HARD TIMES

The hits just keep on comin’. . .

34%

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2006/2/27/191348/755

More: http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2006/02/27/opinion/polls/main1350874.shtml

“No traction”

http://americablog.blogspot.com/2006/02/no-traction-for-bush-and-bad-news.html
[AP] [Bush] just can't seem to find traction for his second-term agenda. . .

Quack!

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/blog/2006/02/27/BL2006022700598.html

The Bubble

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/6722.html

Friction with Congressional Republicans

http://americablog.blogspot.com/2006/02/bush-and-gopers-on-hill-arent-feeling.html

Behind the Dubai deal: a web of conspiracy

http://rockthrower.blogs.com/rockthrower/2006/02/bush_and_dubai_.html

http://www.buzzflash.com/analysis/06/02/ana06011.html

Why the current “compromise” won’t solve the problem (and isn’t meant to)

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2006/2/27/224029/410

http://thinkprogress.org/2006/02/26/a-dishonest-proposal/

How ports actually work

http://www.tpmcafe.com/node/27248

So now we read that both Homeland Security and the Coast Guard raised doubts about the Dubai deal: concerns that were “addressed” and supposedly resolved. Anyone who has watched this gang in action knows exactly how this internal debate and opposition was “addressed” – cosmetic changes and a demand to get on board

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/02/27/politics/27cnd-ports.html

In Iraq, the steady slide toward civil war (if we’re not there already)

http://www.needlenose.com/node/view/2693

How the Specter NSA bill, flawed as it is, puts the WH in a very sticky position (another great analysis by Glenn Greenwald)

http://glenngreenwald.blogspot.com/2006/02/potential-benefits-of-specter.html
I can say with confidence that neither this bill nor any modified version of it is going to be even remotely acceptable to the Bush Administration. And, in ways that may (or may not) be intended by Specter, this proposed legislation -- which the Administration is sure to reject -- can achieve the critical goal of highlighting the Administration's true motives in violating FISA. . .

More: http://glenngreenwald.blogspot.com/2006/02/pushing-teetering-monster.html

A stunning abuse of power

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/02/26/AR2006022601227.html
The Internal Revenue Service recently audited the books of a Texas nonprofit group that was critical of campaign spending by former House majority leader Tom DeLay (R-Tex.) after receiving a request for the audit from one of DeLay's political allies in the House.

The lawmaker, House Ways and Means Committee member Sam Johnson (R-Tex.). . . a member of the subcommittee responsible for oversight of the tax agency, sparked the IRS's interest by telling IRS Commissioner Mark W. Everson in a letter dated Aug. 3, 2004, that he had "uncovered some disturbing information" and received complaints of possible tax violations.

Johnson said he was sure the IRS would follow up. "I ask you to report back your findings of each of these investigations directly to me," he told Everson in the letter, according to a copy obtained by The Washington Post. . .

More: http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/007750.php

DeLay using campaign funds for legal fees

http://politicalwire.com/archives/2006/02/27/delay_uses_campaign_funds_for_legal_bills.html

The Department of Justice is taking an interest. . .

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/6721.html
"If those guys won't start policing themselves, we'll do it for them". . .

Follies of War (today’s must-read)

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2006_02_01_digbysblog_archive.html#114109502062872688
[Barbara Tuchman] To qualify as folly for this inquiry, the policy adopted must meet three criteria: it must have been perceived as counter-productive in its own time, not merely by hindsight. . .

Secondly a feasible alternative course of action must have been available. . .

The purpose of the war was not gain or national defense. . .

In the illusion of omnipotence, American policy-makers took it for granted that on a given aim, especially in Asia, American will could be made to prevail. . .

Wooden-headedness, the "Don't-confuse-me-with-the-facts" habit, is a universal folly never more conspicuous than at upper levels of Washington . . .

Stop the presses! “Poor post-war planning. . ."

http://makeashorterlink.com/?R5CC267BC

[NB: “Poor” as in NONE]

Why does Bush hate our troops? (part #241)

http://americablog.blogspot.com/2006/02/under-bush-budget-veterans-may-face.html
[AP] At least tens of thousands of veterans with non-critical medical issues could suffer delayed or even denied care in coming years to enable President Bush to meet his promise of cutting the deficit in half. . .

Every now and then. . .

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20060227/ts_nm/security_nsa_nytimes_dc
The New York Times sued the U.S. Defense Department on Monday demanding that it hand over documents about the National Security Agency's domestic spying program.

The Times wants a list of documents including all internal memos and e-mails about the program of monitoring phone calls without court approval. It also seeks the names of the people or groups identified by it. . .

The decline of White House Briefings

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/02/27/business/media/27press.html

A case in point: http://www.first-draft.com//modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=5381

Ooooh, those mean “extremist” bloggers

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2006/2/27/153440/613

Comment: http://americablog.blogspot.com/2006/02/media-politicians-and-academics-do-not.html

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2006_02_01_digbysblog_archive.html#114108237087974935
[Digby] Note to the clueless DC insiders: the blogosphere is only "extreme" to the extent it is extremely impatient with people like you. We believe that your strategy of caution has failed and we are agitating for a more aggressive Democratic politics. After a partisan impeachment, a stolen election in 2000, an illegal war and an unprecedented executive power play we think this is a pretty serious situation. In fact, we see this as political civil war. You apparently think that is "extreme." We think it is common sense.

Perhaps it would be easier for these people to understand if we speak like Republicans and use stupid Civil War analogies to make a point, so here goes:

We believe that the DC establishment is running the war like George McClellan and we think his cautious strategy is losing us the war. It's not because we aren't all on the same side or don't have the same goals. It's that the McClellans of the establishment are temperamentally inhibited at a time when aggression is called for. We believe the party needs to fight like Grant. . .

Bonus item: Bush in love (thanks to AG Rud for the link)

http://www.pekingduck.org/archives/003523.php

***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

 
GIVING THEM ROPE

Right now, it seems that a stunning series of Bush misjudgments, increased Republican infighting and finger-pointing, and policy failures everywhere you look may be signaling an end to the Republican hegemony (well, we can hope, can’t we?)

Bill Frist: on a VERY short leash

http://makeashorterlink.com/?E1D2236BC
U.S. Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist said yesterday he's gained a "pretty good" comfort level with the deal under which a United Arab Emirates company would take over operations at six U.S. ports. . .

[NB: By the way, it’s not 6, but 21 ports! http://makeashorterlink.com/?D2E2126BC]

http://americablog.blogspot.com/2006/02/frist-now-backs-bush-deal-to-let-uae.html
[Joe] This is one of those times that it's fun to see the GOPers in Congress cave to the White House. Let's hope that Republicans keep trusting Bush on this one. Bush cut a deal to let a country with ties to terror guard American ports. If the GOP thinks that's a winning issue, so be it.

The non-solution solution: playing Kabuki with Dubai

http://www.slate.com/id/2136998/fr/rss/

A deal with NO upside

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/11570948/site/newsweek/

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1167757,00.html

http://www.slate.com/id/2137000
Only the NYT notes that, under the terms of the review, President Bush himself will have to personally decide whether or not the merger goes through. . .

Army pays off Halliburton, despite their known fraud

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/02/27/international/middleeast/27contract.html
The Army has decided to reimburse a Halliburton subsidiary for nearly all of its disputed costs on a $2.41 billion no-bid contract to deliver fuel and repair oil equipment in Iraq, even though the Pentagon's own auditors had identified more than $250 million in charges as potentially excessive or unjustified. . .

John McCain: a REAL wartime President

http://thinkprogress.org/2006/02/26/kristol-war-not-serious/
BILL KRISTOL: There would not be civil war if Zarqawi had not spent the last 2 1/2 years – had ex-Saddamists with him, very skillfully going on the offensive slaughtering Shia in Karbala, now blowing up the mosque.

CHRIS WALLACE: They’re there. There are going to be more mosques to blow up. What do you do about the terrorists?

KRISTOL: Kill them. Defeat them.

CHRIS WALLACE: We’ve been trying.

KRISTOL: We’ve been trying, and our soldiers are doing terrifically, but we have not had a serious three-year effort to fight a war in Iraq. . .

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2006_02_01_digbysblog_archive.html#114099319789496634
[Digby] This William Kristol quote from this morning is another step in the eventual disavowal of Bushism. You see, just as it was in Vietnam, the know-nothings in Washington won't let the military leaders take the gloves off which is why we are having so many problems. . .

http://atrios.blogspot.com/2006_02_26_atrios_archive.html#114101592136724571
[Atrios] It isn't quite here yet, but at some point fairly soon Republicans will en masse make it clear that their opinion of Bush is only half a notch above their opinion of Nixon. The missing history - and context - in this is that in 2000 John McCain was the neoconservative poster boy. The Weekly Standard Gang was his posse. The owner of the Free Republic at one point purged all of the Bush supporters as he too was a McCainiac. The Bushies then fled to lucianne.com. . .

Once upon a time we all imagined that McCain's presidential aspirations were doomed by age, or illness, or by his unpopularity with the True Believers. . .

More: http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2006/2/26/193920/601

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2006_02/008300.php

Bush gang sees positive signs in Iraqi chaos

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2006/2/26/19343/8267

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/wn_report/story/394797p-334733c.html

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-future26feb26,1,30274,full.story
Gunmen hold sway over streets lined with concrete bomb-blast barriers and razor wire. Entire neighborhoods are too dangerous for police to enter.

The government, holed up in a fortress behind layers of checkpoints, huddles in emergency meetings and issues proclamations that draw little attention on the streets or in foreign capitals.

And this may be the best that Iraqis and Americans can hope for. . .

So much for “looking into Putin’s heart” – Bush gang to get tough with Russia

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/02/25/AR2006022501399.html

http://www.needlenose.com/node/view/2691
[NYT] "The U.S. administration is thinking that it needs to do something . . . but it doesn't know what yet."

George Bush: STILL screwing over the National Guard

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/02/27/politics/27govs.html

http://www.first-draft.com//modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=5371

Against the “Unitary Executive”

http://www.thewashingtonnote.com/archives/001262.php


2006: how’s it going so far?

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/6712.html
[Steve Benen] By any reasonable standard, 2005 was not only an embarrassingly bad year for President Bush, it was also one of the worst years any president has had since Nixon was forced from office in 1974. . .

Never fear, the Bush gang said, 2006 is when everything gets back on track.

Two months in, how's that working out for the White House? The launch of Medicare Plan D has gotten a Grade F from everyone involved; a domestic warrantless-search program has shed light on possible illegal surveillance; the Jack Abramoff scandal has reached the White House (including pictures!); the Vice President shot an old man in the face and then tried to keep the story quiet; Iraq is on the brink of a civil war; and the Dubai Ports World controversy — and the administration's handling of it — has drawn widespread criticism. . .

More: http://www.warandpiece.com/blogdirs/003738.html

http://www.warandpiece.com/blogdirs/003735.html
[Fred Barnes] The revolt showed that Bush's strength in Congress has significantly eroded as he begins his sixth year as president. In effect, his Republican base is no longer secure. . .

Arlen Specter’s NSA bill: the devil IS in the details

http://glenngreenwald.blogspot.com/2006/02/specter-proposes-new-law-something.html
[Glenn Greenwald] I actually under-stated how pernicious this legislation is and erred in some of what I said about it. . . It does indeed go far beyond simply bringing the NSA program within the purview of the FISA court. What it does is authorize the entire warrantless eavesdropping program itself by directing the FISA court to approve of it every 45 days provided some extremely permissive criteria are met, and in the process, allows eavesdropping without case-by-case warrants. . .

More: http://balkin.blogspot.com/2006/02/mother-of-mercy-is-this-en_114098414956416326.html

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2006_02/008303.php

EPA? We don’t need no stinkin’ EPA!

http://www.phillyburbs.com/pb-dyn/news/111-02262006-618484.html
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency won't oppose the U.S. Department of Defense and DuPont Co.'s plan to dump a wastewater byproduct of a deadly nerve agent into the Delaware River. . . The agency said it's assured of a safe treatment for up to 4 million gallons of caustic wastewater created in the treatment for VX, a chemical weapon with a pinhead-size potency to kill a human. DuPont is treating VX for disposal at its Newport Chemical Depot in Indiana. . . The agent, once neutralized, would be shipped to DuPont's Chambers Works plant in Deepwater, N.J., for discharge into the river.

California adopts Diebold’s e-voting machines

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2006_02/008301.php
[Kevin Drum] Are you dying to know how to hack into a Diebold machine? Unless your local registrar has bothered to change it, here's the key: F2654hD4. And the 8-byte password used for Diebold’s voter, administrator, and ender cards is ED 0A ED 0A ED 0A ED 0A. Aren't you glad this stuff is so easily found on the internet?. . .

You couldn’t make it up: look at what Ernie Fletcher (R-KY) is doing now

http://talkleft.com/new_archives/014138.html
[TChris] Gov. Ernie Fletcher in Kentucky is at it again. As TalkLeft noted here, Fletcher used his pardon power to block the prosecution of state officials who were indicted for making illegal patronage appointments to state positions without regard to qualifications. Fletcher also purported to pardon anyone else who might be indicted in the future.

Whether the grand jury can continue to issue indictments is an issue before Kentucky's Supreme Court. Some might think that Fletcher is rigging the outcome by appointing two judges to sit on the case as replacements for two justices who recused themselves. . .

http://www.mydd.com/story/2006/2/26/222438/496
[Bluegrass Report] Of all the shameless and offensive acts that Governor Fletcher has pulled on us in the two years he's been in office, I don't think any of them compare to the sham he pulled at 5:25 pm on Friday when he appointed two campaign contributors as Special Justices to the Kentucky Supreme Court to hear just one case -- his own desperate appeal in the Merit System criminal investigation. . .

Hard to make Dick Cheney into an object of sympathy, but Joe Klein tries mightily

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2006/2/26/135515/645
[Cheney's FOX interview] was perhaps the most eloquent, emotionally unguarded moment from the notoriously buttoned-up Vice President. He seemed stunned, uncertain for once. And the haunted look in his eyes reminded me of what soldiers in Vietnam used to call the Thousand-Yard Stare--the paralytic shock that comes from seeing the impact that even low-caliber weaponry can have on human flesh. . .

[Y]es, the Vice President's behavior did seem to be another manifestation of his well-known disdain for accountability. . . But Cheney's stubborn diffidence may have been something else entirely: a consequence of the incoherence and confusion that come with emotional trauma . . .

The possibility of vice-presidential anguish was barely mentioned by most commentators at first. Cheney is a tough customer; Oprahfied "sharing" isn't his way. But then, there he was, with that haunted look in his Fox News interview, saying, "[T]he image of him falling is something I'll never be able to get out of my mind. I fired, and there's Harry falling" . . . [read on!]

Timmy’s all-Republican edition of “Meet the Press”

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/arianna-huffington/russert-watch-meet-the-r_b_16401.html

Bonus item: Erasing history

http://firedoglake.blogspot.com/2006_02_26_firedoglake_archive.html#114100505621806594

***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 @ 6:57 AM

 
WORSE AND WORSE

Worse than Guantanamo

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/02/26/international/26bagram.html
While an international debate rages over the future of the American detention center at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, the military has quietly expanded another, less-visible prison in Afghanistan, where it now holds some 500 terror suspects in more primitive conditions, indefinitely and without charges. . .

http://www.slate.com/id/2136993
[Daniel Politi] As the administration decided to pretty much stop sending new detainees to Guantamo in 2004, the population of Bagram has soared. No one from the outside world, except the Red Cross, is allowed to visit the facilities. Officials who spoke anonymously to the NYT insist that Bagram was never meant to house long-term prisoners, but now some have been there for three years. Although conditions at the detention center seem to have improved since the military decided to renovate the facilities, by all accounts the situation is still bleak and prisoners are mostly held in large wire cages. . .

In Iraq: terrible, and getting worse by the minute

http://www.needlenose.com/node/view/2687
[K-R] This week's surge in sectarian violence in Iraq -- shootings, mosque burnings and mob attacks -- is a chilling indicator of how successful the Sunni Muslim insurgency and foreign terrorists have been in fomenting unrest.

While U.S. combat deaths have declined in recent months -- from 70 in November to 42 in January and 38 in February as of Friday -- insurgents are still staging hundreds of attacks a week. Last week, they struck 555 times, according to American military officials.

The insurgency appears to be adjusting its tactics as confidence grows that U.S. troops will withdraw. Rather than killing American soldiers, the insurgents and foreign terrorists are more focused on creating civil strife that could destabilize Iraq's political process and possibly lead to outright ethnic and religious war.

. . . The International Crisis Group, a research organization that's dedicated to conflict resolution, reported this month that Iraq's insurgency has found a new confidence. . . "When the U.S. leaves, the insurgents do not doubt that Iraq's security forces and institutions would quickly collapse."

This is what you get with an administration that always believes it’s right and refuses to listen to critics – all of this was predicted long ago

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2006/2/25/21559/4947
[NYT] American officials have been repeatedly stunned and frequently thwarted in the past three years by the extraordinary power of Muslim clerics over Iraqi society. . .

Who could have guessed? The “gates of Hell”

http://talkleft.com/new_archives/014128.html
[2002] THE United States was told last night that a war to oust President Saddam Hussein would "open the gates of Hell" in the Middle East. The chief of the Arab League, Amr Moussa, issued the warning after a meeting in Cairo of the foreign ministers from 20 Arab states. . .

[2004] Arab League chief Amr Mussa warned that the "gates of hell" had been opened in Iraq, as ministers from the pan-Arab grouping gathered for a meeting set to be dominated by the war-ravaged country. . .

[2006] The toppling of a sacred site urged into the open the Shia fighters who had previously battled the Sunni uprising in the back lanes of towns and villages. The Shias now have a lightning rod to make their rebellion public. The gates of hell, slightly ajar for a year, have been flung wide open.

History repeats itself: “The first time as tragedy, the second time as farce.” So what do you call the fourth time?

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2006_02_19.php#007746

Whose brilliant idea was THIS?

http://www.ericumansky.com/2006/02/protect_sunnis_.html
[Eric Umansky] Over the past few days in Iraq, the U.S. military has been taking a "wait-and-see" approach to the violence, which appears to be picking up again. What that means in practice is that the U.S. has been standing by while mosques have been scorched, etc.

That's obviously pissing off Sunnis. . .

More catastrophes

http://www.juancole.com/2006/02/violence-in-baghdad-samarra-curfew.html

http://www.juancole.com/2006/02/more-shrines-destroyed-60-killed.html

Condi Rice may be a pretty smart person, but as Sect’y of State, she’s just another example of someone promoted mostly because she’s loyal and unthreatening to Bush

http://americablog.blogspot.com/2006/02/week-in-life-of-bushcondi-failed.html
[Joe] Banner week for the Secretary of State. Everything she touched --- on behalf of her hapless, clueless boss -- was a disaster. This shouldn't come as a surprise. . .

http://atrios.blogspot.com/2006_02_19_atrios_archive.html#114089527237690333
[Atrios] Why has no one bothered to notice that putting two people in charge (Rice and Hughes) of shaping our image abroad whose entire schtick consists of talking to people as if they're 8 years olds was probably not the best idea. . .

The Dept of Homeland Security raised concerns against the Dubai Ports Deal, but let themselves be bought off with token concessions: “the system worked”

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2006/2/25/111940/343
[AP] The Homeland Security Department objected at first to a United Arab Emirates company's taking over significant operations at six U.S. ports. It was the lone protest among members of the government committee that eventually approved the deal without dissent. . . The department's early objections were settled later in the government's review of the $6.8 billion deal after Dubai-owned DP World agreed to a series of security restrictions.

[Georgia10] But as the AP reported on Feb. 23, those "security restrictions" are actually just window dressing. . .

[Sect’y of Treasury John Snow] "That is the way the process should work. It should come to the Cabinet-level people if there is a security issue ... in this case, they found the issue did not present a security issue. Now we have a political issue," Snow said.

Dubai Ports World and a Carlyle Group connection – what a surprise

http://makeashorterlink.com/?T2EF133BC

The role of unqualified Bush crony appointments in the deal

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2006/2/25/124918/452

Erasing history?

http://www.samefacts.com/archives/_/2006/02/memory_hole.php

Frist backs down

http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1167717,00.html
Moving toward a deal that could allow President Bush and congressional GOP leaders to save face and avert a prolonged confrontation, GOP officials said today that they were discussing the idea of having Dubai Ports World seek a new review of its acquisition of a British company's operation that runs several key U.S. ports. . . If approved by all parties, the new deal would allow Bush to avert a GOP-driven bill to overturn the Dubai deal with enough votes to override Bush's threat of his first veto. Republican sources tell TIME that Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist of Tennessee proposed the basic terms of a deal designed to give the White House a graceful way out, while also allaying the concerns of the many lawmakers in both parties who have said the deal could be a threat to our security. Under the Frist plan, the deal could stand a good chance of ultimately going through after the extended review. . .

Arlen Specter proposes new NSA surveillance rules

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/02/25/AR2006022501402.html

What’s strange is, we already HAVE these rules – it’s called FISA

http://glenngreenwald.blogspot.com/2006/02/specter-proposes-new-law-something.html
[Glenn Greenwald] It is, of course, so disorientingly bizarre to hear about a proposed law requiring FISA warrants for eavesdropping because we already have a law in place which does exactly that. It's called FISA. That's the law the Administration has been deliberately breaking because they think they don't have to comply with it and that Congress has no power to make them. Reading this article about Specter's proposed legislation is somewhat like hearing that a life-long, chronic bank-robber got arrested for robbing a bank over the weekend and, in response, a Senator introduces legislation to make it a crime to rob banks. . .

Jack Abramoff: like Sherwin-Williams, he “covers the earth”

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-abramoff24feb24,1,2072150.story
Two Senate Democrats are calling on Atty. Gen. Alberto R. Gonzales to appoint a special prosecutor to investigate lobbyist Jack Abramoff's activities in two Pacific island territories. . . "We believe an independent investigation is needed of the possible access given to Mr. Abramoff" of the security risk report, the letter states. Citing media reports, the letter mentions "possible improper or illegal activity by Department of Justice officials in discussing this report with a lobbyist."

Rick Santorum’s “charity” sucks up 60% of contributions in “administrative costs”

http://customwire.ap.org/dynamic/stories/S/SANTORUM_CHARITY
Sen. Rick Santorum's charity donated about 40 percent of the $1.25 million it spent during a four-year period, well below Better Business Bureau standards - paying out the rest for overhead, including several hundred thousand dollars to campaign aides on the charity payroll.

The charity, Operation Good Neighbor, is described on its Web site as an organization promoting "compassionate conservatism" by providing grants to small nonprofit groups, many of them religious.

The Better Business Bureau's Wise Giving Alliance says charitable organizations should spend at least 65 percent of their total expenses on program activities. . .

Sean Hannity, erstwhile “news” professional, engages in active fundraising for Santorum

http://americablog.blogspot.com/2006/02/foxs-sean-hannity-fundraising-for-rick.html

Katherine Harris: stupid or lying? (uh is “both” an option?)

http://americablog.blogspot.com/2006/02/is-katherine-harris-lying-or-just.html

Scalped

http://politicalwire.com/archives/2006/02/26/political_scalping.html
Rep. Thomas Reynolds (R-NY), "a key member of the House Republican leadership, is soliciting political contributions by in effect scalping tickets for NCAA ''Sweet Sixteen'' games at Washington's sold-out MCI Center for more than 30 times face value," Robert Novak reports. . . "Reynolds is soliciting $2,000 a person to provide tickets for the March 24 tournament session that are sold by the NCAA for $65 apiece." Says the invitation: ''Tickets are very limited, 'so please RSVP as soon as possible.''

How Cheney’s emails got “found”

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/6711.html
[Steve Benen] I haven't seen any real follow up yet, but this seems like a development that warrants a little more explanation. In September 2003, White House staff was ordered to preserve materials related to Fitzgerald's investigation. More than two years later, Fitzgerald finds that a whole lot of emails that were supposed to have been archived are missing. More recently, the White House "located" over 250 pages of email. . .

More: http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2006_02/008295.php

Libby’s latest ploys

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-libby25feb25,1,7650718.story

http://www.orovillemr.com/news/bayarea/ci_3546477

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/politics/2002827635_libby25.html

Sunday talk shows

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/02/25/AR2006022501174.html
FOX NEWS SUNDAY: White House homeland security adviser Francis Fragos Townsend , Sen. Joseph R. Biden Jr. (D-Del.), Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney (R) and Washington Redskins Coach Joe Gibbs.

THIS WEEK (ABC): Sens. John McCain (R-Ariz.) and Carl M. Levin (D-Mich.) and actor Richard Gere.

FACE THE NATION (CBS): National security adviser Stephen J. Hadley and Sens. Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.) and Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.).

MEET THE PRESS (NBC): Sen. John W. Warner (R-Va.), Rep. Peter T. King (R-N.Y.) and California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger (R).

LATE EDITION (CNN): Sens. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) and Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-Tex.), Iraqi national security adviser Mowaffak al-Rubaie , Arab American Institute President James Zogby and Hadley.

Bonus item: what will the far right say about this?

http://glenngreenwald.blogspot.com/2006/02/prepare-noose-for-bill-buckley.html
William F. Buckley, Jr. in The National Review, yesterday

One can't doubt that the American objective in Iraq has failed. . . . Our mission has failed because Iraqi animosities have proved uncontainable by an invading army of 130,000 Americans. . . . . [Bush] will certainly face the current development as military leaders are expected to do: They are called upon to acknowledge a tactical setback, but to insist on the survival of strategic policies. Yes, but within their own counsels, different plans have to be made. And the kernel here is the acknowledgment of defeat. . . .

Jim Geraghty, writing in Bill Buckley’s own National Review [writing about Howard Dean]

I think any statement from a national leader that sounds like, "we have been defeated in Iraq" is political nitroglycerin. . . [read on for more hypocrisy]

***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 @ 8:10 AM

 
“A DYING PRESIDENCY”

http://glenngreenwald.blogspot.com/2006/02/dying-presidency.html
[Glenn Greenwald] George Bush's presidency is in deep trouble. . .

“Thoroughly vetted”? Michael Chertoff, Director of Homeland Security, ALSO was never informed of the Dubai Ports deal

http://www.washingtontimes.com/national/20060224-123748-3727r.htm

A few more reasons to be a bit concerned about DPW running our ports

http://www.consortiumnews.com/2006/022206.html
The Bush administration is letting the United Arab Emirates take control of six key U.S. ports despite its own port’s reputation as a smuggling center used by arms traffickers, drug dealers and terrorists. . . .

More: http://www.prospect.org/weblog/archives/2006/02/index.html#009258

Is opposition to having the UAE run our east coast ports racist? A debate

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/6706.html

http://www.prospect.org/weblog/archives/2006/02/index.html#009254

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2006_02_01_digbysblog_archive.html#114082646887197227

A “slight delay”

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/02/24/AR2006022400765.html

Will GOP leaders start “redefining” their positions?

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/02/24/AR2006022400765.html

This is interesting. Bush fully intends to push this loser of a deal through

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2006/2/24/193911/943
[SusanG] [T]his Dubai Debacle is growing increasingly disastrous for the GOP by the hour. Literally, by the hour. . .

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/blog/2006/02/23/BL2006022300998.html
[Dan Froomkin] It's not often that President Bush gets a taste of his own medicine. But it's happening now as Bush defends his administration's decision to turn over operations at six U.S. seaports to an Arab company.

He stands accused of being weak on national security, insufficiently fearful of terrorism, and out of touch with the American public. And he's operating in a political climate where nuance and details make a poor defense. . .

http://thepoliticker.observer.com/2006/02/port-polls.html
Carolyn Maloney [D-NY] said the port deal is a sign of "pre 9/11 mentality.". . .

[NB: Ha, ha! Good one: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/01/20/AR2006012001853.html]

Yeah, right: Now we’re being told that it’s the opponents of the ports deal who are endangering national security (Well, what do you expect? It’s the only card they have left to play, so of course they are playing it over and over and over again)

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2006/2/23/205634/461

Lying like crazy

http://www.first-draft.com//modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=5341
[Holden] But yesterday Little Scottie claimed that 100% of the containers [at US ports] are inspected. . .

The Goofus files (Ports Edition)

http://www.first-draft.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=5356
“Secondly, I've set a clear doctrine: America makes no distinction between the terrorists and the countries that harbor them. If you harbor a terrorist, you're just as guilty as the terrorists, and you're an enemy of the United States of America.”

[Holden] Later, he was heard to add, "Except if you are the United Arab Emirates."

http://atrios.blogspot.com/2006_02_19_atrios_archive.html#114070918286180634
“This deal wouldn't go forward if we were concerned about the security for the United States of America.”

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/6695.html
[Steve Benen] Well, this is a quote Bush may have trouble living down.

