dissolve into rainwater, percolate through the rock and then travel outside the boundaries of the repository, which is about 100 miles from Las Vegas.

Bonus item: Lessons from Easter Island

http://delong.typepad.com/sdj/2005/07/taking_the_long.html
[Stewart Brand] [Diamond] elaborated a bit on his book's account of the Easter Island collapse, where a society that could build 80-ton statues 33 feet high and drag them 12 miles, and who could navigate the Pacific Ocean to and from the most remote islands in the world, could also cut down their rich rain forest and doom themselves utterly. With no trees left for fishing canoes, the Easter Islanders turned to devouring each other. . .

Diamond reported that his students at UCLA tried to imagine how the guy who cut down the LAST tree in 1680 justified his actions. What did he say? Their candidate quotes:

"Fear not. Our advancing technology will solve this problem."

"This is MY tree, MY property! I can do what I want with it."

"Your environmentalist concerns are exaggerated. We need more research."

"Just have faith. God will provide."

***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 @ 8:12 AM

 
CRIMINALS

Bush blocks release of new Abu Ghraib photos and videos AND threatens to veto a bill to prevent future abuses – because, you know, torture is SUCH old news. Time to move on, folks! (Just pretend it never even happened)

http://www.aclu.org/SafeandFree/SafeandFree.cfm?ID=18811&c=206
Today was the day the government was supposed to process and redact photographs and videos relating to the abuse and torture of prisoners held abroad. Raising new arguments on the eve of its deadline, the United States government refused to release the materials to the public. The photographs and videos were to be processed for eventual release as a result of a lawsuit filed by the American Civil Liberties Union and other organizations.

"The government is raising newfound reasons for withholding records to which the public has an undeniable right," said Amrit Singh, a staff attorney with the ACLU. "Instead of releasing these records and holding officials accountable for detainee abuse, the government now seeks to shield itself from public scrutiny by filing these reasons in secret."

In a letter filed at the eleventh hour, the Department of Defense claims that photographs and videos of abuse that the court had previously ordered redacted for future release "could result in harm to individuals" for reasons that will be set forth in a memorandum and three declarations that the government will file under seal with the U.S. District Court of the Southern District of New York.

Under the government’s proposal, the documents explaining the government’s reasons for withholding the images of abuse will not be available to the public except in redacted form, and the photographs and videos may never be made public.

More: http://www.ccr-ny.org/v2/reports/report.asp?ObjID=imOUU2rj8m&Content=608

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2005/7/22/20220/6952

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20050721/pl_nm/arms_congress_dc
[Reuters] The White House on Thursday threatened to veto a massive Senate bill for $442 billion in next year's defense programs if it moves to regulate the Pentagon's treatment of detainees or sets up a commission to investigate operations at Guantanamo Bay prison and elsewhere.

The Bush administration, under fire for the indefinite detention of enemy combatants at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba and questions over whether its policies led to horrendous abuses at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq, put lawmakers on notice it did not want them legislating on the matter.

In a statement, the White House said such amendments would "interfere with the protection of Americans from terrorism by diverting resources from the war."

"If legislation is presented that would restrict the president's authority to protect Americans effectively from terrorist attack and bring terrorists to justice," the bill could be vetoed, the statement said. . .

More: http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2005_07_17_digbysblog_archive.html#112206185768935375

Senate Dems inexplicably fail to even SHOW UP at the Karen Hughes confirmation hearings. What’s going on guys? Something better come up?

http://americablog.blogspot.com/2005/07/senate-democrats-blow-off-karen-hughes.html
[John Aravosis] I have no idea why, but NO Senate Democrats showed up today to Karen Hughes' confirmation hearing to become an undersecretary at the State Department. This would be the same Karen Hughes who popped up in the New York Times this morning as possibly being involved in the RoveGate scandal.

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2005_07_17_digbysblog_archive.html#112207133021643976
[Digby] Think Progress has a list of questions the Democrats might have asked if they could have gotten it up to attend the meeting. I assume they were too busy with their preparations to lionize John Roberts and didn't have the time. . . We just don't have the killer instinct. They do. So they win and we lose. I guess we have to wait for total economic armageddon or nuclear meltdown in which case we will win by default.

http://thinkprogress.org/2005/07/22/excuse-me-but-do-you-enjoy-being-in-the-minority/

http://billmon.org/archives/002054.html

For example, they could have asked her about this quote, from her book

http://www.first-draft.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=3750&mode=thread&order=0&thold=0
"But regardless of the source, the leak compromised the confidential identity of a longtime public servant, which was wrong, and unfair to her and those who worked with her. Whoever did it should come forward. . .”

Perhaps they didn’t want to step on coverage of their own hearing today on Plame issues – some good stuff came out of it

http://americablog.blogspot.com/2005/07/dem-hearing-on-rove-is-interesting.html
[John Aravosis] Perhaps the most interesting comment has been from a former CIA officer who was in, I believe, the same class as Valerie Plame. He didn't even initially realize Novak's article and the ensuing scandal was about Valerie Plame because he only knew her as Valerie P. As a rule, they were told, even inside the CIA, to NEVER use their last names, only use the first initial. So even HE never knew her name and he WORKED with her INSIDE THE CIA.

Good coverage: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/07/22/AR2005072201261.html
"I wouldn't be here this morning if President Bush had done the one thing required of him as commander in chief _ protect and defend the Constitution," said Larry Johnson, a former CIA analyst. "The minute that Valerie Plame's identity was outed, he should have delivered a strict and strong message to his employees."

http://www.davidcorn.com/2005/07/a_cia_vets_mess.php

Transcripts: http://talkleft.com/new_archives/011597.html

Two big stories on Plame, and the evidence of perjury and obstruction keeps piling up

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/07/22/AR2005072201830.html
Special prosecutor Patrick J. Fitzgerald has been reviewing over the past several months discrepancies and gaps in witness testimony in his investigation of the unmasking of CIA operative Valerie Plame, according to lawyers in the case and witness statements.

Fitzgerald has spent considerable time since the summer of 2004 looking at possible conflicts between what White House senior adviser Karl Rove and vice presidential staff chief I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby told a grand jury and investigators, and the accounts of reporters who talked with the two men, according to various sources in the case.

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-leak23jul23,0,3075904.story
The special prosecutor in the CIA leak investigation has shifted his focus from determining whether White House officials violated a law against exposing undercover agents to determining whether evidence exists to bring perjury or obstruction of justice charges, according to people briefed in recent days on the inquiry's status. . . Although no one has suggested that the investigation into who leaked Plame's name has been shelved, the intensity of the inquiry into possible perjury charges has increased, according to one lawyer familiar with events who spoke on condition that he not be identified. . .

Rove was told by prosecutors in October that he was not a target of the inquiry, said his lawyer, Robert Luskin. Rove, through his lawyer, has denied being the source of Plame's name.

"I am quite sure that if his status has changed, I would be informed about it," Luskin said Friday. "I am not aware of anything that has come to light that would change the facts in front of the prosecutor that would change that assurance."

Rove "has, from the beginning, been candid, forthcoming and accurate," Luskin said. "There has never been any moment when the government, prosecutors or investigators have suggested that they thought he was being anything but truthful or cooperative."

[NB: You have to wonder what the status and intent of these comments from Luskin is meant to be. Are suspects’ lawyers always told about the evidence and charges against their clients? When someone is accused of perjury and active obstruction of an investigation, does a prosecutor have an obligation to give them information that will only HELP them with their defense? Mr. Luskin is playing some PR game about public expectations, not saying anything with real legal import]

Who’s leaking the testimony?

http://talkleft.com/new_archives/011588.html

Fleischer: I keep coming back to this. He’s clearly at the center of it all: is he testifying against others?

http://thinkprogress.org/2005/07/22/et-tu-ari/
Last Monday, Bloomberg News reported that former White House Press Secretary Ari Fleischer had seen the classified memo thought to be the original source of Valerie Plame’s identity. “On the flight to Africa, Fleischer was seen perusing the State Department memo on Wilson and his wife, according to a former administration official who was also on the trip.”. . . But today’s New York Times reports (all the way down in paragraph 20) that “Mr. Fleischer told the grand jury that he never saw the document. . . “

http://talkleft.com/new_archives/011594.html

http://www.davidcorn.com/2005/07/rove_scandal_a.php
Last November, I reported that a past Bush White House aide had told me that Fleischer had spent a long time before the grand jury. (This source also told me then, "Scooter's in big trouble" and "Karl is too smart for Fitzgerald.") Months later, it's not public knowledge who is representing Fleischer. He refuses to name his attorney to reporters.

http://www.markarkleiman.com/archives/valerie_plame_/2005/07/huh.php

Bolton: apparently DID testify to the Plame grand jury, DIDN’T tell Senate confirmation committee about it. Buh-bye!

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2005_07_17.php#006150

http://www.thewashingtonnote.com/archives/000797.html

And. . .

http://www.thewashingtonnote.com/archives/000798.html
TWN has just learned from a highly placed source -- and in the right place to know -- that John Bolton was a regular source for Judith Miller's New York Times WMD and national security reports. . . The source did not have any knowledge on whether Bolton was one of Miller's sources on the Valerie Plame story she was preparing, but argues that he was a regular source otherwise.

Plame overviews: where things stand now

http://www.buzzflash.com/alerts/05/07/ale05101.html

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2005/7/22/162415/235

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/blog/2005/07/22/BL2005072201072_pf.html

http://www.needlenose.com/node/view/1677

At least 11 separate security breaches (thanks to Buzzflash for the link)

http://www.yubanet.com/artman/publish/article_23080.shtml

In Ohio, well-connected GOP buddy Tom Noe accused of scamming millions from Workers Comp Fund

http://toledoblade.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20050722/NEWS24/50722003

Latest Iraq poll

http://www.first-draft.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=3747&mode=thread&order=0&thold=0
Sixty-four percent of those polled gave Bush a negative rating for his handling of Iraq. . . while 34 percent had a positive assessment of Bush's actions in Iraq. . . Less than a quarter of those polled, 23 percent, said they were confident the U.S. policies in Iraq would be successful. . .

OK, I know contingency war planning is just that. . . but doesn’t this seem just a little too PLAUSIBLE?

http://yglesias.tpmcafe.com/story/2005/7/22/11532/9662
[American Conservative] The Pentagon, acting under instructions from Vice President Dick Cheney's office, has tasked the United States Strategic Command (STRATCOM) with drawing up a contingency plan to be employed in response to another 9/11-type terrorist attack on the United States. The plan includes a large-scale air assault on Iran employing both conventional and tactical nuclear weapons. Within Iran there are more than 450 major strategic targets, including numerous suspected nuclear-weapons-program dehttp://www.blogger.com/img/gl.link.gifvelopment sites. Many of the targets are hardened or are deep underground and could not be taken out by conventional weapons, hence the nuclear option. As in the case of Iraq, the response is not conditional on Iran actually being involved in the act of terrorism directed against the United States. Several senior Air Force officers involved in the planning are reportedly appalled at the implications of what they are doing--that Iran is being set up for an unprovoked nuclear attack--but no one is prepared to damage his career by posing any objections.

No, it’s not a joke: http://billmon.org/archives/002052.html

More on Iran: http://billmon.org/archives/002051.html

http://www.commondreams.org/views05/0722-20.htm

Bush still banging his head against the brick wall of Social Security “reform”

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-bush23jul23,1,3332335.story

Imagine a Democratic initiative that spent $100 billion with almost no evidence of success

http://www.needlenose.com/node/view/1675
"We have a better than zero chance of successfully intercepting, I believe, an inbound warhead," Obering said. "That confidence will improve over time”. . .

After three failed tests in a row. . .

[NB: “Better than zero.” Hey, that’s progress!]

Weird: Bush’s “obsessive” preoccupation with exercise

http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room/index.html?blog=/politics/war_room/2005/07/22/exercise/index.html

http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room/index.html?blog=/politics/war_room/2005/07/21/roberts/index.html

[NB: Actually, I’m not surprised by this at all: you put a 50-year old conservative on the Court, you want him to serve for 30 years. You don’t think that’s part of the calculation?]

***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 @ 8:27 AM

 
SCREWED

BREAKING NEWS: Rove and Libby face possible perjury charges

http://thinkprogress.org/2005/07/21/breaking-bloomberg-reporting-that-rove-libby-may-be-subject-to-perjury-charges/
[Bloomberg News] Two top White House aides have given accounts to the special prosecutor about how reporters told them the identity of a CIA agent that are at odds with what the reporters have said, according to persons familiar with the case.

Lewis “Scooter'’ Libby, Vice President Dick Cheney’s chief of staff, told special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald that he first learned from NBC News reporter Tim Russert of the identity of CIA agent Valerie Plame, the wife of former ambassador and Bush administration critic Joseph Wilson. Russert has testified before a federal grand jury that he didn’t tell Libby of Plame’s identity.

White House Deputy Chief of Staff Karl Rove told Fitzgerald that he first learned the identity of the CIA agent from syndicated columnist Robert Novak, who was first to report Plame’s name and connection to Wilson. Novak, according to a source familiar with the matter, has given a somewhat different version to the special prosecutor. . .

[NB: Hmmm…now why would Russert and Novak be lying: neither is under investigation as far as we know. Or maybe someone else is? And how much mileage will they get now if their main defense is to accuse two heavyweights of the WH press establishment with lying?]

More: http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2005_07_17_digbysblog_archive.html#112199874734635596

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2005_07/006773.php

And, via the NYT, here’s their “excuse”

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/07/22/politics/22leak.html
At the same time in July 2003 that a C.I.A. operative's identity was exposed, two key White House officials who talked to journalists about the officer were also working closely together on a related underlying issue: whether President Bush was correct in suggesting earlier that year that Iraq had been trying to acquire nuclear materials from Africa.

The two issues had become inextricably linked because Joseph C. Wilson IV, the husband of the unmasked C.I.A. officer, had questioned Mr. Bush's assertion, prompting a damage-control effort by the White House that included challenging Mr. Wilson's standing and his credentials. A federal grand jury investigation is under way by a special counsel to determine whether someone illegally leaked the officer's identity and possibly into whether perjury or obstruction of justice occurred during the inquiry.

People who have been briefed on the case said the White House officials, Karl Rove and I. Lewis Libby, were helping prepare what became the administration's primary response to criticism that a flawed phrase about the nuclear materials in Africa had been in Mr. Bush's State of the Union address six months earlier.

They had exchanged e-mail correspondence and drafts of a proposed statement by George J. Tenet, then the director of central intelligence, to explain how the disputed wording had gotten into the address. Mr. Rove, the president's political strategist, and Mr. Libby, the chief of staff for Vice President Dick Cheney, coordinated their efforts with Stephen J. Hadley, then the deputy national security adviser, who was in turn consulting with Mr. Tenet. . .[read on!]

[NB: This is delicious. First, the little tidbit that they wrote Tenet’s apology for him. But while this appears to be their innocent cover story for why they were so interested in Mr. Wilson, it is actually devastating. For one thing, it makes it totally unbelievable that they didn’t see and discuss the State Dept memo. Perhaps this protects them from a conspiracy charge – but it puts them smack in the middle of things, not just two guys chewing the fat with reporters. AND Fleischer. . . AND Bolton. . . what an article!]

More: http://www.needlenose.com/node/view/1669
So, let's suppose that there's a guy who gets caught in a raid at the local brothel. He tells the police that, unlike everyone else there, he was just looking for an innocent, relaxing massage. As the cops raise their eyebrows, he looks to bolster his story: "Hey, ask any of the girls here -- talk to Rachel, or Sonya, or Valerie! They'll tell you I'm not a regular customer here!". . . This is the category of defense strategies where you have to file tonight's report from the New York Times. . .

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2005_07_17.php#006149

http://www.thewashingtonnote.com/archives/000796.html

http://americablog.blogspot.com/2005/07/oh-man-big-new-york-times-article-on.html

WSJ reports that the State Dept memo wasn’t just marked “Secret” but classified at a VERY high level

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2005/7/21/204928/432

http://www.crooksandliars.com/2005/07/21.html#a4074

A helpful graphic of the key Plame players, events

http://www.nytimes.com/imagepages/2005/07/21/politics/20050722leak_graphic.html

Edith Clement = Valerie Plame

There are two aspects of this story I’d like to focus on. The first is the press’s growing awareness that this is an administration that lies to them – routinely, repeatedly, and without remorse. Knowingly leaking a false story, knowing the press couldn’t resist going with it, for no reason whatsoever but to protect their own control over the timing of the Roberts announcement, is not an isolated act. It is, in fact, very like the Plame story: abusing a woman who is not a central actor in a larger drama, putting her name in public in a way that distresses and even may harm her. But the press’s frustration is telling. We will see the same in Scotty’s press briefings in a moment. He tells them, in all earnestness, that Rove, Libby, etc are not involved at all – well, guess what? They are. So what does the press do – walk out and say, “we will not deal with someone who lies to us without apology and explanation?” No, they return again and again for more of the same. This is another variation on the “abused partner” syndrome – hurt me once shame on you, hurt me twice. . . Hey press corps: don’t be an enabler!

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/07/21/AR2005072100452_pf.html
[Howard Kurtz] Did the Bush team put out misinformation on that crazy Tuesday to steer reporters away from John Roberts? . . .We can't answer the question definitively because the journalists involved have a Matt Cooper problem -- they promised their sources anonymity, regardless of motive. But I can tell you that some of them are ticked and feeling misled. . .

http://atrios.blogspot.com/2005_07_17_atrios_archive.html#112195169940899218
[Atrios] I really missed the memo when we were told that journalists who promised confidentiality to their sources were obligated to maintain that confidentiality even after learning that they'd been lied to. This isn't about keeping promises, it's about maintaining access and shame on all of them for pretending otherwise. . . Here's a deal - no need to lose your access. Feel free to email me your source, and I'll promise confidentiality.

http://americablog.blogspot.com/2005/07/another-reason-rove-thinks-knows-media.html
[John Aravosis] Lying to the press (and the American people) is standard operating procedure at the Rove White House. They have gotten away with it for years -- with no repercussions. . . They must just sit back and laugh about how gullible the press is.

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2005_07_17_digbysblog_archive.html#112196808218904254
[Digby] That was not the brightest public relations decision they've ever made under the circumstances. So, I stand by my belief that it was a mistake. And it's looking like it was a bigger mistake than I realized at the time.

The second part concerns the NEXT Supreme Court nomination. No one has discussed this, as far as I have seen. If there is anything we have learned about these people is, they have a plan. So, given that they know there will be two openings close upon one another, how do you plan in such a way as to maximize the ideological heft of both appointments? Well, you don’t lead with the most extremist and ideological candidate – you don’t want to poison the well. So you put up a Roberts. But it’s a “woman’s slot” on the Court. Well, you don’t want to be seen as a knee-jerk affirmative actionist. But you DO want a conservative woman on the bench eventually – it will give credibility to your anti-Roe decisions down the road. But your three main female options – Edith Jones, Priscilla Owen, and Janice Rogers Brown, are all poison to the Dems and in two cases only newly appointed to the Circuit Court level. They need some seasoning on the bench. So: you flip the order – put Roberts up now, then when the pressure builds the next time that you have to put a woman forward, you put up one of these and dare the Dems to block a female nominee. And a filibuster against one of them, even if successful, only gets you another of them. (No, Clement was never a serious option – otherwise, why would they have treated her this way?) Floating Clement WAS a way of raising expectations that they would appoint a woman, and “disappointing” women with the first choice is meant to increase their leverage with the next one.

Or at least, that’s the way it makes sense to me

http://yglesias.tpmcafe.com/story/2005/7/21/114211/605

Why the Plame story is not going away

http://www.needlenose.com/node/view/1668
[Swopa] The Post sure got a lot of help from a multiple sources on this article, didn't they? As Joshua Marshall writes today, one reason Democrats shouldn't worry about the Plame scandal vanishing from the news is that "key insiders are feeding this story.”

This is an angle I've been interested in from the outset of the controversy, from the Bushites' barely concealed war with the CIA to the apparent mole on the White House staff (who could be chief of staff Andrew Card to the antipathy of Colin Powell and his allies, who appear to be the sources behind the State Department memo stories.