President Bush on Thursday defended his administration's decision to allow a company from an Arab country to operate six major U.S. ports, saying, "People don't need to worry about security." . . . [read on]

Iraq: FUBAR

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2006/2/23/121421/364

Iraqi battalions ready to fight alone: ZERO

http://americablog.blogspot.com/2006/02/pentagon-report-on-iraqi-troops-is-not.html

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2006/2/24/23206/6189

[NB: Yes, that’s LESS than they had six months ago]

The Ugly Americans say, “Iraq civil war could be a GOOD thing”

http://mediamatters.org/items/200602240003

http://thinkprogress.org/2006/02/24/cnn-pundit-bombing/

[NB: I have a colleague, Jan Pieterse, who has been arguing for months that destabilizing Iraq and the middle east was the plan all along – well, now he has allies]



How the Bush gang leaks classified information whenever it wants to

http://americablog.blogspot.com/2006/02/another-case-where-white-house-leaked.html

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2006/2/24/05252/8922

More: http://whateveralready.blogspot.com/2006/02/did-bush-administration-authorize-leak.html

One word. Find the one word in this denial that makes you sit up and take notice

http://makeashorterlink.com/?V1C8424BC
The Pentagon denied that former deputy secretary of defense Paul Wolfowitz approved interrogation techniques used on war-on-terror detainees as claimed in a recently released FBI email. . . "To make any suggestion that Paul Wolfowitz was involved in approving individual interrogation plans is simply wrong," said Bryan Whitman, a Pentagon spokesman. . .

What they’re doing in Guantanamo

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/nation/3681795.html
[K-R] Military interrogators posing as FBI agents at the U.S. detention center at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, wrapped terrorism suspects in an Israeli flag and forced them to watch homosexual pornography under strobe lights during interrogation sessions that lasted as long as 18 hours, according to one of a batch of FBI memos released Thursday.

FBI agents working at the prison complained about the military interrogators' techniques in e-mail to their superiors from 2002 to 2004, 54 e-mails released by the American Civil Liberties Union showed. The agents tried to get the military interrogators to follow a less coercive approach and warned that the harsh methods could hinder future criminal prosecutions of terrorists because information gained illegally is inadmissible in court.

Maj. Gen. Geoffrey Miller, who was in charge of the prison at the time, overrode the FBI agents' protests, according to the documents.

The memos offer some of the clearest proof yet that the abuses and torture of prisoners weren't the isolated actions of low-ranking soldiers, the ACLU said. . . .

More: http://www.motherjones.com/mojoblog/archives/2006/02/more_documents.html

Tom DeLay, a Great American

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/chronicle/3680993.html
U.S. Rep. Tom DeLay was likened to Stonewall Jackson, Lyndon Baines Johnson and a courageous World War I officer today as members of the Texas Republican congressional delegation joined the former House majority leader to endorse his re-election. . . . The Republicans took turns singing DeLay's praises as a selfless leader who not only helped get them elected, but also won Republican majorities in Congress and the Legislature, and brought home the bacon for NASA, the port of Houston and other local needs. . . .

[NB: Yeah, a lot of bacon. . . ]

The Republicans and the Russians

http://susiemadrak.com/2006/02/23/06/33/boy-oh-boy/
[Susan Madrak] You have no idea how interesting this is going to get. . .

More bad news for Katharine Harris

http://news.tbo.com/news/metro/MGBQ34QE3KE.html

Why is the GOP spending so much money defending election fraud?

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2006_02_19.php#007738

Libby’s “throw it at the wall and see what sticks” defense is getting pretty silly – but with $5 million to spend, expect a lot more of this nonsense

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2006/2/23/16858/0676

“Smacks of desperation” http://www.discourse.net/archives/2006/02/the_legal_equivalent_of_a_hail_mary_pass.html

I guess Libby’s not done leaking

http://talkleft.com/new_archives/014125.html

Cheney's Plame emails. Fun!

http://talkleft.com/new_archives/014117.html
[Jason Leopold] The emails are said to be explosive. . .

Retribution against Plame whistleblowers?

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/022406J.shtml

Another unqualified crony, this time for the Fed (eh, who cares? How important is THAT panel?)

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2006_02/008286.php

I know this is supposed to be all settled now, but it turns out there was a fair amount of drinking at the “no drinking” Cheney hunting party

http://www.first-draft.com//modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=5339

The American Taliban

http://americablog.blogspot.com/2006/02/south-dakota-extremists-win-vote-in.html

Bonus item: Rita Crosby, professional twit, makes her first appearance here

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2006_02_01_digbysblog_archive.html#114082242257568471
Rita Cosby said that it's wrong that the Republicans in South Carolina are asking for church rolls to target the evangelical vote but it's just as wrong that Democrats are targeting the "hoodlum vote." Yes, the hoodlum vote. When a plainly confused Chris Matthews asked what she meant, she explained that Democrats were going through voter rolls to find felons to vote for them.

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

I don't get anything personally out of this project, except the satisfaction of doing it (I don't run ads, etc). The credit really all goes to the people whose material I copy and redistribute. But if I do have a "mission," it is to get this information into the hands of as many people as I can.***
- posted by Nick Burbules @ 7:15 AM

 
NO POSTING TODAY

Sorry, folks, travelling today and no Internet access. A full issue comes tomorrow.
- posted by Nick Burbules @ 8:17 AM

 
CIVIL WARS

Bush’s exercise in adventurism and nation-building hubris is going wrong in ways that were predicted in advance. Ask the people of Iraq if they feel better off now than they did under Hussein

News: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060222/ap_on_re_mi_ea/iraq_explosion

http://makeashorterlink.com/?C4D5351BC

http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/iraq/2006-02-22-shiite-shrine_x.htm

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-shrine23feb23,0,4717777.story

http://www.first-draft.com//modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=5338
[Holden] . . . a full-scale civil war has erupted with 168 Suni mosques attacked, 10 Suni imams killed and an additional 120 Iraqi civilians dead over the past 24 hours.

Analysis: http://talkleft.com/new_archives/014106.html

http://www.csmonitor.com/2006/0223/p01s02-woiq.html

http://www.needlenose.com/node/view/2679

http://www.juancole.com/2006/02/shiite-protests-roil-iraq-tuesday-was.html
[Juan Cole] Tuesday was an apocalyptic day in Iraq. I am not normally exactly sanguine about the situation there. But the atmospherics are very, very bad, in a way that most Western observers will miss. . .

Major damage control: Bush distancing himself furiously from the disastrous Dubai Ports policy, as more in his own party revolt. He claims now that he didn’t even know about it

http://americablog.blogspot.com/2006/02/bush-now-says-he-didnt-know-about.html
[John Aravosis] So we've established the pattern. Bush is either a serial liar, or he's completely out of touch and a simple figurehead who has no idea what his own employees are doing. . .

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2006/2/22/12340/4839
[Kos] Of course, the big question is who reviewed and approved the deal, since we now find that a decision with major national security ramifications was made without input from either the president (supposedly) or the Secretary of Defense. Or perhaps the better question is whether the administration has decided to hang Chertoff off to dry. The dude is on his way out anyway, might as well tar him with this disaster as well. Because as far as we can tell, we have no proof the committee that McClellan assured us yesterday had unanimously approved the deal has even met.

Furthermore, while the administration was required under law to conduct a 45-day investigation into the deal, none took place. Of course, "laws" are those pesky words on paper that King George and his infallible administration are allowed to ignore and discard at their own perogative. . .

45 days: http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2006_02_19.php#007728

http://thinkprogress.org/2006/02/22/legally-required-investigation/

http://www.politicalcortex.com/story/2006/2/22/114021/939
[Omen] The way I see it, there are three points to take out of what's happened:

1. Bush could care less about border security.

Between his fuzzy immigration policy (which even republicans aren't 100% behind) and this port sale, the President has effectively shown that border saftey isn't a concern. While I understand that the UAE won't control the actual sercurity checkpoint and the like at these points, it's stupid to think that they couldn't try to slip something through. After all, ABC did and succeded. . . [read on]

Your daily Scotty: http://www.first-draft.com//modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=5335
Q Scott, you said this morning that the President wasn't made aware of the ports decision until the last several days, until after the decision had been made. Does the President wish that he'd been brought into the deliberations sooner, that he knew about it before it became a big political controversy? . . .

Et Tu, DeLay? (thanks to Atrios for the link, and the joke)

http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/APStories/stories/D8FUGLP05.html
U.S. Rep. Tom DeLay said Wednesday that President Bush is making a big mistake backing a sale of shipping operations at six major U.S. seaports to a state-owned business in the United Arab Emirates. . . The former Republican majority leader said the administration's approval of the deal is "pretty outrageous". . .

More outrage: http://www.prospect.org/weblog/archives/2006/02/index.html#009238

http://www.prospect.org/weblog/archives/2006/02/index.html#009233

http://www.prospect.org/weblog/archives/2006/02/index.html#009230

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/blog/2006/02/23/BL2006022300449.html

Look who’s lobbying for UAE

http://www.first-draft.com//modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=5331

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2006_02_19.php#007729

Remember who made a big issue about port security during the 2004 campaign? It isn’t just the Dubai Ports problem

http://atrios.blogspot.com/2006_02_19_atrios_archive.html#114062618584264899

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/02/23/politics/23assess.html

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2006_02/008281.php

BREAKING NEWS: it won’t surprise you to hear that the ports deal was secretly negotiated with the UAE in exchange for their cooperation with US investigations into terrorist activities. So that explains why Bush can’t back down on the promise now

http://www.guardian.co.uk/worldlatest/story/0,,-5640688,00.html

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2006/2/23/55215/0413

Other special favors for UAE

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/007733.php
[Guardian] The administration did not require Dubai Ports to keep copies of business records on U.S. soil, where they would be subject to court orders. It also did not require the company to designate an American citizen to accommodate U.S. government requests. Outside legal experts said such obligations are routinely attached to U.S. approvals of foreign sales in other industries.

[Josh Marshall] The failure to require the company to keep business records on US soil sounds like a pretty open invitation to flout US law as near as I can tell. Forget terrorism. This is the sort of innovative business arrangement I would think a number of Bush-affiliated American companies might want to get in on. Perhaps Halliburton could be domiciled in Houston, pay its taxes in Bermuda, do its business in Iraq and keep its business records in Jordan.

More: http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/6686.html

Will the WH play the “this is a national security issue, and Congress can’t interfere with the President’s authority” card?

http://glenngreenwald.blogspot.com/2006/02/why-is-congress-interfering-with.html

The next port security scandal?

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2006_02/008280.php

Louise Slaughter (D-NY): “America for Sale”

http://www.prospect.org/weblog/archives/2006/02/index.html#009221

Force-feeding Gitmo prisoners becomes just another form of torture

http://www.first-draft.com//modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=5326

[NB: Even when they say they’re trying to HELP them, it turns into a violent, adversarial process]

98 die in US custody

http://thinkprogress.org/2006/02/22/98-detainees-died/

It’s about ideology versus competence (again)

http://www.first-draft.com//modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=5328
[WP] The Bureau of Land Management, caretaker of more land and wildlife than any federal agency, routinely restricts the ability of its own biologists to monitor wildlife damage caused by surging energy drilling on federal land, according to BLM officials and bureau documents.

The officials and documents say that by keeping many wildlife biologists out of the field doing paperwork on new drilling permits and that by diverting agency money intended for wildlife conservation to energy programs, the BLM has compromised its ability to deal with the environmental consequences of the drilling boom it is encouraging on public lands.

http://www.first-draft.com//modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=5327
[NYT] Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice on Tuesday began a four-day visit to the Middle East, where she hoped to persuade Arab leaders to cut off financial aid to Hamas. But she ran into trouble on her very first stop. . .

South Dakota about to ban abortions? (If so, it could be the test case for the Supreme Court to overturn Roe v. Wade and throw the decision back to the states)

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/02/22/national/22dakota.html

http://atrios.blogspot.com/2006_02_19_atrios_archive.html#114070492352500754

Now it’s Abramoff and the Russians

http://www.boston.com/news/nation/washington/articles/2006/02/23/abramoff_ties_to_russians_probed/

Rick Santorum (R-PA): it just gets worse and worse

http://www.prospect.org/weblog/archives/2006/02/index.html#009234

Duke Cunningham’s “bribe menu” (thanks to Laura Rozen for the link)

http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/politics/20060222-9999-1n22duke.html

The 25 most vulnerable House seats (and 9 of the top 10 are GOP)

http://politicalwire.com/archives/2006/02/22/top_25_most_vulnerable_house_seats.html

Bonus item: Libby’s defense: “I forgot”

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/02/22/AR2006022202251.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 @ 8:41 AM

 
BULL-HEADED

The next Harriet Miers? Has Bush taken on another inevitably losing issue?

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/6673.html
The biggest GOP revolt since Harriet Miers . .

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/02/22/politics/22port.html
President Bush, trying to put down a rapidly escalating rebellion among leaders of his own party, said Tuesday that he would veto any legislation blocking a deal for a state-owned company in Dubai to take over the management of port terminals in New York, Miami, Baltimore and other major American cities. . . Mr. Bush issued the threat after the Senate majority leader, Bill Frist, and the House speaker, J. Dennis Hastert, publicly criticized the deal. . .

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/02/21/AR2006022100722.html
President Bush today strongly defended plans to allow a company controlled by the United Arab Emirates to assume management of key U.S. ports, a stance that distanced him from a growing number of Republicans, including the congressional leadership that has threatened to pass legislation to stop the move. . . Bush said he would veto any legislation to hold up the port deal. He warned that if the United States derailed the deal, it would send "mixed signals" because no criticism was raised when a British company was in charge. Lawmakers, he said, must "step up and explain why a Middle Eastern company is held to a different standard."

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/02/21/politics/21cnd-port.html
Mr. Bush's rare veto threat came as Republican leaders and many of their Democratic counterparts called up today for the port takeover to be put on hold. They demanded that the Bush administration conduct a further investigation of the Dubai company's acquisition of the British operator of the six American ports.

What’s wrong with Dubai? http://americablog.blogspot.com/2006/02/does-bush-even-know-that-al-qaeda-used.html
[USAT] Osama bin Laden's operatives still use this freewheeling city as a logistical hub three years after more than half the Sept. 11 hijackers flew directly from Dubai to the United States . . .

[Joe] Just imagine if a Democratic President cut this deal -- and defended it the way Bush has. Karl Rove would have a field day.

More: http://www.needlenose.com/node/view/2677

http://www.first-draft.com//modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=5311
The Dubai firm that won Bush administration backing to run six U.S. ports has at least two ties to the White House.

One is Treasury Secretary John Snow, whose department heads the federal panel that signed off on the $6.8 billion sale of an English company to government-owned Dubai Ports World - giving it control of Manhattan's cruise ship terminal and Newark's container port. . . Snow was chairman of the CSX rail firm that sold its own international port operations to DP World for $1.15 billion in 2004, the year after Snow left for President Bush's cabinet.

The other connection is David Sanborn, who runs DP World's European and Latin American operations and who was tapped by Bush last month to head the U.S. Maritime Administration. . .

More: http://www.workingforchange.com/blog/index.cfm?mode=entry&entry=8F0C2C26-E5A6-B306-55BE87948B44A59C

Jack Cafferty, CNN

http://atrios.blogspot.com/2006_02_19_atrios_archive.html#114055781685351822
Wolf, this may be the straw that finally breaks the camel's back, this deal to sell control of six US ports to a company controlled by the United Arab Emirates. There are now actually Senators and Congressmen and Governors and Mayors telling the White House "you're not gonna do this." And it's about time. No one has said "no" to this administration on anything that matters in a very long time. Well this matters. It matters a lot. If this deal is allowed to go through, we deserve whatever we get. A country with ties to terrorists will have a presence at six critical doorways to our country. And if anyone thinks that the terrorists, in time, won't figure out how to exploit that, then we're all done. Nothing's happened yet, mind you, but if our elected representatives don't do everything in their power to stop this thing, each of us should vow to work tirelessly to see that they are removed from public office. We're at a crossroads - which way will we choose?

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2006_02_19.php#007724
[From a reader] Being a War President, and the War on Terror itself, eclipses everything. . . Except when it doesn’t.

The people who voted for him genuinely believed that he would keep them safer than any alternative we could elect. And now he’s blowing it all off, under the guise of “fair play” for countries that have “played by the rules.” Aside from the cribbing from Clinton, just which rules is it he thinks the UAE has played by?. . . The cynicism of his defense of the port deal is just staggering.

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/6675.html
[Steve Benen] Bush is drawing a line in the sand here, but he's also taking a big risk. Right now, the White House has very few allies on this; opposition to the deal is bi-partisan and common on the Hill and statehouses. Lawmakers, especially those who are more worried about their own re-election that helping Bush's port deal, will see no upside to helping the White House out on this one.

For that matter, the president is threatening a veto today, but will he go through with it? Bush is the first president in nearly two centuries not to veto a single bill — and he's going to start with a foreign-run port deal?

For that matter, it's also worth noting that Bush's veto threats don't mean much anymore. The last several threats were treated as little more than speed-bumps for lawmakers who have their own agenda and careers to worry about.

Republican Sen. Lindsay Graham of South Carolina said on Fox News Sunday that the administration approval was "unbelievably tone deaf politically". . .

Tin ear

http://www.first-draft.com//modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=5323
THE PRESIDENT: It's not a political issue.

Q But there clearly are members of your own party who will go to the mat against you on this.

THE PRESIDENT: It's not a political issue. . .

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2006_02_19_digbysblog_archive.html#114054826217421321
[Digby] If there are three hallmarks of this failed Bush administration, it is hubris, incompetence and cronyism. This port deal features all three. . .

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2006_02/008264.php
[Kevin Drum] This whole controversy over "Portgate" — a decision by the Bush administration to allow the operations of six big U.S. ports to be managed by a company owned by the United Arab Emirates — is fascinating. Not so much for the substantive issues it raises, which are disturbing but a bit murky, but for what it says about the waning political power of the Bush White House. . . What it shows is that Bush still doesn't understand how much influence he's recently lost with his conservative base. . .

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2006_02_19_digbysblog_archive.html#114055653343760298
[Digby] Assuming that we aren't seeing some sort of kabuki here, it appears that the Eunuch Caucus is getting an earful from their constituents and see no margin in working with the lame albatross right now. He's threatened vetoes before and the invertebrate Republicans have always fallen into line. This time appears to be different. . . If this is true, the Bush administration may be effectively over. . . Apparently, they have no idea that they have lost the trust of the people on exactly these kinds of things. The rigor of their planning, the "experience" with private companies and the ineptitude of Homeland Security.

“Thorough review,” huh? Rumsfeld, military not consulted

http://thinkprogress.org/2006/02/21/rumsfeld-not-consulted/
Rumsfeld’s statement was particularly troubling because Dubai Ports World, owned and operated by the UAE government, will also take over a major contract managing the movement of military equipment for the U.S. Army. Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Peter Pace, who was at the briefing, also said he found out about the deal over the weekend. The deal was approved on February 13.

White House spokesman Scott McClellan claimed the Defense Department was part of “a rigorous review…for national security concerns.” If so, why were two of the Department’s top officials not even informed, much less consulted?

UPDATE: Donald Rumsfeld, as Secretary of Defense, is a member of Committee on Foreign Investments in the United States. As such, he was one of the people who, according to the Treasury Department, unanimously approved the sale on February 13. How could do that when he didn’t even find out about the sale until last weekend?

The funniest part: Bush may be right

http://glenngreenwald.blogspot.com/2006/02/portgate.html

http://www.mydd.com/story/2006/2/22/056/77192

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2006_02/008272.php

Always attack others for doing what you are doing yourself: how Rove slimed Kerry for his connection to Malaysia’s PM Mahathir Mohammed

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2006_02_19_digbysblog_archive.html

They can’t wait, can they?

http://majikthise.typepad.com/majikthise_/2006/02/alito_day_one.html
The Supreme Court announced today that it will hear a challenge to a federal law outlawing a late-term abortion procedure, reopening the contentious issue on Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr.'s first day on the bench. . .

More: http://www.nytimes.com/2006/02/21/politics/21cnd-abortion.html

[NB: But of course, as Mr. Alito lied throughout his hearings, he has “no agenda” and keeps an “open mind” on this issue. Every pro-choice Republican and Democrat who voted for him should be thrown out of office]

The Goofus Files

http://www.first-draft.com//modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=5319

Ooops!

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2006_02_19.php#007720
[Josh Marshall] This is one of those funny Bush Washington moments.

The budget cutters axed 32 jobs at the Energy Department's National Renewable Energy Laboratory.

The employees were laid off two weeks ago.

But apparently no one told them that the political office at the White House had decided to make this energy independence squeeze-the-switchgrass-until-it-bleeds-gas week at the White House. And President Bush was heading over to the lab today to participate in a panel on the wonders of renewable energy.

The jobs got reinstated; the president says it was all a mix-up.

Dog Bites Man

http://makeashorterlink.com/?S56A14FAC
Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said on Tuesday he was mistaken when he stated last week that the U.S. military had stopped paying Iraqi newspapers to publish pro-American articles.

Rumsfeld had said in a television interview on Friday that the U.S. military had ceased paying to place positive stories in Iraqi media after criticism in the U.S. Congress and press. Rumsfeld made similar comments the same day to the Council on Foreign Relations.

"I just misstated the facts," Rumsfeld told a Pentagon briefing on Tuesday.

The Know-Nothings

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/02/20/AR2006022001119.html

Who’s a “liberal”?

http://glenngreenwald.blogspot.com/2006/02/are-bush-critics-labeled-liberal.html

Who’s brainless? Orrin Hatch or the 9-11 Commission?

http://thinkprogress.org/2006/02/21/nobody-with-brains
[Hatch] Nobody denies that [Saddam Hussein] was supporting al-Qaeda...Well, I shouldn't say nobody. Nobody with brains.

[9-11 Commission] The Sept. 11 commission reported yesterday that it has found no “collaborative relationship” between Iraq and al Qaeda, challenging one of the Bush administration’s main justifications for the war in Iraq.

Bonus item: The Blondes

http://www.slate.com/id/2136418/

***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 @ 6:22 AM

 
GOING BACKWARD

US now openly tries to steer the development of Iraqi democracy – the hell with this “sovereignty” notion

http://www.needlenose.com/node/view/2665
Apparently tired of my seeing his shadow behind every twist and turn, U.S. ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad has decided to take his act out into broad daylight . . .

More: http://www.nytimes.com/2006/02/21/international/middleeast/21iraq.html

http://www.warandpiece.com/blogdirs/003702.html

Or: http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2006_02/008260.php
[Kevin Drum] Khalilzad has to walk a tricky line in his public statements, but this strikes me as a useful stance: not too hot and not too cold. What's more, if it doesn't have the desired effect it gives us a prepackaged excuse to pull out later this year.

George Bush thinks he is Abraham Lincoln

http://americablog.blogspot.com/2006/02/republican-party-doesnt-believe-in.html

http://www.warandpiece.com/blogdirs/003697.html
[Laura Rozen] When Pat Roberts, Mike DeWine, David Addington and Andy Card get their ducks in a row, here's where things are headed if people don't step up to the plate: concocted retroactive legal cover for breaking the law, without any oversight or investigation.

Bush gang busily reclassifying declassified documents: really, they don’t want ANYTHING out there, unless they control it

http://talkleft.com/new_archives/014079.html

More: http://www.nytimes.com/2006/02/21/politics/21reclassify.html

What a surprise!

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/02/20/AR2006022001198.html
A State Department reorganization of analysts involved in preventing the spread of deadly weapons has spawned internal turmoil, with more than half a dozen career employees alleging in interviews that political appointees sought to punish long-term employees whose views they considered suspect. . .

The torturers win. . .

http://powerofnarrative.blogspot.com/2006/02/barbarian-nation-torturers-win.html

Abramoff and Bush

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2006/02/20/international/i210516S41.DTL
Former Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad said Monday that disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff was paid $1.2 million to organize his 2002 meeting with President Bush . . .

Another Jason Leopold piece on the Plame scandal

http://www.needlenose.com/node/view/2668
[Swopa] Jason Leopold is either steadily breaking open the story of who outed Valerie Plame Wilson as a CIA officer, or he's just plain making stuff up; I'm not sure which. . . As with Leopold's earlier piece, I'm putting this article in a stack labeled "awaiting further confirmation."

Leopold: http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/022006Z.shtml
The investigation into the leak of covert CIA operative Valerie Plame Wilson is heating up. Evidence is mounting that senior officials in the office of Vice President Dick Cheney and the National Security Council conspired to unmask Plame Wilson's identity to reporters in an effort to stop her husband from publicly criticizing the administration's pre-war Iraq intelligence, according to sources close to the two-year-old probe. . . In recent weeks, investigators working for Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald have narrowed their focus to a specific group of officials . .

Making an issue of the NSA scandal

http://glenngreenwald.blogspot.com/2006/02/dying-scandal-that-keeps-growing.html

http://glenngreenwald.blogspot.com/2006/02/first-step.html

Electoral prospects in Fall ‘06

http://www.mydd.com/story/2006/2/20/95310/1709

http://www.mydd.com/story/2006/2/7/19510/54245

Bonus item: Rick Santorum (R-PA), finished

http://www.warandpiece.com/blogdirs/003701.html
[Laura Rozen] It seems Santorum has been using his PAC to pay his family expenses, getting favorable bank loans, etc.

And Starbucks! http://www.pnionline.com/dnblog/attytood/archives/002807.html

More! http://www.prospect.org/web/page.ww?section=root&name=ViewPrint&articleId=11174

***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 @ 6:56 AM

 
MEMENTO MORA

Meet Alberto Mora

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/02/20/politics/20mora.html
One of the Pentagon's top civilian lawyers repeatedly challenged the Bush administration's policy on the coercive interrogation of terror suspects, arguing that such practices violated the law, verged on torture and could ultimately expose senior officials to prosecution, a newly disclosed document shows. . . Mr. Mora's campaign against what he viewed as an official policy of cruel treatment, detailed in a memorandum he wrote in July 2004 and recounted in an article in the Feb. 27 issue of The New Yorker magazine, made public yesterday, underscored again how contrary views were often brushed aside in administration debates on the subject. . .

Mr. Mora wrote, it was only when he warned Mr. Haynes on Jan. 15 that he was planning to issue a formal memorandum on his opposition to the methods — delivering a draft to Mr. Haynes's office — that Mr. Rumsfeld suddenly retracted the techniques.

In a break from standard practice, former Pentagon lawyers said, the final draft of the report on interrogation techniques was not circulated to most of the lawyers, including Mr. Mora, who had contributed to it. Several of them said they learned that a final version had been issued only after the Abu Ghraib scandal broke.

More: http://talkleft.com/new_archives/014069.html

http://www.newyorker.com/fact/content/articles/060227fa_fact

How the Bush gang is working overtime to block all investigations of its illegal spying

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/02/19/AR2006021901031.html

Are you surprised?

http://www.slate.com/id/2136696
[Jay Dixit] The LAT reports that the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board, recommended by the 9/11 Commission and signed into law in 2004, has yet to meet. The board's sole purpose is to protect privacy and civil liberties in the fight against terrorism. But the board has been kept out of commission by "foot-dragging, debate over its budget and powers, and concern over the qualifications of some of its members."

More: http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-liberties20feb20,0,5039697.story

The US is building four permanent bases in Iraq for long-term use. Why isn’t this a bigger story than it is?

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2006_02/008257.php

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2006/2/19/23460/7278

Haggling over the new government in Iraq: is there ANY way to hold these factions together?

http://www.needlenose.com/node/view/2664

CIA rendition flights to Europe illegally used civilian call signs (though when you are already committing war crimes, I guess, this is pretty small potatoes)

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2006/2/19/172740/241

George Bush, War President

http://glenngreenwald.blogspot.com/2006/02/foreign-policy-incoherence.html
[Glenn Greenwald] He constantly insists, for instance, that we are "at war" and mocks those who disagree, even though his own Attorney General testified last week before the Senate Judiciary Committee that we are not at war. Bush's central claim is that we will achieve "victory" in Iraq because democracy will produce a pro-U.S. government which will help us fight the "war on terror," even though two consecutive democratic elections have handed control of that country over to Shiite theocrats who are close allies with Iran, the country we are told is now our greatest enemy in the war on terror.

And Bush constantly justifies our occupation of Iraq with the assertion that democracies breed U.S. allies and dictatorships breed enemies, even though many of the countries with whom we have the greatest tensions and hostilities -- Iran, Venezuela, and now the Palestinian Authority -- have governments which were democratically elected to one degree or another, while some of our closest and strategically most important allies -- Egypt, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, and Jordan -- couldn't be less democratic, and democratic elections in those countries would lead to governments which are infinitely more hostile to U.S. interests than the dictatorships which we prop up.

And the President continuously tells us that this war is unlike all others because we have to win not just militarily, but by winning the "hearts and minds" of Muslims. . . [O]ur abusive interrogation and detention practices (which repulse the moral standards of even by our closest Western allies) continue unabated; and we engage in what are perceived to be reckless, civilian-slaughtering military strikes which do nothing but inflame Muslim sentiment against us.

In sum, while the President continuously says that the most important goal in the "war on terror" is to undermine popular support for terrorists by showing Muslims that we have good intentions, virtually everything we do achieves the opposite result. These policies and their justifications are such a muddled, confused, internally inconsistent mess because they are just made up as they go along. They are political justifications, not thought-out strategic plans, and they shift like the wind whenever political expediency demands it.

If, as Bush claims, the metrics for determining "victory" are (a) the proliferation of democratically elected, pro-U.S. governments in the Middle East and (b) a positive view of the U.S. on the part of Muslims in the Middle East, can anyone contest that, using these metrics, we are doing everything except "winning"?

Dick Cheney, War President

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/11434566/site/newsweek/
[Jonathan Alter] Cheney has simultaneously expanded the power of the vice presidency and reduced its accountability. Because his health made him the first veep since ancient Alben Barkley (under Harry Truman) with no realistic chance of moving up, he felt he could change the rules. . .

George Bush, impostor

http://crookedtimber.org/2006/02/20/impostor/

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2006_02/008259.php

Michael Chertoff, spear catcher

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2006/2/19/125446/118
[SusanG] It's hard work, being completely wrong on two unrelated issues in one Sunday morning appearance, but DHS Director Michael Chertoff managed to pull off this amazing double-header on "Meet the Press" today. . .

Senators get involved over Dubai Ports World

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/02/19/politics/19cnd-port.html
Legislators from both parties continued today to sharply criticize the Bush administration's approval of a recent sale that would give a Dubai company control over shipping facilities at six leading American ports, saying that it raised fundamental security issues. . .

The full story: http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2006/2/19/19320/9920
[Georgia10] What is unquestionably one of the most important decisions about our national security was made by the same cabal that has long ago lost our trust on such matters. The decision was made in secret, without a full investigation and without the input of those who will be most affected by this deal. If this administration has the temerity to invoke 9/11 at every press conference and speech, then let it show us that why we can feel trust a foreign government to prevent another such attack.

The debate over the legality of domestic spying (Is there a debate about its legality? Not in my mind) – now you can know more about it than anyone on your block

http://glenngreenwald.blogspot.com/2006/02/nsa-legal-arguments.html

Pat Roberts (R-KS) gets a well-deserved ass-whuppin’ (thanks to Laura Rozen for the links)

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-ed-nsa19feb19,0,5503861.story
[LAT] THAT THE UNITED STATES Senate has a body called the Intelligence Committee is an irony George Orwell would have truly appreciated. In a world without Doublespeak, the panel, chaired by GOP Sen. Pat Roberts of Kansas, would be known by a more appropriate name — the Senate Coverup Committee.

Although the committee is officially charged with overseeing the nation's intelligence-gathering operations, its real function in recent years has been to prevent the public from getting hold of any meaningful information about the Bush administration. Hence its never-ending delays of the probe into the bogus weapons intelligence used to justify the invasion of Iraq. And its squelching, on Thursday, of an expected investigation into the administration's warrantless spying program. . .

Roberts justified his committee's cave by saying the White House had committed itself to working with senators to pursue legislation on the matter. Translation: Bush won't accept any curbs on his power whatsoever, but he'd be happy to see a bill legalizing his wiretaps. . .

http://www.warandpiece.com/blogdirs/003687.html
[Wichita Eagle] From Abu Ghraib abuses to secret CIA detainee prisons to the Valerie Plame affair, critics say, Roberts has become a dependable shill for the White House, ever ready to shield Bush policy from criticism and ever willing to compromise Congress' legitimate oversight role. . .

For those who believed that Sam Alito was a thug playing Nice Guy, until he could get approval to the Supreme Court, his true colors emerge

http://talkleft.com/new_archives/014063.html
[Jeralyn Merritt] A Supreme Court Justice's law clerk has the potential to influence some of the Court's written opinions. Justice Alito is catching criticism for hiring Adam Ciongoli, "a former top aide to Attorney General John Ashcroft and an architect of the Bush administration's legal strategy after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, to be one of his law clerks." Here's one example: "It really indicates a lapse in judgment," Deborah L. Rhode, who teaches legal ethics at Stanford, said of Justice Alito's decision. "I just don't think it helps your reputation for nonpartisanship, particularly after such partisan confirmation hearings, to start out by hiring someone who is perceived to have an ideological agenda.". . .

For those who believe Karl Rove is a thug, period (thanks to Buzzflash for the link)

http://www.arkansasnews.com/archive/2006/02/18/JohnBrummett/334246.html
He is an operative, not an orator. The objective in listening to him was to wade through the absence of engaging intonation in search of signals for the midterm elections.

For example, Rove defended the National Security Agency's warrantless wiretapping of domestic phone conversations by saying The New York Times had reported the wiretapping and, in so doing, alerted our terrorist enemies to what we were doing.

"I hope they got a big circulation boost," Rove said so matter-of-factly that you almost missed that the president's top political aide had just implied that the nation's greatest newspaper was aiding the nation's evil enemy for business gain. . .

Rove surely had figured out that much of the nation finds the Washington press corps' badgering about Dick Cheney's hunting accident overdone. Already you'd heard the White House hint that the elite East Coast press was simply jealous that the Corpus Christi Caller-Times got the scoop. . .

The signal is that Rove intends for Republicans to run against the press, much as Orval Faubus once railed in the hinterlands against the Arkansas Gazette, and much as Spiro Agnew once spewed William Safire's words to assail the nattering nabobs of negativity for Richard Nixon.

Hey, women can be thugs too! Mary Matalin, in full drag-queen attire, lies and attacks her way through “Meet the Press” in trying to change the subject about Cheney, the shooting, and the initial effort to paint Harry Whittington as the cause of his own injury. It was only after that trial balloon sank like lead that the “stand-up guy who takes responsibility for his actions” motif took over – three days later!

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2006_02_19.php#007710
[Josh Marshall] Even if Dick Cheney is blameless in this matter in any deep moral sense, let's not forget that his immediate reaction was to send out his surrogates to publicly blame what happened on the victim. . .

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/007711.php
[Josh Marshall] On Meet the Press today Mary Matalin claimed that Vice President Cheney never sent surrogates out to blame Harry Whittington for last weekend's hunting accident . .

The media get snookered (again): http://mediamatters.org/items/200602160011

http://atrios.blogspot.com/2006_02_19_atrios_archive.html#114039004023300408
[Atrios] When people lie to you that obviously and blatantly. . .

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2006_02_19_digbysblog_archive.html#114038714469776289
[Digby] You really have to wonder who is ever going to be dumb enough to ever hire Mary Matalin again? This shooting mess was clearly her deal and she couldn't have f-cked it up worse than she did. She couldn't handle her client and she's still out there spinning like a top --- and badly --- when she should just shut the hell up. What a fun, fun day it was on Press the Meat. . .

http://jameswolcott.com/archives/2006/02/mary_quite_cont.php
[James Wolcott] I only caught the bitter end of Meet the Press so I'm not sure what provoked Mary Matalin's pout-fest (I'm sure Arianna will issue a full forensics report later), but she made quite a petulant spectacle of herself, shaking her head from side to side in silent, lemon-puss disagreement whenever Maureen Dowd and David Gregory made mildly critical comments about Shotgun Cheney. (Another prominent deployer of The Disapproving Headshake is sister conservative Kate O'Beirne, who wields it to upstage other panelists and ensure herself additional face-time: after her reaction shot, the host invariably calls on her next to vocalize her mute dissent. "Kate, I noticed you nodding your head..."--as if anyone could not notice!) Even without the immature pouting and pissy expression, Matalin would have been a car wreck in repose: With a bad haircut topping a mistaken facelift and a ghastly floral pin that looked like spray-painted aluminum, she looked like the Beltway's Madwoman of Chaillot. . .

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/arianna-huffington/russert-watch-the-mary-m_b_15990.html
[Arianna: well, just read it all]

Watch: http://www.crooksandliars.com/2006/02/19.html#a7215

http://www.crooksandliars.com/2006/02/19.html#a7220

Bonus item: (It’s a joke – I think)

http://www.borowitzreport.com/archive_rpt.asp?rec=1324&srch
HALLIBURTON WINS CONTRACT TO RECONSTRUCT CHENEY’S REPUTATION
At $42 Billion, Largest Contract of its Kind, Company Says

***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 @ 6:24 AM

 
FULL OF HOLES

I have received a couple of “What About Vince Foster?” responses to the Cheney hunting scandal. Let’s recap: No one has hinted that Cheney shot Whittington on purpose. Of course it was an accident. But there are legitimate questions about whether this accident was caused by carelessness, not following the basic rules of gun safety, and/or alcohol. By his own account, Cheney shot in a direction that was not within the "safety zone" every hunter keeps within their field of vision, spinning around and shooting back in the direction of his own hunting party, with the sun in his eyes. He had consumed alcohol earlier in the day, interacting with god knows how many medications he is taking for his heart and other health problems. This is all according to his own account. So he "accidentally" shot someone, and almost killed him. That doesn’t mean he isn’t at fault.

The police "investigation" was incompetent. They admitted that they basically took everyone's word for what happened, they didn't do a blood alcohol test, and they didn't question key people -- most of all, Cheney himself right after it happened. These are all facts in the open press.

Okay, let’s look at Vince Foster (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vince_Foster). Ken Starr – no friend of the Clintons – concluded that Foster’s death was definitely a suicide. Yet you had a couple of major media outlets, including the Wall Street Journal, and others part of the great Scaife disinformation web, continually hinting that the Clintons (including his “former lover” Hillary) had him murdered. The conspiracy machine ground week after week with unsubstantiated, sensationalistic claims. So where is the parallel? The parallel would be if newspapers and commentators were spinning the idea that Cheney TRIED to shoot Whittington, despite any evidence to that effect. Yet in fact what we have seen is that, after a few days, the media has utterly lost interest in one of the most remarkable events in American history: the Vice-President shot and almost killed a man

The AP reminds us that Cheney’s story has more holes in it than. . .[insert joke here]

http://makeashorterlink.com/?N15E26AAC

More: http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/6654.html

“Criminal negligence” (thanks to Buzzflash for the link)

http://www.pensitoreview.com/2006/02/18/cheney-could-have-been-charged-with-criminal-negligence/

What “taking responsibility” means

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2006/feb2006/chen-f18.shtml

JUST BREAKING

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1161179,00.html
But last week George W. Bush's concerns included what was going on in an office down the hall, where Vice President Dick Cheney had been lying low since shooting his friend Harry Whittington in a late afternoon quail hunt in Texas over the weekend. Not just the communications pros and the commentariat but Bush too understood that Cheney needed to get out there and tell his story, but the Vice President was still resisting. Until Cheney said something, Bush couldn't talk to reporters either. . . Whatever Cheney's reasons, his reticence was frustrating the President, said an official involved in deliberations between the two. Yet even now, Bush made a very soft sell to the partner to whom he often defers. . . Bush and Cheney had a quiet talk. . . .

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1161178,00.html
According to Cheney, Katharine Armstrong suggested—and he agreed—that she be the one to make the incident public. . . Armstrong is also a well-connected G.O.P. lobbyist, and she doubtless wanted to help shape the story. It was decided that she would approach Jaime Powell, a reporter she knew at the Corpus Christi Caller-Times. But why wait until the next morning to call? Cheney later said his first concern was ensuring that Whittington's children were notified about the accident and getting accurate information about his condition. . .

At about 8 a.m. Sunday, a Cheney aide called strategist Mary Matalin, who regularly advises the Vice President. The aide read her a statement about the accident that Cheney had considered releasing before he decided to encourage Armstrong to go to the Caller-Times. But the statement "didn't say much of anything," Matalin says—not even that Cheney was the shooter. . .

[NB: OK, now I'm going to engage in wild and irresponsible speculation. One of the key issues is why Cheney waited so long to reveal the story to the press. I believe that the delay was due to one key factor: they were waiting to see if Whittington would survive. If he had died, I believe that Cheney would have tried to use the full apparatus of government secrecy to cover over the accident with tons of concrete. Once they knew he was likely to survive, Armstrong was allowed (the next day) to contact the press. But they were fully prepared, up to that point, not to let the fact that Cheney had shot someone to come out at all. Would Bush's people have allowed him to try to do that? It would have been interesting to watch]

The Decline and Fall of Vice Presidential Power

http://www.warandpiece.com/blogdirs/003684.html
[Newsweek] Cheney unquestionably exerted enormous influence on Bush in those early days. But Bush's aides say that the president has become less dependent on Cheney for advice, particularly in foreign affairs. The two men still have private lunches, but no longer every week. There are signs now that Bush listens to more-moderate voices on national security. On a range of foreign-policy crises, from Iran to North Korea, Cheney's forward-leaning posture has given way to the mainstream, multilateralist approach advocated now by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.

It was possible to dimly discern Cheney's shakier footing last week in the ongoing dispute with Capitol Hill over warrant-less eavesdropping. Uneasy about the administration's disregard for the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which requires court warrants to eavesdrop on communications into the United States, three Republicans on the Senate intelligence committee were agitating for greater oversight. Cheney, who has been the most aggressive defender of the administration's power to wage war (including spying) without congressional approval, went up to the Hill to quell the rebellion. For several hours on Tuesday, he met behind closed doors in the intelligence committee's secret hearing room with the senators. Two days later intelligence committee chairman Pat Roberts, a staunch Bush ally, was able to put off a vote on whether to open an investigation.

It appeared that Cheney, though pale and obviously distressed by his hunting accident, was still capable of quietly exerting influence. But then Roberts began showing some restlessness. He began suggesting that perhaps the wiretapping program should be brought under FISA after all. His remarks came after the White House seemed to soften a little and suggest that it would be willing to disclose more information about the program and talk to senators about changing the law. Suddenly, Cheney no longer seemed so all-powerful, so sure of getting his way.

More: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/11436302/site/newsweek/

[NB: Whether this account is true or not, I see Karl Rove’s hand behind it – creating more distance between Cheney and Bush, just in case Cheney goes down]

The Bush gang’s wobbly commitment to “democracy”

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2006/2/18/233440/643

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2006/2/18/175017/992

The Goofus Files (Iraq war edition)

http://www.crooksandliars.com/stories/2006/02/18/presidentialIncoherence.html

Fact check: http://rawstory.com/news/2005/Dem._Sen._fact_checks_President_Bushs_0217.html

“Thank you, President Bush”

http://www.needlenose.com/node/view/2661
[LAT] The Islamic government in neighboring Iran watched with trepidation in March 2003 when U.S.-led troops stormed Iraq to overthrow Saddam Hussein's regime and start remaking the political map of the Mideast.

In retrospect, the Islamic Republic could have celebrated: The war has left America's longtime nemesis with profound influence in the new Iraq and pushed it to the apex of power in the region. . .

Republican sues Bush gang over illegal wiretapping (thanks to Buzzflash for the link)

http://newsblaze.com/story/20060217114414nnnn.nb/newsblaze/TOPSTORY/Top-Story.html

Pat Roberts keeps “clarifying” what his stance on illegal wiretapping is

http://talkleft.com/new_archives/014057.html
[TChris] Yesterday the NY Times reported that Roberts isn't sure exactly how to reform FISA, but believes that NSA spying requests should still "come before the FISA court." That isn't what the White House thinks, so the Senate Intelligence Committee's majority staff director, Bill Duhnke, had to tell the Times that its reporting "didn't reflect 'the tenor and status' of the negotiations between Congress and the White House." Duhnke assured the press today that Roberts is open to allowing the administration to continue bypassing the FISA court, while preferring that "the entire (intelligence) committee be briefed and involved in oversight issues." In other words, business as usual, with perhaps a few more senators hearing classified information that they won't be able to share with the public. This is oversight?

A GOP glossary (thanks to Mark Kleiman)

http://www.samefacts.com/archives/lying_in_politics_/2006/02/entries_from_the_republicanenglish_dictionary.php

http://www.samefacts.com/archives/the_wayward_press_/2006/02/how_deep_in_the_tank_is_brit_hume.php
[Brit Hume] There have been two leaks, one that pertained to possible facilities in Europe. . .

[NB: As Mark points out, the reference is to the Bush gang’s secret detention and torture sites overseas]

You wait and see: the Bush health care plan is going to be almost as big a fiasco as his Social Security plan – and six months from now we won’t be hearing a thing about it

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/02/19/politics/19older.html

How the Democrats keep losing

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2006/2/18/152354/780
[Georgia10] Currently, the Democratic members of Congress are drifting about discombobulated from their core. A centralized mission and focus is admittedly lacking; it's not just a right-wing myth. What is a right-wing myth is that this lack of mission comes from a deficiency of ideas. That simply is not true. Democrats have innovative proposals for education,health care, national security, and more. But these are bills primarily introduced by individuals, with a handful of co-sponsors. They get introduced, and then are referred to committee where brilliant Democratic ideas languish and die a slow, bureaucratic death. . .

More: http://www.mydd.com/story/2006/2/18/10436/7037

The Duke

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/007709.php

http://atrios.blogspot.com/2006_02_12_atrios_archive.html#114028009050409458
[Cunningham] wasn't just a corrupt congressman taking bribes. He was taking bribes for defense contracts during war. He was cheating our military, our government, and the taxpayers. He illegally profited on the war.

Abramoff on Bush (thanks to Buzzflash for the link)

http://www.washingtonian.com/inwashington/buzz/2006/abramoffpictures1.html
A frustrated Abramoff, who feels he has been abandoned by many of his conservative friends, added, “They will come up with excuse after excuse as to how and why he did not know me. I could have spent four months alone with him in Bolivia and he would not know me.”

Now that the heat is off, the GOP loses its passion for “reform” (oh, really?)

http://www.mydd.com/story/2006/2/18/235452/448
At the time of the leadership election, House Rules Committee Chairman David Dreier was drawing up a new set of tougher regulations relating to lobbying -- at least in terms of rhetoric -- at the behest of House Speaker Denny Hastert. But The Washington Post's Jeffrey Birnbaum, who has been covering lobbying and business for decades, writes in Sunday's paper that even the rather toothless reforms championed by Dreier and Hastert appear to be going by the wayside as a result of John Boehner's election as Majority Leader. . .

More: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/02/18/AR2006021801060.html

Theocracy watch

http://firedoglake.blogspot.com/2006_02_12_firedoglake_archive.html#114027405064562022
[ReddHedd] Just when religious leaders around the nation thought it was safe to trust their membership, the Republican Party apparatus is asking them...again...to swipe membership directories from their churches. . .

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/6656.html
[Steve Benen] Churches aren't exactly happy about the idea. The Rev. Richard Byrd Jr. of Cornerstone Baptist Church in Greensboro said anyone who sent in a directory "would be betraying the trust of the membership," and the Rev. Ken Massey of the city's First Baptist Church said the request was "encroaching on sacred territory." . .

http://majikthise.typepad.com/majikthise_/2006/02/turnabout_is_fa.html
[Iocaste] Inside the flagship lab of the National Center of Atmospheric Research, a dozen home-schooled children and their parents walk past the offices of scientists grappling with topics from global warming and microphysics to solar storms and the electrical fields of lightning. . . They are trailing Rusty Carter, a guide with Biblically Correct Tours. . .

“Political religion” (today’s must-read)

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2006_02_12_digbysblog_archive.html#114027531212392066

The end of “public education” in New Orleans (thanks to Scout Prime for the link)

http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2006/02/13/n_o_schools/

Sunday talk show line-ups

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/02/18/AR2006021801058.html
FOX NEWS SUNDAY: Sens. Evan Bayh (D-Ind.) and Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.); Ford's Theatre director Paul Tetreault and former senator Alan K. Simpson (R-Wyo.).

THIS WEEK (ABC): Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff , Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman (D-Conn.), Rep. Thomas M. Davis III (R-Va.) and Miami Heat player Shaquille O'Neal.

MEET THE PRESS (NBC): Chertoff.

FACE THE NATION (CBS): Sens. Bill Frist (R-Tenn.) and Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.).

LATE EDITION (CNN): Sen. Saxby Chambliss (R-Ga.), Rep. Jane Harman (D-Calif.), British Ambassador David Manning , German Ambassador Wolfgang Ischinger , French Ambassador Jean-David Levitte , retired Army Maj. Gen. Paul Eaton , who was commander of Iraqi troop training, and Chertoff.

Blogs and progressive politics

http://crookedtimber.org/2006/02/18/blogs-and-progressive-politics/

Bonus item: More apologies

http://billmon.org/archives/002359.html
[Billmon] The lawyer shot by Vice President Dick Cheney left a Texas hospital Friday, saying "accidents do and will happen" and adding that he was "deeply sorry" for allowing his face to get in the way of Cheney's gun.

"I clearly obstructed a very good shot by the vice president, one which might easily have bagged several pen-raised quail if my upper torso and head hadn't absorbed most of the blast," Whittington explained. "I only hope he can find it in his heart to forgive me for not getting out of the way faster when he whirled and fired without warning."

Whittington added that that he has offered to reimburse the vice president for the full cost of the hunting trip, including the wasted birdshot.

A spokesman for Mr. Cheney declined to comment, saying the vice president first wants to see what kind of money Whittington is willing to put on the table.

http://www.needlenose.com/node/view/2662
[Swopa] Saddam Apologizes to Bush Administration for Lack of WMD
Former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein today apologized for the criticism President Bush and others in his administration have had to endure over not finding any weapons of mass destruction following the U.S. invasion of his country. Hussein, 68, said, "The Americans' intelligence capabilities and spy satellites are the most advanced in the world. If they thought I had weapons of mass destruction, I probably should have had them."

Hurricane Victims Apologize to FEMA's Brown
Homeless ex-residents of New Orleans, along with the relatives of deceased victims of Hurricane Katrina, today apologized for the embarrassment former FEMA administrator Michael Brown and his superior, Department of Homeland Security secretary Michael Chertoff, have had to endure since the devastating storm struck the Gulf Coast. A statement they released said, "Every president has the right to appoint political cronies to powerful positions, regardless of competence. In the rare case where this leads to the needless death and misery of thousands of Americans, the appointees' bad luck should not be held against them."

Outed CIA Agent Apologizes to Libby, Rove
Former undercover CIA official Valerie Plame Wilson today apologized for the grand jury investigation top Bush administration officials have had to endure since her exposure in a July 14, 2003 column by Robert Novak. Plame, 42, said, "Smearing political opponents like my husband is an art to which Scooter Libby and Karl Rove have given their lives. If I hadn't been covert, none of this legal scrutiny would have happened. My bad."

***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 @ 8:05 AM

 
SOMETIMES YOU JUST SHAKE YOUR HEAD. . .

This is so wrong: man shot by Cheney apologizes TO HIM:

http://www.cnn.com/2006/POLITICS/02/17/cheney/index.html
"My family and I are deeply sorry for all that Vice President Cheney and his family have had to go through this week," Whittington said. . .

[NB: Whose family had to watch their loved one in Intensive Care for nearly a week? Whose family had to watch someone who could have died from a heart attack after being shot by a careless friend? “Gee, I’m so sorry my face got in the way of your buckshot”?]

More: http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2006_02_12.php#007707

Well, it’s official: the media declares this story “over”. . .

http://mediamatters.org/items/200602170012

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/6643.html

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/6650.html

. . . despite a remarkably shoddy and incomplete “investigation”. . .

http://politicalwire.com/archives/2006/02/17/shooting_report_is_wrong.html
"In the only publicly available, official report on last weekend's accidental shooting by Vice President Dick Cheney, a diagram of a body shows where Austin lawyer Harry Whittington was hit by pellets fired from Cheney's Italian-made shotgun... The only problem is that the diagram is wrong, by all accounts," Newsday reports.

http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room/2006/02/17/cheney/index.html
[Tim Grieve] The sheriff's department's report corroborates the account given by Cheney and Armstrong because it is the account given by Cheney and Armstrong. If their report is any indication, the deputies reached their conclusions based entirely on statements from members -- well, some members -- of the Cheney-Armstrong hunting party. . . If the deputies took statements from the Secret Service agents who must have been nearby when the shooting happened, if they talked to anyone involved in serving lunch and beer to the hunting party, if they asked Whittington's doctors about his blood-alcohol level, if they asked Cheney's doctors about the possibility that even a small amount of alcohol, when mixed with the "long list" of medication he takes, might have impaired his shooting abilities -- well, if they did any of that, it's not reflected in the report that "corroborates" the Cheney-Armstrong account.

. . .and a “tell-all” interview by Cheney that raised more questions than it answered

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/blog/2006/02/16/BL2006021601183.html

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/blog/2006/02/17/BL2006021700610.html

Chuck Hagel (R-NE) takes a shot

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/6649.html
Referring to Cheney's repeated draft deferrals during the Vietnam War, Hagel said, "If he'd been in the military, he would have learned gun safety."

Just breaking this morning: handwritten notes from meeting with Rumsfeld (ON Sept 11, 2001) show that the attack was being set-up as an excuse to go after Iraq from the very first moments after the buildings fell

http://www.thewashingtonnote.com/archives/001256.php
“Judge whether hit S.H. (Saddam Hussein) @ same time -- Not only UBL (Osama bin Laden)”. . . [more]

Pat Roberts (R-KS) may be staking out a position in defiance of Bush’s claim to unbridled eavesdropping authority

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/02/18/politics/18nsa.html

http://www.warandpiece.com/blogdirs/003676.html

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2006_02/008251.php

Context: http://glenngreenwald.blogspot.com/2006/02/posting-today_18.html

On the political dimensions of the NSA spying story: things may not be over yet

http://glenngreenwald.blogspot.com/2006/02/long-hard-slog_17.html

George Will comes out against Bush’s illegal spying, wingnuts’ heads explode

http://glenngreenwald.blogspot.com/2006/02/erasing-cold-war-from-history.html

What a weird world the Bush gang has wrought: who is in charge of port security in New York?

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2006/2/17/104325/112

They were against it before they were for it

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2006/2/17/181454/740
[McJoan] [Before] Justice Department lawyers concluded that the landmark Texas congressional redistricting plan spearheaded by Rep. Tom DeLay (R) violated the Voting Rights Act. . .

[After] The White House requested the Supreme Court to allow them to join Texas in defending the redistricting plan before the court, and that request was granted today. . .

Lowest military pay raise in 12 years (that’ll get recruitment numbers up)

http://blog.thedemocraticdaily.com/?p=1968

Nice

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2006_02_12.php#007705
[Roll Call] "The Department of Justice has instructed the Senate Ethics Committee to steer clear of any investigations into actions involving ex-lobbyist Jack Abramoff, warning the panel it has “concerns” that any such probes could interfere with its long-running investigation."

[NB: I think the LAST thing they need to worry about is an over-aggressive Ethics Committee investigation -- but I like that word, "instructed"]

In Iraq, things fall apart (with U.S help?)

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/02/18/international/middleeast/18sectarian.html

http://www.needlenose.com/node/view/2656

Why the Bush gang’s trumpeting of “democracy” as the fix-all for the Middle East is foolish and naïve

http://www.prospect.org/weblog/archives/2006/02/index.html#009197

More: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/02/16/AR2006021601576.html

Libby’s “greymail” defense

http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room/2006/02/17/libby/index.html

Circumstances keep pointing to involvement of Abramoff’s partner in a “gangland style” hit in Florida

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2006_02_12.php#007702

More on Ann Coulter’s illegal vote

http://atrios.blogspot.com/2006_02_12_atrios_archive.html#114019502677365229
"I even ran out after her," he says. "But she was fast."

Unreliable voting machines yield suspicious results in Maryland

http://susiemadrak.com/2006/02/17/07/24/uh-huh-3/

From a reader, a look back: The fascinating story of (new Pope) Joseph Ratzinger’s role in lining up the Catholic Church against John Kerry

http://www.newsmax.com/archives/articles/2004/7/6/152916.shtml

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/003065.php

And from the same reader: Joe Lieberman’s links to long-time Republican lobbyists who are helping his re-election campaign

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2006/2/12/121614/948

One of them is Craig Fuller. From the same loyal reader:

What Novak leaves out, though, is some interesting information that can be found in the book "Toxic Sludge Is Good For You", that explains how lies and deceptions from the PR firm Hill & Knowlton helped to pave the way for the first Gulf War. It turns out Craig Fuller. . . coordinate[d] the Hill & Knowlton PR campaign (on behalf of the Kuwaiti royal family, who were clients of Hill & Knowlton) for initiating the first Gulf War. This was the campaign that produced the fake "Congressional Hearing" (it wasn't an actual Congressional Hearing, and witnesses weren't sworn in, but many people mistook it for a real Congressional Hearing) where a young woman pretended to have been a nurse at a Kuwaiti Hospital and claimed to have seen Iraqi soldiers remove Kuwaiti infants from respirators and put them on the cold hospital floors to die, so that the Iraqis could supposedly ship the respirators back to Iraq. (The young woman was later found out to be the daughter of the Kuwaiti ambassador, and had no connection with the hospital in question.) Yes, Craig Fuller was in charge of the division of Hill & Knowlton that created the propaganda (which also included Video News Releases) for the first Gulf War and he's now organizing a fund-raiser for Joe Lieberman. . .