In particular, the Powell loyalists seem to be very savvy about pushing their side of the story piece by piece, in order to encourage maximum media attention. . .

It seems that Plamemania is steadily morphing from a war between the CIA and Dick Cheney's office to one between the Rove/Cheney axis and everyone they've ever pissed off. Which, as we're finding out, is a rather long list of people with a lot of hidden daggers.

More: http://billmon.org/archives/002048.html

Scotty tries to put an end to things

http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2005/07/20050720-6.html
[July 20] Q In Chicago in December of '03, the President said, "I want to know who the leakers are." Separate from the legal issue, is the President convinced now that Karl Rove was one of the leakers?

MR. McCLELLAN: I've answered these questions, and I don't have anything to say beyond what I've already said.

Go ahead.

Q What's the answer to that one, then, Scott?

MR. McCLELLAN: I've answered these questions over the course of the last week.

Go ahead.

[NB: This is what Scotty has been preparing the press for over the past couple of days. Instead of repeating his mantra, just ignore the questions and moving on. Problem is, the press corps isn’t standing for it. The most significant thing here isn’t anything Scotty says; it’s the decided shift in tone on the part of the questioners]

http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2005/07/20050721-3.html
[July 21] Q Why does Karl Rove still have security clearance and access to classified documents when he has been revealed as a leaker of a secret agent, according to Time magazine's correspondent?

MR. McCLELLAN: Well, there is an investigation that continues, and I think the President has made it clear that we're not going to prejudge the outcome of that investigation.

Q You already have the truth.

MR. McCLELLAN: We're not going to prejudge the outcome of that investigation through --

Q Does he have access to security documents?

MR. McCLELLAN: -- through media reports. And these questions came up over the last week --

Q Did he leak the name of a CIA agent?

MR. McCLELLAN: As I was trying to tell you, these questions have been answered.

Q No, they haven't.

Q Let me ask --

MR. McCLELLAN: Go ahead, David.

Q And they most certainly haven't. I think Helen is right, and the people watching us know that. And related to that, there are now --

MR. McCLELLAN: Let me correct the record. We've said for quite some time that this was an ongoing investigation, and that we weren't going to comment on it, so let me just correct the record.

Q If you want to make the record clear, then you also did make comments when a criminal investigation was underway, you saw fit to provide Karl Rove with a blanket statement of absolution. And that turned out to be no longer accurate --

MR. McCLELLAN: Well, and there were preferences expressed by those overseeing the investigation that we refrain from commenting on it while they're continuing to look at -- investigate it.

Q White House officials have been very clear through their attorneys or through other leaks to make it known that it was essentially journalists who educated them about who Valerie Plame was, what she did, and her role in sending her husband to Niger. It has now come to light that in fact White House officials were aware, or at least had access to a State Department memo that the President's own Secretary of State at the time had with him when he was traveling on Air Force One to Africa, which indicated both who she was, what she did, and her role in the Niger trip. So did the White House, in fact, know about her through this memo, or not?

MR. McCLELLAN: I thank you for wanting to proceed ahead with the investigation from this room, but I think that the appropriate place for that to happen is through those who are overseeing the investigation. The President directed us to cooperate fully, and that's exactly what we have been doing and continue to do.

Q But you don't deny that attorneys for Rove and others in the White House are speaking about these matters, creating a lot of these questions, right, that you say you can't speak to?

MR. McCLELLAN: As I said, we're not getting into talking about an ongoing investigation. . .

Topic A for Roberts hearings may be interstate commerce, not abortion

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/07/21/AR2005072101128.html

Frank Gaffney: why we need Bolton NOW (get ready to laugh)

http://www.thewashingtonnote.com/archives/000794.html

More Bolton news: http://www.thewashingtonnote.com/archives/000792.html

Five Senate races to watch

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2005/7/21/144910/139

DeLay, Cunningham and the Republican culture of sleaze

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2005_07_17_digbysblog_archive.html#112199546588176090

Ah-nuld gets bad box office

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2005/7/21/1361/40586
Approve 34
Disapprove 51

Katherine Harris’s Senate effort going in the tank (and it couldn’t happen to a more deserving person)

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2005/7/21/205444/779

These are the people who run our country

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2005/7/21/185846/809
[Orrin Hatch] I think senators can ask any questions they want. I've said, no matter how dumb the question may be. But the, the nominee doesn't have to answer them and he should not, under the canons of judicial ethics, he should not answer questions on any issue that possibly would come before the Supreme Court. Otherwise, he would be foretelling how he would vote on those issues and then they would hold that against him. So it's a little bit like Biblical Pharisees, you know, who basically are always trying to undermine Jesus Christ, you know, it goes on the same way. If they can catch him in something, they can then criticize. . .

Bonus item: Mark Twain on the current political scene (oh, how I wish we had him here). Thanks to Grace Nearing for the link

http://that1blog.blogspot.com/2005/07/mark-twain-superstar.html
...when we badly want a thing, we go to hunting for good and righteous reasons for it; we give it that fine name to comfort our consciences, whereas we privately know we are only hunting for plausible ones.

Statesmen will invent cheap lies, putting blame upon the nation that is attacked, and every man will be glad of those conscience-soothing falsities, and will diligently study them, and refuse to examine any refutations of them; and thus he will by and by convince himself that the war is just, and will thank God for the better sleep he enjoys after this process of grotesque self-deception.

To be a patriot, one had to say, and keep on saying, " Our country, right or wrong," and urge on the little war. Have you not perceived that that phrase is an insult to the nation?

It is easier to stay out than get out.

It ain't what you don't know that gets you into trouble. It's what you know for sure that just ain't so. . . [read on !]

***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 @ 7:45 AM

 
LESSONS FROM SUN TZU

“The Art of War”

http://www.chinapage.com/sunzi-e.html
Thus we may know that there are five essentials for victory:

(1) He will win who knows when to fight and when not to fight.
(2) He will win who knows how to handle both superior and inferior forces.
(3) He will win whose army is animated by the same spirit throughout all its ranks.
(4) He will win who, prepared himself, waits to take the enemy unprepared.
(5) He will win who has military capacity and is not interfered with by the sovereign.

One of PBD’s readers responds to my Roberts comments yesterday

Nick, as you may imagine I beg to differ sharply on this one.

Based on current public knowledge about his background (no doubt more
will be revealed in coming weeks) it would seem that Robert
personifies, in judicial form, perfect continuity in the right wing
agenda of the Bush et al and the predatory interests they serve. Plus
the stakes are considerably higher than during the previous conflicts
over Bush's judicial nominees. After all, this is about further
consolidating the right wing stranglehold on highest court of the
land, the very court that denied Gore the presidency in 2000, aided
by the Democratic Party establishment's acquiescence. Even the by no
means "radical" MoveOn folks grasp this fact of life.

For the Democrats to acquiesce to this would be total folly. In my
view such "pragmatism" constitutes a political blind alley.
Certainly it's important in politics to be "practical" but what
constitutes being "practical" in this setting? What does it mean to
"win" in the present context? Is winning merely about scoring Brownie
points in the daily wheeling and dealing (shadow boxing?) that passes
for "politics" in the hallowed halls of Congress? Why not instead use
Congress as a forum to oppose systematically the Bush agenda at every
level -- political, economic, judicial --and thereby to educate and
mobilize working people to fight it every step of the way.

But then to ask the Democratic Party to do that would be tantamount
to asking it to step beyond its hallowed traditional role as the
sole "alternative" party of government.

More today on whether and how to stage a pitched battle against the Roberts nomination

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2005/7/20/14513/9419
[Armando] [L]et's be clear - I believe in fighting - hard and with relentless, even annoying, determination. But we also believe in fighting smart. . .

The burden is on Roberts to prove his worthiness, not on us to prove his unworthiness. . . This is not only the right thing to do, it is the smart thing to do. . . I believe we are fighting it, and intelligently. As we should.

http://billmon.org/archives/002039.html
[Billmon] It's called fairness. And Jeralyn at Talk Left has a post and a comment thread that illustrate what an enormous difference it makes in the way liberals and conservatives approach the political battlefield. . . Jeralyn argues that progressives should hold their fire in opposing the nomination of Bob . . . I mean John Roberts until more of the facts are in. . .

Now her position is eminently reasonable -- in both senses of the word. Jeralyn is taking the classic rationalist approach to questions of fact: let both sides argue their case, sift and weigh the evidence, then decide. It's how lawyers, and most particularly judges, are trained to look at the world.

But it's also the classically liberal approach to politics, in which the struggle for power is treated like some kind of glorified courtroom debate. . .

That's pretty much the last ten years of American political history in a nutshell. While liberals sift and weigh the evidence, debate alternative points of view, and reach for that ever elusive "fairness," the conservative machine sifts and weighs alternative propaganda points, debates the best way to manipulate public opinion, and reaches for power -- first, last and always.

The modern conservative movement understands that fair and balanced is a marketing slogan: an Orwellian label for its exact opposite. Or, as David Horowitz wrote in his Art of Political Warfare -- a totalitarian how-to manual for GOP candidates and conservative activists:

You cannot cripple an opponent by outwitting him in a political debate. You can do it only by following Lenin's injunction: "In political conflicts, the goal is not to refute your opponent's argument, but to wipe him from the face of the earth."

. . . I think we all understand what the conservative response would be in the current situation if the tables were turned: Attack, attack, attack. Ted Kennedy clone! Wild eyed radical pro-sodomy extremist! Vince Foster's murderer!

This isn't about legal qualifications or judicial philosophy or even political ideology. It's about power -- and smearing the other side's nominees is a great way to rev up the base, do some fundraising and, if you get lucky, collect another scalp. . .

The real question, then, is purely pragmatic: Do the political benefits of going to the mat over Roberts outweigh the costs? My judgement (and I realize I could be wrong about this) is that they do not -- both because he looks just about impossible to stop, and because even bigger Supreme Court battles almost certainly lie ahead: after Rehnquist and then when the first of the "liberal" justices retires. And that last one really does promise to be the judicial battle of Armageddon.

Under the circumstances, it might be better to save our meager ammunition for those later struggles -- which, with luck, may be fought out after the 2006 elections, giving the Dems a chance to improve their bargaining position by picking up a few seats.

http://billmon.org/archives/002040.html
[Billmon] acbonin over at Kos's joint provides another good example of what I was talking about in my last post. It's a kind of symptom of the liberal disease -- let's call it "excessive hypocrisy aversion". . .

You know, the Republican Party is full of rich people -- but that didn't stop the machine from trying to paint John Kerry as a cross between Mr. Magoo and Thurston Howell III. The GOP has plenty of gays in its closet, too (including some who have been spending a lot of time on the boob tube lately). But that never stops the party of Lincoln from bashing the God-cursed Sodomites whenever it suits its purpose.

Blasting Roberts as a corporate lawyer is an excellent smear tactic. People hate lawyers. They dislike and mistrust big corporations. It also conveniently happens to be true. . . Sliming Roberts as a corporate lawyer is probably more effective than attacking him for his views on abortion or other social issues, since a.) the paper trail is better and b.) it can be used as a wedge to separate him from some of his socially conservative but downwardly mobile supporters.

In fact, if I were running a propaganda campaign to try to soften Judge Roberts up before his confirmation hearings, I'd probably go a hell of a lot further than Moveon. I'd call him a fat cat corporate lawyer who made millions catering to wealthy CEOs. A Washington insider who has spent his entire adult life shuttling back and forth between K Street and Wall Street. An arrogant, out-of-touch Ivy Leaguer. . .

I would dig up every client that Roberts ever represented, and God help him if any have had even the slightest trouble with the criminal justice system. I'd put together ads juxtaposing pictures of him with photos of Bernie Ebbers, Dennis Kozlowski and Ken Lay. . .

Is any of this true? Welllllll . . . you know, truth is such a fickle thing. I mean, I wouldn't just make up stuff. But every fact would be presented and framed to reinforce a larger theme -- of John Roberts the corporate fat cat.

In other words, I would run my slime campaign exactly the way the Republicans run theirs. I'd tear the bark off the bastard, to quote Lee Atwater's famous phrase. And let the Republicans and the corporate media howl -- it would only "catapult the propaganda."

Most importantly of all, I would do it energetically and unapologetically. And I would expect every political hack in the Democratic Party to do likewise -- or, at a minimum, keep their whimpy mouths shut. Or else.

OK, enough with the fantasies. Would I really do these things if I was calling the shots for a Democratic Party magically transformed into a well-oiled (and well-funded) political machine? Probably not -- for reasons explained in my previous post. But the decisions about whether or not to do them would be ruthlessly pragmatic: Would it work? How dangerous would it be? Risk and return, baby. Risk and return. . .

I mean, it's time to wake up, guys. We've got a different rule book now -- brought to you by Karl Rove and the propaganda machine from hell. The Republicans don't use those tactics because they're sick, sadistic bastards (well, not only that). They use them because they work. And until the Dems learn to play by the same rules, they're going to get their heads handed to them, time after time after time.

http://billmon.org/archives/002041.html
[Billmon] The Dems need to try to be more like Michael [Corleone] -- cool, analytical and totally pragmatic. "It's not personal, Sonny. It's strictly business."

Sometimes that means ordering a hit, sometimes it means biding your time. Sometimes it means striking with everything you've got. . . Sometimes it means offering to talk peace, while secretly preparing to wack the guy. Sometimes it means just plain talking peace.

But it has nothing to do with fairness or open-mindedness or listening to opposing points of view. It has to do with what's best for the "family" -- which in this case we can define broadly as those groups and constituencies in American society who oppose the GOP machine and want to see it destroyed (or at least kicked out of power.)

The Michael mindset should apply to the Roberts nomination as it does to everything else. Reasonable people can differ over what that means in practice: fight a lot, fight a little, just get it over with. But it just seems essential to me that everyone understands that this is (to paraphrase Horowitz) war by other means -- not a civics lesson.

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2005/7/20/12113/8736
[Steve M] Look, folks, when people say "elections have consequences" that is not the same thing as saying the Democrats must roll over and accept every outrageous action until 2008. We didn't accept the destruction of Social Security. We didn't accept John Bolton. There are plenty of fights we can win.

But there are good losses too, and this is the concept that many refuse to accept. You can lose in a way that makes people sympathize with the principle you fought for. You can lose in a way that sets the stage to make a compelling case later. If you send a clear message to the American people that "we oppose Roberts because X will happen if he is confirmed," and then X does happen, now you have your campaign issue for 2008, 2012, and beyond. "Elect Democrats so we can roll back X and make sure it never happens again."

Right now, we haven't agreed on what X is. It might be Roe v. Wade, it might be destruction of environmental laws and other protections, it might be a lot of things. I will guarantee you this: if the Dems don't settle on a unified message, if it ends up being the same old shotgun approach that "Roberts will outlaw abortion, birth control, favor corporations over people, destroy the environment, reverse the civil rights movement, etc." it's not going to get us anywhere. We need a straightforward argument that people can understand, and we can use in future elections, not a boundless rant that says Roberts is the spawn of Satan who will destroy everything good about America. . .

I don't get why people don't understand that there can be a "good" loss, or at least a productive loss. How have the Republicans gotten into power? By campaigning against every liberal accomplishment of the last century. They are not afraid to take our victories and turn them into campaign points, and it wins them elections. We need to do the same. . .

http://majikthise.typepad.com/majikthise_/2005/07/discipline_and_.html
[Lindsay Beyerstein] The Democrats should have one priority going into the Supreme Court nominations process: party discipline.

The Republicans are trying to convince the public that the president has the right to have his nominees confirmed. That's absolutely ridiculous. Regardless of what you think about the judicial filibuster, the fact remains that every senator is responsible for evaluating and critiquing the nominees (advising) and approving only those she deems worthy (consenting). Consent implies the choice between assent and dissent. You can't exercise consent when "consent" is your only option.

The Republicans are setting up certain expectations about the upcoming fight. They pretend that a senator is obliged to support the president's choice unless they can cite an egregious violation of ethics or jurisprudence. . .

Senators are entitled to ask the same questions that the President asks in choosing the nominee in the first place: Where does he stand on the issues I care about? Would his legacy be positive or negative? . . . Democrats have to shake off Bush's manufactured sense of entitlement. The first step is to identify John Roberts' values and qualifications. Are they consistent with the values of the Democratic party? In a word, no. . .

Roberts is a compromise candidate. It goes against the Republican core brand idea to admit that they ever compromise, but there you have it. Don't assume that "compromise" means acceptable, let alone moderate. But recognize that Bush is feeling the constraints of public opinion.

Some analysts are calling this choice as a savvy political ploy to undercut Democratic opposition. That's one way of looking at it. The other interpretation is that Bush is already on the ropes. Roberts is not the pick of a President who feels absolutely sure of his ground. He's not up for a fight.

The Democrats should demand strict party line discipline from all our Senators. The right demands no less of the Republicans. . .

It's really very simple. If you're a Democratic senator, you don't vote for the John Roberts because he's not the kind of person you want on the Supreme Court. You use the confirmation project as it was meant to be used, as an opportunity to delve into the qualifications and values of the nominee. The public deserves to know exactly where this potential lifetime appointee stands on the issues. Then you vote. Then, after the smoke clears, you look around to see who else stood by your party. Then you act accordingly.

More: http://www.needlenose.com/node/view/1665

http://talkleft.com/new_archives/011573.html

And this comment, a little reminder for those (including all my Nader-supporting friends) who said “there wasn’t any significant difference” between Bush and Gore, or Bush and Kerry – well, at times like this we’re reminded that there IS a difference

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2005/7/20/12113/8736
[Kos] I see in Roberts someone who can help Democrats draw clear battle lines for the American public. It'll allow us to define who we are and who they are, and drive home the point that elections do matter, that there really is a difference between the Democratic and Republican parties. This is a huge opportunity, and one I'm confident Democrats in the Senate are taking seriously.

Hearings start in September, so we have the time get our stuff together. Bush could've chosen a moderate in the O'Connor mold, and he could've kept the pretension that the GOP isn't extreme, isn't out to eliminate hard-won rights. He chose otherwise. Let's look at this as an opportunity. Because the only way to stop this sort of thing, in the end, is to win back Congress and the White House.

Ann Coulter’s not happy with Roberts selection: http://anncoulter.com/cgi-local/printer_friendly.cgi?article=66
AC: plagiarist? http://rawstory.com/news/2005/coulter_caught_cribbing_column_720

A handy site for ongoing Roberts coverage: http://www.prospect.org/weblog/archives/2005/07/index.html#007149

Five questions for Roberts (thanks to Taegan Goddard for the link): http://nationaljournal.com/judges/articles/taylor072005.htm

The Edith Clement feint and other advance SC speculation: made everyone look stupid, but made CNN look ESPECIALLY stupid

http://www.cjrdaily.org/archives/001690.asp

But here’s the thing: someone called all over the press (an unnamed source, of course) to plant the phony Clement story – obviously to distract people from breaking the REAL name early. Who made this call, and if they knowingly lied, why should their identity be kept secret?

http://atrios.blogspot.com/2005_07_17_atrios_archive.html#112191273307943161

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2005_07/006766.php

[NB: And isn't it a really shitty thing to do to her? What did she do to deserve that?]

The timing of the nomination: meant to distract attention from Bush’s Rove problem? The furrowed brows at CNN and elsewhere assured us that Bush just isn’t the sort of person who would contemplate such a crass political move. . . except, of course, he is

http://mediamatters.org/items/200507200003
Reporting on President Bush's July 19 nomination of Judge John G. Roberts Jr. to the Supreme Court, various CNN correspondents derided as "ludicrous" and "overwrought" the suggestion -- often attributed solely to "Democrats" or "liberals" -- that the White House may have accelerated the nomination to divert media attention from the scandal surrounding White House senior adviser Karl Rove. . .

http://billmon.org/archives/002043.html
[Bloomberg News] Bush accelerated his search for a Supreme Court nominee in part because of special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald's investigation into the leak of a CIA agent's name, according to Republicans familiar with administration strategy.

Bush originally had planned to announce a replacement for retiring Justice Sandra Day O'Connor on July 26 or 27, just before his planned July 28 departure for a month-long vacation at his Crawford, Texas, ranch, said two administration officials, who spoke on the condition they not be named.