More: http://www.prwatch.org/books/tsigfy10.html

And the same reader has been very busy: the Bush admin is apparently investigating a VA nurse who wrote a critical letter to the editor for SEDITION

http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1001995631

More (lots more) on James Nicholson – hey, it’s Saturday!

http://www.dailyhowler.com/h070299_1.shtml

http://www.dailyhowler.com/h080699_1.shtml

http://www.dailyhowler.com/h050399_1.shtml

http://www.dailyhowler.com/h042999_1.shtml

http://www.dailyhowler.com/h080499_1.shtml

http://www.dailyhowler.com/h063099_1.shtml

http://www.dailyhowler.com/dh120302.shtml

http://www.dailyhowler.com/dh101902.shtml

Bonus item: Our hate, and their hate. . .

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2006_02_12_digbysblog_archive.html#114023127299304298

***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

 
WHO’S RESPONSIBLE?

Well, we’re at another of those wearying moments where we have to watch the press decide whether they’re going to back off a major scandal (“Hey, Cheney ‘took responsibility’ – the story’s over”), or take offense at the utter contempt with which this administration treats them and the public’s right to know.

Let’s start with this (and it tells you everything you need to know about how seriously Fox News takes its journalistic responsibilities): Cheney’s admission that he had been drinking earlier in the day of the hunt – clearly important news and a central point of controversy in the story – is CUT from the televised portion of the interview!

http://mediamatters.org/items/200602160003
Vice President Dick Cheney's decision to grant an exclusive interview to Fox News anchor Brit Hume apparently paid off, as Hume neglected to ask obvious questions and Fox News curiously decided not to broadcast Cheney's acknowledgment that he drank a beer before accidentally shooting a hunting companion in the face.

Cheney's acknowledgment that he consumed alcohol was one of the most significant new revelations of the interview, and -- though Cheney said he had only one beer, hours before the shooting -- raises new questions about the decision by the sheriff of Kenedy County, Texas, where the shooting took place, not to interview Cheney until the morning after the shooting. Yet Fox News chose not to broadcast Cheney's acknowledgment; instead, Hume paraphrased it in setting up the interview, thus sparing Cheney the embarrassment of the public seeing him acknowledge that he was drinking before he shot a man in the face -- and depriving the public of the opportunity to assess his credibility as he talked about the matter.

. . . Fox's website urged readers to "Click here to watch Brit Hume's full interview with Vice President Cheney". . . Yet despite the promise of the "full interview," the streaming video Fox News posted also excluded Cheney's comments about drinking.

http://americablog.blogspot.com/2006/02/what-did-cheney-drink-and-when-did-he.html
[John Aravosis] The White House continues to stonewall on the issue, today refusing to answer any questions at all about growing discrepancies between what the Vice President's surrogates initially claimed, and what the evidence now reveals - that Cheney was in fact drinking before the accident.

What was Cheney's blood alcohol level when he shot Harry Whittington in the face? And if the authorities don't know, why don't they know? The latest news reports suggest that the police didn't even try to interview Cheney until the day after the shooting - a time by when all alcohol would have left his system - and even then, Cheney's entourage turned the police away (imagine you pulling that one on the police after having shot someone - I'm sorry officer, come back another time). Why didn't the police come the night before? Did the fact that Cheney was drinking have anything to do with it? . . . Is Cheney, who recently had blood clots, on no medication that might prove problematic with even one glass of alcohol?

And what about the victim, Whittington? What were his blood alcohol levels? Certainly if he was toasted that would at least rebut the repeated line we've been given that there was no alcohol in sight. The man was rushed to intensive care, you have think they tested his blood for everything, including alcohol. So why isn't the White House releasing that data?. . .

http://thinkprogress.org/2006/02/16/mcclellan-alcohol/
Whittington’s doctors said again that they had “no comment” about whether blood tests have revealed any alcohol in his blood.

Out-Foxed: http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2006/2/16/13513/5012

“Just one beer, Your Honor”

http://www.prospect.org/weblog/archives/2006/02/index.html#009183
[Matt Yglesias] This sounds like a lie. Cheney is the kind of man who goes on national television and lies to the American people on a fairly regular basis.

More: http://www.samefacts.com/archives/_/2006/02/least_hypothesis.php

The Cretan’s Paradox

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2006_02_12.php#007697
[Kevin Drum] Finally, Hume suggested that since this was obviously a national story, Cheney should have informed the national press and gotten the word out sooner. Cheney's reply: "It isn't easy to do that. Are they going to take my word for what happened?" . . . Seriously? Cheney's story is that his own credibility is so poor that a statement from him would have been worthless? Is he really going to stick to that as his explanation?

[Josh Marshall] That's great. It's the Cheney-patented self-reinforcing cycle of bamboozlement and mendacity. I've covered up so many things that no one trusts me. So you can hardly expect me to start coming clean now, right?

Will the press force some answers to the gaps and discrepancies in Cheney and Armstrong’s accounts?

http://www.prospect.org/weblog/archives/2006/02/index.html#009189

http://www.first-draft.com//modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=5272

http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room/2006/02/16/cheney/index.html

Why there wasn’t a proper investigation in the first place

http://www.first-draft.com//modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=5266
"We've known these people (witnesses) for years. They are honest and wouldn't call us, telling us a lie," [Sheriff Ramon Salinas III] said. "I talked to an eyewitness who said it was a definite accident. We knew Mr. Whittington was being cared for."

[Holden] Hell, rich Republican lobbyist Katharine Armstrong is good people. She even hired former sheriff Ramiro Medellin Jr. as a ranchhand and let him live on the ranch!

Will the investigation be re-opened now?

http://www.first-draft.com//modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=5265

http://politicalwire.com/archives/2006/02/16/investigation_reopened_on_cheney_shooting.html
"Kenedy County sheriff's deputies have redoubled their efforts to investigate the case after criticism of their decision not to interview witnesses until a day after the shooting."

That was quick . . . case closed

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/02/16/AR2006021601454.html
The sheriff's department responsible for investigating Vice President Cheney's shooting of a Texas lawyer has closed its investigation and decided no criminal charges are warranted. . . "Mr. Whittington did speak of the incident and explained foremost that there was no alcohol during the hunt. . .“

Hospital officials have declined to say whether Whittington was given a blood alcohol test when he was admitted. . .

And where IS Pamela Willeford?

http://firedoglake.blogspot.com/2006_02_12_firedoglake_archive.html#114012964736549980

On Cheney’s astounding claim to have unilateral authority to declassify govt secrets

The legal precedent: http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2006/2/16/104857/925
[Georgia10] CURRENT CLASSIFICATION AUTHORITY UNDER EXECUTIVE ORDER 13292 (signed March 2003)

Now, let's examine the current policy in the Bush administration with respect to classified information:

Sec. 1.3. Classification Authority. (a) The authority to classify information originally may be exercised only by: (1) the President and, in the performance of executive duties, the Vice President;

This section deals with classification authority. Does it include declassification as well? If the President and Vice-President have the discretion to unilaterally classify information, would it not follow that they have the discretion to unilaterally declassify it?

Part 3 of the order deals with declassification. Plame's identity and occupation were classified and should have remained classified. But, Cheney may have an escape route in this section:

3.1(b) It is presumed that information that continues to meet the classification requirements under this order requires continued protection. In some exceptional cases, however, the need to protect such information may be outweighed by the public interest in disclosure of the information, and in these cases the information should be declassified. When such questions arise, they shall be referred to the agency head or the senior agency official. That official will determine, as an exercise of discretion, whether the public interest in disclosure outweighs the damage to the national security that might reasonably be expected from disclosure.

How do we know Cheney will cling to this provision for dear life if his authority to declassify is indeed challenged? Because this has been his office's defense since Day 1. Notice that the standard is "public interest in the disclosure of information." An extremely broad standard which provides more than enough wiggle room for Cheney to claim he authorized the leaking of Plame's identity and name to "set the record straight" and minimize the damage Wilson was doing to the case for war. Note that this section of the Executive Order does not speak to motive. I'd also note that particular section is not new but was first enacted under President Clinton in Executive Order 12356, signed in 1995.

[Josh Marshall: Basically, Cheney is claiming that if Cheney decides to leak it, then by definition, it's not classified. Sort of like daubing holy water over the information in question. http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2006_02_12.php#007694]

Up until this point, it looks like Cheney is in the clear, at least legally speaking. But let's examine another section pertaining to declassification, Sec. 4.1. General Restrictions on Access:

4.1(c) Classified information shall remain under the control of the originating agency or its successor in function. An agency shall not disclose information originally classified by another agency without its authorization. An official or employee leaving agency service may not remove classified information from the agency's control.

It reads that "an agency" shall not disclose information without authorization. Does "an agency" include the Vice-President of the United States? Yep. . . So, if we accept that "entity" includes individual entities like the Vice-President, it looks like Cheney should have asked permission from the "originating agency" (the CIA) before authorizing Libby to leak. Also, it may be that Cheney's declassification--even if it was consistent with this order--should have gone through the mandatory declassification review in Section 3.5(a).

. . . Prior to March 25, 2003, the authority to unilaterally classify and perhaps declassify info was vested solely in the President. However, with Executive Order 13292, President Bush greatly expanded Vice-Presidential power. He changed many sections throughout his original order, each time granting Cheney the authority to exercise the same power as the President. Basically, any time the order stated that the President had authority to do something (which, as explained above, that authority is derived from the Constitution), Bush tacked on the phrase "and in the performance of executive duties, the Vice President". Bush essentially then delegated that Constitutional authority granted solely to him as Commander-in-Chief to the Vice-President of the United States. . . [read on]

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2006_02_12.php#007698
[Josh Marshall] But the gist is that the president delegated what would appear to be all his powers to classify information. That in itself is a stunning aggrandizement of power for the vice president, who historically (and constitutionally) has very little de jure power. And given his penchant for government secrecy, it's little surprise that Cheney would press to have such power. . .

More legal analysis: http://www.liberaloasis.com/archives/021206.htm#021606

http://www.first-draft.com//modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=5267

http://www.fas.org/blog/secrecy/2006/02/the_vice_presidents_declassifi.html

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2006_02_12.php#007699

http://www.thewashingtonnote.com/archives/001253.php

Oh-oh

http://susiemadrak.com/2006/02/16/18/53/comic-relief/
Sec. 1.7. Classification Prohibitions and Limitations. (a) In no case shall information be classified in order to:

(1) conceal violations of law, inefficiency, or administrative error;

(2) prevent embarrassment to a person, organization, or agency;

(3) restrain competition; or

(4) prevent or delay the release of information that does not require protection in the interest of the national security.

A name you need to know: David Addington

http://www.thewashingtonnote.com/archives/001254.php

Pat Roberts (R-KS), chair of the Intelligence Committee, claims to have reached an agreement with the Bush administration to “fix” the FISA law (what, you think VOTES would be necessary?), and declares the need for an investigation to be over

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060216/ap_on_go_co/eavesdropping_4

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/02/16/politics/16cnd-nsa.html

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-spying17feb17,0,5180017.story

http://americablog.blogspot.com/2006/02/gop-intelligence-committee-chair.html
[John Aravosis] That's nice. Imagine a country where the government can routinely violate federal law by spying on its own innocent citizens, and when it gets caught, it simply "fixes" the law. That means, it changes the law in order to make the illegal behavior legal.

http://www.slate.com/id/2136553
[Eric Umansky] The Los Angeles Times leads with the Republican-controlled Senate Intel Committee turnings its back on a proposed investigation of the warrantless snooping. The investigation once had bipartisan support. The move to kill it came after heavy lobbying by the White House and a vague promise to give Congress more oversight. The administration, in another sign of its munificence, also suggested it's willing to support Republican legislation that would exempt the snooping from the FISA law it's in apparent violation of.

More: http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2006/2/16/16542/1175

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/02/17/opinion/17fri1.html
[NYT] Is there any aspect of President Bush's miserable record on intelligence that Senator Pat Roberts, chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, is not willing to excuse and help to cover up?

For more than a year, Mr. Roberts has been dragging out an investigation into why Mr. Bush presented old, dubious and just plain wrong intelligence on Iraq as solid new proof that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction and was in league with Al Qaeda. It was supposed to start after the 2004 election, but Mr. Roberts was letting it die of neglect until the Democrats protested by forcing the Senate into an unusual closed session last November.

Now Mr. Roberts is trying to stop an investigation into Mr. Bush's decision to allow the National Security Agency to eavesdrop on Americans without getting the warrants required by a 27-year-old federal law enacted to stop that sort of abuse.

Mr. Roberts had promised to hold a committee vote yesterday on whether to investigate. But he canceled the vote, and then made two astonishing announcements. He said he was working with the White House on amending the 1978 law, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, to permit warrantless spying. And then he suggested that such a change would eliminate the need for an inquiry.

Stifling his own committee without even bothering to get the facts is outrageous. . .

The House apparently WILL go forward with an investigation (sort of)

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/02/17/politics/17nsa.html
Leaders of the House Intelligence Committee said Thursday that they had agreed to open a Congressional inquiry prompted by the Bush administration's domestic surveillance program. But a dispute immediately broke out among committee Republicans over the scope of the inquiry. . .

http://www.slate.com/id/2136553
[Eric Umansky] The NYT declares, "ACCORD IN HOUSE TO HOLD INQUIRY ON SURVEILLANCE." That's probably news to the intel committee chair, Rep. Peter Hoekstra, who makes such decisions. "This is not an inquiry into the program," said Hoekstra's spokesman. Though a Republican maverick on the committee said she's hoping for a real probe, the spokesman explained there will be a "comprehensive review" not of the snooping but of the FISA law that the snooping sidestepped. . .

Bush gang tells the Judiciary Committee, also investigating illegal spying: “don’t bother interviewing Ashcroft and Comey – they won’t be able to tell you anything”

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060216/ap_on_go_co/eavesdropping_4
Separately, the Justice Department has strongly discouraged the Senate Judiciary Committee from calling former Attorney General John Ashcroft and his deputy to testify about the surveillance program, saying they won't have new information for Congress about it.

Now it looks like the WH has simply said they won’t testify at all

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/02/16/AR2006021602155.html
The Bush administration helped derail a Senate bid to investigate a warrantless eavesdropping program yesterday after signaling it would reject Congress's request to have former attorney general John D. Ashcroft and other officials testify. . .

Federal judge rules that Bush gang must give up NSA documents

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/11389667/

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2006_02/008242.php
[Kevin Drum] Of course, the Department of Justice is likely to turn down the request, and then the case will be appealed. But it's still interesting news. . .

More: http://glenngreenwald.blogspot.com/2006/02/federal-court-orders-justice-dept-to.html

Gonzales refuses to recuse himself from Abramoff investigation

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/02/16/AR2006021600912.html?nav=rss_politics

Whistleblowers allege retaliation (thanks to Buzzflash for the link)

http://mediachannel.org/blog/node/3327

The new Abu Ghraib photos show a devastating level of lawlessness and cruelty in Iraq prisons under US control. So why isn’t it a bigger story in this country? (thanks to Jack and Sarah for the link)

http://www.alternet.org/story/32321/

http://www.juancole.com/2006/02/further-abu-ghraib-photos-us.html

The photos: http://salon.com/news/feature/2006/02/16/abu_ghraib/

The Whole World is Watching

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/11327173/#060216

Has the Bush gang made the US an international pariah?

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/02/16/international/16cnd-gitmo.html
United Nations human rights investigators called on the United States today to shut down the Guantánamo Bay camp and give detainees quick trials or release them. . . Arguing that many of the interrogation and detention practices constituted abuses amounting to torture, the report stated, "The United States government should close the Guantánamo Bay detention facilities without further delay."

Using US troops and veterans to shill for Bush’s war policies – thanks to Elaine for the links

http://wcco.com/national/local_story_040171013.html
"You'd never know it from the news reports," Stephenson says firmly. "But our enemy in Iraq is al-Qaida, the same terrorists who killed 3,000 Americans on 9-11, the same terrorists from the first World Trade Center bombing, the USS Cole, Madrid, London and many more."

[NB: You’d never know it from these ads, but that is TOTALLY UNTRUE]

More: http://www.startribune.com/357/story/240370.html

Plain speaking on Bush’s HSA policy

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2006_02/008240.php
[Bush] You show up, you got a traditional plan, you got your down payment, you pay a little co-pay, but you have no idea what the cost is. Somebody else pays it for you. And so there's no reason at all to kind of worry about price. If somebody else is paying the bill, you just kind of — hey, it seems like a pretty good deal. . . HSAs mean you can shop around until you get the best treatment for the best price. In other words, it's your money; you're responsible for routine medical expenses. . . And so you — you talk to your doctor, you say, can't we find this drug at a little cheaper cost? Or you go to a specialist, maybe we can do this a little better — old Joe does it for X, I'm going — why don't you try it for Y?

[Kevin Drum] Current system (for those with insurance): When you get sick you go to the doctor. When your kids get sick, they go to the doctor. You don't have to quibble over costs or spend time second guessing your doctor over whether a test he recommends is really necessary. As Bush himself says, it seems like a pretty good deal.

Now here's what Bush is trying to sell: When you get sick, you should spend a lot of time shopping around for doctors to find one you can afford. You should put off tests that he recommends if they're expensive. You should haggle over the cost of drugs as if you were buying a used car. And when you get home you should worry about whether you made the right decision or not.

For now, forget about the substantive arguments in this debate. Pay no attention to Bush's obvious lies that national healthcare plans in other countries routinely create long waiting times and low quality of care. Instead just ask yourself: Does Bush's healthcare vision — shopping around, haggling over costs, second guessing your doctor, worrying over your decisions — sound like a winner? Who does he think is going to be excited by this?

More: http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2006_02_12.php#007700

The Goofus Files

http://www.first-draft.com//modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=5273

Bonus item: Greenland is melting

http://americablog.blogspot.com/2006/02/greenland-is-melting.html

http://www.slate.com/id/2136553/
[WP] "We are witnessing enormous changes," said one NASA scientist, "and it will take some time before we understand how it happened."

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

I don't get anything personally out of this project, except the satisfaction of doing it (I don't run ads, etc). The credit really all goes to the people whose material I copy and redistribute. But if I do have a "mission," it is to get this information into the hands of as many people as I can.***
- posted by Nick Burbules @ 6:35 AM

 
A MODIFIED LIMITED HANG-OUT

OK, so Cheney didn’t use the confessional booth at Larry King – he bravely went before hard-hitting investigative journalist Brit Hume at Fox News. And he did, after a fashion, accept “responsibility.” But here’s what he didn’t explain

Questions: http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1002033468

More questions: http://mediamatters.org/items/200602150014

Did Armstrong really see what happened? http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2006_02_12.php#007689

http://www.first-draft.com//modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=5247

Did Cheney see Whittington, or not? http://americablog.blogspot.com/2006/02/uh-cheney-just-lied-to-britt-hume-on.html

Were they drinking, or not? http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2006/2/15/16180/2000

http://talkleft.com/new_archives/014038.html

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2006_02_12_digbysblog_archive.html#114004305564524467

Why didn’t HE talk to the press? Why didn’t HE call the President to tell him what happened? http://www.slate.com/id/2136408
[Eric Umansky] Asked why the media wasn't told for 18 hours and only then by a private citizen on her own initiative, Cheney said it was respect for the process of informing the press that led him not to inform them. "We didn't know for sure what kind of shape Harry was in," said Cheney. "One of the things I'd learned over the years was first reports are often wrong and you need to really wait and nail it down.". . . "There were some things you knew," Hume reminded the veep. "I mean, you knew the man had been shot, you knew he was injured, you knew he was in the hospital, and you knew you'd shot him." . . . Whatever, Cheney retorted, "I thought that was the right call. I still do."

More unanswered questions: http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2006_02/008235.php

And just how upset was he after shooting his friend?

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2006_02_12_digbysblog_archive.html#114003532455266567
[Digby] He keeps saying it was the worst day of his life. He'll never foreget it, blah, blah, blah. Very touching, I'm sure. . . In fact he was so upset that he went back to the ranch and sat down for dinner. . .

We talk about Whittington’s injuries, but how about Cheney’s broken arm? (from having it twisted so hard)

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/02/15/politics/15veep.html
It was the latest example of the degree to which Mr. Cheney's habit of living in his own world in the Bush White House — surrounded by his own staff, relying on his own instincts, saying as little as possible — had backfired since the accident in Texas on Saturday. Mr. Cheney's staff members have kept their comments to chronological details and to repeating the vice president's written statements. . . The tension between President Bush's staff and Mr. Cheney's has been palpable

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/02/15/AR2006021501133.html
Cheney agreed to discuss the accident publicly only after senior White House officials and Republican strategists complained that his belated disclosure and refusal to speak out had made the situation worse. . . In a sign of the extraordinary tension inside the White House -- evidently even between Bush and Cheney -- McClellan noted that when he said at a Monday briefing that he would have handled disclosure of the shooting differently, he was "speaking on behalf of the White House and the president.". . .

[Cheney] said he decided it was better to wait to see how Whittington was faring before informing the media and blamed the resulting controversy on jealousy by the White House press corps that a small Texas newspaper was told first.

[NB: Couldn’t resist the old thumb in the eye, could ya, Dick?]

More from Cheney on his mistrust for the press

http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room/2006/02/15/who/index.html

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/02/16/politics/16cheney.html
Mr. Cheney turned from a tone of regret — "It was one of the worst days of my life" — to one of defiance when questioned about the way he chose to disclose the shooting.

The Fox guarding the henhouse?

Good ol’ Fox: http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2006/2/15/122540/574

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2006_02_12.php#007684
[Josh Marshall] Dick Cheney will break his silence about the shooting -- on Fox, with Brit Hume. Wouldn't a media interview be better?

More: http://www.crooksandliars.com/2006/02/15.html#a7172

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-critic16feb16,0,7290942.story

April 2004: http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A53974-2004Apr29
Vice President Cheney endorsed the Fox News Channel during a conference call last night with tens of thousands of Republicans who were gathered across the country to celebrate a National Party for the President Day organized by the Bush-Cheney campaign. . . “I end up spending a lot of time watching Fox News, because they're more accurate in my experience, in those events that I'm personally involved in, than many of the other outlets."

The Name You Haven’t Heard Yet: Pamela Willeford (Where is she? Why wasn’t she mentioned in the accident report? Why haven’t we heard from her?)

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/bob-cesca/was-cheney-hiding-his-lew_b_15705.html

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rj-eskow/cheneys-chappaquiddick-i_b_15711.html
[R.J. Eskow] The real story is already emerging, if you're willing to do a little digging. Cheney and Whittington went hunting with two women (not their wives), there was some drinking, and Whittington wound up shot. Armstrong didn't see the incident but claimed she had, Cheney refused to be questioned by the Sheriff until the next morning, and a born-again evangelical physician has been downplaying Whittington's injuries since they occurrred. . .

“An error in judgment”

http://www.prospect.org/weblog/archives/2006/02/index.html#009172
[Houston Chronicle] . . . the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department said it will classify the Saturday shooting as an error in judgment by Cheney. . .

Can you guess what the Message of the Day was?

http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2006/02/20060215.html
Q Scott, is there any indication that Vice President Cheney will make any comments about the shooting? A lot of people, including Republicans and Democrats, are saying that the Vice President should come out and express, you know, how sorry he is publicly about what happened.

MR. McCLELLAN: A couple of things. First of all, the Vice President has expressed his concern through his office for Mr. Whittington, for his health and well-being. He is a friend of the Vice President's and we are all keeping Mr. Whittington in our thoughts and prayers. We want to see him recover fully and return home. . . And I know no one is more concerned about Mr. Whittington and his well-being than the Vice President. He has expressed that publicly through his spokeswoman and his office. . .

Q has the President told the Vice President that he should speak publicly and put an end to this?

MR. McCLELLAN: I don't get into any internal discussions like that. And, again, I think that in terms of what I've said about the issue -- you know, there's the issue of Mr. Whittington's health, and we're all concerned about his well-being. The doctors gave a good prognosis for him going forward yesterday. We all hope that he recovers fully and he gets home soon. And that's where our focus is from the health standpoint. . .

Q Has the Vice President not spoken up until this point because there is this question about his health and some potential questions about any legal issues that might arise?

MR. McCLELLAN: I don't know about that. I know that the Vice President is first and foremost concerned about Mr. Whittington's well-being, and that was his first focus in the immediate aftermath of the accident -- he wanted to make sure he was getting taken care of and that he continues to receive good medical care.

Abu Ghraib photos: gruesome, but what is really revolting is the imagination behind some of these actions. They make electrodes on the genitals look like child’s play

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/11383850/

http://www.needlenose.com/node/view/2646

http://susiemadrak.com/2006/02/15/20/47/framing/

http://bodyandsoul.typepad.com/blog/2006/02/more_photos.html

http://makeashorterlink.com/?X27A456AC

In Iraq. . .

http://www.juancole.com/2006/02/sunni-guerrilla-movement-consolidating.html
[ICG] The insurgency increasingly is dominated by a few large groups with sophisticated communications. It no longer is a scattered, erratic, chaotic phenomenon. Groups are well organised, produce regular publications, react rapidly to political developments and appear surprisingly centralised. . . The insurgency is increasingly optimistic about victory. Such self-confidence was not there when the war was conceived as an open-ended jihad against an occupier they believed was determined to stay. Optimism stems from a conviction the legitimacy of jihad is now beyond doubt, institutions established under the occupation are fragile and irreparably illegitimate, and the war of attrition against U.S. forces is succeeding

Death squads

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/11362123/

http://americablog.blogspot.com/2006/02/death-squads-operating-in-iraq.html
[Chris] Why is it that death squads always seem to follow John Negroponte?

Abramoff, Malaysia, and Bush

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/chi-0602150169feb15,1,1069203.story

Fried Rice

http://www.first-draft.com//modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=5258

Almost half the people believe Bush broke the law on NSA spying

http://americablog.blogspot.com/2006/02/more-americans-now-think-bush-broke.html

Justice Dept restricts what Ashcroft and Comey can talk about before the Senate Judiciary Committee

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/02/15/AR2006021502446.html

More NSA disclosures to come?

http://www.upi.com/SecurityTerrorism/view.php?StoryID=20060214-053955-9494r

Are the Dems going to press the NSA investigation? Or cave?

http://glenngreenwald.blogspot.com/2006/02/nsa-scandal-and-public-opinion-myths.html

http://glenngreenwald.blogspot.com/2006/02/nsa-scandal-grows-other-matters.html

Is Gonzales withholding Plame emails? I just can’t judge Jason Leopold as a journalistic source – I see this blockbuster revelation discussed nowhere else

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/021506J.shtml
Sources close to the investigation into the leak of covert CIA agent Valerie Plame Wilson have revealed this week that Attorney General Alberto Gonzales has not turned over emails to the special prosecutor's office that may incriminate Vice President Dick Cheney, his aides, and other White House officials who allegedly played an active role in unmasking Plame Wilson's identity to reporters.

Moreover, these sources said that, in early 2004, Cheney was interviewed by federal prosecutors investigating the Plame Wilson leak and testified that neither he nor any of his senior aides were involved in unmasking her undercover CIA status to reporters and that no one in the vice president's office had attempted to discredit her husband, a vocal critic of the administration's pre-war Iraq intelligence. Cheney did not testify under oath or under penalty of perjury when he was interviewed by federal prosecutors.

The emails Gonzales is said to be withholding contained references to Valerie Plame Wilson's identity and CIA status and developments related to the inability to find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. Moreover, according to sources, the emails contained suggestions by the officials on how the White House should respond to what it believed were increasingly destructive comments Joseph Wilson had been making about the administration's pre-war Iraq intelligence.

Gonzales, who at the time of the leak was the White House counsel, spent two weeks with other White House attorneys screening emails turned over to his office by roughly 2,000 staffers following a deadline imposed by the White House in 2003. The sources said Gonzales told Fitzgerald more than a year ago that he did not intend to turn over the emails to his office, because they contained classified intelligence information about Iraq in addition to minor references to Plame Wilson, the sources said.

He is said to have cited "executive privilege" and "national security concerns" as the reason for not turning over some of the correspondence, which allegedly proves Cheney's office played an active role in leaking Plame Wilson's undercover CIA status to reporters, the attorneys said.

Cheney claims he can declassify info (just by saying so?)

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/11381222/

The PR President

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2006_02_12.php#007690
Adweek: "The Bush administration spent $1.4 billion in taxpayer dollars on 137 contracts with advertising agencies over the past two-and-a-half years, according to a Government Accountability Office report released by House Democrats Monday."

Warning, warning! Katrina report coming!

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2006/2/15/8506/63426
According to portions of the draft obtained by ABC News, the report charges Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff with executing his responsibilities "late, ineffectively or not at all." . .

[NB: And he’s not the only one]

“They don’t use emails” (WTF?) http://www.ericumansky.com/2006/02/dept_of_youve_g.html

Another indication of how the Republicans view the rule of law: they pass a bill with an illegal vote, but don’t see any need to go back and fix it

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2006/2/15/16150/4145

More shenanigans: http://www.prospect.org/weblog/archives/2006/02/index.html#009176

A spectre is haunting Washington, D.C. The spectre of. . .

http://www.slate.com/id/2136408/
[Eric Umansky] USA Today fronts records showing that Republican Senator Arlen Specter channeled $50 million in defense-related earmarks to clients of a lobbyist who's married to one of Specter's top aides. The aide happens to deal with Specter's work on the Senate Appropriations Committee, where, as it turns out, the earmarks were inserted.

Bonus item: Ann Coulter lies, votes illegally (a trivial thing, but another Diva Moment for sure)

http://www.palmbeachpost.com/celebrities/content/local_news/epaper/2006/02/15/a2a_josecol_0215.html

Extra bonus item: only in Bush’s America

http://www.wcpo.com/news/2006/local/02/12/bush_ohio.html
Bush To Discuss Health Care During Visit To Wendy's

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

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

 
IT’S OVER WHEN WE SAY IT’S OVER

So typical of this arrogant crew: Scotty announces that there’s nothing more to say about the Cheney shooting incident, and he’s moving on. Apparently the fact that the man Cheney “peppered” with buckshot could have DIED yesterday doesn’t qualify as a newsworthy development

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/6620.html
[Steve Benen] There's a fascinating point in the trajectory of every presidential scandal — and there sure have been a lot of them — in which Scott McClellan decides he just doesn't want to talk about it anymore. . . Usually, this McClellan breaking point takes a little while. The Plame leak scandal went on for months before McClellan clammed up. With Abramoff, McClellan at least humored reporters for a few weeks before announcing he wouldn't answer any more questions. With the controversy surrounding Dick Cheney's shooting incident, McClellan gave up on responses after just one day. . .

http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2006/02/20060214-1.html
MR. McCLELLAN: Well, I think what happened has been explained. The Vice President's Office has talked about it; I've talked about it. . . I think we went through this pretty thoroughly yesterday and I worked to answer the questions to the best of my ability and in a forthright manner, based on the facts that I knew. There were some very legitimate questions that were asked. As I indicated, I always believe that you can look back and work to do better. I indicated that yesterday. I think today what we're focusing our efforts is on what are the most pressing priorities before the American people. And that's where we're focusing. . . If you want to continue to spend time on that, that's fine. We're moving on to the priorities of the American people. That's where our focus is. . .

And get this

http://americablog.blogspot.com/2006/02/mcclellan-knew-whittington-had-heart.html
[John Aravosis] ABC News just reported that White House spokesman Scott McClellan laughed today during his noon press briefing, and told the media it was "time to move on" to other matters than the shooting, we now know that McClellan already knew that Whittington had suffered a heart attack and was now back in intensive care. Yet McClellan refused to answer reporters' questions and tried to trivialize the issue.

Keep in mind that this is day 4 and Dick Cheney has yet to even apologize for nearly killing his friend.

This is day 4 and we're stilling hearing conflicting stories about whether VP Cheney bothered notifying the police AT ALL about this incident.

This is day 4 and we've still not been given any details as to whether it's been determined conclusively that alcohol didn't contribute to this incident.

This is day 4 and there still are conflicting reports as to whether President Bush was told that first day that the shooter was Dick Cheney.

And now, the White House is telling the media that they won't answer any more questions about the matter. . .

Not to mention, if Whittington dies, you've got possible manslaughter charges involved. You can just brush those off by having the Secret Service turn the police away.

Had any normal American shot and nearly killed someone who is still in intensive care, the police would be all over the matter. Yet here all we know is that when the cops finally showed up to interview the VP, a day after the incident, they were turned away.

More: http://thinkprogress.org/2006/02/14/mcclellan-conceals-heart-attack/
For 22 hours, the White House concealed the fact that Vice President Cheney had inadvertantly shot a 78-year old man, Harry Whittington.

The White House continues to withhold critical information from the press. In a press conference today, hospital administrator Peter Banko said that the White House had been informed that Mr. Whittington suffered a heart attack between 9:30-10AM this morning. . . But at today’s White House Press Briefing, which started after 12PM, Scott McClellan didn’t tell the press. CNN confirmed that McClellan “was notified [about the heart attack] just before the briefing.” But McClellan suggested to reporters that he had no new information. . .

Darth Cheney

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2006_02/008226.php
This is now way beyond bizarre. Does the White House think that reinforcing the VP's "Darth Cheney" image is helpful in some way? That it's better if the world thinks he's callous and insensitive? Or what?

More: http://www.prospect.org/weblog/archives/2006/02/index.html#009156

Bush’s blame

http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/columns/pressingissues_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1001998206

Medical updates

http://www.needlenose.com/node/view/2644
[Swopa] [Houston Chronicle] A prominent Austin lawyer is expected to be released from a hospital here today after being accidentally shot and slightly injured by Vice President Dick Cheney during a quail hunt on a South Texas ranch. . . Harry Whittington, 78, was "bruised more than bloodied" in the incident late Saturday afternoon, said Katharine Armstrong, whose family owns the 50,000-acre Armstrong Ranch about 45 miles south of Kingsville. "I think his pride was hurt more than anything else."

[NYT] "He is stable and doing well. It was almost like he was spending time with me in my living room," hospital administrator Peter Banko, who visited Whittington, told the Associated Press.

[AP] The 78-year-old lawyer who was shot by Vice President Dick Cheney in a hunting accident has some birdshot lodged in his heart and he had a "a minor heart attack" Tuesday morning, hospital officials said. . . The victim, Harry Whittington, was immediately moved back to the intensive care unit for further treatment, said Peter Banko, the administrator at Christus Spohn Hospital Corpus Christi-Memorial in Texas.

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2006/2/14/133733/669
[Kos] This wasn't a surface scratch with a pellet gun. The guy has been in ICU for three days, was supposed to be moved out today, and now suffers a heart attack from birdshot lodged in his heart?

http://majikthise.typepad.com/majikthise_/2006/02/birdshot_lodges.html
[Lindsay Beyerstein] Mark my words, if Cheney's victim dies, the revisionists will point to this heart attack as evidence that birdshot didn't hurt him that badly after all. They'll say that he was an old guy who had a heart attack after a shock to the system. . . The White House claims that it wasn't necessary to alert the public about the shooting because the victim's injuries were so minor. Now, it's becoming increasingly clear that he was badly injured from the start. The nature and severity of his injuries may also cast doubt on eye-witness accounts of the incident in which Cheney is alleged to have shot the victim at 30 yards with a 28-guage shotgun.

Welcome back, Billmon: http://billmon.org/archives/002356.html
I knew Cheney had heart attacks, but I never realized he was a carrier.

Sloppy media coverage: http://susiemadrak.com/2006/02/14/18/44/very-stable/

Oh-oh

http://atrios.blogspot.com/2006_02_12_atrios_archive.html#114000614010010936
One of Whittington's daughters, Peggy Puckett, said Tuesday morning that Whittington was feeling well. "It was just a terrible, terrible accident. No one was at fault," she said. "He feels bad for the vice president."

Asked if Whittington agreed with accounts by others that the accident was Whittington's fault, Puckett said her father "hasn't said anything like that."

The accident report

http://www.first-draft.com//modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=5233

http://www.first-draft.com//modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=5243
It's Not Clear That Cheney Is Completely Off The Hook. . .

OK, let’s do a little amateur sleuthing

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2006_02_12.php#007682
Would the weapon and ammunition Dick Cheney shot have the force to imbed pellets near Whittington's heart at 30 yards?. . .

http://www.prospect.org/weblog/archives/2006/02/index.html#009157
And yet...I can't help wanting to know all about pellet trajectories, and where the rest of the shot landed (what percent of the load went into Whittington?), and where exactly Cheney was standing, and where Wittington fell. . .

http://thinkprogress.org/2006/02/14/video-cheney-hunting-accident-simulation/
Corpus Christi Caller-Times photographer (and avid quail hunter) George Gongora simulates the impact of Cheney’s shotgun on Mr. Harry Whittington. Here is an image of how much lead would have struck Mr. Whittington . .

A loyal reader suggested this theory, and the more I researched it, the more it made sense. Cheney carelessly shoots a fellow hunter in a goof that every experienced hunter says shouldn’t have happened. Afterwards the Secret Service keep the police from interviewing him; he won’t get on the phone himself to tell the White House what happened; and he goes deep underground until the next day. Hmmm. . . .

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/lawrence-odonnell/was-cheney-drunk_b_15646.html
[Lawrence O’Donnell] Cheney refused to talk to local authorities until the next day. No point in giving him a breathalyzer then. Every lawyer I've talked to assumes Cheney was too drunk to talk to the cops after the shooting. The next question for the White House should be: Was Cheney drunk?. . .

http://news.zdnet.com/2100-9595_22-6039503.html
The Washington Post reported that both the Kenedy County, Texas, sheriff's department and the state have determined that alcohol did not appear to be a factor. . .

Alcohol quote removed from MSNBC website!

http://susiemadrak.com/2006/02/14/18/33/revisionists/
[DELETED] Armstrong also told NBC News that she does not believe alcohol was involved in the accident. She says she believes no one that day was drinking, although she says there may have been beer available during a picnic lunch that preceded the incident. “There may be a beer or two in there,” she said.

[NB: This is the SECOND time in two days when an incriminating quote has been removed from a major media site]

[NB: And here’s a THIRD: http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/007679.php. Look, this is a serious issue – these aren’t “corrections” or “updates,” they are SCRUBBING the articles of incriminating quotes and evidence. Who in the WH is pressuring news sites to pull this information?]

More gossip: http://www.slate.com/id/2136206/fr/rss/#ContinueArticle

A grand jury?

http://talkleft.com/new_archives/014034.html
If Whittington Dies, A Grand Jury is Likely
[Jeralyn Merritt] The New York Times reports that the White House has dropped its tone of levity over the Cheney shooting of Texas lawyer Harry Whittington, following Whittington's heart attack this morning, caused by a pellet that lodged or migrated to his heart. . . Cheney's handling of the incident has caused tension between his office and the office of the President. And many medical experts are disputing the Texas doctor's version of Whittington's condition. . .

What is Cheney hiding? What is his relationship with Katharine Armstrong and Pamela Willeford, the U.S. Ambassador to Switzerland? Why isn't Willeford listed as an eyewitness on the incident report? She was right there with Cheney, not seated in car watching from a distance. Were they drinking while they were hunting? The report says no, but it was written before Cheney or Whittington were interviewed, so either the Secret Service or Armstrong must have been the source of the information. Was alcohol consumed at lunch? Where does Karl Rove fit in this story? Like Cheney, he's a frequent guest at the Armstrong Ranch. Was it his P.R. strategy to have Armstrong be the one to tell the press?

How angry is Lynne Cheney? Her husband goes off hunting with a single guy and two women for the weekend. Do you think she knew who his hunting partners would be?

Will this be the final straw in the already tense relationship between Cheney and Bush? Will Bush hang Cheney out to dry? He wouldn't do it just over the shooting. If it happens, is it a sign that Cheney is about to get defrocked for his role in the Valerie Plame leak?

Cheney's already lost the public relations battle on this one. I bet he's wishing he was in an undisclosed location.

More on a possible grand jury: http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room/2006/02/14/charges/index.html

For once I feel a bit for Scotty’s plight (just a little bit): Cheney’s stubbornness has put him and the whole WH in a terrible spot. But he can only allude generally to the fact that Cheney was setting the ground rules in those first hours, and that everyone – even including the President – was kept from the truth

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/6611.html
The most amazing thing about yesterday's White House press briefing was not the fact that reporters were in near revolt; it was the fact that Scott McClellan basically hung Dick Cheney out to dry. . .

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/02/15/politics/15veep.html
It was the latest example of the degree to which Mr. Cheney's habit of living in his own world in the Bush White House — surrounded by his own staff, relying on his own instincts, saying as little as possible — had backfired since the accident in Texas on Saturday. Mr. Cheney's staff members have kept their comments to chronological details and to repeating the vice president's written statements.

The tension between President Bush's staff and Mr. Cheney's has been palpable, with White House officials whispering to reporters about how they tried to handle the news of the shooting differently. Mr. McClellan, while being careful not to cross Mr. Cheney or his aides directly, has made a point of reminding reporters of how he dealt with Mr. Bush's bicycle accident last summer. . .

OK, no more feeling sorry for Scotty

http://www.first-draft.com//modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=5238
[WP] The New York Post's Deb Orin, no Cheney antagonist, tried to sum up what "we're all trying to get at" with the questioning. When Bush accidentally shot a protected bird called a Kildee, he took immediate and public responsibility. Orin wondered why "the vice president has failed in any way to stand up and say, 'I made a mistake.' "

"He has commented through his spokeswoman," McClellan offered, his orange tie failing him.

"But why haven't we heard from him?" interjected Plante.

"I don't think he had any public events scheduled," McClellan replied.

"He could schedule one," Plante persisted. "It would be easy. If he wanted to come over here, you'd probably let him. We would turn up."

McClellan was done taking advice. "OK, then you can start running the vice president's office, Bill."

The spokesman spun and walked away from the podium

Previous press secretaries, however, are not bound by such loyalty

http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1001996948
Ari Fleischer, who served as President George W. Bush's first press secretary, added to the growing criticism of Vice President Dick Cheney's handling of the weekend shooting incident in Texas. . . "It would have been better if the vice president and/or his staff had come out last Saturday night or first thing Sunday morning and announced it," he said during a phone interview Tuesday. "It could have and should have been handled differently."

http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1001996613
Former White House Press Secretary Marlin Fitzwater criticized Vice President Dick Cheney Tuesday for delaying the release of information about his hunting accident on Saturday, saying Cheney "ignored his responsibility to the American people." He told E&P he was "appalled by the whole handling of this."

Nor is Karl Rove, apparently

http://www.first-draft.com//modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=5239
Karl Rove's surrogates are making sure we know it was Cheney who decided to sit on the news that he had shot a man.

[Time] "This is either a cover-up story or an incompetence story," said a top Republican who is close to the White House and has rarely been critical of the Administration in the past five years. "Karl was constrained, as was the entire communications operation, because the Vice President had arranged for how this was to come out."

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/6618.html
[Steve Benen] Time described a situation that's as ridiculous as it seems. . .

More: http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1159347,00.html

Hey tough guy

http://blogs.salon.com/0000014/2006/02/14.html#a977
[Mike Leggett] Be a man. You shot a guy.

That would be my unsolicited advice for Vice President Dick Cheney.

You shot a guy. At least stay in town until he's out of the hospital.

You shot a guy. Don't blame the sun or the wind or the rotation of the Earth. And for goodness' sake, don't blame Harry Whittington.

More Cheney-bashing

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2006_02_12_digbysblog_archive.html#113995904155074207

http://www.workingforchange.com/article.cfm?itemid=20358

[NB: Here's why I think this is a serious, serious problem. Apart from the rumors about alcohol, lying to the White House, dodging the police, and scrubbing news stories -- any one of which, if confirmed, could mean disaster for Cheney, at heart this is a very simple human story. It doesn't revolve around abstruse legal or constitutional disputes, and ordinary people -- perhaps especially including his core supporters -- can understand and identify with this problem: Cheney screwed up, big time, and is trying to hide from answering for it. But if he does agree to talk about it publicly, one inevitable question will be,"Don't you feel responsible?" What does he say then? If he says, "No, it was Whittington's fault" you will hear howls across the country. But if he says, "Yes," he is opening himself up to potential liability.]

The political fallout of all this

http://politicalwire.com/archives/2006/02/14/gop_worries_about_shooting_fallout.html
Republican strategists "fear the accident will be a continuing distraction from the party's 2006 agenda." Says one: "It is drowning out all other news [and] has taken all the political energy out of the White House."

"Democrats said the incident has already come to symbolize administration stumbles, and is interfering with President Bush's attempt to recover from an unhappy 2005." Democratic pollster Geoff Garin: "The accident couldn't have come at a worse time for the administration" adding that belated public disclosure has added to "the broader impression that the whole administration plays by its own special rules."

Before news broke that the victim had a heart attack related to the shooting, the AP says the White House public relations strategy was to joke about it.

Joking? JOKING!??

http://www.forbes.com/work/feeds/ap/2006/02/14/ap2525155.html
The White House has decided that the best way to deal with Vice President Dick Cheney's shooting accident is to joke about it. . .

http://americablog.blogspot.com/2006/02/white-house-thinks-shooting-is-big.html

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2006_02_12.php#007680

[NB: Lesson: better wait til the friend you shot is out of INTENSIVE CARE before you start joking about it: http://americablog.blogspot.com/2006/02/cheneys-gunshot-victim-still-in.html]

The last straw

http://americablog.blogspot.com/2006/02/gopers-are-cranky-at-cheney.html
[WP] Vice President Cheney's slow and unapologetic public response to the accidental shooting of a 78-year-old Texas lawyer is turning the quail-hunting mishap into a political liability for the Bush administration and is prompting senior White House officials to press Cheney to publicly address the issue as early as today, several prominent Republicans said yesterday.

Growing pressure: http://msnbc.msn.com/id/11355784/

[NB: My guess is he’ll use “Larry King Live” – the softest of softball questions, and NO hard follow-ups]

In other news. . .

Appalling: under "full-court" WH pressure, the Senate Intelligence Committee (led by that strong-willed man of principle Pat Roberts, R-KS) is now close to reversing itself, after promising to open an investigation into illegal domestic spying

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/02/14/AR2006021401812.html
Congress appeared ready to launch an investigation into the Bush administration's warrantless domestic surveillance program last week, but an all-out White House lobbying campaign has dramatically slowed the effort and may kill it, key Republican and Democratic sources said yesterday. . . They noted that Cheney conducted a Republicans-only meeting on intelligence matters in the Capitol yesterday.

More: http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2006/2/14/231846/307
[Georgia10] Republican Senate DeWine says he will introduce a bill sanctioning the program, explicitly exempting it from the requirements of FISA. Both Hagel and Snowe are said to be in favor of the bill. So suddenly, Republicans are comfortable with the President breaking the law? Where was the bill in the 90s condoning Oval Office blow jobs and Presidential perjury? Oh, that's right. The lawlessness of a President is exempted only when that President wears a 10-gallon hat and calls himself a "conservative."

The American Bar Association, across party lines, agrees that Bush needs to get warrants for wiretaps

http://www.first-draft.com//modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=5230

325,000 names

http://www.first-draft.com//modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=5245
[WP] The National Counterterrorism Center maintains a central repository of 325,000 names of international terrorism suspects or people who allegedly aid them, a number that has more than quadrupled since the fall of 2003, according to counterterrorism officials. . .

More: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/02/14/AR2006021402125.html

60 more Abu Ghraib photos released

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2006_02_12_digbysblog_archive.html#113999861587555197

“Jihadist University”

http://www.slate.com/id/2136229
[Eric Umansky] For whatever reason, the NYT decides to absolutely stuff U.S. commanders complaining that the overcrowded Abu Ghraib prison has become what one officer called a "Jihadist University" Another commander said, "Abu Ghraib is a graduate-level training ground for the insurgency." The story, which is datelined Washington, doesn't explain why the prisons are so crowded. (This TPer has a few guesses.) . . .

FEMA “reform” – how do these two stories go together?

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/02/14/AR2006021401933.html
In proposing to bolster the Federal Emergency Management Agency by creating a full-time response force of 1,500 people and expanding 10 regional offices, White House homeland security adviser Frances Fragos Townsend and Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff are grappling again with FEMA's long-term future . . .

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/02/13/AR2006021300469.html
Tens of thousands of people received aid from the Federal Emergency Management Agency using possibly fraudulent identities because the relief effort did not perform routine checks that might have flagged such activity, government investigators said yesterday. . .

[NB: Rampant fraud? Give them MORE money]

John McCain’s phony posturing on “ear marks”

http://www.mydd.com/story/2006/2/14/201941/539

The 2006 elections

http://rothenbergpoliticalreport.blogspot.com/2006/02/it-wont-be-bi-partisan-wave.html
With a potential political wave developing, Republicans should face the reality that it likely will only break one way – toward the Democrats. . .

How the Right makes excuses for Ann Coulter’s rabid viciousness (and why)

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2006_02_12_digbysblog_archive.html#113996476308934412

http://glenngreenwald.blogspot.com/2006/02/why-ann-coulter-matters.html

Theocracy watch, part #341

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2006_02/008224.php

Bonus item: Media Matters' comprehensive analysis of bias on Sunday talk shows

http://mediamatters.org/items/200602140002
The Sunday-morning talk shows on ABC, CBS, and NBC are where the prevailing opinions are aired and tested, policymakers state their cases, and the left and right in American politics debate the pressing issues of the day on equal ground. Both sides have their say and face probing questions. Or so you would think. . .

More: http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/features/2006/0603.waldman.html

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2006_02_12_digbysblog_archive.html#113994093209766077

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2006_02/008225.php

***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 @ 6:45 AM

 
WHO’S IN CHARGE HERE?

One thing the Dick Cheney hunting fiasco shows. Now we understand (as if we didn’t already) that when the Bush gang doesn’t answer embarrassing questions, it isn’t really because of national security, classified secrets, Executive privilege, or because they don’t want to interfere in ongoing investigations: THEY JUST DON’T WANT TO ANSWER THE DAMN QUESTIONS (and don't think they should have to)

http://www.first-draft.com//modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=5225
Q When did the President know that the Vice President was the shooter? What time?

MR. McCLELLAN: Again, there was additional information coming in that night. And the details continued to come in throughout the morning, into the Sunday morning time period.

Q The Vice President did not call the President to tell him he was the shooter?

MR. McCLELLAN: Suzanne, go ahead.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/02/13/politics/13cnd-cheney.html
"Chief of Staff Andy Card called the president around 7:30 p.m. to inform him that there was a hunting accident," a statement released late today by the White House said. "He did not know the vice president was involved at that time. Subsequent to the call, Deputy Chief of Staff Karl Rove spoke with Mrs. Armstrong. He then called the president shortly before 8:00 p.m. to update him and let him know the Vice President had accidentally shot Mr. Whittington."

[NB: Armstrong, not Cheney!]

In a contentious briefing with the White House press corps earlier about a subject that captivated the capital and news reports today, Scott McClellan, the president's spokesman, said he himself did not learn until about 6 a.m. on Sunday that it was Mr. Cheney who had shot Mr. Whittington. . .The White House has been criticized for not publicly reporting the incident, or details of what happened, even up to today, when Mr. McClellan deflected most questions about the matter to the vice president's office.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/blog/2006/02/13/BL2006021300566.html
[Dan Froomkin] And still from the White House, no details, no apologies, and no Cheney. . .

John Podhoretz!

http://corner.nationalreview.com/06_02_12_corner-archive.asp#089912
This story is a very big deal, despite all the mitigating factors -- the accident involved a friend, his medical team was right there to help, and all that. Something like this has never happened before, and it is a genuinely disturbing thing to think that the vice president of the United States actually shot somebody last weekend, even for fans of his. It's disturbing as well that there was a news blackout that lasted nearly a day about this serious incident. It seems beyond question that the vice president is going to have to go before the cameras, explain what happened, and show genuine remorse for his actions, however inadvertent. It's a difficult challenge for someone as reticent as Dick Cheney. But unless he does so, and makes a good showing of it, he will be damaged goods for the remainder of the Bush presidency.

Cheney’s Chappaquiddick

http://americablog.blogspot.com/2006/02/cheneys-chappaquiddick.html

http://www.discourse.net/archives/2006/02/timing_is_everything.html

http://www.slate.com/id/2136128/fr/rss/

http://www.first-draft.com//modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=5220

Who’s in charge here?

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/02/13/AR2006021302143.html
[WP] What makes little sense, however, was the White House's decision, according to press secretary Scott McClellan, to defer disclosure of the shooting incident to the vice president's office, and that office's decision to further defer to the owners of the ranch. . .

More: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/02/13/AR2006021300452.html


Clearly Cheney saw no need to tell anyone about it (including his “boss” the President), and only acceded when Armstrong insisted

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/02/13/politics/13cnd-cheney.html
Mr. McClellan seemed on the defensive several times during the briefing about why the fullest accounts of the incident seemed to come from Ms. Armstrong, who told The Associated Press and CNN on Sunday that it was her idea to go to the press. . . "I said, Mr. Vice President, this is going to be public, and I'm comfortable going to the hometown newspaper," she told The A.P. in a telephone interview. "And he said, you go ahead and do whatever you are comfortable doing."

Josh Marshall has a very devious imagination (I like that)

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2006_02_12.php#007671
It just gets better and better. Karl Rove had a chat with Katharine Armstrong, the Bush pioneer and estate owner, who was on the hunt and is the only eyewitness who has been allowed to talk to the press. Apparently within 90 minutes of the shooting. . . And it was her idea to go to the press, right?

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2006_02_12.php#007672
Turns out her dad helped Rove set up his first business. , ,

Then there’s this angle: why wasn’t there an immediate police investigation?

http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room/2006/02/13/cheney3/index.html
[Tim Grieve] How is it that the vice president of the most powerful nation of the world could shoot somebody -- within view of several witnesses, including, presumably, a contingent of Secret Service agents -- and the president doesn't hear about it until a day later? If the people in the White House situation room knew about the shooting, how could they not know about the shooter? Why did the Secret Service prevent local authorities from talking to Cheney about the incident? And why did the Bush-Cheney Pioneer who first reported the shooting initially refuse to reveal that Pamela Willeford, the U.S. ambassador to Switzerland, was hunting alongside Cheney and his victim?

Not to get all "grassy knoll" here, but something doesn't add up. If people in the White House situation room really didn't know the true facts about the shooting incident until Sunday morning, is there any explanation but that Cheney -- or those working with him -- chose not to tell them? Why wouldn't Cheney want the White House to know the truth right away? Did he think it would never come out?

UPDATE: the CBS story has REMOVED all mention of this crucial issue – see before and after

Before:http://thinkprogress.org/2006/02/13/sheriff-barred-from-interviewing/
CBS News White House correspondent Peter Maer reports Texas authorities are complaining that the Secret Service barred them from speaking to Cheney after the incident. Kenedy County Texas Sheriffs Lt. Juan Guzman said deputies first learned of the shooting when an ambulance was called.

After: http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2006/02/13/national/main1309344.shtml

[NB: Gone!]

More: http://talkleft.com/new_archives/014009.html

http://firedoglake.blogspot.com/2006_02_12_firedoglake_archive.html#113986101647076711

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2006_02_12.php#007675
[AP] At least one deputy showed up at the ranch's front gate later in the evening and asked to speak to Cheney but was turned away by the Secret Service. . .

Some days it sucks to be Scotty

http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1001995823
McClellan explained that the White House knew about the accidental shooting of a fellow hunter on Saturday night, but deferred to the vice president's office, which did not announce it. The vice president's office in turn deferred to Katharine Armstrong, the ranch owner in Texas where the shooting took place. She called a Corpus Christi reporter at midday Sunday and only then did the news come out.

McClellan also said Monday, according to The Associated Press, that "Bush and senior aides were told Saturday night by the staff of the White House Situation Room that somebody in the Cheney's hunting party was shot, but he said he was not told until Sunday morning that Cheney was the shooter. He said he contacted the vice president's office and everyone agreed they needed to get the information to the public quickly."

[Steve Benen: http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/6608.html
No serious person could possibly believe this. Officials in the Situation Room, the president, and top White House aides knew someone had been shot, but they didn't know who? They didn't find out until the next day? The White House communications network doesn't rely on carrier pigeons; either Cheney, someone on his staff, or someone on his security detail carries a cell phone.]

It was unclear whether McClellan meant that the president did not know about Cheney's role until Sunday or that McClellan did not know. He did say that the first reports that came to the White House only said that a member of Cheney's party had been shot but did not indicate that Cheney was the shooter. . .

The New York Times observed Monday that reporters "seemed frustrated that Mr. McClellan could not tell them exactly when Mr. Bush learned that the vice president himself had shot Mr. Whittington."