The officials said those plans changed because Rove has become a focus of Fitzgerald's interest and of news accounts about the matter.

More: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/blog/2005/07/20/BL2005072001380.html

Heh, heh. . . hilarious

http://www.prospect.org/weblog/archives/2005/07/index.html#007145
[Sam Rosenfeld] Conservatives are predictably impressed that George W. Bush bucked the demands of identity politics by choosing a white man as his Supreme Court nominee. . . For now the United States Supreme Court is one-ninth female, and I guess it must be the quota-loving identity politics reactionary in me that finds that just a bit odd.

Brit Hume of FOX News captured the moment well last night when, turning from congressional correspondent Brian Wilson to White House reporter Carl Cameron, he chuckled with surprise at Bush's decision to name a white male -- "just like all of us." They all got a nice laugh out of that. . .

What we’re fighting for in Iraq

http://nytimes.com/2005/07/20/international/middleeast/20women.html
[NYT] A working draft of Iraq's new constitution would cede a strong role to Islamic law and could sharply curb women's rights, particularly in personal matters like divorce and family inheritance.

The document's writers are also debating whether to drop or phase out a measure enshrined in the interim constitution, co-written last year by the Americans, requiring that women make up at least a quarter of the parliament. . .

More: http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2005_07/006760.php

http://www.warandpiece.com/blogdirs/002288.html

This joke writes itself

http://www.juancole.com/2005/07/roberts-nomination-and-iraqi.html
[Juan Cole] George W. Bush's nomination of John Roberts, Jr. is a setback for American women, just has his policies in Iraq have produced a setback for women's rights in the Arab world. Indeed, Bush has been bad for women all around the globe.

By nominating a man, Bush reduced the number of women on the Supreme Court. Sandra Day O'Connor is no progressive, but she knew what it was like to be locked out of the Old Boys Club, and she ruled in favor of women's issues like affirmative action and reproductive rights. Her feisty independence even led her to say that the Federal government had no business telling Californians they couldn't use marijuana for medical purposes.

She is being replaced by a man who has no sympathy for any of the things she stood for. In particular, he wants to have men dictate to women whether they will carry to term babies that men impregnate them with. If abortion ends up being outlawed altogether, it will mean that rapists can in essence force their victims to bear their babies. . .

Iraqi army nowhere near ready to take over security duties

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/07/21/international/middleeast/21military.html

The Pentagon, desperate for enlistments, raises its maximum age for entering AGAIN (to 42). Folks, I think we have a solution for the Social Security problem: just let retired folks go directly into military service

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2005/7/20/132517/352
[Army Times] The Pentagon's request to raise the maximum recruit age to 42 is part of what defense officials are calling a package of "urgent wartime support initiatives" sent to Congress. . .

More Abu Ghraib photos, videos to be released

http://talkleft.com/new_archives/011576.html

Dems determined to keep Plame scandal on the front burner

http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room/index.html?blog=/politics/war_room/2005/07/20/wag/index.html

http://www.prospect.org/weblog/archives/2005/07/index.html#007152

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2005/7/20/12412/6164

New disclosures

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/07/20/AR2005072002517.html/
A classified State Department memorandum central to a federal leak investigation contained information about CIA officer Valerie Plame in a paragraph marked "(S)" for secret, a clear indication that any Bush administration official who read it should have been aware the information was classified, according to current and former government officials.

Plame -- who is referred to by her married name, Valerie Wilson, in the memo -- is mentioned in the second paragraph of the three-page document, which was written on June 10, 2003, by an analyst in the State Department's Bureau of Intelligence and Research (INR), according to a source who described the memo to The Washington Post.

The paragraph identifying her as the wife of former ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV was clearly marked to show that it contained classified material at the "secret" level, two sources said. The CIA classifies as "secret" the names of officers whose identities are covert, according to former senior agency officials. . . Anyone reading that paragraph should have been aware that it contained secret information. . .

Analysis: http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2005_07_17.php#006142

http://billsrants.typepad.com/my_weblog/2005/07/the_state_dept_.html

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2005/7/21/03230/5137

http://www.markarkleiman.com/archives/valerie_plame_/2005/07/as_if_karl_rove_needed_more_trouble.php

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2005_07/006765.php

The State Dept memo time line
http://www.buzzflash.com/alerts/05/07/ale05099.html

How did Libby find out about Plame?
http://news.yahoo.com/s/huffpost/20050719/cm_huffpost/004403

Does Plame have a civil case against Rove?
http://writ.news.findlaw.com/sebok/20050718.html

Eight blacked-out pages: more to come
http://www.buzzflash.com/contributors/05/07/con05246.html

A missing WH press briefing (July 9, 2003)?
http://americablog.blogspot.com/2005/07/why-is-this-white-house-transcript.html

Bonus item: makes you want to throttle him, doesn’t it?

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2005_07_17_digbysblog_archive.html#112192480458394868

***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 @ 7:39 AM

 
HIJACKED BY THE DREAD PIRATE ROBERTS

John Roberts: here’s my take. A smart choice for Bush – very conservative, true blue on all the key issues, intelligent, capable, and well-respected. Hardly “in the mainstream,” but no wacko. And, apparently, a nice guy to boot. Unless something surprising comes up in the confirmation hearings, my advice to the Dems (yeah, as if they care what I think) is not to pick a fight they can’t win over this one. Acknowledge that a conservative President gets to nominate a conservative judge, and do the gracious thing. And in the process, establish their credibility for the next fight, where they might really need to use the filibuster to block someone (Luttig, say, or an Olsen, Owen, Rogers-Brown, etc.).

Moreover, picking a fight with Bush and losing makes him look strong and effective again, draws Republicans back to him just when they are getting skittish, and sucks the oxygen away from every other story in Washington, when most of the other stories are good news for the Dems.

But that doesn’t mean I have to like it

A good intro summary

http://slate.msn.com/id/2123066/fr/rss/

Reactions to the Roberts nomination

Planned Parenthood
http://americablog.blogspot.com/2005/07/planned-parenthood-on-roberts.html

Human Rights Campaign
http://americablog.blogspot.com/2005/07/human-rights-campaign-gay-rights-group.html

NARAL
http://americablog.blogspot.com/2005/07/naral-on-roberts.html

The Nation
http://americablog.blogspot.com/2005/07/nation-on-roberts.html

Howard Dean
http://americablog.blogspot.com/2005/07/howard-dean-on-roberts.html

Dick Durbin
http://talkleft.com/new_archives/011555.html

More: http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2005/7/20/01426/5877

From the Right

Family Research Council
http://americablog.blogspot.com/2005/07/religious-right-says-roberts-is.html

More: http://volokh.com/archives/archive_2005_05_22-2005_05_28.shtml#1116979759

Roberts on the issues

http://americablog.blogspot.com/2005/07/pro-corporate-anti-environment.html

http://americablog.blogspot.com/2005/07/why-did-roberts-single-out-violence.html

http://americablog.blogspot.com/2005/07/roberts-on-roe.html

http://talkleft.com/new_archives/011558.html

http://talkleft.com/new_archives/011561.html

http://court.thinkprogress.org/2005/07/19/so-its-john-roberts/

http://www.dkosopedia.com/index.php/John_G._Roberts_Jr.

Background documents (financial disclosures, etc)

http://americablog.blogspot.com/2005/07/more-background-on-roberts.html

Roberts’ role in the Florida recount case

http://www.ericumansky.com/2005/07/roberts_was_inv.html

Good overviews from the Alliance for Justice and People for the American Way

http://www.independentjudiciary.com/resources/docs/John_Roberts_Report.pdf

http://media.pfaw.org/roberts.pdf

“Partisan hack”? Good luck, guys, but I don’t think this will work

http://americablog.blogspot.com/2005/07/john-g-roberts-partisan-hack.html

http://www.mydd.com/story/2005/7/19/225434/487

http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room/index.html?blog=/politics/war_room/2005/07/19/roberts/index.html
In his confirmation hearings, Roberts will surely draw a distinction between his work as an advocate on behalf of clients and his work as a judge; Alberto Gonzales made the same argument when he tried to distance himself from some of the less savory aspects of his tenure as White House counsel when Bush nominated him to serve as attorney general.

I agree just about completely here

http://talkleft.com/new_archives/011559.html
[Jeralyn Merritt] I think it's too soon to start opposing Judge John G. Roberts. Most of us knew nothing about him before tonight. He's only been a Judge for two years. Before that he was deputy solicitor general. The legal arguments he made while working for the Government or as a corporate lawyer may or may not reflect his personal values, or how he would rule as a Supreme Court Justice.

I'd like to know more about him before I make up my mind. I don't think it helps that liberal groups are coming out swinging so soon. It has the appearance that they would oppose anyone Bush would nominate.

It's obvious we're going to get a conservative Supreme Court nominee. Bush is President and the Senate is Republican-dominated. For now, I'm just happy it wasn't a rabid right-winger like Janice Rogers Brown, Priscilla Owen, Edith Jones (not to be confused with Edith Clement, who probably would have been okay,) Ted Olson or one of the Fourth Circuit judges that were reportedly under consideration.

I'm more worried about Bush's second pick, the one he will make when Chief Justice Rehnquist retires, when his key aides may be out from under the gun of, or already indicted by, Fitzgerald's grand jury.

I do not want to fall into the Administration's trap of getting so distracted by this judicial nomination that I don't pay attention to other injustices of the Administration, like the war in Iraq, the detainees, military tribunals, the potential abolition of habeas corpus in death cases, and Rove Gate, to name a few.

So, when there's something big to report on Judge John G. Roberts I will, but I'm done with the topic for now.

The prospects for nomination

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-assess20jul20,1,1475444.story
Bush also chose a nominee unlikely to inspire either the most enthusiasm among hard-core conservatives or the most intense opposition from Democrats and liberal groups.

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/07/20/politics/politicsspecial1/20bush.html
President Bush moved Tuesday to plant the conservative imprint on the Supreme Court that has been a central aim of his presidency, but with a member of the Washington legal establishment designed to frustrate any Democratic effort to block Mr. Bush's replacement for Justice Sandra Day O'Connor.

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-congress20jul20,1,2447022.story
Democratic leaders, in their initial reaction to the nomination of John G. Roberts Jr., mainly said that his record and philosophy would be subject to intense scrutiny in the weeks ahead and in upcoming Senate Judiciary Committee hearings. . . Among senators, there was none of the devastating criticism that was heaped immediately on Robert H. Bork when he was nominated to the court by President Reagan in 1987 — and later rejected by the Senate.

http://www.thewashingtonnote.com/archives/000791.html
Bush did not pick someone who is a flaming right-wing ideologue for the Supreme Court. Roberts is someone who impresses people on both sides of the aisle -- and he certainly isn't going to be a good target for the left and isn't going to give the Christian right the kind of assurances it wants.

This was not a pugnacious move by Bush and company. And the fact that Edith Brown Clement and John Roberts were on the same roster says something about the White House's calculation of how little it can get away with right now.

Still, Roberts didn’t face a smooth nomination last time

http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room/archive.html?blog=/politics/war_room/2005/07/19/dignified/index.html

http://legalaffairs.org/howappealing/071905.html#004898

Transcript: http://talkleft.com/new_archives/011556.html

My guess is this nomination gives Bush 72 hours of news focus on Roberts: but then, until the hearings start, we’ll get back to other news. And huge revelations continue to break on the Plame scandal

Is the press paying attention any more?

http://atrios.blogspot.com/2005_07_17_atrios_archive.html#112179625854369065
[Bob Franken, CNN] “Speaking of the Karl Rove matter of course, that is news that is considered at the moment, so yesterday. We've moved on.”

[NB: I don’t know, this sounds tongue-in-cheek to me]

More: http://atrios.blogspot.com/2005_07_17_atrios_archive.html#112186033620592480

http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room/archive.html?blog=/politics/war_room/2005/07/19/bush/index.html

http://americablog.blogspot.com/2005/07/question-for-msm-today.html

The State Dept memo stated clearly: this information not to be shared

http://rawstory.com/news/2005/Wall_Street_Journal_enters_Rove_fray_State_Dept._memo_made_clear_info_shouldnt_be_shar_0719.html

http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room/archive.html?blog=/politics/war_room/2005/07/19/memo/index.html

And a blockbuster if true: Murray Waas reports that Rove didn’t tell the FBI about his conversation with Cooper

http://www.prospect.org/web/page.ww?section=root&name=ViewWeb&articleId=10016

More evidence that the leak is not Fitzgerald’s focus, but perjury, obstruction and cover-up

http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room/archive.html?blog=/politics/war_room/2005/07/19/plame1/index.html
A former Justice Department official who is in frequent contact with people involved in the Plame case tells the Washington Post that he believes Fitzgerald is focusing on what came after the leak rather than the leak itself. "I think he made his decisions months ago that there wasn't a crime when the leak occurred," the former official said. "Now, he's looking at a coverup: perjury, obstruction of justice, false statements to an FBI agent."

Any number of administration officials could be on the hook if Fitzgerald were to bring those sorts of charges: You don't have to be a leaker to be a liar. Did Karl Rove lie about his involvement in the leak when he appeared before the grand jury or when he spoke with federal investigators? Did Rove or Scooter Libby obstruct justice when they told -- if they told -- Scott McClellan that they weren't involved in the Plame leak? Was McClellan obstructing justice when he spread stories about the case from the White House press room -- stories that we know now to be false? And where was Dick Cheney, anyway?

Fleischer: in or out?

http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room/archive.html?blog=/politics/war_room/2005/07/19/plame1/index.html
As we noted last week, you can connect the dots in a way that gets you a drawing of Ari Fleischer's face. A couple of new clues are now filling in that sketch a little more. First, the New York Times, relying on a source "who has been involved in the investigation," says that Fleischer's White House phone log shows that Novak called Fleischer on July 7, 2003 -- the day after Joseph Wilson's Op-Ed piece appeared in the New York Times. Novak has said that Wilson's Op-Ed left him "curious why a high-ranking official in President Bill Clinton's National Security Council was given this assignment," and that he put that question to a "senior administration official," who told him that Wilson had been assigned to the case by his wife, a CIA employee.

It's still not clear whether Fleischer was that "senior administration official." Indeed, as the Times says, it's not even clear from the phone records whether Fleischer returned Novak's call, "or, if he did, what he said." A source tells the Washington Post that Fleischer has told investigators he did not return Novak's call.

This much does seem clear, however: Fleischer was at the very least in a position to know about Plame's role as a CIA agent. . . A "former administration official" tells Bloomberg that Fleischer was seen on the plane perusing a State Department memo that said Plame had a role in sending her husband to Niger.

Here’s an interesting thread: Who is the “senior administration official” who is fingering Fleischer and others? The final revenge of Colin Powell? Or is this why Andy Card will soon be looking for a new job?

http://www.needlenose.com/node/view/1659

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/Commentary/com-7_16_05_RN.html

The Libby/Cheney link

http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2005/07/19/link_to_cheney_deepens_145leak_gate146_scandal

More on the origins of the State Dept memo

http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=514&e=5&u=/ap/20050720/ap_on_go_ca_st_pe/cia_leak_investigation

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2005_07_17.php#006134

Who forged the Niger documents?

http://www.prospect.org/web/page.ww?section=root&name=ViewWeb&articleId=10015

Ex-CIA agents write a letter

http://talkleft.com/new_archives/011560.html
The disclosure of Ms. Plame’s name was a shameful event in American history and, in our professional judgment, may have damaged U.S. national security and poses a threat to the ability of U.S. intelligence gathering using human sources. Any breach of the code of confidentiality and cover weakens the overall fabric of intelligence, and, directly or indirectly, jeopardizes the work and safety of intelligence workers and their sources. The fact is that there are thousands of U.S. intelligence officers who "work at a desk" in the Washington, D.C. area every day who are undercover. Some have official cover, and some have non-official cover. Both classes of cover must and should be protected. . . We believe it is appropriate for the President to move proactively to dismiss from office or administratively punish any official who participated in any way in revealing Valerie Plame's status. Such an act by the President would send an unambiguous message that leaks of this nature will not be tolerated and would be consistent with his duties as the Commander-in-Chief.

I wonder what Judith Miller is thinking right now? Bush’s Justice Dept will oppose a bipartisan bill protecting lawyers from revealing their sources

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-shield20jul20,1,4958029.story

One of the key themes of Hersh’s expose of the Bush gang’s efforts to manipulate the Iraq elections is their new technique of shielding foreign ops from Congressional oversight – or even going ahead and doing things AFTER Congress has said no

http://www.warandpiece.com/blogdirs/002285.html

Bush’s war against the press

http://journalism.nyu.edu/pubzone/weblogs/pressthink/2005/07/16/rll_back.html

Bonus item: “Rove’s Last Stand”

http://billmon.org/archives/002035.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 @ 7:46 AM

 
PROFILES IN COURAGE

What a fine, courageous, high-minded stance our President has taken. After months of saying that any leakers in his administration will be found and fired, George Bush – having realized that he HAS leakers in his administration -- now sets a new standard: he will oust anyone found guilty of criminal activity. Why we need an announcement to tell us that convicted criminals will not be tolerated in his administration (or any other administration for that matter) is unclear. But what is clear is that this gang will bend to any level of lying and hypocrisy to protect their own. And now, finally, the open disgust of the press is becoming palpable. . .

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/blog/2005/07/18/BL2005071800863.html
Does President Bush still intend to fire anyone found to be involved in the leak of Valerie Plame's identity as a CIA operative? . . [N]ow that Karl Rove, Bush's closest adviser, has been implicated in the leak, Bush's standard seems to have changed.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/07/18/AR2005071800689.html
President Bush today appeared to raise the threshold for firing any White House official who leaked the identity of a covert CIA agent. . .

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/07/18/politics/18cnd-rove.html
President Bush changed his stance today on his close adviser Karl Rove, stopping well short of promising that anyone in his administration who helped to unmask a C.I.A. officer would be fired.

http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room/index.html?blog=/politics/war_room/2005/07/18/bush/index.html
Got that? The reporter asked whether Bush would fire the leaker regardless of whether a crime was committed, and Bush said he'd fire the leaker if a crime was committed. That's called not answering the question. It's also called -- and we hate to say it because we know George W. Bush doesn't do this sort of thing -- a flip-flop.

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2005_07_17.php#006126
Bush sets high new standard: no felons on White House staff.

http://americablog.blogspot.com/2005/07/open-thread-and-thought.html
Seriously, think about what he said today. It was absolutely meaningless, yet brilliant in its deceptiveness. If someone in my administration is sent to jail I won't keep them on the federal payroll. Well bully for you, big boy. . . Tomorrow Bush might even tell us that if someone on his staff dies, they will no longer work in his administration.

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2005_07_17.php#006131
A few points that might do with clarifying. Under the president's new policy, is an indictment sufficient for dismissal, or conviction necessary? Assuming conviction is necessary, can staff continue to serve while the case is taken up on appeal?

[NB: I think we know the answer to this question: the President said what he said for a reason. Raise the bar, move the threshold, change the standards, kick the can down the road. . . this is all about shifting the rules with each new disclosure to put off having to fire anyone – especially Rove – for as long as possible. Indictments will be greeted with, “innocent until proven guilty,” “grand juries will indict a ham sandwich,” ”nothing proven yet. . .”]

More: http://www.tpmcafe.com/story/2005/7/18/155830/509

http://talkleft.com/new_archives/011535.html

http://atrios.blogspot.com/2005_07_17_atrios_archive.html#112170604326039484

http://www.first-draft.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=3715

http://billmon.org/archives/002026.html

Nice one: Bush has already violated his noble new standard

http://billmon.org/archives/002032.html

What Bush and his spokesman have said in the past

http://atrios.blogspot.com/2005_07_17_atrios_archive.html#112171439662752403
[Bush, January 2001] After the oath was administered, Bush told the staff – and 100 or so family members on hand – "You all are here because you have my full confidence."

"Today, everything is so promising and new," the new president said. "I'm hoping the day will never come when any of us take this place for granted."

Bush warned that he expected his White House staff to meet the highest ethical standards, avoiding not only violations of law, but even the appearance of impropriety.