Reviewing the late-morning press briefing today, the National Journal's Hotline site said that reporters reacted with "astonishment" to McClellan's admission about not knowing about Cheney's role in the shooting until Sunday. It noted that McClellan did everything possible to imply that the responsibility for any bungling resides in the vice president's office.

http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/wireStory?id=1614375
In a testy exchange with reporters on Monday, White House spokesman Scott McClellan faced dozens of questions about the propriety of a private citizen making public a shooting incident involving the vice president and whether Cheney had followed White House protocol.

McClellan said President George W. Bush and senior aides were first told by staff in the Situation Room that there had been an accident in Cheney's hunting party and that the president learned later on Saturday night that the vice president had been the shooter.

"I think he was informed in a relatively reasonable time," McClellan said at the news briefing.

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2006_02_12_digbysblog_archive.html#113985402781726684
[Digby] Scottie is making things much worse than they already were. He keeps saying that it took all that time to "gather the facts" and that their priority was to "help the victim." I guess we're supposed to believe that Cheney was so busy monitoring the man's vital signs that he couldn't pick up as phone and tell anybody what happened until the following morning.

Enjoy: http://www.first-draft.com//modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=5225

Video: http://www.crooksandliars.com/2006/02/13.html#a7142

The full transcript: http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2006/02/20060213-4.html

And in the morning (untelevised) press gaggle

http://newsblogs.chicagotribune.com/news_theswamp/2006/02/no_lights_no_ca.html
Why was the White House relying on a Texas rancher to get the word of Cheney's hunting accident out over the weekend, asked Gregory, accusing McClellan of "ducking and weaving.''

“David, hold on… the cameras aren't on right now,'' McClellan replied. "You can do this later.''

"Don't accuse me of trying to pose to the cameras,'' the newsman said, his voice rising somewhat. "Don’t be a jerk to me personally when I’m asking you a serious question.''

"You don't have to yell,'' McClellan said.

"I will yell,'' said Gregory, pointing a finger at McClellan at his dais. "If you want to use that podium to try to take shots at me personally, which I don’t appreciate, then I will raise my voice, because that’s wrong.’’

‘’Calm down, Dave, calm down,'' said McClellan, remaining calm throughout the exchange.

"I'll calm down when I feel like calming down,'' Gregory said. "You answer the question.'

"I have answered the question,'' said McClellan, who had maintained that the vice president's office was in charge of getting the information out and worked with the ranch owner to do that. "I'm sorry you're getting all riled up about.''

"I am riled up,'' Gregory said, "because you’re not answering the question,''

McClellan insisted he understood that reporters deserve an answer.

"I think you have legitimate questions to ask,'' the press secretary said. "The vice president’s office was the one that took the lead to get this information out… I don’t know what else to tell you... That's my answer.''

Bill Sammon, Fox News

http://mediamatters.org/items/200602130006
BILL HEMMER (anchor): But the rub from the White House press corps seems to be, "Why did you allow a local reporter and a local newspaper in Corpus Christi, Texas, to inform the country of this news [the hunting accident] as opposed to having it come from the White House or the Vice President's Office?" Nina Easton is still with me, and so, too, is Bill Sammon. Is Scott McClellan explaining this, Bill, or are they digging a deeper hole?

SAMMON: Well, we're witnessing what we call over here at the White House press corps a feeding frenzy. We treat ourselves to one of these every month or so. I think it's a little bit of a tempest in a teapot. However, having said that, I do think that the White House is trying to have it both ways. In other words, they're saying, "Look, it wasn't a really serious accident, the guy had a couple things of bird shot in him and, you know, this happens all the time in Texas." On the other hand, they're saying, "Well, we had to devote so much time to his medical treatment that it took us 20 hours to make it public." And you can't have it both ways.

http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1001995719
In an odd disparity, Armstrong told the Houston Chronicle that Whittington, 78, was "bruised more than bloodied" in the incident and "his pride was hurt more than anything else." Yet he was airlifted to a hospital and has spent more than a day in an intensive care unit.

10 or 200?

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2006_02_12.php#007670
[Houston Chronicle] Dr. David Blanchard, director of emergency services, said Whittington had more than 10 shotgun pellets embedded in his face, neck and torso as a result of Saturday's accidental shooting. . .

The Austin American-Statesman says Whittington was hit by as many as 200 pellets. . .

Real hunters weigh in

http://www.tpmcafe.com/node/26663
I've been on hunting parties of ten men, and it's the obligation of the shooters to know where each of them is, and to be sure they are safe. Cheney knew Whittington was chasing a bird. If he could not see Whittington, if he was not 100 percent sure of his whereabouts, he should not have taken a shot.

http://www.slate.com/id/2136065/fr/rss/
At the time Cheney pulled the trigger, Whittington was behind the group looking for a bird carcass. The vice president reportedly turned to shoot at a group of quail that had taken flight; by the time he shot, the birds were in the same line of fire as Whittington. In general, it's OK for hunters to turn and shoot if they detect prey behind them. But if Cheney knew that Whittington had stayed behind, he should have held his fire.

http://firedoglake.blogspot.com/2006_02_12_firedoglake_archive.html#113984118736473358
And no amount of trying to spin this to a press corps who has never fired a shotgun takes away from the fact that the shooter always has the obligation to ensure safety before pulling the trigger. ALWAYS.

http://www.charlotte.com/mld/observer/news/opinion/13866143.htm
Aspects of Vice President Dick Cheney's quail hunt make ethical hunters and hunter safety instructors cringe. . .

More: http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/wireStory?id=1614424

http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/news/politics/13863636.htm

http://firedoglake.blogspot.com/2006_02_12_firedoglake_archive.html#113985176383965724

Laugh time (thanks to Swopa for some of the links)

http://whateveritisimagainstit.blogspot.com/2006/02/all-of-you-are-going-to-be-seeking.html
I was going to ask if Cheney spoke to the local cops before fleeing the scene back to Washington, but silly me: in Texas when someone gets shot while hunting there’s no requirement even to inform the authorities unless they actually die.

Still less is there a legal requirement to inform the press. White House press corps to McClellan: “Why didn’t you tell us Cheney shot a guy?” McClellan: “You didn’t ask.” (I wrote that before seeing his actual words: “Well, I think we all know that once it is made public, then it’s going to be news, and all of you are going to be seeking that information.”) Ten bucks to the first reporter who asks just how many other people Cheney has shot over the years that they failed to tell us about.

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/6609.html
[Steve Benen] Moreover, if you have a few minutes, watch today's White House press briefing. It was breathtaking. Scott McClellan couldn't (or wouldn't) respond to pretty basic questions about when Bush learned what had happened, why there was a delay, why the Vice President's team relied on a private citizen to inform the public the day after the incident, why the private citizen says the VP's office didn't know she was going to the press while the VP's office says the opposite, etc. McClellan repeatedly said, "The vice president's office was working to get information out," despite the fact that this clearly does not appear to be the case.

I'm hardly the type to give these guys the benefit of the doubt, but I wasn't the least bit suspicious about the incident until the White House started dissembling. Leave it to the Bush gang to take a story in which the Vice President shot a guy and make it look worse.

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2006/2/13/23432/4110
[Thereisnospoon] [T]his story is a perfect metaphor for this administration's foreign and domestic policy. It says everything you need to know about Dick Cheney personally, and the way this entire administration operates. . .

http://www.slate.com/id/2136167
[Eric Umansky] The White House press corps—in a fun-filled briefing—all but revolted at having been left out of the loop on the shooting. Spokesman Scott McClellan seemed a bit revolted himself and suggested he would have told the press sooner if he had been, yes, calling the shots. . .

http://rockthrower.blogs.com/rockthrower/2006/02/the_gang_that_c.html
[John MacDonald] Apparently there is no truth to the rumor that Dick Cheney thought he was shooting at Cindy Sheehan. . .

The Daily Show, of course: http://www.crooksandliars.com/2006/02/13.html#a7149

More: http://www.nytimes.com/2006/02/14/politics/14whitehouse.html

http://www.knoxstudio.com/shns/story.cfm?pk=QUAILGATE-02-13-06&cat=AN

Finally, the real laugh: Cheney WAS in violation of the law, lacking a required $7 stamp for his hunting license

http://talkleft.com/new_archives/014018.html

http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room/2006/02/13/violation/index.html

http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1001996219

Other applicable laws? http://talkleft.com/new_archives/014017.html

http://firedoglake.blogspot.com/2006_02_12_firedoglake_archive.html#113986994122685124

http://firedoglake.blogspot.com/2006_02_12_firedoglake_archive.html#113987736981388900

The last (?) word

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2006_02/008219.php
[Kevin Drum] Now, 48 hours after the shooting, Cheney still hasn't talked to the press or even issued a statement saying he feels terrible about what happened, but he has released a statement saying that after learning he didn't have the right permit for shooting quail he has "sent a 7 dollar check to the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department, which is the cost of an upland game bird stamp."

Can this episode get any more ridiculous? The Veep's office can't rouse itself to say even a single word about what happened, but somehow they have the time to assure us that Cheney is good for the seven bucks he failed to pay for an upland game bird stamp? Are they trying to cement his reputation as a callous and scary reactionary, or what?

More: http://www.warandpiece.com/blogdirs/003663.html

The only reason NOT to dump Cheney

http://www.needlenose.com/node/view/2639
[Fubar] With Cheney out of the way, Bush can appoint someone like Mitt Romney or Jeb to the post, claim government clean-up, and position the new Veep as the front-runner in the 2008 race. Calling for Cheney's resignation is a big strategic mistake. Cheney can be easily tagged as the guy who lied about the Iraq/Al-Qaeda connection, the one who authorized the Plame leak, and the one who helped his oil buddies achieve obscene profits at the expense of middle-class America.

To mix metaphors, he's a radioactive boat-anchor attached to a lame-duck President dragging down the Republican party. Let's keep him there.

Now to the real stuff

http://abclocal.go.com/wtvg/story?section=nation_world&id=3904148
[AP] Three former associates of Jack Abramoff said Monday that the now-disgraced lobbyist frequently told them during his lobbying work he had strong ties to the White House through presidential confidant Karl Rove. . .

A few days ago we learned, contra all the right-wing excuses, that Valerie Plame WAS covert when the Bush gang outed her. Now we learn that the leak DID do real and serious damage to intelligence activities (which was the other rickety leg of their attempt to pooh-pooh the whole matter)

http://www.thewashingtonnote.com/archives/001246.php

More: http://rawstory.com/news/2005/Outed_CIA_officer_was_working_on_0213.html

A REAL conspiracy theory: http://www.juancole.com/2006/02/plame-wilson-had-worked-on-iran-anti.html
[Juan Cole] There has for some time been speculation among bloggers that Cheney et al. wanted to shoot down Plame Wilson for reasons other than that she is the wife of Ambassador Joseph Wilson . . .

Well, you always knew the Bush/Cheney commitment to real democracy around the world was THIS thin (case in point: Venezuela), but even for them this is a quick reversal

http://nytimes.com/2006/02/14/international/middleeast/14mideast.html
The United States and Israel are discussing ways to destabilize the Palestinian government so that newly elected Hamas officials will fail and elections will be called again. . .

In the never-ending, wild and wacky Franklin espionage case, the WH DEFENDS recipients of illegal classified leaks

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/02/13/AR2006021301905.html

The Grand Unified Theory of all the Republican scandals

http://www.mydd.com/story/2006/2/13/7310/69640
[Simon Rosenberg] We are facing a governing Party who has come to believe that the laws of our nation do not apply to them. . .

Just say “Noe” (gee, do you remember, back before Abramoff, when we thought this was a Big Scandal?)

http://www.cleveland.com/newsflash/cleveland/index.ssf?/base/news-23/1139843644282920.xml&storylist=cleveland
A coin dealer and GOP fundraiser hired to manage an unorthodox state investment in rare coins was charged Monday with embezzling at least $1 million in an election-year scandal that has sent Ohio Republicans running for cover. . .

Either Bush was “fully involved” in Katrina decisions, or he wasn’t: which is worse?

http://americablog.blogspot.com/2006/02/white-house-defends-and-touts-bush.html

Bush approval drops (again)

http://www.cnn.com/2006/POLITICS/02/13/poll.iran/
39%

The Cult of Bush

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2006/2/13/113252/771
[Kos, riffing on Glenn Greenwald] As Atrios noted the other day, it'll be interesting to see what happens as Bush's lame duck presidency inches closer to sweet, final conclusion. The Republican Party has abandoned all of its supposed core precepts (things like smaller government, a limited executive, fiscal responsibility, respect for the Constitution, allegiance to state rights, and fealty to civil liberties) on the altar of "King Bush Our Infallible Leader". . . Conservatism used to be a belief in limited government. Now, thanks to the Cult of Bush, conservatism means a belief in unlimited, unchecked powers for the executive. Bizarre and dangerous.

There must be an election coming: time to bash gays again

http://www.needlenose.com/node/view/2638
[CNN] Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist said Monday he plans a vote in early June on a constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage . .

[Fubar] Who knows? Perhaps people will stop caring about Iraq, Katrina, Plamegate, the deficit, NSA domestic spying, the Medicare drug plan, Enron trials, Abramoff, oil prices, and the Culture of Corruption and focus on the country's most pressing problem -- gays getting married. . . Are American voters really that stupid? The Republicans are certainly banking on it. Hey, it worked for them last time.

The rightward tilt of Sunday talk shows

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/features/2006/0603.waldman.html

The progressive blogosphere: doing its job

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2006_02_12_digbysblog_archive.html#113986005585564417

Bonus item: A headline that can be read both ways

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/02/14/business/14oil.html
U.S. Royalty Plan to Give Windfall to Oil Companies

And a reminder: http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2006/2/13/22180/9783
Exxon Mobil Corp. set U.S. records for annual and quarterly profits. . .

***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 @ 6:51 AM

 
SHOT

Dick Cheney shoots another hunter (fill in joke here). But here is the serious question: why was this story buried for 24 hours, and then acknowledged by the VP’s office ONLY AFTER it appeared in a local paper?

I’m sure Cheney feels terrible about it, and it’s a shame for the guy who got shot. But this little tableau exhibits ALL of the pathologies of how these people do business: cover up the information, deny key details until someone else reveals them, then minimize them, and always duck your own responsibility for what went wrong.

Notice how this chronology of successive accounts by the main AP story ducks the question (read carefully)

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060212/ap_on_go_pr_wh/cheney_hunting_accident
[3:10 pm] The shooting was first reported by the Corpus Christi Caller-Times. The vice president's office did not disclose the accident until nearly 24 hours after it happened. . . McBride did not comment about why the vice president's office did not tell reporters about the accident until the next day. She referred the question to Armstrong, who could not be reached again Sunday evening.

[8:38 pm] It was not reported publicly by the vice president's office for nearly 24 hours, and then only after it was reported locally by the Corpus Christi Caller-Times on its Web site Sunday. . . McBride said the vice president's office did not tell reporters about the accident Saturday because they were deferring to Armstrong to handle the announcement of what happened on her property.

[NB: In fact, it was NEVER announced by Cheney’s people, but only confirmed once it had already been reported. Did they really think they could keep this story from coming out? Let’s be clear – this is a potentially criminal matter, even if it was accidental (http://talkleft.com/new_archives/014006.html). You don’t let the release of such information depend upon whose property it happened on. This requires a better explanation than we’ve been given]

http://newsblogs.chicagotribune.com/news_theswamp/2006/02/slow_white_hous.html
How is it that Vice President Cheney can shoot a man, albeit accidentally, on Saturday during a hunting trip and the American public not be informed of it until today?. . .

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/6597.html
There's the suspicious timing angle. . .

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2006_02_12_digbysblog_archive.html#113978711134072675
This doesn't pass the smell test. . .

http://americablog.blogspot.com/2006/02/cheney-shot-guy-yesterday-why-are-we.html
I'm wondering if Cheney nearly killed the man and the White House wanted to make sure his victim was out of the woods before letting the public know about the story. . . Sure, the public has the right to know immediately when our vice president nearly kills somebody, but not in the Soviet America. . .

http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1001995719
[T]here was no indication whether the Vice President's office, the White House, or anyone else intended to announce the shooting if the reporter, Jaime Powell of the Corpus Christ Caller-Times, had not received word from the ranch owner. . .

The Cheney spokesman Powell spoke with, Lea Anne McBride, would not comment on whether the White House would have ever released the information had the Caller-Times not contacted them. . . . "I’m not going to speculate," McBride said, according to Powell. "When you put the call into me, I was able to confirm that account."

Francesco, at the Corpus Christi paper, said she felt it was a bit odd that her newsroom had not received any information about the shooting since "we often call law enforcement in area, even on weekends. We checked in and didn’t hear anything about it.". . . "There was no immediate reason given as to why the incident wasn't reported until Sunday," The Dallas Morning News observed. "The sheriff's office in Kenedy County did not respond to phone calls Sunday."

Blame the victim

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2006_02_12_digbysblog_archive.html#113982176961861277
"This all happened pretty quickly," Ms. Armstrong said in a telephone interview from her ranch. Mr. Whittington, she said, "did not announce — which would be protocol — 'Hey, it's me, I'm coming up,' " she said. . . "He didn't do what he was supposed to do," she added, referring to Mr. Whittington. "So when a bird flushed and the vice president swung in to shoot it, Harry was where the bird was."

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2006_02_12.php#007666
[Josh Marshall] You're out hunting for quail with a small group of people. For basic safety purposes you keep a clear mental picture of where your fellow hunters are at every moment. Based on that mental picture of where people are, you create a safe fire area, a range in front of you covering some number of degrees where you know no one else is. . . Things can get chaotic and excited when a bunch of birds (I'll just try, as a blanket matter, not to use the jargon) come into range or rise up. But if you don't shoot outside that safe fire zone, then everyone should be safe.

Now, if you read the description provided by Katharine Armstrong, the Bush-Cheney fundraiser on whose 'ranch' this happened, what she seems to describe is this: The birds 'flush'. Cheney picks out a bird and starts following it. In the process he basically wheels around doing a 180. So he's spun around and is now firing backwards relative to the direction he had been facing. And Whittington was just, for whatever reason, where Cheney didn't expect him to be.

Now, this happens. . . But when it happens it's a matter or carelessness and/or recklessness on the part of the shooter and it involves ignores some of the most basic rules of gun safety. . . So, from the information available, Cheney screwed up -- a relatively common hunting accident, based (as most accidents are) by not following basic safety guidelines and being careless. Trying to blame it on the guy who got shot just doesn't wash.

Serious questions

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2006_02_12.php#007662
[Josh Marshall] What stuck out to me though is that the owner of the property on which the incident occurred was the person interviewed by the AP. And the property owner, Katharine Armstrong, gave a highly exculpatory recounting of what transpired. Basically, she said the victim, Harry Whittington, snuck up on Cheney, didn't give the appropriate warning. And in any case getting sprayed with shot in the face and half your body isn't that big a deal anyway. . . But by way of Brad Blog we find that Armstrong is the daughter of the one of the folks who hired Cheney at Halliburton.

More: http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2006_02_12.php#007664

Who is Katharine Armstrong? http://talkleft.com/new_archives/014006.html

Whimsical questions

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2006_02_12_digbysblog_archive.html#113978711134072675
[Digby] OK, folks, I think I got enough information here to tell you about the contents of this fax that I got. Brace yourselves. This fax contains information that I have just been told will appear in a newsletter to Morgan Stanley sales personnel this afternoon... What it is is a bit of news which says... there's a Washington consulting firm that has scheduled the release of a report that will appear, it will be published, that claims that this shooting took place in an apartment owned by Lynn Cheney, and the body was then taken to the ranch.

[Cf: http://www.fair.org/extra/9407/koppel-limbaugh.html]

More whimsy: http://www.samefacts.com/archives/john_lott_/2006/02/guncontrolmeansasteadyaim_dept.php

http://crookedtimber.org/2006/02/12/veep-fiction/

Don’t say “shot”!

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2006_02_12_digbysblog_archive.html#113982176961861277
[Armstrong] Mr. Whittington was "sprayed — peppered, is what we call it — on his right side, on part of his face, neck, shoulder and rib cage," she said, noting that she, too, had been sprayed on her leg in a hunting accident. . . "A shotgun sprays a bunch of little bitty pellets; it's not a bullet involved,"

[Tristero] Must news reporters always exaggerate and say Vice President Cheney "shot" someone? That's just not true!. . . It's not as if he actually fired a big bad bullet. Just little bitty pellets. . . And, good heavens, Harry wasn't even "sprayed" with little bitty pellets. He was just peppered.

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2006_02_12.php#007665
Okay, so maybe these injuries were a bit more serious than the vice president's office has let on. . .

Well, this shotgun story has knocked for a loop what I was going to lead with today, which is a decided shift in the tone of coverage and analysis on the Sunday morning chat shows. Something is changing, I truly believe – the WH refusal to answer questions about Plame, Abramoff, Katrina, NSA spying, seems to have finally woken up the DC press corpse that THEY’RE HIDING SOMETHING, and probably something pretty damning. And, following on the Bush gang’s using Plame as an excuse to intimidate (and imprison) reporters – okay, well, that time it was Judith Miller – they now are threatening to do it all over again, on a bigger scale, with the NSA story. I think this has a lot of press people, whatever their political leanings, pretty upset now.

The best instance was ABC’s “This Week,” in which Republicans George Will and David Gergen played tag team in increasingly bitter commentary on the Bush team: (Gergen, for starters: “I continue to believe they are much better on the message side than they are on the competence question. . . But it’s not even a question of competence now, it’s a question of whether they were truthful with the country. . .” )

There’s no free transcript, but you can fast forward through the MP3 file to hear them: http://a.abcnews.com/podcast/060212thisweek_show.mp3

On “Meet the Press” Tim Russert does a strong job on the NSA scandal. There’s no way to excerpt it, but the entire show provided an excellent overview of the issue, and why the Bush defense ISN’T WORKING

Transcript and MP3 for podcasting: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3032608/

On the NSA domestic spying issue, a fascinating dynamic seems to have emerged – the fierce opposition on the underlying legality of the policy is coming now from Republicans, while the Democrats seem to have settled on the position that the policy COULD be made legal by revisions to the FISA law. This is somewhat cowardly, I think, but clever in two respects – first, the Bush people DON’T WANT to revise the FISA law, because they don’t believe they have to follow it in the first place; second, a revised FISA law would require reporting on things that haven’t come out yet, but which undoubtedly go beyond what they have admitted to so far (domestic-international calls with known Al Qaeda associates). So they either have to refuse to renegotiate FISA, after all their excuses that it is “outdated” and inadequate to new high-tech methods, or they have to sign a new FISA, but still withhold information and methods from Congress and the courts

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/02/12/AR2006021201174.html

http://americablog.blogspot.com/2006/02/maybe-cheney-really-was-just-sending.html

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2006/2/12/103414/440

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/11300384/site/newsweek/
The White House is defiant in defense of warrantless wiretaps. That stance is beginning to bug Congress. . .

More: http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2006/2/12/22501/7211

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2006_02_12_digbysblog_archive.html#113978556549077026

http://glenngreenwald.blogspot.com/2006/02/follow-up-to-bush-post-yesterday.html

It looks as if the chickens are coming home to roost on the Bush gang's strategy of threatening to prosecute anyone who leaks classified information, when we know that Cheney and others have directly authorized the leak of classified information for political purposes

http://makeashorterlink.com/?C12C151AC
Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald should investigate Vice President Dick Cheney and others in the CIA leak probe if they authorized an aide to give secret information to reporters, Democratic and Republican senators said Sunday. . .

[NB: . . . and others. . . ]

John Yoo, a man of “flexible” principles (thanks to Atrios for the link)

http://volokh.com/archives/archive_2006_02_12-2006_02_18.shtml#1139771776

Look who’s heading up Bush’s “internal investigation” over Katrina failures. . .

http://www.ericumansky.com/2006/02/from_the_post_d.html

. . . but all of that is about to be overtaken by the devastating House committee report that will be released this week

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/02/13/politics/13katrina.html

Gitmo

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-gitmo13feb13,0,3215042.story
A draft United Nations report on the detainees at Guantanamo Bay concludes that the U.S. treatment of them violates their rights to physical and mental health and, in some cases, constitutes torture. . . It also urges the United States to close the military prison in Cuba and bring the captives to trial on U.S. territory, charging that Washington's justification for the continued detention is a distortion of international law.

Ain Aouda (Never heard of it? You will)

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2089-2036185,00.html
THE United States is helping Morocco to build a new interrogation and detention facility for Al-Qaeda suspects near its capital, Rabat, according to western intelligence sources.

The sources confirmed last week that building was under way at Ain Aouda, above a wooded gorge south of Rabat’s diplomatic district. . . The construction of the new compound, run by the Direction de la Securité du Territoire (DST), the Moroccan secret police, adds to a substantial body of evidence that Morocco is one of America’s principal partners in the secret “rendition” programme in which the CIA flies prisoners to third countries for interrogation.

Accountability

http://www.slate.com/id/2136044
[Keelin McDonell] The NYT goes above the fold with a look into the Army's stalled efforts to prosecute soldiers and officers responsible for the gruesome deaths of two Afghan prisoners in Bagram in 2002. So far, no one has received more than five months in military prison for the crimes, which the Times attributes to "Army judges and jurors…[who] seemed to consider the soldiers' guilt or innocence with an acute sense of the sacrifices they had made." And 13 of the 27 people an internal investigation recommended for criminal charges have not even been prosecuted.

Police state watch, part #419 (thanks to Craig Cunningham and Jessica Wilson for the links)

http://news.pacificnews.org/news/view_article.html?article_id=eed74d9d44c30493706fe03f4c9b3a77
A Halliburton subsidiary has just received a $385 million contract from the Department of Homeland Security to provide "temporary detention and processing capabilities.". . . The contract -- announced Jan. 24 by the engineering and construction firm KBR -- calls for preparing for "an emergency influx of immigrants, or to support the rapid development of new programs" in the event of other emergencies, such as "a natural disaster." The release offered no details about where Halliburton was to build these facilities, or when. . .

More: http://wilsonhellie.typepad.com/for_the_record/2006/02/how_scary_is_th.html

Jaafari retained as Iraq PM – what comes next?

http://www.juancole.com/2006/02/jaafari-wins-on-basis-of-dawa-sadrist.html

http://www.slate.com/id/2136044
[Keelin McDonell] Jafari was far from the coalition's runaway pick for prime minister. He squeaked past his competition, Adel Abdul Mahdi, by a margin of 64 to 63 votes; the NYT sees his victory as evidence of "the growing power of anti-American fundamentalists within the new Parliament." (The Times especially plays up, while the WP just glosses, the fact that Jafari got a major boost when Shiite cleric Moqtada Sadr endorsed him.)

Hopes are not high for the Jafari administration amongst the papers either. The Christian Science Monitor calls the leader "polarizing and divisive" and ticks off the sizeable groups – Sunnis, Kurds, secularists – that he has offended. The Post, likewise, seems particularly skeptical of Jafari's future as Iraq's chief, noting that U.S. officials preferred the more secular Mahdi and twice highlighting Jafari's humbler-than-thou posturing. (When Mahdi congratulated him, Jafari replied: "You should console me in this situation.")

Team Hillary

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/6596.html

Back on the theme of an increasingly wary press – today’s must read

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/blog/2006/02/13/BL2006021300250.html
[Howard Kurtz] An information war is breaking out on multiple fronts, with journalists caught in the crossfire.

Federal investigators are looking into several national security leaks to the press. Government agencies are trying to muzzle staffers who don't toe the official line. Cartoonists are the latest to find their work denounced, with violent results in the Middle East.

And it doesn't stop there. Politicians are even trying to creatively edit what's said about them online. . . [read on]

Bonus item: Theocracy watch (thanks to David Noreen for the link)

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-creation11feb11,0,6286102,full.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 @ 7:18 AM

 
HE DON’T KNOW JACK

Hi Jack!

(Abramoff is the small face to the left, back against the wall. I must say I have to wonder if this photo was leaked by friendly sources, to show “See? This is how trivial it is to say Bush ‘had his picture taken’ with Abramoff.”)

http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1158908,00.html
Talking about the photo, Abramoff has told friends, "I was standing right next to the window and after the picture was taken, the President came over and shook hands with me, and we chatted and joked." A photograph of that scene as described by Abramoff was shown to TIME two weeks ago. Abramoff's lawyers have said that their client has long had photographs of himself with Bush, but that he has no intention of releasing any of them. Abramoff would not comment on the matter.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/02/12/politics/12lobby.html
Mr. McClellan said that Mr. Abramoff's name had not appeared on the invitation list of the May 2001 meeting and that it was unclear how the lobbyist had entered the White House grounds. A spokesman for Mr. Abramoff had no comment on the photograph or on his contacts with Mr. Garza.

It is not clear how Mr. Abramoff might have gotten Mr. Garza included in the president's meeting. White House records show the meeting was also attended by Grover Norquist, a friend of Mr. Abramoff's who is a leading conservative strategist and president of the group Americans for Tax Reform, which was helping to rally support for Mr. Bush's tax cuts. A spokesman for Mr. Norquist declined to comment on Mr. Norquist's involvement in the meeting.

What the Bush gang is doing in Guantanamo

http://www.samefacts.com/archives/torture_/2006/02/torturing_the_innocent.php
Torturing the innocent

U.S. plans to attack Iran

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2006/02/12/wiran12.xml&sSheet=/news/2006/02/12/ixnewstop.html

Shiites can’t settle on a new Prime Minister, with predictable consequences

http://www.guardian.co.uk/worldlatest/story/0,,-5611554,00.html

http://www.juancole.com/2006/02/bombings-assassinations-continue-as.html

Training the Iraq military: FUBAR

http://www.iht.com/articles/2006/02/10/news/army.php

The Wounded

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/02/12/national/12WOUNDED.html

More on Bush’s politicization of the military

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2006_02_05.php#007661

Why the "big" AP story on Harry Reid and Abramoff is less (much less) than meets the eye

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2006_02_05.php#007660
[Josh Marshall] The better part of the article is taken up with detailing Team Abramoff lobbying Reid on behalf of the sweatshop owners of the Marianas Islands, key and notorious. The whole thrust of the narrative suggests an illicit or suspect quid pro quo. But if you look closely what's never mentioned in the article is what Reid did on the Marianas sweatshop owners behalf -- which is of course a rather key detail.

I got on the phone with Reid's office and the lobbyist in question, Ron Platt, and they both said that Reid was and remained on the side of the debate -- he supported the minimum wage bill the Marianas folks opposed. That claim was confirmed by other supporters of the legislation.

In other words, whatever Abramoff and his crew might have tried to persuade Reid to do, he didn't do it.

That has to be a key part of the story, if you're discussing contacts between Marianas lobbyists on this issue. Only it's a part of the story the AP just neglected to mention.

Okay, so jump forward. After he spoke to me, Platt released a statement restating the gist of what he told me.

So what does the AP do with the information? They run a story with the lede that the Abramoff lobbyist confirms the meetings with Harry Reid. In other words, they portray a blackeye for their original story as a further confirmation of their story.

Now, yes, he did 'confirm' the meetings. But the fact that he had made contact with Reid's office was never seriously in dispute by anyone. . . Nowhere in the new article can the AP writers bring themselves to note that Reid never adopted Abramoff's clients' position on the issue. So whatever quids Abramoff's folks were offering up, Reid never gave them a quo. From start to finish he was the co-sponsor of the bill Abramoff's clients wanted to defeat.

That's key information -- arguably, the central piece of information in the whole case. But the AP keeps pressing their misleading narrative while omitting this key point.

More: http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2006/2/11/13265/5486

Gee, why would the AP run such a dishonest series of stories?

http://www.needlenose.com/node/view/2629
[Swopa] According to CornhuskerBlogger of Card Carrying Member, an anonymous but knowledgeable source claims that the lead reporter for those AP stories, John Solomon, is in the habit of "sending editorial assistants to RNC headquarters to pick up manila envelopes filled with opposition research -- and then hammering out a damning story on it in less than an hour."

“Trust me”? (today’s must-read)

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/02/12/opinion/12sun1.html
[NYT] We can't think of a president who has gone to the American people more often than George W. Bush has to ask them to forget about things like democracy, judicial process and the balance of powers — and just trust him. We also can't think of a president who has deserved that trust less. . .

As you know, a steadily growing number of Republicans are coming out against Bush’s illegal domestic spying program (and an even larger number are privately outraged about it). But still the news media mindlessly echo the Bush line that this is just a partisan issue. Why?

http://americablog.blogspot.com/2006/02/wapo-reporters-ignore-conservative.html

Why (honest) conservatives oppose him

http://msnbc.msn.com/id/11297101/

http://glenngreenwald.blogspot.com/2006/02/do-bush-followers-have-political.html

The Bush gang rapidly accelerates the investigation into who leaked the existence of warrantless spying in the first place (because you KNOW how ferocious these people are in preventing the leak of classified information. . . when they aren’t doing it themselves for political reasons)

http://glenngreenwald.blogspot.com/2006/02/silencing-bush-critics-with-prison.html

More: http://www.nytimes.com/2006/02/12/politics/12inquire.html

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2006_02/008206.php
[Kevin Drum] At a minimum, I figure the following reporters are at risk of cooling their heels in a federal penitentiary later this year if they refuse to testify about their sources for the various NSA stories they've written: Dan Eggan, James Risen, Eric Lichtblau, Barton Gellman, Dafna Linzer and Carol Leonnig. Too bad we don't have a federal shield law to protect them.

[NB: When this comes down, it will be crucial to say, again and again and again, that what they are being punished for is embarrassing the Administration, NOT for damaging any actual security secrets. What was news was that the Bush gang was illegally spying WITHOUT WARRANTS. That didn't tell "the enemy" anything -- but it told the American people A LOT. These people, and their sources, are heroes, whistleblowers, not traitors]

Katrina: “A Failure of Initiative”

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/02/11/AR2006021101409.html

http://www.slate.com/id/2136036
The House select committee report, entitled "A Failure of Initiative," turns out to be far from the GOP hush job that Democratic leaders expected when they boycotted the committee upon its creation last September, the Post reports. Ripping into the federal government's '"blinding lack of situational awareness,'" the report, composed entirely by Republican House members, unsparingly chastises the government's failures in anticipation, evacuation, and communication, leaving nobody off the blame train.

DHS secretary Michael Chertoff bears the brunt of its criticism for being slow to make bad decisions which were implemented poorly. But the White House is faulted for lethargic leadership, former FEMA head Michael Brown is blamed for incompetence, and even New Orleans mayor C. Ray Nagin is chided for general hysteria-mongering. '"All the little pigs built houses of straw,'" the report notes in an apt though somewhat unfortunate metaphor. Left unanswered is the question of whether Congress will be satisfied with finger-pointing, or whether accountability will be brought to bear.

Everything is for a reason: First Lady Laura Bush complains that Hillary Clinton’s criticisms of her husband’s policies are “out of bounds,” that she should have more “empathy” for the Bushes, etc. The idea, it seems to me: make this into a “women’s thing,” a First Ladies thing, and deflect the image of Clinton as an actual PEER of the President

http://www.cnn.com/2006/POLITICS/02/11/laura.hillary.ap/index.html
“I think it's politics, it's certainly politics."

[NB: “Unlike MY comments.”]

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2006/2/11/19516/1448
[SusanG] This from the woman whose husband employs as his alter ego, his "brain," arguably the worst, most mendacious guttersnipe ever to grace the American political stage (and that's saying something). . . Allow me a moment to clutch a hanky and dab at my eyes.

More evidence (how much more do we need?) that NCLB IS NOT WORKING

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/02/12/education/12tutor.html

The selection of John Boehner as House Majority Leader: just you wait, this is going to blow up eventually

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/02/11/AR2006021100842.html

Republicans: the new Party of Big Government

http://www.mydd.com/story/2006/2/11/185831/699

What game is this man playing? Joe Lieberman goes on Sean Hannity’s program, and sidles up to one of the most hideous and hateful members of the Right-wing smear machine. Why?

http://www.crooksandliars.com/2006/02/11.html#a7116
[John Amato] He says democrats don't like him because he loves to work with the other side. I don't remember the Republicans working with Democrats, did I miss something?

[NB: McCain/Lieberman, 2008?]

God REALLY IS my co-pilot

http://susiemadrak.com/2006/02/11/16/24/just-kidding/

Sunday talk show line-ups

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/02/11/AR2006021101075.html
FOX NEWS SUNDAY: Sens. Jack Reed (D-R.I.) and George Allen (R-Va.), the Rev. Joseph Lowery, former Bush aide Ron Christie and National Air and Space Museum geologist John Grant.

THIS WEEK: Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, Sen. Joseph R. Biden Jr. (D-Del.), Pennsylvania gubernatorial candidate Lynn Swann (R) and actress Sigourney Weaver.

FACE THE NATION: Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean and Rice.

MEET THE PRESS: Sen. Pat Roberts (R-Kan.), Reps. Jane Harman (D-Calif.) and Peter Hoekstra (R-Mich.) and former Senate majority leader Thomas A. Daschle (D-S.D.).

LATE EDITION: Sens. Chuck Hagel (R-Neb.) and Joseph I. Lieberman (D-Conn.), Danish Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen, Egyptian Ambassador Nabil Fahmy, Israeli Ambassador Danny Ayalon, Palestinian representative Afif Safieh and former Iraqi interim prime minister Ayad Allawi.

Bonus item: whoa-ho-ho-ho-ho! Ken Starr (yes, THAT Ken Starr) accused of falsifying evidence

http://makeashorterlink.com/?S4B6250AC
[Rising Hegemon] Lying and suborning perjury is what Starr accused Clinton of, and what the whole impeachment "supposedly" was based upon, for those of you who had tried to erase it from your memories.

OK, maybe not: http://www.samefacts.com/archives/crime_control_/2006/02/in_defense_just_this_once_of_kenneth_starr.php

***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 @ 7:27 AM

 
LEFT HAND/RIGHT HAND

Sometimes the left hand doesn’t know what the right hand is doing – and sometimes it doesn’t WANT to know. . .

Porter Goss vs. George Bush

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/11279032/site/newsweek/
[Jonathan Alter] Poor Porter Goss. First, the longtime Florida congressman leaves his safe seat to become director of the CIA, only to find that he’s been neutered by a new bureaucratic setup where he reports to John Negroponte, the director of national intelligence. Then he writes an op-ed piece decrying intelligence leaks in The New York Times on Friday, the exact same day as a story appears identifying today’s biggest leaker of antiterrorism secrets in Washington—President George W. Bush.

For crass political reasons—namely to advance his position on the National Security Agency spying story—the president chose to use a speech to the National Guard Association to disclose details of a 2002 “shoe bomb” plot to blow up the U.S. Bank Tower, the tallest building in Los Angeles. While the plot had been revealed in general terms in the past, the White House this week arranged for Bush’s counterterrorism adviser, Frances Fragos Townsend, to explain to reporters in a conference call exactly the kind of details that Goss claimed on the op-ed page helped the enemy. “We are at risk of losing a key battle,” Goss wrote. “The battle to protect our classification system.”

That system is at particular risk when it is exploited for political purposes. The president is allowed to declassify whatever he wants; that’s one of the privileges of being president. So in this case—unlike the NSA’s warrantless eavesdropping—there is no issue of Bush breaking the law. But let’s be clear on what this was: a deliberate effort to use declassification for partisan purposes, in this case, defending the administration’s policy on NSA surveillance, which Karl Rove says publicly will be a big part of the 2006 midterm campaign.

The White House made perfect political use of the twilight zone of intelligence. While Townsend did not explicitly claim that the NSA surveillance program had foiled the Los Angeles plot, she tried to imply that it might have played a role. “We use all available sources and methods in the intelligence community but we have to protect them,” she told reporters. “So I’m not going to talk about what ones we did or didn’t use in this particular case.”

Let’s get this straight. The president and administration officials will suddenly talk about details of the foiled plot—details that were highly classified until now. But they won’t say if the controversial NSA program was involved. Given their new willingness to talk at length about the case, can anyone seriously doubt that had the NSA eavesdropping cracked this case, they would have mentioned that? Simply saying that the NSA helped foil the plot—if it had—would not have compromised “sources and methods.” You can bet that if this were an NSA case, we’d know it. . .

Goss, meanwhile, is left hanging out to dry: he seems to be calling for more criminalization of intelligence leaks in one part of the paper while the president leaks like a sieve in the other. Elsewhere, he makes a big distinction between whistleblowers who seek accountability through proper channels (they’re right) and those who go to the media (obviously wrong). Feeling some pressure three quarters into his op-ed piece to offer even one example of how media coverage has jeopardized an intelligence operation, Goss hauls out the same chestnut Bush used in a press conference last month—the revelation that Osama bin Laden’s satellite phone had been tapped. The implication was that once the evil American media revealed this fact, bin Laden stopped using the phone and was harder to catch. In fact, bin Laden gave up his satphone after President Bill Clinton used coordinates from the phone to bomb him in 1998. It was Clinton’s missiles, not the media, that convinced the Al Qaeda leader he needed a more secure way to communicate.

Will the White House get away with using intelligence as a political weapon? Probably. Imagine if it were Clinton, not Bush, who decided to reveal classified information about the plot against Los Angeles in a politically convenient way. The rightwing gabfests would be having a field day, as well they should. But now the shoe bomb is on the other foot.

Porter Goss vs. Dick Cheney

http://rockthrower.blogs.com/rockthrower/2006/02/will_porter_gos.html
[John Macdonald] I wonder if the lecture by CIA Director Porter Goss in the Opinion section of Today’s New York Times applies to Vice President Dick Cheney?

Goss came out blazing today against the leaking of classified information to the nation’s news media. Criticizing those who do so Goss said those who “go straight to the press are not noble, honorable or patriotic. Nor are they whistleblowers. Instead they are committing a criminal act that potentially places American lives at risk”. . . “these disclosures can tip the terrorists to new technologies we use, our operational tactics, and the identities of brave men and women who risk their lives to assist us.”

Strong words, but the timing is either interesting or comical depending on your interpretation. Because just this morning the nation’s newspapers are running a new story reported first by the National Journal that Scooter Libby, the indicted former chief of staff to Vice President Dick Cheney testified that he was “authorized by his superiors” (apparently meaning Cheney) to disclose the highly classified National Intelligence Estimate on Iraq to reporters. Libby reportedly did so. . .

More: http://www.discourse.net/archives/2006/02/decreasingly_hypothetical_questions.html

Porter Goss has only two functions at the CIA, as near as I can tell: get rid of any professionals suspected of insufficient loyalty to the Bush regime, and resist ALL calls for investigation

http://dailynightly.msnbc.com/2006/02/another_departu.html

http://www.ericumansky.com/2006/02/cia_in_denial.html

It sure looks as if Bush’s leak about “foiling” a terrorist plot in L.A. is having an unexpected countereffect

http://www.needlenose.com/node/view/2623
[Swopa] The Gallup and AP-Ipsos poll results released today give us a hint as to the motivation for Dubya's "I saved Los Angeles!" PR stunt yesterday.

After I got all worked up over the lack of an effective Democratic response, however, a symbolic counterattack came from an unlikely, normally AWOL "ally." As Steve Benen documented nicely, a pushback effort from the media began almost immediately and continued this morning in multiple newspapers. Pushing the heroic Dubya onto page A4, the Washington Post instead gave front-page treatment to a Walter Pincus(!) article on new accusations of Bushite mendacity leading up to the Iraq invasion.

Meanwhile, the New York Times chimed in with more on the lies-and-incompetence front, this time regarding hurricane Katrina and Shrub & Co.'s professions of ignorance about the flooding of New Orleans. Former FEMA misadministrator Michael Brown's testimony to Congress top story on CNN, replacing the purported L.A. hijacking plot.

At the same time, numerous media outlets picked up on what Murray Waas reported about Big Dick Cheney authorizing his chief of (ahem) staff, Lewis "Call me Scooter!" Libby, to leak classified information -- even if it wasn't really news, which made the gesture even nicer.

So, of course, the supposed political genius that is Karl Rove decided he had to try another stunt, finding a new way to "leak" Dubya's self-pimping so as to make it seem like news. . .

http://www.first-draft.com//modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=5194
With each passing hour it looks like Chimpy's Library Tower terror story is fictional. . .

http://atrios.blogspot.com/2006_02_05_atrios_archive.html#113959341313123194
MS. TOWNSEND: We don't know exactly when the plot was scheduled for. . . [read on!]

http://glenngreenwald.blogspot.com/2006/02/al-qaeda-has-good-friend-in-white.html
[Glenn Greenwald] Whatever his reasons were for disclosing this information, there is no need for us to know what it is. It goes without saying that the Commander-in-Chief decided to disclose this at this time because doing so was necessary for our protection, and by questioning his motives, all we do is embolden the enemy and make terrorists attacks more likely, something to which I, for one, have no desire to contribute. So I'll just celebrate the Great Rescue along with my fellow grateful citizens.

Amidst the celebrations, though, one can't help but marvel at just how ridiculous and inane these scary terrorist plots appear to be even when they are deliberately depicted so as to achieve the maximum possible scare value. Here is how the President described the plot. . .

Once upon a time, Bush promised never to politicize national security or to use the war against terror as a partisan wedge issue. Then Rove and his boys realized this is the ONLY issue they have left

http://www.ledger-enquirer.com/mld/ledgerenquirer/news/politics/13843940.htm
Ken Mehlman, chairman of the Republican National Committee, declared Friday that Democrats who have condemned the Bush administration's controversial eavesdropping program may not be suited to safeguard Americans against terror attacks.

"We do not and we never should question these Democrat leaders' patriotism, but we do question their judgment and we do question their ability to keep the American people safe," he said. "These are people we know love their country, the question is: Can they protect it?"

Hey, KEN: it isn’t just the Democrats challenging you on illegal spying

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/02/11/politics/11wilson.html

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/02/10/AR2006021001799.html

Wait for the next round of Senate testimony

http://glenngreenwald.blogspot.com/2006/02/why-this-all-matters.html
[Glenn Greenwald] Gonzales was very meticulous in pointing out that Comey (and Goldsmith) had no objections to the current incarnation of the program, which means they did have objections either to: (a) some prior incarnation or otherwise proposed version of the program and/or (b) some other eavesdropping program. I don’t know what Comey will say, obviously, but he has a well-earned reputation for honesty and integrity, and the more witnesses who testify, the better — both because it keeps the scandal energized and alive and because the more facts that come out, the better. . .[read on]

We know they love their country, but can they keep us safe?

http://atrios.blogspot.com/2006_02_05_atrios_archive.html#113963349376383606

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2006_02_05_digbysblog_archive.html#113964966421432330
[NYT] Mr. Brown said that he told a senior White House official early on of the New Orleans flooding, and that the administration was too focused on terrorism to respond properly to natural disasters. . .

The Bush administration, as a whole, he said, did not seem to care enough about natural disasters and had relegated natural disasters to a "stepchild" of national security.

"It is my belief," Mr. Brown told the senators, that if "we've confirmed that a terrorist has blown up the 17th Street Canal levee, then everybody would have jumped all over that and been trying to do everything they could."

[Digby] Did they actually let him get away with that nonsense? Did nobody point out the obvious which Atrios immediately saw? That there is no essential difference between a response to a terrorist blowing up the levee or a hurricane blowing it? That you cancel your vacation and get your butt in gear 'cause you got a serious, serious emergency - thousands of lives are at stake - that requires the full attention of the f-cking president? . . .

Abramoff: the gift that keeps on giving

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/02/10/AR2006021001918.html

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2006_02_05.php#007659

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/11261495/
Jack Abramoff said in correspondence made public Thursday that President Bush met him “almost a dozen” times, disputing White House claims Bush did not know the former lobbyist at the center of a corruption scandal.

“The guy saw me in almost a dozen settings, and joked with me about a bunch of things, including details of my kids. Perhaps he has forgotten everything, who knows,” Abramoff wrote in an e-mail to Kim Eisler, national editor for the Washingtonian magazine.

Abramoff added that Bush also once invited him to his Texas ranch. . .

Bush has said he never had a discussion with Abramoff and does not remember having his picture taken with him.

Do the Republicans even CARE how bad these things look?

http://www.samefacts.com/archives/drug_policy_/2006/02/in_case_you_were_wondering_.php

http://www.cnn.com/2006/POLITICS/02/10/GOP.rebound/

More trouble ahead on Plame

http://www.americanprogressaction.org/site/apps/nl/newsletter2.asp?c=klLWJcP7H&b=700005

Why does George Bush hate the military?

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2006/2/11/1040/34903

http://www.alternet.org/bloggers/evan/32035

US trade deficit hits all-time high

http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/business/AP-Economy.html

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/02/11/business/11trade.html

What do you do when the objective measures of the economy go against your policies? Create a new unit to do the analysis and tell it what its results will be

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/02/10/AR2006021001855.html
Vice President Cheney said Thursday night that the verdict is in before the Bush administration's new tax analysis shop has even opened for business: Tax cuts boost federal government revenue. . . That assertion won applause from his audience at the Conservative Political Action Conference. . .

Atrios, in his own words

http://atrios.blogspot.com/2006_02_05_atrios_archive.html#113960493291294169
There will come a moment - fairly soon - when Bush will cease to be the standard bearer of the Republican party. Various competing factions will be going for the presidential nomination and while Bush's implicit or explicit endorsement might be helpful in the primaries I highly doubt that Bush will be a big help to whoever his potential successor is in the general election campaign.

The fascinating thing will be watching how the Republican Party unwinds itself from the George Bush personality cult it's become. The truth is, no matter what they pretend to think, they don't really like him. While the obedience and deference to Bush has far exceeded that which Reagan got during his time in office, it's impossible to imagine that Bush will replace Reagan as the patron saint of the party.

So we'll be watching Republicans as they slowly abandon their hero at which point he'll basically be forgotten.

Michael Brown, disgraced FEMA head – could it get any worse?

http://www.slate.com/id/2136034
[Jesse Stanchak] The New York Times leads (and everyone but the LAT fronts) with Michael Brown's Senate testimony, in which he blamed the White House and the Department of Homeland Security for the botched response to Hurricane Katrina. . . All the papers note that Michael Brown did a brisk about-face during his Senate testimony on Friday, placing blame on the administration and the internal workings of the DHS for FEMA's sluggish hurricane response. Last fall, when Brown spoke before the House (and incidentally, was still on the federal payroll) he sang a very different tune, saying state and local authorities were the cause of the foul-ups. The NYT focuses on the political theater surrounding the testimony, with Republicans scourging Brown and Democrats defending him now that he's turned on Bush. The WP sticks closer to the meat of what Brown said, the chronology of phone calls he painted to show that it was his superiors who ultimately dropped the ball, having made disaster response the "stepchild" within the DHS family.

More: http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2006_02_05.php#007654

http://www.first-draft.com//modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=5203

http://www.prospect.org/weblog/archives/2006/02/index.html#009139

Tom DeLay, fighting for his life in his home district, writes to his constituents

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/politics/3649269.html
In the letter DeLay distances himself from disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff, whom he called "one of my closest and dearest friends," during a trip to the Northern Mariana Islands in 1997.

"The notion that Abramoff was a close friend who wielded influence over me is absolutely untrue," DeLay writes. "Jack Abramoff and I were not close personal friends. . .”

The dreaded “L” word

http://mediamatters.org/items/200602100005

Ann Coulter: a miserable excuse for a human being

http://americablog.blogspot.com/2006/02/us-vice-president-dick-cheney-attends.html

http://atrios.blogspot.com/2006_02_05_atrios_archive.html#113963158660660504
[Atrios] One wonders if there's anything Ann Coulter can say which will keep her from having regular mainstream media gigs. All signs point to no.

Bush gets “wiretapped”

http://www.cnn.com/2006/POLITICS/02/10/GOP.rebound/
House Republicans are attending a private retreat at a resort on Maryland's Eastern Shore, where Bush visited Friday to rally his GOP colleagues. The president spent about 90 minutes answering their questions.

"We've got a record, and it's a record of accomplishment," said the president, who received a standing ovation when he was introduced. "And we're ready to lead again. We don't fear the future because we're going to shape the future."

Reporters were allowed to hear Bush's remarks, but were told to leave before the question-and-answer session. . .

But: http://www.lasvegassun.com/sunbin/stories/bw-wh/2006/feb/10/021003398.html

Simply surreal

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/02/09/AR2006020901913.html

Bonus item: Republicans – weirder than fiction

http://majikthise.typepad.com/majikthise_/2006/02/operation_flag_.html
Saying the nation's symbol "deserves more respect than the protest message of some liberal hippie," a Missouri state lawmaker has introduced a bill legalizing the use of force to stop someone from desecrating the American flag.

Republican Rep. Sam Gaskill, a former fighter pilot in Vietnam, defended his bill yesterday, insisting the measure would prevent the defilement of an important symbol rather than promote violence.

"You should be able to take hold of the flag and take it off the ground and rescue it," Gaskill said. "If the guy doesn't want to let go of it or he swings back then the person ought to fight back."

When asked if the bill would allow someone to take aggressive action against another person, Gaskill said: "I'm sure they could.". . .

***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 @ 10:45 AM

 
FEAR FACTOR

Flailing desperately to get on top of the illegal spying issue, Bush tries an old familiar tactic: disclosing an earlier terror attack that was supposedly foiled (“See, only we can keep you safe – just don’t question how we go about doing it”). There are so many things about this story that don’t add up – but the biggest question is this: from everything I read, disclosing such foiled plots is one of the surest ways of disclosing your counterintelligence sources and tactics to your opponent. Yet this is an administration who claimed that a news article stating that they were eavesdropping on phone calls and emails (which everyone KNEW they were doing, including the terrorists – what was news was that they were doing it without required warrants) was a major betrayal of national security. How do these two stories fit together? (I know, I know: “When we do it, it’s different”)

The story: http://www.nytimes.com/2006/02/09/politics/09cnd-bush.html
President Bush defended his anti-terrorist policies anew today, asserting that the United States and its allies had foiled a terrorist plot meant to bring down a Los Angeles building that is the tallest in the United States west of the Mississippi River. . . Mr. Bush said that just a month after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, terrorists planned to hijack another airplane by using "shoe bombs" to breach the cockpit door. . .

Ms. Townsend, who spoke to reporters on a conference call, declined to say whether the secret surveillance of electronic communications between people in the United States and terror suspects abroad had played a role in finding the terror cell involved. . .

http://www.cnn.com/2006/POLITICS/02/09/bush.terror/index.html
Two members of the Senate Intelligence Committee, Sens. Jay Rockefeller, D-West Virginia, and Dianne Feinstein, D-California, questioned the timing and the details of Bush's revelation.

"It may be that they're tired of talking about the Brooklyn Bridge, and they're trying to find a different edifice of some sort," Rockefeller said.

Added Feinstein, "All I'm saying is that's not a new revelation and I've never seen anything that indicated whether the second wave was bona fide or not."

What doesn’t make sense: http://americablog.blogspot.com/2006/02/growing-questions-about-whether-bush.html
[John Aravosis] 1. Los Angeles Mayor knows nothing about the supposed threat. . .

2. Bush's claim to have thwarted an attack on LA is disputed by former FBI official. . .

http://www.slate.com/id/2135952
[Eric Umansky] [T]he WP says there's "deep disagreement within the intelligence community" over whether the plot was "ever much more than talk." The LAT takes an even dimmer view of the picture the president drew. Speaking about the purported plot, a U.S. counterterrorism "official" told the paper, "It didn't go. It didn't happen."

That would jibe with what some insiders said after Bush alluded last fall to the plot. A counterterrorism official told the Post back then, "It's safe to say that most of the [intel] community doesn't think it's worth very much." And the LAT cited "senior law enforcement officials" who "said authorities have not disrupted any operational terrorist plot within the United States" since 9/11."

http://susiemadrak.com/2006/02/10/06/59/gilding-the-lily/
[AFP] “I think he is gilding the lily a little,” said Clive Williams, adjunct professor at the Strategic and Defence Studies Centre of the Australian National University.

He said that although Al-Qaeda had thought about such an attack, “I don’t think they got very far in their planning process.”

Why reporters don’t believe it: http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1001994881
The claim today by President George W. Bush of a thwarted terrorist attack on Los Angeles was news to nearly everyone—including, in large measure, the mayor of that city—and raised a few eyebrows around the White House press room, as suggested by a series of exchanges between Press Secretary Scott McClellan and several reporters at the daily briefing today. . .

Q Can I ask you a question about the timing of the speech today?. . .

Q Scott, I wanted to just ask a follow-up about the LA plot. Is there something missing from this story, a practical application, a few facts? Because if you want to commandeer a plane and fly it into a tower, if you used shoe bombs, wouldn't you blow off the cockpit? Or is there something missing from this story? . . . Think about it, if you're wearing shoe bombs, you either blow off your feet or you blow off the front of the airplane. . .

Q Scott, I apologize if I'm still confused, but I wonder if you could tell us a bit more specifically what has changed since October, when we were told that discussing details of this plot was inappropriate, and today? What has actually changed since October in that regard? . . . [W]ould sources and methods have been compromised in October, but wouldn't be today?. . .

More from the gaggle: http://www.first-draft.com//modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=5191

Fear factor

http://www.needlenose.com/node/view/2622
"Strong daddy is protecting you! Stop questioning strong daddy!"
[Swopa] I think the title of this post is the subtext behind today's PR stunt.