"We must remember the high standards that come with high office," he said. "This begins careful adherence with the rules. I expect every member of this administration to stay well within the boundaries [that] define legal and ethical conduct.

"No one in the White House should be afraid to confront the people they work for over ethical concerns, and no one should hesitate to confront me as well."

Bush told his staff that he sees civility as a central part of the required behavior of White House staff. "There is no excuse for arrogance and never a reason for disrespect toward others," he said. "I expect each of you … to be an example of humility and decency and fairness."

http://americablog.blogspot.com/2005/07/bush-changes-his-story-about-firing.html
[AP] Bush said in June 2004 that he would fire anyone in his administration shown to have leaked information that exposed the identity of Wilson's wife, Valerie Plame.

In September and October 2003, McClellan said he had spoken directly with Rove about the matter and that "he was not involved" in leaking Plame's identity to the news media. McClellan said at the time: "The president knows that Karl Rove wasn't involved," "It was a ridiculous suggestion" and "It's not true."

McClellan: "If anyone in this administration was involved in it [the improper disclosure of an undercover CIA operative's identity], they would no longer be in this administration." [White House Press Briefing, 9/29/2003]

Bush: "If somebody did leak classified information, I'd like to know it, and we'll take the appropriate action." [President Bush, Chicago, Ill, 9/30/2003]

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,162834,00.html
[Fox News] President Bush reiterated Monday that if someone in his administration broke the law by talking to reporters about Joseph Wilson's wife, then they would lose their jobs. . .

Nearly two years ago, Bush said those responsible would be held accountable. "If there is a leak out of my administration, I want to know who it is and if the person has violated the law, the person will be taken care of," he said in September 2003.

[NB: Fox finds the one instance where Bush has mentioned the law previously, which negates all the other things he has said: now his position is simply being “reiterated”]

New poll: 75% believe Rove should be fired, only a quarter believe Bush’s claims to be “fully cooperating” with the investigation (in other words, only half of HIS OWN SUPPORTERS believe him)

http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/PollVault/story?id=949950

Analysis: http://www.prospect.org/weblog/archives/2005/07/index.html#007118

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2005_07/006748.php

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2005/7/18/201832/566

Scotty’s raucous press briefing

http://www.adage.com/news.cms?newsId=45561
Sheesh, his beat-down over Rovegate by the White House press corps was something to see. The excerpts and sound bites from the endless S&M session simply don't do it justice, so fortunately there are multiple unedited videos of the exchange, originally broadcast in full on C-SPAN, floating around online, including this one here -- http://movies.crooksandliars.com/Scotty_Rove.mov -- which is totally worth watching in the same way that, say, the torture scene in Quentin Tarantino's Reservoir Dogs is totally worth watching. Mr. McClellan, meet the suddenly rabid White House press pack, wielding verbatim transcripts of your own previous prevarications like switchblades. . .You could see McClellan kind of losing it -- emotionally falling down, unable to get up, thinking, "I hate this job more than life itself," as his lips and tongue shaped and slithered themselves around sentences like "I appreciate the question" and "I think I've responded" and "I'm not going to get into commenting based on reports or anything of that nature." Not to mention "You've heard my response" and "I already responded to these questions."

http://www.first-draft.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=3716
Q Scott, the President seemed to raise the bar and add a qualifier today when discussing whether or not anybody would be dismissed for -- in the leak of a CIA officer's name, in which he said that he would -- if someone is found to have committed a crime, they would no longer work in this administration. That's never been part of the standard before, why is that added now?

MR. McCLELLAN: No, I disagree, Terry. I think that the President was stating what is obvious when it comes to people who work in the administration: that if someone commits a crime, they're not going to be working any longer in this administration. . .

Q But you have said, though, that anyone involved in this would no longer be in this administration, you didn't say anybody who committed a crime. You had said, in September 2003, anyone involved in this would no longer be in the administration.

MR. McCLELLAN: Yes, we've been through these issues over the course of the last week. . .

Q But we haven't talked about a crime.

MR. McCLELLAN: -- well what was said previously. You heard from the President today. And I think that you should not read anything into it more than what the President said at this point. . .

Q Does the President equate the word "leaking" to a crime, as best you know, in his mind? Just the use of the word "leaking," does he see that as a criminal standard? And is the only threshold for firing someone involved being charged with a crime?

MR. McCLELLAN: Well, we all serve at the pleasure of the President in this White House. The President -- you heard what he had to say on the matter. He was asked a specific question, and you heard his response.

[Holden: That's when Helen Thomas got pissed off.]

Q What is his problem? Two years, and he can't call Rove in and find out what the hell is going on? I mean, why is it so difficult to find out the facts? It costs thousands, millions of dollars, two years, it tied up how many lawyers? All he's got to do is call him in.

MR. McCLELLAN: You just heard from the President. He said he doesn't know all the facts. I don't know all the facts.

Q Why?

MR. McCLELLAN: We want to know what the facts are. Because --

Q Why doesn't he ask him?

MR. McCLELLAN: I'll tell you why, because there's an investigation that is continuing at this point, and the appropriate people to handle these issues are the ones who are overseeing that investigation. There is a special prosecutor that has been appointed. And it's important that we let all the facts come out. And then at that point, we'll be glad to talk about it, but we shouldn't be getting into --

Q You talked about it to reporters.

MR. McCLELLAN: We shouldn't be getting into prejudging the outcome.

[Holden: When the dust settled the gagglers were still trying to understand just what it took to lose your job with the Bush assministration.]

Q Given the new formulation "if somebody committed a crime," would that be a crime as determined by an indictment, or a crime as determined by a conviction?

MR. McCLELLAN: Again, Bob, I'm not going to add to what the President said. . .

Q But the importance is the question of would -- if it is the latter, the strategy would be to run out the clock?. . .

Q Scott, with apologies for returning to this definitional issue that we seem to be dancing around. But what I'm having a hard time with is you're telling us that there was nothing new in what the President said today, yet you have said before that the President would terminate somebody or somebody would not work here if they were involved in the issue. The President seemed to set a higher bar today by saying that there was a -- if they were convicted of a criminal act. Those are not the same thing on their face. And I'm trying to see whether or not you can tell us the standard has changed?

MR. McCLELLAN: I would say that I would not read anything into it more than that what the President said. . .

Q That is the current standard?

Full text and video: http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2005/07/20050718-2.html

Bush: “I don’t know all the facts” – think about the many ways that is a dishonest and misleading assertion

http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room/index.html?blog=/politics/war_room/2005/07/18/accountability/index.html
Assuming for a moment that the president is telling the truth, we've got a one-word follow-up question to ask. . . Why?

http://americablog.blogspot.com/2005/07/bush-just-said-on-tv-that-he-didnt.html

Henry Waxman repeats that the WH has a legal OBLIGATION to initiate its own investigation of security leaks (thanks to Buzzflash for the link)

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/071805Q.shtml
Your new standard is not consistent with your obligations to enforce Executive Order 12958, which governs the protection of national security secrets. . . Under the executive order, you may not wait until criminal intent and liability are proved by a prosecutor. Instead, you have an affirmative obligation to take "appropriate and prompt corrective action."

Even Bush’s new standard may not be able to protect Rove: the evidence piles up

http://www.warandpiece.com/blogdirs/002281.html

http://www.markarkleiman.com/archives/valerie_plame_/2005/07/parsing_the_morison_case.php

When did the cover-up start?

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2005/7/17/25021/0954

Here’s the BIG news break of the day: Ari Fleischer was seen perusing the classified State Dept memo. Does anyone believe he would have started calling members of the press about it without clearance from above?

Will Ari fall on his sword? Or is he the key figure to get pled out, turned, and start testifying against others?

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=10000103&sid=awksAN7mYRZY&refer=us
Fleischer, who saw the July 7 memo, wasn't part of Bush's inner circle during his tenure as press secretary, while Rove was at the heart of it. Given those facts, it seems highly doubtful that Fleischer would have acted on the information in the memo without the knowledge or approval of Rove and other top-level White House officials.

More: http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2005_07_17.php#006132

http://www.needlenose.com/node/view/1656

http://billmon.org/archives/002029.html

Karl Rove: Mr. Nice Guy

http://www.prospect.org/web/page.ww?section=root&name=ViewWeb&articleId=9989

More: http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2005/7/18/183423/145

The canonization of Judith Miller continues apace

http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1000980703

A contrary view: http://talkleft.com/new_archives/011534.html

CNN adopts the WH standard for integrity

http://www.first-draft.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=3712
Appearing before the Television Critics Association, CNN News Group President Jim Walton was asked if Novak could be expected to have a long relationship with CNN despite questions about his role in the probe. . . "Yes," Walton responded. He was then asked if Novak didn't represent a problem for CNN. . . "Robert Novak has broken no laws. . .” Walton said.

Ken Mehlman, Karl Rove’s lap-boy, really will say anything, won’t he?

http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room/archive.html?blog=/politics/war_room/2005/07/18/rnc/index.html

A scary glimpse into the Bizarro world of right-wing paranoia and self-deception

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2005_07_17_digbysblog_archive.html#112173150212509694

In other news

Seymour Hersh’s latest blockbuster is out: detailing how the US covertly manipulated the outcome of the Iraqi elections (What? You think if they do it here they won’t do it over there?)

http://www.newyorker.com/fact/content/articles/050725fa_fact
“There was a worry that a lot of money was being put aside in walking-around money for Allawi,” the participant in the discussions told me. “The N.G.O.s said, ‘We don’t do this—and, in any case, it’s crazy, because if anyone gets word of this manipulation it’ll ruin what could be a good thing. It’s the wrong way to do it.’ The N.G.O.s tried to drive a stake into the heart of it.”

Over the summer and early fall of 2004, the N.G.O.s arranged meetings with several senior officials, including John Negroponte, who was then the U.S. Ambassador to Iraq. A pattern developed, the participant in the discussions said. The N.G.O.s, he recounted, would say, “We’re not going to work with this if there’s people out there passing around money. We will not be part of any covert operation, and we need your word that the election will be open and transparent,” and the officials would reassure them. Within weeks of a meeting, the N.G.O.s would “still hear word of a Track II—a covert group,” the participant said. “The money was to be given to Allawi and others.”. . .

Nonetheless, in the same time period, former military and intelligence officials told me, the White House promulgated a highly classified Presidential “finding” authorizing the C.I.A. to provide money and other support covertly to political candidates in certain countries who, in the Administration’s view, were seeking to spread democracy. “The finding was general, a recently retired high-level C.I.A. official told me. “But there’s no doubt that Baghdad was a stop on the way. The process is under the control of the C.I.A. and the Defense Department. . . It is not known why the President would reject one program to intervene in the election and initiate another, more covert one. . .

A former senior intelligence official told me, “The election clock was running down, and people were panicking. The polls showed that the Shiites were going to run off with the store. The Administration had to do something. How?”
By then, the men in charge of the C.I.A. were “dying to help out, and make sure the election went the right way,” the recently retired C.I.A. official recalled. . .

[Nancy Pelosi] “Did we have eleven hundred Americans die”—the number of U.S. combat deaths as of last September—“so they could have a rigged election?”

Sometime after last November’s Presidential election, I was told by past and present intelligence and military officials, the Bush Administration decided to override Pelosi’s objections and covertly intervene in the Iraqi election. . . A government consultant with close ties to the Pentagon’s civilian leaders said, “We didn’t want to take a chance.”

I was informed by several former military and intelligence officials that the activities were kept, in part, “off the books”—they were conducted by retired C.I.A. officers and other non-government personnel, and used funds that were not necessarily appropriated by Congress. Some in the White House and at the Pentagon believed that keeping an operation off the books eliminated the need to give a formal briefing to the relevant members of Congress and congressional intelligence committees, whose jurisdiction is limited, in their view, to officially sanctioned C.I.A. operations. (The Pentagon is known to be running clandestine operations today in North Africa and Central Asia with little or no official C.I.A. involvement.). . .

More: http://www.ericumansky.com/2005/07/hersh_is_allegi.html

Report: Bush promises right-wing groups he won’t nominate Gonzales

http://politicalwire.com/archives/2005/07/18/bush_will_not_pick_gonzales.html

WH blames Frist for Bolton failure

http://www.thewashingtonnote.com/archives/000788.html

If Bolton ever were to take the UN post, his immediate supervisor would be. . .

http://www.thewashingtonnote.com/archives/000787.html

Bonus item: Yet another magazine cover story on Karl Rove

http://www.tidmus.com/blog/index.php?id=141

***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 @ 7:16 AM

 
A NEW WORLD

Readers have been after me to lead with something beside Plame, and this NYRB article “The New World Order” by Tony Judt certainly seemed worth a lead

http://www.nybooks.com/articles/18113
Those of us who opposed America's invasion of Iraq from the outset can take no comfort from its catastrophic consequences. . .

Great powers, of course, are not philanthropists. The US never ceased to pursue the national interest as successive administrations understood it. But for ten years following the end of the cold war the US and the "international community" appeared, however fortuitously, to share a common set of interests and objectives; indeed, American military preponderance fueled all manner of liberal dreams for global improvement. Hence the enthusiasms and hopes of the Nineties—and hence, too, the angry disillusion today. For the US of President George W. Bush most decidedly does not share the interests and objectives of the international community. Many in that community would say that this is because the United States itself has changed in unprecedented and quite frightening ways. . .

[Andrew] Bacevich is a graduate of West Point, a Vietnam veteran, and a conservative Catholic who now directs the study of international relations at Boston University. He has thus earned the right to a hearing even in circles typically immune to criticism. What he writes should give them pause. His argument is complex, resting on a close account of changes in the US military since Vietnam, on the militarization of strategic political thinking, and on the role of the military in American culture. But his conclusion is clear. The United States, he writes, is becoming not just a militarized state but a military society: a country where armed power is the measure of national greatness, and war, or planning for war, is the exemplary (and only) common project.

Why does the US Department of Defense currently maintain 725 official US military bases outside the country and 969 at home (not to mention numerous secret bases)? Why does the US spend more on "defense" than all the rest of the world put together? After all, it has no present or likely enemies of the kind who could be intimidated or defeated by "star wars" missile defense or bunker-busting "nukes." And yet this country is obsessed with war: rumors of war, images of war, "preemptive" war, "preventive" war, "surgical" war, "prophylactic" war, "permanent" war. As President Bush explained at a news conference on April 13, 2004, "This country must go on the offense and stay on the offense."

Among democracies, only in America do soldiers and other uniformed servicemen figure ubiquitously in political photo ops and popular movies. Only in America do civilians eagerly buy expensive military service vehicles for suburban shopping runs. In a country no longer supreme in most other fields of human endeavor, war and warriors have become the last, enduring symbols of American dominance and the American way of life. "In war, it seemed," writes Bacevich, "lay America's true comparative advantage."

. . . He also summarizes the realist case for war—rooted in what will become the country's increasingly desperate struggle to control the fuel supply. The United States consumes 25 percent of all the oil produced in the world every year but has proven reserves of its own amounting to less than 2 percent of the global total. This struggle Bacevich calls World War IV: the contest for supremacy in strategic, energy-rich regions like the Middle East and Central Asia. . .

In this setting today's "Global War on Terror" is one battle, perhaps just a sideshow, among the potentially limitless number of battles that the US will be called upon (or will call upon itself) to fight. These battles will all be won because the US has a monopoly of the most advanced weaponry—and they may be acceptable to the American people because, in Bacevich's view, that same weaponry, air power especially, has given war "aesthetic respectability" once again. But the war itself has no foreseeable end.

As a former soldier, Bacevich is much troubled by the consequent militarization of American foreign relations, and by the debauching of his country's traditional martial values in wars of conquest and occupation. . . Bacevich's deepest concern lies closer to home. In a militarized society the range of acceptable opinion inevitably shrinks. Opposition to the "commander in chief" is swiftly characterized as lèse-majesté; criticism becomes betrayal. No nation, as Madison wrote in 1795 and Bacevich recalls approvingly, can "preserve its freedom in the midst of continual warfare.". . .

Although I think Bacevich is right to see war as the heart of the matter, there is more to the current US political climate than just the cult of arms. The unrepublican veneration of our presidential "leader" has made it uniquely difficult for Americans to see their country's behavior as others see it. The latest report from Amnesty International—which says nothing that the rest of the world doesn't already know or believe but which has been denied and ridiculed by President Bush —is a case in point. The United States "renders" (i.e., kidnaps and hands over) targeted suspects to third-party states for interrogation and torture beyond the reach of US law and the press. . .

The same practices are also in breach of US law. The "legal black hole" in which these things go on is formed by the breathtakingly cynical claim that since they are being done to foreign nationals on territory over which the US lacks ultimate sovereignty (for these purposes we readily acknowledge Cuba's ownership of Guantánamo Bay), neither American law nor American courts have any jurisdiction. The 70,000 detainees currently held outside the US may be kept incarcerated and incommunicado for as long as the Global War on Terror is fought—which could be decades.

At the Senate hearings in January 2005 prior to his appointment as US attorney general, Alberto Gonzales painstakingly explained to the assembled senators that since the international Convention against Torture is subordinate to US law, the Fourteenth Amendment to the US Constitution applies only to the states and not the federal government, and the Fifth Amendment doesn't apply to foreigners detained abroad, the US has no legal obligations regarding "cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment with respect to aliens overseas.". . .

[T]here is a precedent in modern Western history for a country whose leader exploits national humiliation and fear to restrict public freedoms; for a government that makes permanent war as a tool of state policy and arranges for the torture of its political enemies; for a ruling class that pursues divisive social goals under the guise of national "values"; for a culture that asserts its unique destiny and superiority and that worships military prowess; for a political system in which the dominant party manipulates procedural rules and threatens to change the law in order to get its own way; where journalists are intimidated into confessing their errors and made to do public penance. Europeans in particular have experienced such a regime in the recent past and they have a word for it. That word is not "democracy.". . .

“Civil war”

http://susiemadrak.com/2005/07/17/18/58/but-at-least-we-got-rid-of-saddam-hussein/
[Times of London] IRAQ is slipping into all-out civil war, a Shia leader declared yesterday, as a devastating onslaught of suicide bombers slaughtered more than 150 people, most of them Shias, around the capital at the weekend.

More: http://www.juancole.com/2005/07/bombings-provoke-fears-of-hot-civil.html

The Big Lie about Iraqi troop readiness

http://americablog.blogspot.com/2005/07/iraqi-troop-levels-bush-lies.html

The “mind-boggling” corruption and profligacy of Iraq war spending

http://billmon.org/archives/002024.html

The “democratic government” we’ve built in Iraq cracks down on bloggers

http://billsrants.typepad.com/my_weblog/2005/07/khalid_jarrar__.html
[Bill Kavanagh] Riverbend reported sadly that another blogger, Khalid Jarrar, author of Tell Me a Secret, had been abducted by “the new Iraqi mukhabarat.”. . .

Khalid is a blogger I’ve read off and on. His brother Raed is a prolific blogger and both of them have been good sources of information about daily life in occupied Baghdad since the invasion. Khalid had most recently been in Amman, Jordan. He had finished exams at university in Baghdad and had reported about a mortar blowing up one of his fellow students this May (he had suffered from some student laziness and missed class that day). Before that, there was a car bomb 100 meters away from his family’s home. And before that…well, you get the picture. Go, read his blog.

Khalid had recently posted about using real names in his blog and about transparency, a post that makes me now worry for him. Naturally, he’s been critical of the madness around him. . .

"It could never happen here. . ."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/07/17/AR2005071700889_pf.html
FBI agents monitored Web sites calling for protests against the 2004 political conventions in New York and Boston on behalf of the bureau's counterterrorism unit, according to FBI documents released under the Freedom of Information Act.

The American Civil Liberties Union pointed to the documents as evidence that the Bush administration has reacted to the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the United States by blurring the distinction between terrorism and political protest. . . "It's increasingly clear that the government is involved in political surveillance of organizations that are involved in nothing more than lawful First Amendment activities," said Anthony Romero, executive director of the ACLU. "It raises very serious questions about whether the FBI is back to its old tricks.". . .

"It's one thing to monitor protests and protest organizers, but quite another thing to refer them to your counterterrorism unit," said Leslie Cagan, national coordinator for United for Peace and Justice. . .

Responding to the lawsuit filed in May in U.S. District Court in Washington, the FBI said it had identified 1,173 pages of records relating to the ACLU and 2,383 pages relating to Greenpeace. The content of the records, which were generated since 2001, is not known. . .

More: http://www.nytimes.com/2005/07/18/politics/18protest.html

http://americablog.blogspot.com/2005/07/breaking-fbi-has-been-monitoring-aclu.html

http://talkleft.com/new_archives/011532.html

Now, finally, the Plame story seems to have that kind of rhythm that suggests the press have the bit between their teeth: maybe seeing their colleagues thrown into jail has helped them focus on the ruthlessness of this administration

Time and Newsweek duke it out over Plame, and surprisingly, even though Time has the Cooper scoop, Newsweek’s coverage comes out ahead. But Time gets two key money quotes

Time

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2005/7/17/12201/9165
[Matt Cooper] I have a distinct memory of Rove ending the call by saying, "I've already said too much". . .

http://majikthise.typepad.com/majikthise_/2005/07/karl_rove_knew_.html

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2005_07/006739.php
[Kevin Drum] As I suspected, there was nothing really new in Matt Cooper's account of his grand jury testimony last week. After all, Cooper's role was small, and as he puts it, "Like the blindfolded man and the elephant, all I know is what seems to be in front of me."

http://www.markarkleiman.com/archives/valerie_plame_/2005/07/unspin_from_matt_cooper.php
[Mark Kleiman] Kevin Drum finds nothing much new in Matt Cooper's account of his appearance before the grand jury. . . I don't think I agree. . . Sure, there's not a grand revelation of anything we hadn't suspected, but Cooper's account contradicts most of the pro-Rove spin coming out of the White House and its political, journalistic, and bloggic allies over the past week. And Cooper's contemporaneous notes show that Rove was aware that he was playing with classified information. . .

More: http://www.needlenose.com/node/view/1652

http://americablog.blogspot.com/2005/07/time-what-i-told-grand-jury-by-matt.html

Was the information he leaked classified? Rove must have known it was

http://www.juancole.com/2005/07/rove-it-is-all-going-to-be.html
[Matt Cooper] "So did [Karl] Rove leak Plame's name to me, or tell me she was covert? No. Was it through my conversation with Rove that I learned for the first time that [Joe] Wilson's wife worked at the CIA and may have been responsible for sending him?"--to Niger. "Yes. Did Rove say that she worked at the `agency' on `WMD'?"--weapons of mass destruction. "Yes. When he said things would be declassified soon, was that itself impermissible? I don't know."

http://americablog.blogspot.com/2005/07/this-would-be-leak-of-classified-info.html

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2005/7/17/162338/460

[NB: If you are telling a reporter something will be declassified, I think that means you know that it IS classified]

More on Rove’s security clearance (while he still has it)

http://susiemadrak.com/2005/07/17/19/36/what-rove-knew/

A glimpse inside the grand jury

http://talkleft.com/new_archives/011521.html

Newsweek

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/8600327/site/newsweek/
Then, on a long Bush trip to Africa, Fleischer and Bartlett prompted clusters of reporters to look into the bureaucratic origins of the Wilson trip. How did the spin doctors know to cast that lure? One possible explanation: some aides may have read the State Department intel memo, which Powell had brought with him aboard Air Force One. . . Meanwhile, in transatlantic secure phone calls, the message machinery focused on a crucial topic: who should carry the freight on the following Sunday's talk shows? The message: protect Cheney by explaining that he had had nothing to do with sending Wilson to Niger, and dismiss the yellowcake issue. Powell was ruled out. He wasn't a team player, as he had proved by his dismissive comments about the "sixteen words." Donald Rumsfeld was pressed into duty, as was Condi Rice, the ultimate good soldier. . .

More: http://americablog.blogspot.com/2005/07/newsweek-exposes-rove.html

[NB: Digby picks up on this Bartlett/Fleischer story in a way that struck me too: Why are we only learning about this now? They must have called lots of people (“clusters”), all shopping this story. It’s pretty clear now that they were trying to steer reporters onto the Plame/CIA connection – though we don’t know yet whether they were also leaking tidbits from the classified State Dept memo. At least two reporters (Miller and Novak) seem to have taken the bait. Still, these phone calls must have been widely known about for two years. Did reporters not think this was an important aspect of the story? http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2005_07_17_digbysblog_archive.html#112163168902288223]

But always, always remember who Bartlett and Fleischer worked for

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-leak18jul18,1,715483.story
Top aides to President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney were intensely focused on discrediting former Ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV in the days after he wrote an op-ed article for the New York Times suggesting the administration manipulated intelligence to justify going to war in Iraq, federal investigators have been told.

Prosecutors investigating whether administration officials illegally leaked the identity of Wilson's wife, a CIA officer who had worked undercover, have been told that Bush's top political strategist, Karl Rove, and Cheney's chief of staff, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, were especially intent on undercutting Wilson's credibility, according to people familiar with the inquiry.

Although lower-level White House staffers typically handle most contacts with the media, Rove and Libby began personally communicating with reporters about Wilson, prosecutors were told.

A source directly familiar with information provided to prosecutors said Rove's interest was so strong that it prompted questions in the White House. When asked at one point why he was pursuing the diplomat so aggressively, Rove reportedly responded: "He's a Democrat." Rove then cited Wilson's campaign donations, which leaned toward Democrats, the person familiar with the case said. . .

News of the high-level interest in discrediting Wilson comes as White House defenders, most notably officials at the Republican National Committee, argue that Rove has been vindicated of suspicion that he was a primary source of the leak. Knowingly revealing the identity of a covert operative is a federal crime.

Regardless of Rove's legal liability, the description of his role runs contrary to earlier White House statements that Rove and Libby were not involved in the unmasking of Wilson's wife, and it suggests they were part of a campaign to discredit Wilson. . .

Jonathan Alter, in Newsweek

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/8598301/site/newsweek/
[F]or all of the complexities of the Valerie Plame case, for all the questions raised about the future of investigative journalism and the fate of the most influential aide to an American president since Louis Howe served Franklin D. Roosevelt 70 years ago, this story is fundamentally about how easy it was to get into Iraq and how hard it will be to get out.

We got in because we "cooked" the intelligence, then hyped it. That's why the "Downing Street Memo" is not a smoking gun but a big "duh." For two years we've known that senior White House officials were determined to, in the words of the British intelligence memo, "fix" the intelligence to suit their policy decisions. When someone crossed them, they would "fix" him, too, as career ambassador Joseph Wilson found when he came back from Africa with a report that threw cold water on the story that Saddam Hussein sought yellowcake uranium from Niger.

Was Plame "fair game," as Karl Rove told Chris Matthews? George H.W. Bush didn't think so. Even after Wilson embarrassed the president publicly, Bush Sr. wrote Wilson—whom he had appointed to various ambassadorial posts—to congratulate him for his service and sympathize with him over the outing of his wife. The old man was head of the CIA in the 1970s and knows the consequences of blowing the identities of covert operatives.

But does his son? A real leader wouldn't hide behind Clintonian legalisms like "I don't want to prejudge." Even if the disclosure was unintentional and no law was broken, Rove's confirmed conduct—talking casually to two reporters without security clearances about a CIA operative—was dangerous and wrong. As GOP congressman turned talk-show host Joe Scarborough puts it, if someone in his old congressional office did what Rove unquestionably did, that someone would have been promptly fired, just as the president promised in this case. Scarborough, no longer obligated to toe the pathetic Republican Party line, says it's totally irrelevant if Joe Wilson is a preening partisan who misled investigators about the role his wife played in recommending his Niger trip. The frantic efforts of the GOP attack machine to change the subject to Wilson shows how scared Republicans are that the master of their universe will be held accountable for Rove's destructive carelessness. . .

More on that State Dept memo, Niger uranium, and the origins of this whole mess

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2005_07_17_digbysblog_archive.html#112164349972210727

http://billmon.org/archives/002019.html

http://www.warandpiece.com/blogdirs/002271.html

Lewis (“Scooter”) Libby officially joins the mix

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/07/17/AR2005071700400_pf.html

More: http://americablog.blogspot.com/2005/07/so-now-we-know-white-house-lied-about.html

http://talkleft.com/new_archives/011528.html

http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=514&e=2&u=/ap/20050717/ap_on_go_pr_wh/cia_leak_investigation
Cooper also had a conversation about Wilson and his wife with Libby, Cheney's chief of staff. . . According to Cooper, "Libby replied, 'Yeah, I've heard that too' or words to that effect" when Cooper asked if Libby had heard anything about Wilson's wife sending her husband to Niger

[NB: Sounds like Scooter got the lawyer Rove wishes he had: http://susiemadrak.com/2005/07/17/13/44/local-tie/
http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2005_07_17.php#006124]

Rove to Novak

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/8600327/site/newsweek/page/3/
Rove's reply is in dispute. According to a later column written by Novak, Rove said, "Oh, you know about it." Rove's version, made public by a source close to him, is less solid: "I heard that, too." Whatever the exact words were, they were good enough to give Novak the confirmation he thought he needed. Citing two senior administration officials, he wrote a piece—with Wilson's wife's name—for release nationwide the next Monday.

[NB: As Joyce Atkinson points out, is this seemingly offhand construction, “Oh yeah, I heard that too,” coming from Rove and Libby just a coincidence?

UPDATE: Billmon catches that too, and much more: http://billmon.org/archives/002020.html]

http://www.first-draft.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=3708
[Athenae] Everybody go stand in a circle and whisper to one another until you can't remember who said it first. . .

Another version of where Rove got the Plame info (I think this is version number four)

http://talkleft.com/new_archives/011529.html
A lawyer familiar with Rove's grand jury testimony said Sunday that Rove learned about the CIA officer either from the media or from someone in government who said the information came from a journalist.

[NB: Boy, are they pointing all the arrows at Judith Miller, or what? Good to know that their much-vaunted loyalty doesn’t extend to the one reporter who consistently carried their water during the crucial propaganda blitz leading up to the war]

Calling lies, lies: the media is ALMOST there

http://americablog.blogspot.com/2005/07/nyt-white-house-lied-about-rove-ok.html

http://americablog.blogspot.com/2005/07/wash-post-catches-ken-mehlman-lying.html

http://www.tpmcafe.com/story/2005/7/17/20305/4503

Poor Scotty

http://199.249.170.220/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1000977342
Sept. 29, 2003

Q: You said this morning, quote, "The president knows that Karl Rove wasn't involved." How does he know that?

A: Well, I've made it very clear that it was a ridiculous suggestion in the first place. . . I've said that it's not true. . . And I have spoken with Karl Rove. . .

Q: When you talked to Mr. Rove, did you discuss, "Did you ever have this information?"

A: I've made it very clear, he was not involved, that there's no truth to the suggestion that he was.

Oct. 7, 2003

Q: You have said that you personally went to Scooter Libby (Vice President Dick Cheney's chief of staff), Karl Rove and Elliott Abrams (National Security Council official) to ask them if they were the leakers. Is that what happened? Why did you do that? And can you describe the conversations you had with them? What was the question you asked?

A: Unfortunately, in Washington, D.C., at a time like this there are a lot of rumors and innuendo. There are unsubstantiated accusations that are made. And that's exactly what happened in the case of these three individuals. They are good individuals. They are important members of our White House team. And that's why I spoke with them, so that I could come back to you and say that they were not involved. I had no doubt with that in the beginning, but I like to check my information to make sure it's accurate before I report back to you, and that's exactly what I did.

Oct. 10, 2003

Q: Earlier this week you told us that neither Karl Rove, Elliot Abrams nor Lewis Libby disclosed any classified information with regard to the leak. I wondered if you could tell us more specifically whether any of them told any reporter that Valerie Plame worked for the CIA?

A: I spoke with those individuals, as I pointed out, and those individuals assured me they were not involved in this. And that's where it stands.

Q: So none of them told any reporter that Valerie Plame worked for the CIA?

A: They assured me that they were not involved in this.

Q: They were not involved in what?

A: The leaking of classified information.

On Meet the Press, Tim Russert makes Ken Mehlman look like a fool

http://msnbc.msn.com/id/8565312/
MR. RUSSERT: Let's go through what you know with you and our viewers. . .

"Karl Rove...spoke with the columnist Robert Novak [on July 8, 2003] as he was preparing an article...that identified a C.I.A. officer who was undercover, someone who has been officially briefed on the matter said. . . After hearing Mr. Novak's account, the person who has been briefed on the matter said, Mr. Rove told the columnist: `I heard that, too.'". . .

And we learned this. Matt Cooper's e-mail outlining his conversation with Karl Rove on which he based his column.

"Friday morning, July 11, 2003...Matt Cooper was tapping out an e-mail to his bureau chief. ... `Spoke to Rove on double super secret background for about two mins. . . Rove told Cooper that Wilson's trip had not been authorized by" the director of the CIA, "George Tenet--or Vice President Dick Cheney. Rather, `it was, Karl Rove said, wilson's wife, who apparently works at the agency on WMD issues, who authorized the trip.'"

Mr. Mehlman, based on that--and you just heard Matt Cooper say the first time he learned that Joe Wilson's wife worked for the CIA was from Karl Rove, wasn't that a leak of something that should not have been leaked?

MR. KEN MEHLMAN: Tim, it was not. . .

MR. RUSSERT: But Mr. Rove did say to Robert Novak "I heard that, too," and Mr. Novak used him as a confirming source. And, two, Matt Cooper said he learned of her existence as a CIA operative from Karl Rove.

MR. MEHLMAN: Well, Tim, these same stories also suggested that Karl Rove heard the first time about it from another reporter. . .

MR. RUSSERT: One more point. . . When one is given classified clearance, they are asked to sign an oath, and they are given a briefing book with form--Standard Form 312, it's called. And if you read this briefing book, it says this: "Before...confirming the accuracy of what appears in the public source, the signer of"--"SF 312 must confirm through an authorized official that the information has, in fact, been declassified. If it has not...confirmation of its accuracy is also an unauthorized disclosure."

So by confirming a story from Robert Novak or sharing information with Matt Cooper, no matter where it came from, if, in fact, it was classified information, without seeking to determine whether it was declassified, it is an unauthorized disclosure.

MR. MEHLMAN: Well, you're making an assumption that it's classified information. In fact, what the story on Friday, you pointed out, shows, and what earlier stories have shown is that this information at least came to Mr. Rove from journalists, not from a classified source. But, again, here we are speculating. We should have confidence. I have tremendous confidence in Pat Fitzgerald. He's a career prosecutor. He's a tough prosecutor. That's why he was put in charge of this case, because people want to get to the bottom of it. And that's why it is so outrageous that these partisan smears would occur this past week. The question is this: Do the people that are smearing Karl Rove not have confidence in Mr. Fitzgerald? Do they not think, in fact, he's going to get to the bottom of it?. . .

MR. RUSSERT: You say you have tremendous confidence in Pat Fitzgerald.

MR. MEHLMAN: I do.

MR. RUSSERT: If, in fact, he indicts White House officials, will you accept that indictment and not fight it?

MR. MEHLMAN: First of all, I'm the chairman of the Republican National Committee. I'm not an attorney for anybody. . .

MR. RUSSERT: But if he indicts White House officials. . .

MR. MEHLMAN: Right.

MR. RUSSERT: . . . will you pledge today, because you have tremendous confidence in him, that you will not criticize his decision?

MR. MEHLMAN: Again, I'm not going to speculate. . .

MR. RUSSERT: But if you have tremendous confidence in him, then you will respect and accept his decision.

MR. MEHLMAN: I look forward to hearing what he has to say. . .

MR. RUSSERT: Let me go through the public pronouncements from the White House. Here's President Bush on September 30, 2003, about the leak.

(Videotape, September 30, 2003):

PRES. GEORGE W. BUSH: If there is a leak out of my administration, I want to know who it is. And if the person has violated law, that person will be taken care of.

(End videotape)

MR. RUSSERT: "That person will be taken care of." A week after that, Scott McClellan talked to the White House press corps and the American people. David Gregory of NBC News asked him the following question.

(Videotape, October 7, 2003):

MR. DAVID GREGORY: You have said that you personally went to Scooter Libby, Karl Rove and Elliott Abrams to ask them if they were the leakers. Is that what happened? Whey did you do that? And can you describe the conversations you had with them? What was the question you asked them?

MR. SCOTT McCLELLAN (White House Press Secretary): Yeah. They are good individuals. They are important members of our White House team, and that's why I spoke with them so that I could come back to you and say that they were not involved. I had no doubt with--of that in the beginning, but I like to check my information to make sure it's accurate before I report back to you, and that's exactly what I did.

(End videotape)

MR. RUSSERT: "They were not involved." Is that comment still operative?

MR. MEHLMAN: Well, Tim, I know Scott McClellan very well. Scott's a smart guy. He's an honest guy. He's a very effective spokesman. . .

MR. RUSSERT: Whoa, hold on, hold on. Why did Scott McClellan feel comfortable in commenting on the investigation back in 2003 when it was just going on?

MR. MEHLMAN: Well, Tim, it...

MR. RUSSERT: He said to the American people that Libby, Rove, Abrams were not involved. And we now know that, according to published reports and Mr. Rove's attorney, that Mr. Rove confirmed the Novak account and was the source for Matt Cooper, as Matt Cooper testified before the grand jury and explained this morning on MEET THE PRESS. Is that not being involved?

MR. MEHLMAN: Tim, as you know, investigations have different phases. . .

MR. RUSSERT: But he said they were not involved. Is that accurate?

MR. MEHLMAN: Well, according to the information that's come out this week--and, again, we're here speculating--but the information that's come out this week, that we all agree on, says they were not involved in a leak. . .

MR. RUSSERT: Let me refer you both to a Washington Post editorial on Friday. "A federal prosecutor is conducting a criminal probe that has, among other things, unearthed an e-mail from Time magazine reporter Matthew Cooper revealing that Mr. Rove told him about Ms. Plame's role in her husband's trip. This gives the lie to White House denials that Mr. Rove was involved in the leak . . .

MR. MEHLMAN: Tim, I disagree with that. . .

MR. RUSSERT: Mr. Mehlman, if this happened in the Clinton White House, John Podesta or Leon Panetta or someone was accused of doing this, what would the Republican National Committee be saying today about the Clinton White House?

MR. MEHLMAN: Well, Tim, one thing I know we wouldn't be doing. . .

MR. RUSSERT: You would not be pouncing on a Democratic White House for leaking the identity of a CIA agent?

MR. MEHLMAN: It is unthinkable for me to imagine that a leading member of the Republican Senate leadership, like Charles Schumer, would hold a press conference with the equivalent of a Joe Wilson, a major press conference, where they repeated allegations that have been proved wrong. . .

See the video: http://talkleft.com/new_archives/011527.html

More Mehlman Mumbo-jumbo

http://thinkprogress.org/2005/07/15/lies-rove/

Bush desperate to change the subject and drive the Plame story off the front pages

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/07/18/AR2005071800017.html
President Bush, accelerating his search for a new Supreme Court justice, appears to have narrowed his list of candidates to no more than a few finalists and could announce his decision in the next few days. . .

Bob Schieffer nails Bush hypocrisy: look and listen

http://americablog.blogspot.com/2005/07/cbss-bob-schieffer-rips-bush.html
If the president wanted to know the answer, he could have just asked his staff 2 years ago.

Video: http://www.crooksandliars.com/2005/07/17.html#a3996

The last word (for today)

http://www.tpmcafe.com/story/2005/7/17/171610/688
[Ed Kilgore] Others on this site and elsewhere are doing a fine job of slicing and dicing the Rove/Plame scandal. All I wish to add is one big-picture point about why all this slicing and dicing is necessary.

Recall George W. Bush's meta-message during the 2000 campaign: it was time for a "responsibility era" to rein in the excesses introduced by the out-of-control Baby Boomer Bill Clinton. The grown-ups, emblemized by Dick Cheney and other Bush 41 exiles, were ready to give America a mature and accountable government.

That has turned out to be the biggest Bush lie of them all.

With precious few exceptions, this administration has been characterized by a recklessness and irresponsibility that could barely have been matched if the country had been turned over to actual adolescents.

From the tax cuts to the invasion and occupation of Iraq, the Bushies have consistently pursued their policies in the most completely thoughtless and dangerous manner available to them. And moreover, they have made it definitively clear that no one loyal to the White House can lose his or her job for incompetence, negligence, corruption, or any other sin.

George W. Bush has systematically ushered in an "irresponsiblity era" that is aimed to insulate his policies, his appointees, and his party from any significant oversight or control.

In other words, these people will not, under any circumstances, police themselves, and with the exception of a few minor figures in the Senate, the Republican Congress will not police them either. That's why Democrats, the press, and indeed anybody with a voice, must do it for them, and for the country.

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2005/7/18/3512/30654
[Kos] In the days after the discovery of Deep Throat's identity, many people noted how Watergate would be impossible in today's political climate -- where partisanship trumps the truth inside a GOP machine so deeply entrenched in this country's governance structure that it controls the White House, House, Senate, Supreme Court, most appelate courts, and the media. And where the GOP can do no wrong, regardless of the ethical or criminal transgression.

It is quite instructive and shocking, even with this administration, that the outing of a CIA agent, her front company, and god knows how many other agents and operations, is met with a collective shrug from wingnut circles. While a blow job gave them the vapors, a genuine breach of national security gives them no pause, gives them no reason to abandon "the architect". Political power trumps everything -- even the safety of our nation.

Given what we know of the case, we know that Rove violated his non-disclose agreement. We know that Rove acted unethically, without regard to the consequences of his actions. Whether a crime has been committed remains to be seen, but shouldn't matter a whit. . .

More: http://www.markarkleiman.com/archives/valerie_plame_/2005/07/decisions_decisions.php

Bonus item: too perfect not to share

http://www.salon.com/comics/tomo/2005/07/18/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 @ 8:34 AM

 
OCKHAM’S RAZOR

This is the piece to start with: Frank Rich explains it all

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/07/17/opinion/17rich.html
WELL, of course, Karl Rove did it. He may not have violated the Intelligence Identities Protection Act of 1982, with its high threshold of criminality for outing a covert agent, but there's no doubt he trashed Joseph Wilson and Valerie Plame. We know this not only because of Matt Cooper's e-mail, but also because of Mr. Rove's own history. Trashing is in his nature, and bad things happen, usually through under-the-radar whispers, to decent people (and their wives) who get in his way. In the 2000 South Carolina primary, John McCain's wife, Cindy, was rumored to be a drug addict (and Senator McCain was rumored to be mentally unstable). In the 1994 Texas governor's race, Ann Richards found herself rumored to be a lesbian. The implication that Mr. Wilson was a John Kerry-ish girlie man beholden to his wife for his meal ticket is of a thematic piece with previous mud splattered on Rove political adversaries. The difference is that this time Mr. Rove got caught.

Even so, we shouldn't get hung up on him - or on most of the other supposed leading figures in this scandal thus far. Not Matt Cooper or Judy Miller or the Wilsons or the bad guy everyone loves to hate, the former CNN star Robert Novak. This scandal is not about them in the end, any more than Watergate was about Dwight Chapin and Donald Segretti or Woodward and Bernstein. It is about the president of the United States. It is about a plot that was hatched at the top of the administration and in which everyone else, Mr. Rove included, are at most secondary players.

To see the main plot, you must sweep away the subplots, starting with the Cooper e-mail. It has been brandished as a smoking gun by Bush bashers and as exculpatory evidence by Bush backers (Mr. Rove, you see, was just trying to ensure that Time had its facts straight). But no one knows what this e-mail means unless it's set against the avalanche of other evidence, most of it secret, including what Mr. Rove said in three appearances before the grand jury. Therein lies the rub, or at least whatever case might be made for perjury. . .

This case is about Iraq, not Niger. The real victims are the American people, not the Wilsons. The real culprit - the big enchilada, to borrow a 1973 John Ehrlichman phrase from the Nixon tapes - is not Mr. Rove but the gang that sent American sons and daughters to war on trumped-up grounds and in so doing diverted finite resources, human and otherwise, from fighting the terrorists who attacked us on 9/11. That's why the stakes are so high: this scandal is about the unmasking of an ill-conceived war, not the unmasking of a C.I.A. operative who posed for Vanity Fair. . .

The Washington Post (finally) circles in on the truth – but makes one big mistake

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/07/16/AR2005071601364.html
It is now clear: There has been an element of pretense to the White House strategy of dealing with the Plame case since the earliest days of the saga. Revelations emerging slowly at first, and in a rapid cascade over the past several days, have made plain that many important pieces of the puzzle were not so mysterious to Rove and others inside the Bush administration. White House officials were aware of Plame and her husband's potentially damaging charge that Bush was "twisting" intelligence about Iraq's nuclear ambitions well before the episode evolved into Washington's latest scandal.

But as the story hurtles toward a conclusion sometime this year, there are several elements that remain uncertain. The most important -- did anyone commit a crime?

This article, based on interviews with lawyers and officials involved in the case, is an effort to step back from the rapidly unfolding events of recent weeks and clarify what is known about the Plame affair and what key factors are still obscure. . .

[NB: We’ve been hammering at this for a while now, but the WH defense that if no one committed a crime it’s all politics as usual is NOT the key issue. We already know that Rove lied about his involvement: lied publicly about not having anything to do with the leak and not even knowing Plame’s name – and possibly lied privately to McClellan (and others), leading them to defend him in absolute terms. Right now, before we know anything about indictments, he should be fired – for this if nothing else]

More evidence that Rove actually did break the law, including a possible espionage charge

http://www.markarkleiman.com/archives/valerie_plame_/2005/07/plame_roundup.php

Who told Rove about Plame? As discussed here yesterday he said, implausibly, that he heard it from the media, which got rich ha-ha’s from the Right: but today we learn

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/07/16/AR2005071601364_2.html
A lawyer familiar with Rove's testimony hedged a bit on who precisely told Rove about Plame, saying it may have come secondhand from another aide. . .

http://www.nynewsday.com/news/local/newyork/ny-nyhen174345965jul17,0,6452557.column
[Ellis Henican] Rove's defenses have gotten wobblier by the day. He's gone from he-didn't-do-it to the-media-did-it to he-doesn't-remember-exactly.

And Rove's lawyer, Robert Luskin, has been no help at all, offering up a whole series of contradictory assertions about what Rove supposedly told the grand jury - sometimes in the very same breath to the very same reporter.

Here's a typical one from the Washington Post: "I don't think that he has a clear recollection. He's told them that he believes he may have heard it from a journalist."

More Rove excuses debunked

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-cia16jul16,1,3661121.story
Current and former U.S. intelligence officials said it was unlikely Plame was in danger as a result of being identified. An internal CIA review concluded that her exposure caused minimal damage, mainly because she had been working at headquarters for years, former officials familiar with the review said.

Still, her clandestine career is over, and the outrage among many current and former case officers lingers because cover is something they go to such great lengths to protect.

"It doesn't matter whether he used her name," Marcinkowski said of the recent disclosures surrounding Rove. "It doesn't matter what her status was. He gave up a piece of the puzzle and he had no right to do it."

Does ANYBODY believe that Rove “never saw or heard about” the State Dept memo?

http://americablog.blogspot.com/2005/07/think-rove-ever-saw-state-dept-memo.html

http://americablog.blogspot.com/2005/07/in-this-white-house-buck-stops-at-karl.html

Who else might have seen it? Cheney? (and if Cheney, Libby?)

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2005_07_10_digbysblog_archive.html#112153380528854358

And what about the memo’s authenticity?

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2005_07_10.php#006122
[WP, Dec 2003] Sources said the CIA is angry about the circulation of a still-classified document to conservative news outlets suggesting Plame had a role in arranging her husband's trip to Africa for the CIA. The document, written by a State Department official who works for its Bureau of Intelligence and Research (INR), describes a meeting at the CIA where the Niger trip by Wilson was discussed, said a senior administration official who has seen it.

CIA officials have challenged the accuracy of the INR document, the official said, because the agency officer identified as talking about Plame's alleged role in arranging Wilson's trip could not have attended the meeting.

"It has been circulated around," one official said. CIA and State Department officials have refused to discuss the document.

On Oct. 28, Talon News, a news company tied to a group called GOP USA, posted on the Internet an interview with Wilson in which the Talon News questioner asks: "An internal government memo prepared by U.S. intelligence personnel details a meeting in early 2002 where your wife, a member of the agency for clandestine service working on Iraqi weapons issues, suggested that you could be sent to investigate the reports. Do you dispute that?"

[Josh Marshall] The questioner, of course, was Jeff Gannon.

So a few questions.

Who requested that the memo be written? Who actually wrote it? Why does it contain the inaccuracies the CIA claims it does? Who were the administration officials who continued to circulate the classified document to conservative news outlets even after Plame's identity was initially revealed? And how did it get into the hands of Jeff Gannon?

http://www.warandpiece.com/blogdirs/002268.html
[Laura Rozen] Blogger Next Hurrah and I have been batting back and forth theories of the State Department memo on Joseph Wilson's fact finding trip to Niger reported on today in the NYT, and it's got me thinking. The IAEA declared in March 2003 that the Niger docs were crude forgeries. State which had forwarded the documents to the IAEA a few months earlier started trying to document the Niger-Iraq info's circulation through the US system. Hence, it makes sense that State's Intelligence and Research Bureau (INR), headed by Carl Ford Jr. (who we know from the Bolton testimony) had overseen preparation of the memo, and that Powell/Armitage would have requested it when there started to be an increasing number of news stories anonymously describing Wilson's trip to Niger that had found the Iraq-Niger uranium allegations to be implausible. The memo's purpose might have been benign -- e.g. not to leak to harm Wilson/Plame, but to explain how in the world the Niger forgeries had managed to corrupt US Iraq intelligence pronouncements, despite the fact the State INR analyst had found the documents to be likely forgeries from the moment they arrived in Washington. But as the State memo got distributed through the White House/NSC/Vice President's office, someone seems to have gotten an idea about pushback. That might explain why Rove emailed Hadley after he spoke to Cooper, and why the name of Cheney's chief of staff I. Lewis Libby keeps coming up in this affair. Update: One question is, how coordinated was this effort at anti-Wilson pushback and who coordinated it?

More on the memo from Billmon: http://billmon.org/archives/002017.html

What do the Republicans think?

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/07/17/weekinreview/17korn.html
Only a few presidential confidants as indispensable as Mr. Rove have ever been thrown overboard, and then reluctantly. Sherman Adams, the chief of staff to President Dwight D. Eisenhower, left the White House in a cloud of scandal in 1958 after accepting a vicuna fur coat from a business friend who had interests at the White House.

Bert Lance, a close adviser of President Jimmy Carter and director of the Office of Management and Budget, was forced out in 1977 because of charges he had mismanaged the bank he ran before the election.

So far, there is no proof that Mr. Rove committed any wrongdoing, let alone anything illegal: [NB: WTF??!!??] while he spoke to two journalists about Valerie Wilson, a C.I.A. operative whose husband went to Niger on a fact-finding mission about weapons of mass destruction, the accounts so far suggest Mr. Rove merely confirmed what the journalists already knew. The original source of Ms. Wilson's identity has not been made public, and Mr. Rove's lawyer says he is not a target of the special prosecutor's inquiry.

Politically, furthermore, many Republicans do not believe Mr. Rove has yet become seriously damaged goods - and that the bar for him, while not so impossibly high, is higher than it would be even for advisers with as direct a line to the president as Mr. Adams or Mr. Lance. . .

Yet, is there a tipping point, where the presence of Mr. Rove would simply not be worth the unwanted attention that goes with it?. . .

One former Republican official who retains close ties to the White House said there could be a political cost for keeping Mr. Rove on board even if he is found to have done nothing illegal. "If Karl survives, he does so at the president's political expense," said the former official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he did not want to be seen as disloyal to Mr. Rove. . . "George W. Bush came into office promising two tenets that are in competition now: straight talk, non-parsing - and loyalty," the former official said. "He's either got to choose loyalty or straight talk. He can't do both."

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-assess17jul17,1,4096896.story
The question has some Republicans worried, though.

"There are other shoes to drop here," warned an advisor to the GOP leadership in Congress, who insisted on anonymity in order to speak freely. "There are people who haven't come out yet. There could be indictments. And that would cast an entirely different shadow on the matter."

In public, even as Bush and his aides have refused to comment on the issue, many of their allies have rallied in defense.

Republican National Committee Chairman Ken Mehlman, who once worked for Rove, declared: "The fact is, Karl Rove did not leak classified information." Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-Tenn.) called it "a nonstory."

Frist's comment reflected the main hope of Republicans on Capitol Hill, as well as in the White House: that the leak investigation was sufficiently tangled and obscure that it would fail to capture much public attention — or would be supplanted by other news.

"As soon as there's a Supreme Court nomination, this will be knocked off the front pages," predicted Kenneth M. Duberstein, a former chief of staff to President Reagan. . .

The White House reaction to the charges — a stolid refusal to comment until the prosecutor's investigation is complete — appears designed to do two things: first, to avoid adding fuel to the fire that was ignited by the revelation that Rove, despite earlier denials, was involved; and second, to take advantage of the fact that Fitzgerald's investigation appears likely to continue for many months before delivering a final report.

[NB: By the way, “it’s too complicated to sort out” is another early rehearsal of a bogus GOP excuse. Were the Byzantine financial arrangements of Whitewater “too complicated” to become a scandal? The basic narrative of this story is very, very simple, as Rich explains: Wilson was unraveling the Bush admin’s web of lies to justify the war, and a three-stage process ensued to punish and discredit him. First, somebody (Libby? Fleischer?) planted the Plame story in the ear of reliably friendly reporters like Miller and Novak (almost certainly with Rove’s knowledge and approval, if not his direct involvement). This also involved the leak of classified documents. Second, once the story was out there, Rove and others could “innocently” repeat or confirm the leak as already “fair play,” disseminating it further. Third, the Wall of Silence and Deception closed in to cover-up WH involvement in the whole process – a cover-up that clearly includes Bush himself and which continues up to this moment. What is “too complicated” about that?]

Putting the pieces together, people infer that Lewis Libby was Judith Miller’s source

http://talkleft.com/new_archives/011519.html

Did Libby release Miller from her vow of confidentiality? If not, why not? If so, why is she still not testifying?

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2005/7/17/03450/5788

“Criminal contempt” for Miller – what does it mean?

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/07/15/AR2005071502080.html

http://talkleft.com/new_archives/011514.html
In a nutshell, civil contempt is a coercive measure - it is used to try and get the person to talk. If Judith Miller were to change her mind and testify while jailed for civil contempt, she would be considered to have purged herself of the contempt.

Criminal contempt is a punitive measure, used when it is clear that the person is not going to talk. It's meant to punish someone for violating a court order, to vindicate the dignity of the court and to deter others from doing so. . .

A great analysis of the ethical (and legal) mess Miller has made of things – and how her paper’s unqualified defense of her is starting to look a bit. . . hmmmm

http://billmon.org/archives/002016.html

Laura Rozen asks some excellent questions

http://www.warandpiece.com/blogdirs/002266.html
Can someone please find out if Judith Miller really had a Secret clearance from the Pentagon? And if so, who authorized that arrangement? And, was she really wearing a US army uniform in the field?

The Niger documents, WMD lies, and Wilson’s original op-ed

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2005_07_10.php#006120

http://www.warandpiece.com/blogdirs/002271.html

http://www.tpmcafe.com/story/2005/7/16/131822/358

Duck/rabbit: there are two ways to read this story (and this is the WRONG way)

http://talkleft.com/new_archives/011515.html
The Washington Post has an article today detailing the mechanics of the Rove-Cooper waiver that Cooper relied on to avoid going to jail.

Cooper's wife, Democratic strategist Mandy Grunwald, who is also the grandaughter of Time founder Henry Grunwald, says that there really was no point in him going to jail once Time Magazine made the decision to turn over his e-mails which included Rove's name as Cooper's source.

The article is more interesting for its description of a volatile meeting between Time Magazine's Normal Pearlstein and the mag's reporter's yesterday.

The reporters claim that Pearlstein's decision has resulted in their sources drying up on them and putting Time at the bottom of their media lists. . .

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2005_07/006737.php
Time magazine's reporters are saying that editor-in-chief Norman Pearlstine's decision to turn over Matt Cooper's notes and emails in the Valerie Plame case is souring their sources on cooperating with them. . .

[NB: Wrong, wrong, wrong. I’m sure Time is being punished by govt “sources” who will no longer deal with them – but NOT because “they now have trouble trusting the magazine” (though I have no doubt this is the excuse they are giving). Time is being punished because they released the documents and thereby freed up Cooper to testify. Does NO ONE recognize how these people operate? They are the Payback Boys, now and always – and once you get on their sh-tlist, tough luck for you]

Oh those “last” throes. . .

http://americablog.blogspot.com/2005/07/last-last-last-last-last-last-last.html

http://billmon.org/archives/002018.html

Upcoming blockbuster expose from Seymour Hersh about Bush efforts to manipulate the Iraq elections (thanks to Laura Rozen for the link)

http://nytimes.com/2005/07/17/politics/17elect.html
The article, by Seymour M. Hersh, reports that the administration proceeded with the covert plan over the Congressional objections. . .

Any clandestine American effort to influence the Iraqi elections, or to provide particular support to candidates or parties seen as amenable to working with the United States, would have run counter to the Bush administration's assertions that the vote would be free and unfettered.

Mr. Bush, in his public statements, has insisted that the United States will help promote conditions for democracy in the region but will live with whatever governments emerge in free elections.

The article cites unidentified former military and intelligence officials who said the administration went ahead with covert election activities in Iraq that "were conducted by retired C.I.A. officers and other non-government personnel, and used funds that were not necessarily appropriated by Congress.". . .

Representative Jane Harman of California, the top Democrat on the House intelligence committee, issued a statement saying. . . “[I]f the administration did what is alleged, that would be a violation of the covert action requirements, and that would be deeply troubling."

Despite the denials by some Bush administration officials on Saturday, others who took part in or were briefed on the discussion said they could not rule out the possibility that the United States and its allies might have provided secret aid to augment the broad overt support provided to Iraqi candidates and parties by the State Department, through organizations like the International Democratic Institute.

They said they were basing their comments primarily on the intensity of discussions within the administration about the potential adverse consequences of a victory by Iraqi parties hostile to the United States.

Officials and former officials familiar with the debate inside the White House last year said that after considerable debate, the president's national security team recommended that he sign a secret, formal authorization for covert action to influence the election, called a "finding." They said that Mr. Bush either had already signed it or was about to when objections were raised in Congress. Ultimately, he rescinded the decision, the officials said. . .

[NB: But, apparently, went ahead and did it anyway]

What does Bush mean when he promises his SC nominee will reflect “mainstream” values – probably nothing: these people would say Robert Bork reflects mainstream values. But it may indicate a rush to get this nominee out to deflect attention away from “He-who-shall-not-be-named”

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2005/7/16/132934/363

The corruption of science by Bush’s policies

http://americablog.blogspot.com/2005/07/republican-culture-of-corruption.html
The New York Times says the National Institutes of Health is investigating more than 100 scientists, with 44 of them likely showing serious conflicts of interest and at least 9 of them likely to face criminal charges. . .

And so we get results like this

http://susiemadrak.com/2005/07/16/19/34/your-fda-at-work/
About a dozen women, most in their late teens and early 20s, died last year from blood clots believed to be related to the birth-control patch Ortho Evra. Dozens more survived strokes and other clot-related problems. . . Several lawsuits have already been filed by families of women who died or suffered blood clots while using the patch, and lawyers said more are planned.

Though the Food and Drug Administration and patch-maker Ortho McNeil saw warning signs of possible problems with the patch well before it reached the market, both maintain that the patch is as safe as the pill.

MZM, the contractor implicated in the Duke Cunningham scandal, is (not surprisingly) a complete sleaze factory. This takes the idea of a “revolving door” into a whole new realm

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/07/16/AR2005071601018.html
Two months after MZM Inc. was given its first order in October 2002 to perform services for the Army's National Ground Intelligence Center (NGIC), the company hired the son of the center's senior civilian official, Executive Director William S. Rich Jr., according to present and former intelligence center employees. . .

The senior Rich "was not involved in matters concerning MZM's work at the NGIC except in the normal way of the executive director's responsibility to oversee all the programs run at the facility," according to a statement by Deborah Parker, chief of public affairs for the Army Intelligence and Security Command, which oversees the NGIC.

When the younger Rich was hired by MZM, "in line with joint ethics regulations, [Rich senior] was required to inform his superiors and recuse himself from dealing with the [MZM] company," Parker's statement said. Parker did not provide the date Rich recused himself.

The elder Rich was not the only NGIC senior manager with a relative at MZM. The wife of Robert Canar, until last month the center's longtime chief of staff, was employed as a secretary at MZM.

When the senior Rich resigned from the NGIC in September 2003, he joined MZM as a senior executive vice president for intelligence. "The circumstances of Mr. Rich's employment with MZM were thoroughly reviewed by Army officials," according to Parker, and "no evidence of impropriety was found."

The Ethics in Government Act barred Rich, as a senior manager, from having dealings with the NGIC for one year after his employment by MZM.

Over the past three years, Rich was joined at MZM by at least 15 former intelligence center colleagues -- analysts and administrative personnel hired, in some cases, to work on the same projects they dealt with as government employees, according to present and former NGIC staffers. "After contract awards, many people were hired away from NGIC at a higher salary, only to return to work on the same programs," according to one contract employee working at the NGIC who spoke on the condition of anonymity in order to keep his job. . .

[Susie Madrak dept]

Ohio: Ground Zero for Republican corruption

http://susiemadrak.com/2005/07/16/09/52/persuasion-2/
A member of the Franklin County election board said Friday that prosecutors are investigating whether a GOP political consultant tried to bribe the board’s director to buy voting equipment made by his client, Diebold Inc. . .

http://susiemadrak.com/2005/07/16/21/45/when-you-have-nothing-to-hide-you-hide-nothing/
Gov. Bob Taft asked the Ohio Supreme Court yesterday for a “protective order” to prevent a Democratic state senator from questioning him and Chief of Staff Jon Allison under oath about failed investments at the Bureau of Workers’ Compensation.

This is evil: illegal immigrants who try to report unsafe working conditions get reported to the Immigration Dept for deportation

http://susiemadrak.com/2005/07/16/11/40/a-small-victory-2/

Enron’s sweet deal

http://susiemadrak.com/2005/07/16/10/11/restitution/
Enron agreed Friday to a $1.52 billion settlement with a host of California agencies and private utilities that alleged the Houston energy trader manipulated electricity markets to gouge consumers during the state’s 2000-2001 energy crisis.

But only $47.5 million of the settlement is guaranteed—and as little as $200 million of the remainder may be paid because of the way the company’s assets are structured by a federal bankruptcy court in New York.

Ralph Nader on Bush’s tax cuts (thanks to Matthew Davidson for the link)

http://www.commondreams.org/cgi-bin/print.cgi?file=/views05/0709-25.htm

[NB: It’s still hard for me to credit anything Nader writes against Bush, because I am one of those who continues to blame him for why Bush won in 2000 in the first place. But it’s a good letter]

***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 @ 8:50 AM

 
PLAME 101

Be the first on your block to get up to date on what is really going on with the Plame scandal

A few points of clarification, to avoid getting caught up in the backwash from the latest leaks out of Rove’s legal team:

1. The story showed that Rove CONFIRMED a story about Plame that Novak wasn’t sure about. Novak then ran with it

2. The story showed that Rove LIED when he said he didn’t know Valerie Plame’s name (Novak told him, before he ever talked to Cooper)

3. Rove’s claim, that he heard about Plame from the media (even if true, since he conveniently can’t remember who told him, or when) DOESN’T MEAN that he didn’t already know about it from another sources

4. Delicious as it might be to imagine Judith Miller as the source of all evil, the best current evidence is that the original source of the Plame information was a classified State Dept memo from June, 2003, WHICH WAS ITSELF LEAKED TO THE PRESS. This is the memo that Powell brought onto Air Force One for an Africa trip in July 7-12, 2003. Who was on that trip? Who saw the memo? Why has Fitzgerald subpoenaed phone records from that aircraft? Who leaked that memo – and could anything like this have happened without Rove’s knowledge and approval?

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2005/7/13/141246/050

http://thinkprogress.org/2005/07/13/ari-leaker/

[NB: Of course, Miller may have been one of the people this was leaked to, and then through her to other people]

The Big Media plays catch-up

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/07/16/politics/16memo.html
[NYT] Prosecutors in the C.I.A. leak case have shown intense interest in a 2003 State Department memorandum that explained how a former diplomat came to be dispatched on an intelligence-gathering mission and the role of his wife, a C.I.A. officer, in the trip, people who have been officially briefed on the case said.

Investigators in the case have been trying to learn whether officials at the White House and elsewhere in the administration learned of the C.I.A. officer's identity from the memorandum. They are seeking to determine if any officials then passed the name along to journalists and if officials were truthful in testifying about whether they had read the memo, the people who have been briefed said, asking not to be named because the special prosecutor heading the investigation had requested that no one discuss the case.

The memorandum was sent to Colin L. Powell, then the secretary of state, just before or as he traveled with President Bush and other senior officials to Africa starting on July 7, 2003. . . Mr. Powell was seen walking around Air Force One during the trip with the memorandum in hand, said a person involved in the case who also requested anonymity because of the prosecutor's admonitions about talking about the investigation.

Investigators are also trying to determine whether the gist of the information in the document, including the name of the C.I.A. officer, Valerie Wilson, Mr. Wilson's wife, had been provided to the White House even earlier, said another person who has been involved in the case. Investigators have been looking at whether the State Department provided the information to the White House before July 6, 2003, when Mr. Wilson publicly criticized the way the administration used intelligence to justify the war in Iraq, the person said.

. . .The prosecutors appear to be investigating how widely the document circulated within the administration, and whether it might have been the original source of information for whoever provided the identity of Ms. Wilson to Robert D. Novak, the syndicated columnist who first disclosed it in print.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/07/16/AR2005071600087.html
[WP] Federal prosecutors investigating the leak of former CIA operative Valerie Plame's identity have asked several witnesses in the case whether they read a State Department memorandum mentioning her that circulated inside the Bush administration in the days before she was publicly named, according to people familiar with the testimony.

. . . A key mystery in the leak case is how senior administration officials first learned of Plame's identity and her relationship to a key critic of President Bush's Iraq policy, before her name appeared in news reports.

Federal prosecutors are investigating whether then-Secretary of State Colin L. Powell, who was on the Africa trip with Bush, carried with him a memo containing information on Plame, as well as other intelligence about allegations made by Wilson. . . According to people involved in the case, prosecutors believe that a printout of memo was in the front of Air Force One during a July 7-12 trip Bush took to Africa, but investigators are unsure who reviewed or obtained copies of it. One of the earliest moves by special prosecutor Patrick J. Fitzgerald, signaling his aggressive stance, was to get the grand jury to subpoena Air Force One phone logs from the trip, the sources said. Newsweek reported in August 2004 that Powell's testimony before the grand jury focused, in part, on the memo.

. . . Lawyers involved in the probe said prosecutors are interested in whether anyone called back to Washington to talk about information in the memo. Prosecutors have asked numerous questions about then-White House press secretary Ari Fleischer, who was on the trip and aboard Air Force One, according to the lawyers. Fleischer has declined to comment.

Rove said of the memo that he "had never seen it, had never heard about it and had never heard anybody else talk about it," according to a lawyer familiar with his testimony. Rove's attorney, Robert Luskin, said he can say "categorically" that Rove did not obtain any information about Plame from any confidential source, such as a classified document.

Analysis: http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2005/7/16/2851/37971

http://americablog.blogspot.com/2005/07/who-asked-for-state-dept-memo.html

http://americablog.blogspot.com/2005/07/plot-thickens-state-dept-memo.html

http://www.needlenose.com/node/view/1647

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2005_07/006734.php

Heads up: apparently Rove WASN’T on Air Force One for that trip. But actually, that’s “good” news, because if he was on the flight we’d never learn about who talked with whom about the document

http://talkleft.com/new_archives/011506.html

[NB: I assume this is part of what the telephone logs are for. If there was a flurry of calls back and forth to Rove, and then a flurry of calls to members of the press. . . ]

Rove’s email to Stephen Hadley (another friendly leak from his legal team?)

http://billmon.org/archives/002015.html

The claim that Novak told Rove, not vice versa, doesn’t fit with Novak’s story

http://americablog.blogspot.com/2005/07/novaks-own-statement-contradicts-story.html
Novak, in an interview, said his sources had come to him with the information. "I didn't dig it out, it was given to me," he said. "They thought it was significant, they gave me the name and I used it."

[John Aravosis] Read that again. I didn't dig it out, it was given to me - they gave me the name. That does not jibe with Rove's anonymous buddy telling the NYT that it was Novak who first brought up Plame as CIA and NOT Rove.

http://www.prospect.org/web/page.ww?section=root&name=ViewWeb&articleId=9990
[Murray Waas] The coverage underscores the secrecy surrounding Fitzgerald's grand-jury investigation. The few leaks that constitute public knowledge of the investigation's progress have largely come from one side: the defense attorneys'. And what they have to say is oftentimes self-serving, misleading, and in some cases untrue. Their all-too-willing collaborators have been the nation's leading newspapers. . .

Another excuse undermined

http://www.tpmcafe.com/story/2005/7/15/11519/9301
However, it's now abundantly clear that Rove violated the Classified Information Nondisclosure Agreement (known as the "SF 312") that federal employees with access to classified information have to sign. . .

http://atrios.blogspot.com/2005_07_10_atrios_archive.html#112145887575832596

http://agonist.org/story/2005/7/15/12516/0074
I spoke with a friend of mine in the intelligence profession recently about this topic and he told me, "intelligence professionals cannot confirm information that is classified even if you receive that information from a non-classified source. Period."

BIG STORY (if true): supposedly, Novak first learned about Plame from Judith Miller (thanks to John Aravosis for the link)

http://www.radaronline.com/fresh-intelligence/2005/07/15/index.php#report_001810
Did Robert Novak rat on New York Times reporter Judith Miller? While some have suggested Miller—who never wrote a word about CIA spook Valerie Plame—was dragged into the leak probe when her name turned up on a White House call log, several beltway insiders close to the investigation say special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald learned of Miller’s involvement from Novak himself.

Though the GOP hatchetman claims he’s never spoken to the grand jury about the column, a well-known Democratic pundit tells Radar, “Novak is the media’s Joseph Valachi,” referring to the 1960’s mafia capo who was the first mobster to testify against La Cosa Nostra. “There’s no question he rolled over.” According to our sources, Miller shared Plame’s identity with her perfidious fellow neocon after deciding not to publish it herself; Novak then called his two White House sources—one of whom was Karl Rove—for confirmation and wrote the July 14, 2003 column that blew Plame’s cover. . .

[NY Times] spokesman Toby Usnik would only say, robotically, that “Ms. Miller learned about Valerie Plame from a confidential source or sources whose identity she continues to protect to this day.” Noble, indeed. . .

[NB: Notice that this doesn’t say anything – nor have any of Miller’s comments that I recall – about whether or not she shared what she had heard with other reporters]

More evidence that Miller was a player, not a victim: why would Fitzgerald add “criminal contempt” to other charges for noncooperation?

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/07/15/AR2005071502080.html
While media coverage in recent days has focused on conversations White House senior adviser Karl Rove had with reporters, two sources say Miller spoke with Vice President Cheney's chief of staff, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, during the key period in July 2003 that is the focus of Fitzgerald's investigation.

http://www.newsday.com/news/nationworld/nation/ny-usrove0716,0,6404617,print.story
The disclosures also highlight the special prosecutor's interest in jailed New York Times reporter Judith Miller and her meeting in Washington with an unnamed government official on July 8, 2003, the same day, according to the disclosures, that Rove spoke with Novak. . . Rove does not have a "clear recollection," but believes he heard about Plame from a journalist he is unable to identify, the Washington Post said yesterday, quoting an unidentified lawyer involved in the case.

Much, much more: http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2005_07_10_digbysblog_archive.html#112148815644636127

The OTHER potential leakers (besides Rove): Lewis (“Scooter”) Libby and Ari Fleischer?

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/wn_report/story/328100p-280454c.html
[NY Daily News] The special prosecutor probing the outing of a CIA spy is looking beyond who leaked Valerie Plame's identity, seeking whether White House aides tried to cover their tracks after her name went public, sources told the Daily News.

Along with Bush political guru Karl Rove, the grand jury is investigating what role, if any, ex-White House mouthpiece Ari Fleischer may have played in the revelation that the former covert operative Plame was married to former Ambassador Joe Wilson.

"Ari's name keeps popping up," said one source familiar with special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald's probe.

Another source close to the probe added there is renewed interest in Fleischer, "based on Fitzgerald's questions."

A State Department memo that included background on Wilson - and who in the White House had access to it - appears to be a key to revealing who gave conservative columnist Robert Novak Plame's name, both sources said.

Another person of interest in the case is Vice President Cheney's chief of staff Lewis (Scooter) Libby, who was described as "totally obsessed with Wilson," the sources said. . .

More: http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room/index.html?blog=/politics/war_room/2005/07/15/fleischer/index.html

http://www.warandpiece.com/blogdirs/002263.html

Bolton? (where DID that State Dept memo come from? who gave it to Powell?)

http://www.thewashingtonnote.com/archives/000784.html

Former CIA officers weigh in

http://www.tpmcafe.com/story/2005/7/15/225611/396

The Right is so eager to make Wilson out to be a liar that they are purposely misconstruing even the simplest statements

http://americablog.blogspot.com/2005/07/drudge-promotes-fake-story-on-home.html
[Wilson, on CNN] “My wife was not a clandestine officer the day that Bob Novak blew her identity”

Wilson meant that his wife was no longer undercover once Novak and Rove OUTED her

http://atrios.blogspot.com/2005_07_10_atrios_archive.html#112143393211391174
For sentient humans, it's clear what Wilson means - that she ceased to be a clandestine operative the day Novak's column came out. It's also clear from his other comments (as it was clear to Blitzer in conversation) that he has to use such language because he can't acknowledge that she ever was a clandestine operative with direct language.

http://www.prospect.org/weblog/archives/2005/07/index.html#007093
Cliff May's latest on NRO has to be the stupidest bit of Plame mumbo-jumbo yet. His argument is that David Corn, not Robert Novak, was the first to reveal that Valerie Plame was a covert CIA operative. Really?

The "argument" here turns on a semantic point of truly mind-boggling irrelevance. The idea here is that Novak's column, while identifying her as an Agency employee, didn't identify her as a covert agency employee -- only later liberal criticism did. But so what? The information that "X works for the CIA" is obviously sufficient to blow the cover of someone who works there in a covert capacity.

Meanwhile, those damn inconvenient FACTS keep causing trouble

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2005_07_10.php#006117
[Josh Marshall] No presidential advisor should ever disclose the identity of a covert agent at the CIA. That doesn't require elaboration.

If it's done knowingly, it's a felony. Joe Wilson could be the biggest hack in the world. Plame could have cooked the whole trip idea up to damage the president -- as some GOP loopsters are now claiming -- and it wouldn't matter.

Rove (and, though we're not supposed to say it yet, several of his colleagues) did something obviously wrong and reckless. And they probably broke several laws by the time it was all done.

Pretty much every Republican in Washington today works for Karl Rove. So they can't deal with that fact. But fact it is.

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2005/7/15/162017/307
[Hunter] This is part of a concerted effort to walk the Rove defense back to arguing over the narrowest part of the case -- whether or not the special counsel can prove a felony on the part of Rove himself, and presuming for the moment that he can't, painting Rove's known involvement with the Plame case as some sort of heroism instead of the petty, flatulent thuggery Rove is famous for. We're supposed to believe that outing undercover agents is now the heroic move to take, if someone close to them writes an op-ed in a newspaper that the White House doesn't like.

More facts: http://americablog.blogspot.com/2005/07/sloppy-reporting.html

http://www.needlenose.com/node/view/1642

http://billmon.org/archives/002013.html

http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room/archive.html?blog=/politics/war_room/2005/07/15/leaker/index.html

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/blog/2005/07/15/BL2005071500978.html

The video version (very nicely done; thanks to Atrios for the link)

http://atrios.blogspot.com/2005_07_10_atrios_archive.html#112145910587804514

Another Republican hypocrite

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2005/7/15/143718/980
[Think Progress] Now, there was no reason to tell the world about the ambassador's wife. It was just a short-sighted, self-centered, simple-minded cowardly act of revenge, and who's paying the cost? The Bush White House... If they ever find [the leakers], they ought to just -- they ought to just kick them out of the White House and prosecute them, because...the greater the pretension, the greater the hypocrisy. [Dick Armey, CNN, 10/19/03]

We've got Karl Rove, who is under this constant attack of political malarkey, who has probably the most documented case of his evidence of anyone in the the whole story. So quite frankly, I think the American people are seeing it for what it is right now. More than anything else it's a political farce not a matter of national security interests. [Dick Armey, Fox News, 7/14/05]

Another hypocrite, period

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2005_07_10_digbysblog_archive.html#112144490546990605
[Digby] I woke up this morning thinking about Michael Isikoff, which isn't my favorite thing to think about first thing in the morning. Last night he told Jon Stewart that Pat Fitzgerald had better have something really, really strong to justify this investigation taking the turns its taken. It had better be about something really important --- it had better be about national security. He was quite fierce about it.

I didn't hear the rest because I threw the remote at the TV and it mercifully turned off.

The idea that Michael Isikoff, of all people, is laying down the gauntlet --- warning Fitzgerald that if he's thinking of prosecuting someone for perjury, say, or obstruction of justice, he will lead the chorus denouncing him as an overzealous prosecutor --- is stunning. I don't know what is in the Chardonnay in DC but it's causing a lot of people to have severe problems remembering things --- and seeing themselves in the mirror.

Michael Isikoff was practically Ken Starr's right hand man in the media. He performed at only a slightly less partisan level than Drudge or Steno Sue Schmidt. He admits in his book that he became convinced that the president treated women badly and therefore needed to be exposed. He didn't seem to think that throwing a duly elected president from office for lying about a private matter was overzealous in the least. He was on that bandwagon from the very beginning and one of the guys who drove it.

Michael Isikoff did not go on television and say that the punishment didn't fit the crime or that Starr should have had something really, really important to justify his 70 million dollar investigation. Indeed, he did exactly the opposite. . .

[A]pparently he doesn't see outing CIA agents as serious as presidential fellatio. I suspect that holds true for the entire press corpse. They haven't really had the fire in the belly for this one, have they?

Cooper’s version of his conversation with Rove coming tomorrow?

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2005_07_10_digbysblog_archive.html#112148242151561138

Finally, a voice of caution

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2005_07/006729.php
[Kevin Drum] The latest meme emerging in the conservo-sphere is that liberals have been suckered once again. The case against Karl Rove is thin, they say, and when the truth eventually comes out in the Plamegate case, lefty obsession over Rove is going to look pretty foolish.

Oddly enough, I sort of half agree with this. I don't really doubt that Rove was involved in Plamegate in some way, but it's worth keeping in mind that the public evidence in the case so far is just the tippy-tip of the iceberg: a single, short email from Matt Cooper to his editor that says he spoke with Rove briefly. And the only reason we know about that email is because Cooper wisely decided that protecting Rove wasn't worth rotting in jail like Judith Miller. It's nothing more than an odd coincidence that this happens to be the only piece of evidence currently in the public domain.

Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald, however, has boatloads more evidence than just Cooper's, which means that trying to figure out what's going on based on this one email is like trying to predict a presidential election based on a poll in one state. It's impossible.

I'd love nothing more than to see Rove frog marched off to wherever it is that people get frog marched off to, but it's wise not to get too obsessed over trying to hyper-parse a single email and a couple of carefully phrased leaks from lawyers who obviously have their own agendas. One way or another, Fitzgerald will wrap this case up fairly soon, and then we'll know. And I don't think it's going to be one guy talking to Karl Rove for two minutes. There's much more to it.

[NB: I think Drum is right on here. It is more and more clear that the conversation between Rove and Cooper was not “the leak,” but part of “stage two” of the operation: actively disseminating the Plame info within the media echo chamber (Plame is “fair game” now, Rove said to Chris Matthews). Novak (and Miller?) already had the information from somewhere. The original leak apparently revolved around that State Dept memo (which Rove claims, implausibly, to know nothing about). Has the press been duped into focusing on a secondary aspect of the operation? “Stage three” is the cover-up. My guess is that Rove is intimately, and illegally, involved in all three stages – but his conversation with Cooper isn’t going to give you all that]

And always, always, the questions need to come back to Bush: what did he know, and when did he know it?

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2005/7/15/162017/307
[Hunter] So the question remains. There remain only two possibilities: either the President of the United States knew about Rove's involvement with the Plame case, and lied to the country, or Karl Rove lied to the President about his involvement.

The President must respond to these events. This isn't about the criminal investigation. This is about Karl Rove's already known involvement -- and the White House having lied about it for two years.

It ain’t the deed, it’s the cover-up

http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room/archive.html?blog=/politics/war_room/2005/07/15/coverup/index.html

In other news

The reliable DC District Court backs Bush’s Guantanamo “tribunal” plan

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/07/15/politics/15cnd-gitmo.html

General Geoffrey Miller, commanding officer at Guantanamo and inventor of many ingenious new interrogation methods that were also exported to Abu Ghraib, LIED TO CONGRESS

http://atrios.blogspot.com/2005_07_10_atrios_archive.html#112145105237326845
Miller's statement about the meeting, if true, suggests that officials at the very top of the Pentagon may have been more involved in monitoring activities at the prison than previously disclosed. Abu Ghraib was later at the center of a scandal surrounding prisoner abuse, which has led to punishments for soldiers.

More: http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2005_07_10_digbysblog_archive.html#112146336494614764

http://www.prospect.org/weblog/archives/2005/07/index.html#007097

‘’Atrocious financial management”

http://susiemadrak.com/2005/07/15/10/40/meanwhile-back-at-the-plantation/
[Boston Globe] WASHINGTON —The federal government’s chief investigator yesterday blasted the Pentagon for its ‘’atrocious financial management,” saying the Defense Department was not able to give federal oversight officials a full accounting of the $1 billion being spent each week on the war in Iraq.

The GAO has been examining the Pentagon’s Iraq expenses, and ‘’we’re having extreme difficulty in getting the Department of Defense to provide a full accounting of what they’re spending” there, Walker said. ‘’I can’t understand how we’re spending $1 billion a week.”

Bush has trouble with his own party over holding down spending

http://www.prospect.org/weblog/archives/2005/07/index.html#007094
Let's cut the crap, shall we? That Congress under Republican control is more, not less, pork-happy and profligate than it ever was under the Democrats is no secret -- but the notion that the Bush administration ever has made or is now making a serious effort to change this is self-evidently laughable.

Dems still fighting over “odious” MTBE provision in energy bill

http://www.prospect.org/weblog/archives/2005/07/index.html#007087

Jesus Christ! Federally funded “faith-based” program is so bigoted it won’t even acknowledge other versions of Christianity

http://atrios.blogspot.com/2005_07_10_atrios_archive.html#112145777067718328
"It has been our understanding that Catholicism does not agree with our Statement of Faith," Bethany's state director Karen Stewart wrote. "Our practice to not accept applications from Catholics was an effort to be good stewards of an adoptive applicant's time, money and emotional energy."

http://www.needlenose.com/node/view/1643
Although the agency claims that this isn't publically funded religious discrimination, the group does get public funds in several states for its various programs.

Bush approval: 42% and dropping steadily

http://atrios.blogspot.com/2005_07_10_atrios_archive.html#112143836204742789

Bonus item: a name is a name by any other name

http://billmon.org/archives/002014.html

http://sniff.numachi.com/~rickheit/dtrad/pages/tiDARLDARL.html
[Steve Goodman] “You don't have to call me darlin', darlin' – but you never even call me by my name. . .”

***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 @ 9:13 AM

 
MORE LEAKS TO PROTECT THE LEAKERS

Wipe that smug little grin off his face













http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room/archive.html?blog=/politics/war_room/2005/07/14/laughing/index.html
"Staked out at his home earlier this morning, Karl Rove laughed when asked if he would quit his post at the White House."

[NB: Actually, he’s right to laugh. Anybody who asks a question like that doesn’t understand this man or the rules he plays by. He will leave when he is forced to leave. It isn’t a matter of fair play, persuasion, public opinion, news editorials, protest marches, or the best interests of the country. Wilson crossed the administration, and so, as with Paul O’Neill, Richard Clarke, Dan Rather, and many others, he must be destroyed, hurt as badly as possible and rendered harmless. Of course Rove always knew what he was doing, and he will go as far as he can until he is stopped by a greater force. The irony is that the greater force here may ultimately be the self-interest of George Bush and the agenda of this administration: when he becomes a liability to that, he will be forced to go and not a moment sooner. But don’t think they won’t throw him under the wheels if necessary]












Big story out this morning: Rove also talked with Novak and confirmed the Plame story. Now this one is being spun all ways from Kansas: does it mean (a) the Plame story was already out in the press before Rove spoke to anyone? (b) Rove provided confirmation of a story that then allowed Novak to run with it? (c) Rove’s conversation with Cooper was not “the leak”? (d) Rove learned about Plame from the media, not vice versa? (e) Rove DID know the name of Joseph Wilson’s wife (despite his denials) (f) Rove’s sources and Novak’s were one and the same? There’s something here for everyone, it seems

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/07/15/politics/15rove.html
Karl Rove, the White House senior adviser, spoke with the columnist Robert D. Novak as he was preparing an article in July 2003 that identified a C.I.A. officer who was undercover, someone who has been officially briefed on the matter said.

Mr. Rove has told investigators that he learned from the columnist the name of the C.I.A. officer, who was referred to by her maiden name, Valerie Plame, and the circumstances in which her husband, former Ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV, traveled to Africa to investigate possible uranium sales to Iraq, the person said.

After hearing Mr. Novak's account, the person who has been briefed on the matter said, Mr. Rove told the columnist: "I heard that, too.". . .

Asked by investigators how he knew enough to leave Mr. Novak with the impression that his information was accurate, Mr. Rove said he had heard parts of the story from other journalists but had not heard Ms. Wilson's name. . .

The conversation with Mr. Novak took place three days before Mr. Rove spoke with Matthew Cooper, a Time magazine reporter, whose e-mail message about their brief talk reignited the issue. . .

[NB: Who were the “other journalists” who supposedly gave Rove the story? Of course he says he can’t recall!! (Good news for Judith Miller?) http://www.cnn.com/2005/POLITICS/07/15/cia.leak.rove.ap/index.html]

A key question: who was the source for this story, and did this person have permission from Rove to leak it? Since they (apparently) gave it to the AP, the WP, and the NYT, this certainly looks like a coordinated media strategy

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/07/15/politics/15rove.html
The person who provided the information about Mr. Rove's conversation with Mr. Novak declined to be identified, citing requests by Mr. Fitzgerald that no one discuss the case. The person discussed the matter in the belief that Mr. Rove was truthful in saying that he had not disclosed Ms. Wilson's identity.

[NB: Think about this. The source provides the excuse that Fitzgerald asked people not to discuss the case as a reason for keeping anonymous – but they discussed the case anyway. Plus, they clearly think this will help Rove. Is it possible they did so without clearing it with Rove or his lawyer first?

Update: The WP is reporting that it WAS “a lawyer involved in the case” Gee, I wonder who? http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/07/15/AR2005071500036.html]

Analysis: http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2005_07/006726.php
[Kevin Drum] Today's rather carefully orchestrated story claims that Novak called Rove and told him about Plame, after which Rove is alleged to have said innocently, "I heard that, too.". . . This story has obviously been so carefully leaked that it's hard to know if there's any actual truth value to it.

http://americablog.blogspot.com/2005/07/friday-new-york-times-rove-confirmed.html

http://www.needlenose.com/node/view/1640

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2005/7/15/05235/6273

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2005_07_10_digbysblog_archive.html#112140511949150612

http://billsrants.typepad.com/my_weblog/2005/07/the_latest_spin.html

http://slate.msn.com/id/2122826/fr/rss/
[Eric Umansky] A bit of context to keep in mind: Two years ago the Post reported, "A senior administration official said that before Novak's column ran, two top White House officials called at least six Washington journalists and disclosed the identity and occupation of Wilson's wife."

Why Bush will never fire Rove, unless (until) there’s an indictment

http://www.salon.com/opinion/feature/2005/07/14/firing_rove/index.html
[Robert Bryce] Reason No. 1: Firing Rove would be perceived as an admission by George W. that things are amiss in his administration. . .

Reason No. 2: Firing Rove would mean being disloyal to the man who has done more to advance the Bushes' agenda than any other single person. . .

Reason No. 3: Bush needs Rove for the upcoming fights, including the midterm elections, the certain battle over his Supreme Court nominees, and the ongoing battles on Capitol Hill. In short, the entire Republican National Committee is a reflection of Karl Rove. Over the past decade, Rove has remade the RNC into an organization where virtually all of the top players owe their allegiance to him. . .

Reason No. 4: The conservatives are behind Rove. Wednesday's editorial in the Wall Street Journal about Rove lays out the GOP's defense plan. . .

Reason No. 5: The Democrats aren't strong enough to keep this issue alive. Look, the Democrats in the House and the Senate can't even force hearings on the Downing Street memos -- the documents that appear to show that the Bush administration decided to invade Iraq in the summer of 2002. The memos also show that the United States began bombing Iraq not in 2003, but in 2002, before Bush got authorization from Congress. Those memos were the blueprint for a war that has become a quagmire, a war that has cost taxpayers $200 billion and led to the deaths of thousands of Iraqis and nearly 2,000 American soldiers. Why do the Democrats now think that they are strong enough to get rid of the man who sets the agenda for the RNC, Congress and the Bush White House?

Reason No. 6: Rove has been through all of this dirty-tricks stuff before. He has been made the bad guy by the Democrats through several investigations, and he has always come out stronger than he was before the kerfuffle started. . .

More: http://billmon.org/archives/002007.html

I don’t quite see what attacking Joe Wilson gets Rove (except buying time, as Billmon suggests). Wilson could be a liar and all that, but it doesn’t have anything to do with justifying what Rove did to Wilson’s wife. Nor will any of this make an impression on Patrick Fitzgerald, I’m sure. But it shows that these people see everything as a spinnable political issue, and their various mouthpieces in the right-wing media and congressional attack dogs got the talking points and hit Wilson hard. Just one problem – Wilson’s not the kind of guy who’s going to curl up in a corner and plead “don’t hurt me.” Wilson hits back hard – my favorite part, challenging Bush’s manliness as a plain-speaking man of principle who says what he means and means what he says. Now we’re getting a million reasons why “I will fire the person who leaked Plame’s identity” is no longer “operative.” Go Joe!

Wilson on Today
http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room/index.html?blog=/politics/war_room/2005/07/14/wilson/index.html
Joe Wilson appeared on NBC's "Today Show" this morning with a simple message for George W. Bush: "The president has said repeatedly, 'I am a man of my word,'" Wilson said. "He should stand up and prove that his word is his bond and fire Karl Rove." It was, as AMERICAblog notes this morning, a "Rovian" performance: Find your opponent's perceived strength and go right at it hard. The Republicans did it with the Swift Boat Veterans' attacks on John Kerry's military record. And Wilson did it this morning when he went after Bush's reputation for being a resolute man of the truth.

http://americablog.blogspot.com/2005/07/wilson-on-today-its-all-about-iraq.html

http://americablog.blogspot.com/2005/07/today-show-leads-with-joseph-wilson.html

http://americablog.blogspot.com/2005/07/wilson-bush-needs-to-prove-hes-man-of.html

Video and transcript: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/8568266/

Wilson on CNN
Video:http://www.crooksandliars.com/2005/07/14.html#a3928

Wilson on Raw Story
http://rawstory.com/news/2005/Interview_Ambassador_Wilson_husband_of_outed_CIA_agent_sees_larger_Administration_ro_0713.html

And how are those Republican attacks faring?

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=10000103&sid=a8dab8rni_Do&refer=us
[Bloomberg!] Two-year old assertions by former ambassador Joseph Wilson regarding Iraq and uranium, which lie at the heart of the controversy over who at the White House identified a covert U.S. operative, have held up in the face of attacks by supporters of presidential adviser Karl Rove.

http://www.theleftcoaster.com/archives/004870.php
A number of rebuttals have been provided around the liberal blogosphere to the fakery from the GOP and their media arms about the Valerie Plame expose. Here's a roundup. . .

http://www.prospect.org/weblog/archives/2005/07/index.html#007079
[Matt Yglesias] Tim Noah has a great piece patiently debunking the web of moronic spin The Wall Street Journal and the RNC are bandying about to protect Karl Rove. I would just add this, though. You can spot Rove pretty much whatever kind of smears he wants, and it still doesn't add up. Let's give him all of the following, though almost none of it is true:
• Joe Wilson is a liar.
• Wilson is inept.
• Iraq was, in fact, seeking to acquire uranium from Niger.
• Rove didn't know Valerie Plame's name.
• Rove didn't realize Plame was covert.
• Plame was singlehandedly responsible for getting Wilson the (unpaid) job in Niger.
• Plame, Wilson, and the entire CIA are driven by irrational hatred of the Bush administration.
• Etc.
What you've still got here is that Rove, in order to win a political fight with a critic, blew the cover of a covert CIA operative.

Tim Noah: http://slate.msn.com/id/2122682/

http://www.first-draft.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=3689
[Holden] What Rove's defenders, the White House, and Rove himself do not yet realize is this drama will unfold in a court of law, not on Fox News.

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2005_07/006722.php

http://atrios.blogspot.com/2005_07_10_atrios_archive.html#112137243141980704

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2005_07_10_digbysblog_archive.html#112129756534620609

http://blogs.salon.com/0002874/2005/07/14.html#a1812
[Fun with crackpots Coulter, Limbaugh, O’Reilly, Malkin, Hannity, and Liddy]

Rush Limbaugh’s head explodes

http://www.bradblog.com/archives/00001595.htm
If you missed the Rush Limbaugh show this morning, you missed quite the lolapalooza. He's become positively unglued vis a vis the Plame/Rove affair. And it was a hoot!

The "theory" that Rush has been pummelling his Ditto Heads with all day: Joe Wilson has been a part of a double super secret background conspiracy with the DNC since day one, well before he was sent by the CIA to Niger.

Yes, that's right. According to Rush, the entire plan to send George W. Bush's own father's Man in Iraq -- a decades-long expert in African and Middle-Eastern affairs to Niger -- was all just a ploy by Democrats "to undermine the War in Iraq and the Bush Presidency," as Rush repeatedly described it.

We suppose then, that Bush 41's letter sent to Wilson saying that he concurred with much of the article that Wilson wrote prior to the war in the San Jose Mercury News was also part of that conspiracy.

Why is Dubya's own father trying to destroy Dubya's own "Presidency", dammit?!

Rush's final words at the end of the show (referring to the Press Conference scheduled by Sen. Charles Schumer (D-NY) to happen shortly): "Chuck Shumer is Joe Wilson's 'handler' in this agency plot to bring down the President."

More: http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2005_07/006719.php

Lindsey Graham (R-SC), Prince of the Hypocrites

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2005_07_10_digbysblog_archive.html#112138987093125252

Coming up next: the assault on Matt Cooper

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/4692.html

[NB: By the way – check out who is Cooper’s wife (thanks to Joyce Atkinson for the link): http://www.nytimes.com/2005/07/11/politics/11time.html -- I’m sure you’ll be hearing soon about Mandy Grunwald as part of the conspiracy to get Rove]

And following that, expect an attack on Fitzgerald too
http://www.seeingtheforest.com/archives/2005/07/pressure.htm

Though Fitzgerald’s not someone to mess with either

http://billmon.org/archives/002012.html
"Fitzgerald is a prosecution machine," the old editor said. "When he wants somebody, he goes after them with whatever he's got. If he can't make the case he started with, he'll figure out what you did do and hit you with that. He's relentless. . . “

It’s all a plot by renegade CIA factions against the WH

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2005_07_10_digbysblog_archive.html#112138408113681880

http://www.tpmcafe.com/story/2005/7/14/115932/604

They’re all lying! They’re all enemies! They’re all out to get me!



















Reality bites

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/blog/2005/07/14/BL2005071400999.html
President Bush's lackluster refusal to comment yesterday on his political guru's involvement in the outing of CIA agent Valerie Plame did nothing to ease growing worries at the White House that trouble may be around the corner.

There were no words of support for Karl Rove. No expression of confidence that the White House will come through all this unscathed. Speaking with exceptional restraint about an incident that occurred fully two years ago involving his longtime friend and confidante, Bush said he "will not prejudge the investigation based on media reports."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/07/13/AR2005071302343.html
A number of legal experts, some of whom are involved in the case, said evidence that has emerged publicly suggests Rove or other administration officials face potential legal threats on at least three fronts.

The first is the unmasking of CIA official Valerie Plame, the original focus of special counsel Patrick J. Fitzgerald's probe. But legal sources say there are indications the prosecutor is looking at two other areas related to the administration's handling of his investigation. One possible legal vulnerability is perjury, if officials did not testify truthfully to a federal grand jury, and another is obstructing justice, if they tried to coordinate cover stories to obscure facts.

Legal experts said the evidence that has emerged in recent days -- including confirmation that Rove and Cooper spoke about Plame's role at the CIA as a way of knocking down a damaging story about the administration's Iraq policy -- does not by itself necessarily indicate a crime was committed. Even so, White House officials acknowledged privately that they are concerned that the investigation will lead to an indictment of someone in the administration later this year.

And did you know this?

http://www.prospect.org/weblog/archives/2005/07/index.html#007083
House Government Reform Committee ranking member Henry Waxman has sent off a letter (PDF) to Andy Card kindly reminding him that the White House is in fact required by Executive Order 12958 to carry out an internal investigation into any leak of classified information by an administration official and to set up remedial measures in response:

Several key requirements apply when a leak occurs. Under E.O. 12958, executive branch officials must investigate the security breach, take administrative actions against employees who violate these rules, and adjust procedures in order to prevent similar security breaches in the future. E.O. 12958 provides that when a violation or infraction of the administrative rules occurs, each agency must "take appropriate and prompt corrective action." This may include a determination of whether individual employees improperly obtained access to or disseminated classified information. If employees violated their nondisclosure agreements, sanctions may be warranted. The executive order requires that "at a minimum," the agency must "promptly remove the classification authority of any individual who demonstrates reckless disregard or a pattern of error in applying the classification standards."

Rove’s lousy lawyer (even that leak, above, hurts Rove as much as it helps him)

http://www.tnr.com/doc.mhtml?pt=iMzUsc6HLdjul1Lzmu3b9G%3D%3D

A little detail I have never seen discussed anywhere else: what happens if Rove gets off on a technicality like this?

http://politicalwire.com/archives/2005/07/14/wilsons_book_may_exonerate_rove.html
In The Politics of Truth, former ambassador Joseph Wilson writes that he and his future wife both returned from overseas assignments in June 1997. That's six years before Robert Novak's column identified Wilson's wife, Valerie Plame.

"The law against unmasking the identities of U.S. spies says a 'covert agent' must have been on an overseas assignment 'within the last five years.'

Jeb Bush weighs in with this profound assessment: if it was illegal, then Karl couldn’t have done it (thanks Jeb, and thanks to Buzzflash for the link)

http://www.pensitoreview.com/2005/07/14/jeb-says-rove-couldn’t-have-done-it

Was Ari Fleischer the other leaker?

http://thinkprogress.org/2005/07/13/ari-leaker/

[NB: This piece also reviews what we know about the fateful Air Force One trip of July 7-12, 2003. For more, see: http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2005_07_10_digbysblog_archive.html#112136615334332420]

Here’s how ridiculous (and elastic) Scotty’s criterion of “matters related to an ongoing investigation” has become

http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2005/