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2006/2/9/12129/64320
[Georgia10] Who needs the color-coded terror alerts when you have the President fear-mongering every time his back is up against the wall?

http://susiemadrak.com/2006/02/09/13/25/timing-is-everything-2/
[Susan Madrak] I’m so confused. I thought we weren’t supposed to tip off the terrorists by talking about our programs to thwart them. Isn’t the president helping the enemy?

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2006_02/008192.php
[Kevin Drum] Here's the list of the ten terrorist plots the Bush administration claims to have foiled since 9/11. Great stuff. But I have a question. If it's now OK to reveal information like this, how about also releasing a list of the terrorist plots broken up in the four years prior to 9/11?

More: http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/6579.html

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/blog/2006/02/09/BL2006020901085_pf.html

http://www.samefacts.com/archives/valerie_plame_/2006/02/bushs_dilemma.php

Another Insight article, so take this with the usual grain of salt, but. . .

http://americablog.blogspot.com/2006/02/wash-times-1-bush-is-spying-on.html
[John Aravosis] 1) The article makes clear that Bush is spying on Americans talking to Americans inside the United States, even when neither of the two Americans are members of Al Qaeda or an affiliate. . .

2) The article makes clear that Bush's domestic spy program is totally ineffective and unnecessary as Al Qaeda stopped using the phones and email a long time ago. . .

3) The article says that the Bush teams knows of specific Al Qaeda members in the US at the moment, but because of Bush's incompetence he has been unable to find them. . .

More: http://www.insightmag.com/Media/MediaManager/wiretaps_0.htm

The Fourth Amendment: bah!

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2006_02/008186.php

It makes no sense: If the purpose is to track sleeper cells within the US, why limit surveillance only to domestic-international calls? (Assuming, of course, that they actually ARE limited in that respect, which they probably aren’t)

http://glenngreenwald.blogspot.com/2006/02/catch-22-for-administration.html

More on NSA spying: Gonzales lied

http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room/2006/02/09/spying/index.html

Their own people TOLD them it was illegal

http://www.prospect.org/weblog/archives/2006/02/index.html#009109

Big: very, very big

http://firedoglake.blogspot.com/2006_02_05_firedoglake_archive.html#113952814629699645
[Jane Hamsher] Sources familiar with the potential witness list of the Senate Judiciary Committee's hearings into the NSA wiretapping scandal say that Arlen Specter has asked James Comey to appear before the Committee, and that Comey has expressed concern that his testimony would bring about a situation where the White House would invoke executive privilege.

. . . Comey was a Bush Administration appointee to the Justice Department who tangled with them almost from the day he arrived, challenging their positions on torture, illegal wiretapping and the CIA leak case. He appointed Patrick Fitzgerald and gave him the authority and the protection he needed in order to do his job. It was Comey who, when Ashcroft was sick in the hospital, refused to re-authorize the illegal NSA wiretaps in the first place. He eventually resigned from the Justice Department.

There can be no meaningful hearings by the Judiciary Committee or any other committee on this matter without the testimony of Comey who was so integrally involved in raising alarms about the whole affair.

More: http://firedoglake.blogspot.com/2006_01_29_firedoglake_archive.html#113857504602284173

The levees have broken. . . .

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-levees10feb10,0,7553080.story
Twenty-eight government agencies, from local Louisiana parishes to the White House, reported that New Orleans levees were breached Aug. 29, the day Hurricane Katrina roared ashore, documents released Thursday show. . . A timeline of e-mails, situation updates and weather reports, pieced together by Senate Democrats, indicates the Bush administration knew as early as 8:30 a.m. EST that day about levee failures that would ultimately lead to massive flooding of the city and its surrounding parishes. . .

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/02/10/politics/10katrina.html
In the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, Bush administration officials said they had been caught by surprise when they were told on Tuesday, Aug. 30, that a levee had broken, allowing floodwaters to engulf New Orleans. . . But Congressional investigators have now learned that an eyewitness account of the flooding from a federal emergency official reached the Homeland Security Department's headquarters starting at 9:27 p.m. the day before, and the White House itself at midnight. . .

http://americablog.blogspot.com/2006/02/white-house-knew-new-orleans-levees.html
The president of the United State is a liar. . .

Bush is being blackmailed on three separate fronts: Brownie, Libby, and Abramoff

http://www.cnn.com/2006/US/02/09/fema.brown.ap/index.html
Former disaster agency chief Michael Brown is indicating he is ready to reveal his correspondence with President Bush and other officials during Hurricane Katrina unless the White House forbids it and offers legal support. . .

More: http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2006_02_05.php#007642

The Plame story may be about to create a whole new level of hurt for Bush and Cheney: Libby and others weren’t just outing CIA agents, they were leaking all kinds of classified info – and they were told to!

http://nationaljournal.com/about/njweekly/stories/2006/0209nj1.htm
Vice President Dick Cheney's former chief of staff, I. Lewis (Scooter) Libby, testified to a federal grand jury that he had been "authorized" by Cheney and other White House "superiors" in the summer of 2003 to disclose classified information to journalists to defend the Bush administration's use of prewar intelligence in making the case to go to war with Iraq. . .

But besides sharing details of the NIE with reporters during the effort to rebut Wilson, Libby is also accused of telling journalists that Wilson's wife, Valerie Plame, had worked for the CIA. Libby and other Bush administration officials believed that if Plame played a role in the selection of her husband for the Niger mission, that fact might discredit him.

More: http://atrios.blogspot.com/2006_02_05_atrios_archive.html#113952134484997859

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/6578.html

A coordinated effort

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/020906J.shtml
Vice President Dick Cheney and then-Deputy National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley led a campaign beginning in March 2003 to discredit former Ambassador Joseph Wilson for publicly criticizing the Bush administration's intelligence on Iraq, according to current and former administration officials. . .

http://www.warandpiece.com/blogdirs/003650.html
[Laura Rozen] You have to admit this doesn't do much for the White House's case that we should just trust them on the NSA warrantless domestic spying all going for a legitimate, non-politicized cause, you know? If Cheney authorized disclosure of classified information to journalists in order to hurt a political foe, as contended here, isn't that the MO we should expect defines the White House standard practice?

Plame WAS a covert agent

http://susiemadrak.com/2006/02/09/20/31/but-but-but-they-said-she-was-a-desk-jockey-2/

More ominous news on Plame

http://www.first-draft.com//modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=5187
More than two dozen e-mails related to CIA agent Valerie Plame and her husband, former Ambassador Joseph Wilson, are missing, according to investigative reporter Jason Leopold. The messages were sent to several senior members of the George W. Bush administration between May 2003 and July 2003. . . Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald suspects these messages may have been destroyed. . .

“Once upon a time. . .” (don’t miss it!)

http://www.juancole.com/2006/02/cheney-authorized-libby-to-disclose.html

WH flatly refuses to address Abramoff’s claim that he’s met Bush about a dozen times

http://americablog.blogspot.com/2006/02/white-house-refuses-to-respond-to-new.html

Video and transcript: http://thinkprogress.org/2006/02/09/mcclellan-abramoff/

The photos: http://thinkprogress.org/2006/02/09/photos-abramoff-house/

Another brick in the wall. . .

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/02/09/AR2006020902418.html
The former CIA official who coordinated U.S. intelligence on the Middle East until last year has accused the Bush administration of "cherry-picking" intelligence on Iraq to justify a decision it had already reached to go to war, and of ignoring warnings that the country could easily fall into violence and chaos after an invasion to overthrow Saddam Hussein.

Paul R. Pillar, who was the national intelligence officer for the Near East and South Asia from 2000 to 2005, acknowledges the U.S. intelligence agencies' mistakes in concluding that Hussein's government possessed weapons of mass destruction. But he said those misjudgments did not drive the administration's decision to invade. . . "Official intelligence on Iraqi weapons programs was flawed, but even with its flaws, it was not what led to the war," Pillar wrote in the upcoming issue of the journal Foreign Affairs. Instead, he asserted, the administration "went to war without requesting -- and evidently without being influenced by -- any strategic-level intelligence assessments on any aspect of Iraq."

"It has become clear that official intelligence was not relied on in making even the most significant national security decisions, that intelligence was misused publicly to justify decisions already made, that damaging ill will developed between [Bush] policymakers and intelligence officers, and that the intelligence community's own work was politicized," Pillar wrote.

Patriots

http://www.slate.com/id/2135952
[Eric Umansky] The Washington Post leads with a handful of once-recalcitrant Republicans senators and a couple of Democrats signing on to a White House proposal, billed as a compromise, to extend the Patriot Act. A few civil liberties protections were added—and derided by most Democrats as merely cosmetic. Among the changes: Gag orders from secret subpoenas could be challenged after one year, also it would become harder for the feds to get library records. It's still not certain that the White House has enough votes to get the deal.

This is brilliant. Bush makes a big speech about cutting ineffective and wasteful govt programs, and launches a web site listing them. But guess what’s included on that page! (Unlike many reporters, bloggers actually go and LOOK at these things)

http://www.first-draft.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=5185
[Holden] So this morning I paid a visit to expectmore.gov and clicked on their link to programs that are not performing. What did I find? Listed among those programs judged to be performing poorly was Department of State's Public Diplomacy program headed by none other than Karen Hughes. Let's fire her ass!

Also listed as "Not Performing" are. . .

More: http://www.first-draft.com//modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=5189

Uh, excuse me: this is ILLEGAL

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/robert-schlesinger/white-house-mobilizes-the_b_15354.html
At the same time, the Bush administration is going directly to the public with its war message. Raul Damas, associate director of political affairs at the White House, has been on the phone directly to Republican county chairmen to arrange local speeches by active duty military personnel to talk about their experiences in Iraq. . .

According to the DoD regs, examples of prohibited activities by active-duty military include: A “member on active duty shall not speak before a partisan political gathering, including any gathering that promotes a partisan political party, candidate, or cause.”

Hateful bigots: every one of them

Bill Bennett: http://americablog.blogspot.com/2006/02/cnns-new-employee-william-bennett.html

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2006_02_05_digbysblog_archive.html#113953914272681521

Mary Matalin: http://mediamatters.org/items/200602090003

The evidence of GOP congressional corruption and abuse of power is so rampant that it’s almost impossible to keep track of each new outrage. But this is a big one, even for them

http://americablog.blogspot.com/2006/02/frist-hastert-rigged-defense.html
Frist and Hastert secretly slipped language into the defense bill, AFTER IT HAD ALREADY BEEN VOTED ON, language that nobody knew about, that wasn't agreed to, so it became law. . .

Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist and House Speaker Dennis Hastert engineered a backroom legislative maneuver to protect pharmaceutical companies from lawsuits, say witnesses to the pre-Christmas power play.

The language was tucked into a Defense Department appropriations bill at the last minute without the approval of members of a House-Senate conference committee, say several witnesses, including a top Republican staff member.

Holding their feet to the fire

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2006/2/9/175724/2277
[Kos] Ha ha. Unless Democrats wuss out, Republicans will have to vote again on those politically painful budget cuts they thought they had gotten behind them. . .

“Balanced” reporting: Harry Reid (D-NV) got Abramoff money too! But this apparent blockbuster just withers away under closer examination

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/abramoff_reid

http://www.mydd.com/story/2006/2/9/163540/9804

http://mediamatters.org/items/200602100001

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/007647.php

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2006_02_05.php#007649

The Democrats’ 2006 agenda: it will be “pithy”

http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2006-02-08-democrats-agenda_x.htm

Dems can pick up 12 House seats?

http://www.mydd.com/story/2006/2/10/119/32630

Bonus item: Making the news

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2006/2/9/182425/5772
[Kos] Fox News edits out applause from Rev. Lowery's speech, then they comment on the lack of applause. How positively Soviet of them!

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

I don't get anything personally out of this project, except the satisfaction of doing it (I don't run ads, etc). The credit really all goes to the people whose material I copy and redistribute. But if I do have a "mission," it is to get this information into the hands of as many people as I can.***
- posted by Nick Burbules @ 6:51 AM

 
DATA MINING

WH suddenly yields, agrees to give Congressional committees a briefing on its NSA spying activities: but are they giving the full story?

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/02/08/AR2006020802294.html
Despite the administration's overture, several prominent Republicans said they will pursue legislation enabling Congress to conduct more aggressive oversight of the National Security Agency's warrantless monitoring of Americans' phone calls and e-mails. . .

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2006_02/008184.php

And as more of the story comes out: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/02/08/AR2006020802511.html
Twice in the past four years, a top Justice Department lawyer warned the presiding judge of a secret surveillance court that information overheard in President Bush's eavesdropping program may have been improperly used to obtain wiretap warrants in the court, according to two sources with knowledge of those events.

The revelations infuriated U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly -- who, like her predecessor, Royce C. Lamberth, had expressed serious doubts about whether the warrantless monitoring of phone calls and e-mails ordered by Bush was legal. Both judges had insisted that no information obtained this way be used to gain warrants from their court, according to government sources, and both had been assured by administration officials it would never happen. . .

Data mining (worried yet?)

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2006_02/008183.php

http://www.ericumansky.com/2006/02/total_informati.html

More: http://www.csmonitor.com/2006/0209/p01s02-uspo.html

Gonzales’s dishonest and evasive testimony

http://americablog.blogspot.com/2006/02/wash-post-gonzales-apears-to-have-lied.html

http://glenngreenwald.blogspot.com/2006/02/nsa-fight-begins-strategies-for-moving.html
[Glenn Greenwald] The President is now claiming, and is aggressively exercising, the right to use any and all war powers against American citizens even within the United States, and he insists that neither Congress nor the courts can do anything to stop him or even restrict him. . .

Unable to get an ounce of public support for his plan to dismantle Social Security (despite a full-out year-long Rovean blitz of speeches, town hall meetings, and pep rallies), Bush goes ahead and sneaks it into his proposed budget anyway

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2006_02_05.php#007637

http://www.needlenose.com/node/view/2619

More: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/02/07/AR2006020701865.html

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060208/ap_on_go_pr_wh/bush_social_security

More budget shenanigans

http://www.slate.com/id/2135816
[Eric Umansky] The WP goes inside with White House documents showing that in order to meet its promise to halve the budget by 2009, the White House has plans to trim far more domestic programs than it's acknowledged. As the Post notes, White House budget proposals historically include numbers over a five or 10 year window. The recently unveiled proposed budget includes just next year, when as it happens relatively few programs are slated for cuts.

More: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/02/08/AR2006020802300.html

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/blog/2006/02/07/BL2006020700870.html
[Dan Froomkin] In the coverage of President Bush's proposed $2.77 trillion budget this morning, reporters are making no bones about the fact that it bears little relationship to reality. . .

Great, just great

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/02/09/international/middleeast/09hearing.html
Virtually every measure of the performance of Iraq's oil, electricity, water and sewerage sectors has fallen below preinvasion values even though $16 billion of American taxpayer money has already been disbursed in the Iraq reconstruction program . .

I suppose this has to be discounted somewhat for expected puffery and self-promotion, but if these emails are true, Bush knew Abramoff QUITE well

http://thinkprogress.org/2006/02/08/exclusive-abramoff-emails/
At a January 26 press conference, President Bush said “You know, I, frankly, don’t even remember having my picture taken with the guy. I don’t know him.”

But according to Eisler, Abramoff told him that the two have met almost a dozen times, shared jokes, and spoke about details of Abramoff’s family. . .

Other shoes to drop

http://online.wsj.com/public/article/SB113935546071667719-auNBNLep_LngFIKDTwQ9vhhx3eY_20070208.html
A court hearing scheduled later this month may bring fresh attention to the case of former White House aide David Safavian, who is charged with lying in connection with a golf trip Mr. Abramoff arranged. Justice Department officials haven't closed their review of actions by former Interior Department official J. Steven Griles, who disputes claims that he favored Abramoff clients, such as Native American tribes involved in casinos. Calls for the White House to release photos of Mr. Abramoff with the president -- and details of his contacts with presidential aides including Karl Rove -- haven't abated.

"Their refusal to release information is inexcusable," says Tom Fitton, president of conservative legal organization Judicial Watch. As a result, the scandal "is now in the White House." . . .

More: http://msnbc.msn.com/id/11233367/

http://www.samefacts.com/archives/_/2006/02/believe_this_and_theyll_tell_you_another.php

Tom DeLay gets Duke Cunningham’s Appropriations Committee seat (because the Appropriations Committee is just where you want to put someone with corruption problems)

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2006_02_05.php#007640
No, you can't make this stuff up. . .

More: http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-briefs9.2feb09,0,6198649.story

Boehner rents an apartment from a lobbyist. How does CNN cover it? Watch Cafferty vs Blitzer

http://americablog.blogspot.com/2006/02/cnns-cafferty-nails-boehner.html
CAFFERTY: These guys are either arrogant or stupid and neither of those is a good thing if you're going to be the House majority leader--am I missing something here? Where's the reform part? I wonder how long this guy is going to last.

WOLF: You did hear Ed Henry say that it is a basement apartment which is not necessarily all that desirable---

CAFFERTY: Yea...and pigs fly upside down and the moon is made of green cheese and there's no quid pro quo from a lobbyist who is also your landlord? Do I look like I just fell out of the back of a vegetable truck to you?

More: http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2006_02_05_digbysblog_archive.html#113943791843599864

Yesterday, we asked what Joe Lieberman would do in taking sides on the dust-up between John McCain and Barak Obama. Which would prevail: his loyalty to his party (and for that matter, to the facts), or his carefully-cultivated image as a cross-over “moderate”? It’s a question that answers itself

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2006/2/8/114155/8768

http://www.mydd.com/story/2006/2/8/81154/43156

The Goofus Files

http://www.first-draft.com//modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=5177

Bush’s assault on science should be a real election issue

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2006_02_05_digbysblog_archive.html#113944962681041419

MSNBC producer takes part on a panel advising conservative activists about how to get their message out. . .

http://americablog.blogspot.com/2006/02/msnbc-is-helping-conservative.html

More press advice

http://americablog.blogspot.com/2006/02/washington-times-is-recommending.html
[Washington Times] Republicans can find strength and success by listening to their like-minded bloggers; Democrats can find strength and success by ignoring theirs.

The mindless DC press conventional wisdom is: “Feckless Dems Keep Shooting Themselves in the Foot” (with a big assist from reporters like Adam Nagourney). Heck, I say that here sometimes. But the FACT is, they are in a pretty strong position right now to retake Congress. Read on

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2006_02_05.php#007630

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2006_02_05.php#007632

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2006_02_05.php#007635

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2006_02_05.php#007633

A new site on midterm election news: http://www.prospect.org/midterm/

Another example of how, once the press gets a trope in its head, it’s very difficult for the facts to shake it loose: this time, on the NSA wiretapping story

http://www.prospect.org/weblog/archives/2006/02/index.html#009084
[NYT] With polls showing the public divided on the eavesdropping issue, Democrats forcefully questioned Mr. Gonzales, criticizing him and the president as being less than forthcoming with Congress and failing to seek authorization for wiretaps under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. . . But Democrats also tried not to paint wiretapping as inherently evil.

[Greg Sargent] Could it be that Democrats didn't describe wiretapping as "evil" because...they don't think it is evil? Let's be clear about what's going on here. If Democrats have a balancing act on their hands, it has nothing whatsoever to do with the fact that their actual position -- i.e., that only illegal wiretapping is wrong -- is politically untenable. In fact, polls show that majorities agree with the Democratic position when the pollster bothers describing it accurately. Rather, the need for this "balancing act" flows from the fact that the caricature of their position -- i.e., that they oppose wiretapping, period -- is politically untenable. The notion that Dems were "trying" not to paint wiretapping as inherently evil suggests that Dems are somehow cynically calculating and maneuvering to avoid acknowledging the ramifications of their position. In reality, they were simply trying to make their actual position heard above the din of misrepresentation.

More: http://www.prospect.org/weblog/archives/2006/02/index.html#009088

http://www.prospect.org/weblog/archives/2006/02/index.html#009097
[T]he problem Democrats have flows largely from the fact that many reporters and pundits simply aren't prepared to let Dems have the position on wiretapping that they actually have.

Bonus item: They are what they are (thanks to Susan Madrak for the link)

http://www.nydailynews.com/02-07-2006/news/story/389112p-330165c.html
When the estimated cost of the Iraq war soared beyond $300 billion yesterday, White House officials said there were no regrets about humiliating two top aides who had accurately predicted the war's cost.

Retired Army Chief of Staff Gen. Eric Shinseki and White House economic adviser Larry Lindsey had pegged the cost of the war at $200 billion. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said it would cost only $50 billion.

Lindsey was fired and Shinseki was shunted aside.

Budget director Josh Bolten paused yesterday when asked if they were owed an apology.

"I don't think so. The costs of the war are what they are," he said.

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

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

 
MORE TO COME

Okay, permit me a bit of speculation here. Maybe it’s just the lefty blog echo chamber that I’m reading, and maybe it’s more than a little bit of wishful thinking. But on a number of fronts there’s a feeling, a hint, that there is Something Else out there, something that hasn’t broken yet, which is going to cause the Bush people a lot of trouble – and that even they think could lead to serious impeachment talk. What is it? Something on Plame? Something on NSA spying? More on torture and prisoner abuse? Any of those would be likely candidates. But the aggressive assertions of Presidential power, the lining up of lockstep GOP support, the refusal to answer questions, all point to something that they are trying to hide or, if/when it comes out, that they will have to struggle to survive. Read on and see what you think

On Plame

http://firedoglake.blogspot.com/2006_02_05_firedoglake_archive.html#113932391843077983
[Jane Hamsher] Well, well, well...can you say concerted effort to discredit Wilson, planned carefully by folks at the White House, executed with precision planning, and...conspiracy? John Dickerson, formerly of Time Magazine, has a doozy of a two-part story on Slate. He lays out the timeline of his involvement in Administration leaks on Joe and Valerie Wilson. And it isn't pretty. . .

If Fitz was trying to flush something out of the underbrush with his letter to Libby's lawyers, he's gotten a whole brace of fat pigeons with this missive. And if I were representing Karl Rove, I'd be puckering this morning. . . along with several other Administration officials. But I'm getting ahead of myself. . .

Dickerson does a good job of describing the Libby strategy in Part I, and then systematically pokes holes in it through his re-telling of events as he lived them in Part II. And in doing so, Dickerson paints a portrait of an Administration in full-out damage control mode -- willing to throw the CIA and George Tenet under a bus to save the President's butt -- and willing to toss out the name of a covert CIA operative without a thought to the consequences (Rove, Libby, anyone?), hoping to discredit her husband, whose criticisms could not be allowed to gain any more traction with the public, and shut up critics in the CIA who weren't comfortable taking the blame for the President's and other Administration officials' false public statements.

A whole lot of people in the Administration, including the President himself, tossing the CIA out the window. . . in a coordinated, press-forward effort.

That this was a planned, coordinated effort is obvious in reading Dickerson's two-part piece. And when you read it in concert with everything else we know about the Traitorgate case, you have to think that Fitzgerald is sitting on a whole lot of information we have yet to see. (If you are sensing a Cheshire cat grin on my face, you would be on the mark.).

In this time frame, the President himself cast blame on the CIA for "the 16 words" in the SOTU, and Condi went back to the press cabin on her own to throw the CIA under the bus. At no time did any of these Administration officials reveal that Stephen Hadley had been warned that the Niger yellowcake bit was crap and that the CIA had previously asked that this information be removed from the President's speech in Ohio -- nope, it was blame Joe Wilson full-on damage mode. That lots of people at the CIA were involved in the decision to send Wilson? Nope -- let's just blame the missus and all will be well. Liars.

Here's what I see from reading Dickerson: He spoke with two "senior Administration officials" during his trip to Africa, on two completely separate occasions, but each within an hour of the other's conversation with Dickerson -- both of whom fed him the exact same line on questioning Joe Wilson's credibility and that Dickerson ought to look into who sent Amb. Wilson to Africa in the first place. He finished talking with them around 10:30 am DC time.

During that same time period, Rove contacted Matt Cooper and planted the same seeds -- with one addition, that Joe Wilson's wife was the one who sent him on the trip. (Never mind that this was false, but that's a whole n'other post.) And Scooter Libby served as the confirming source for Cooper on this fact. (Can you say WHIG damage control group? I sure as hell can.)

Dickerson and Cooper spoke around 1:00 pm DC time, and compared notes -- remarkably similar notes, but for the Rove addition of Wilson's wife. Strange how so many people in the Administration scattered across the four corners of the globe -- from DC to far-flung, difficult communication areas on the African continent -- all had the same story line to feed to the press, isn't it? Almost as though there was substantial coordination of message and facts, or something. (Can you say conspiracy? I thought you could.)

Cooper got confirmation on this story about Wilson from Libby, after speaking with Dickerson. (Again, hello WHIG media confirmation circle jerks.) . . .

At the end of the article, Dickerson leaves us with this quite interesting tidbit:

I came back from the trip harboring a suspicion that only fully made sense when I learned Plame's CIA cover had been blown. It seemed obvious that the people pushing me to look into who sent Wilson knew exactly the answer I'd find. Yet they were really careful not to let the information slip, which suggested that they knew at the time Plame's identity was radioactive. . .

But, say, you want the name out there in the public domain, and you plant a kernel of "seek and ye shall find" with a journalist that you know will do his job to sniff out a story. . . and then you can sit back and let someone else reveal the name of the CIA NOC, and pretend your conscience is clear. Except for one thing: if you are the official who set the journalist on the story in the first place, along with a whole lot of other administration officials who are trying to set the same scent trail for the journalistic hounds to follow, then you are, at best, part of a conspiracy to attempt to reveal classified information.

And if, say, one of the members of the conspiracy reveals the name or the identity of that covert CIA operative (you know, by saying something like "Wilson's wife"), then every single member of that conspiracy can be charged as if they all revealed her identity. Because that's what it means to be part of a conspiracy -- you all get tagged with the worst conduct of any one of your members, because you were all working toward the same common goal and purpose -- so long as each member took some step in futherance of the conspiracy, they are all chargeable with the same bad conduct. . .

Oh, and those "senior administration officials" who spoke to Dickerson? I sure hope they were fully forthcoming in their interviews with the FBI and their testimony to the grand jury. If not, I'm thinking John Dickerson can expect his subpoena any day...because those officials might be staring down the length of a potential obstruction/perjury/false statements indictment of their own. . .

Dickerson, Part I: http://www.slate.com/id/2135554/
Four days into the trip, on an early morning flight to Uganda, Condi Rice visited the small press cabin in the back of Air Force One, where I was in the pool of reporters that flies on the president's plane. We expected more of the same fancy footwork from earlier in the week about who was to blame for the 16 words. We didn't get it. Condi blamed the CIA. This was new. The Bush administration didn't usually point fingers that openly. (We later learned that Dr. Rice had called Tenet that morning to let him know she was going to ruin his day.). . .

Moments later, we landed in Entebbe, Uganda. We. . . were told that Bush had changed his mind and would take a question. He knew that he would be asked about the faulty info and had a line prepared. "I gave a speech to the nation that was cleared by the intelligence services," Bush said.

This was news. The president was known for his loyalty to subordinates, but here he was throwing his CIA director, George Tenet, under a bus. This wasn't just a personal departure by the president. It was the ultimate blow in the bureaucratic battle between the CIA and his White House.

Dickerson, Part 2: http://www.slate.com/id/2135565/
While the president finished his meeting with Museveni, I hung out with a "senior administration official" by an old yellow school bus. This was the first of my two conversations about Wilson. . . The official walked me through all the many problems with Wilson's report: His work was sloppy, contradictory, and hadn't been sanctioned by Tenet or any senior person. Some low-level person at the CIA was responsible for the mission. I was told I should go ask the CIA who sent Wilson.

An hour later, as Bush spoke at an AIDS treatment center, I chatted with a different senior administration official, also on background. We talked about many different aspects of the story—the fight with the CIA, the political implications for the president, and the administration's shoddy damage control. This official also pointed out a few times that Wilson had been sent by a low-level CIA employee and encouraged me to follow that angle. . .

What struck me was how hard both officials were working to knock down Wilson. Discrediting your opposition is a standard tactic in Washington, but the Bush team usually played the game differently. At that stage in the first term, Bush aides usually blew off their critics. Or, they continued to assert their set of facts in the hope of overcoming criticism by force of repetition. . .

My inbox was a mess. In the middle of it was an e-mail from Matt Cooper telling me to call him from a land line when I had some privacy. At some time after 1 p.m. his time, I called him. He told me that he had talked to Karl Rove that morning and that Rove had given him the same Wilson takedown I'd been getting in Uganda. But Matt had the one key fact I didn't: Rove had said that Wilson's wife sent him.

So, that explained the wink-wink nudge-nudge I was getting about who sent Wilson. Matt and I agreed to point out in our files to the cover story that White House officials were going so directly after Wilson. . .

More: http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2006_02_05_digbysblog_archive.html#113934931831051100

http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room/2006/02/07/libby/index.html

Not that this story makes Dickerson and Cooper look all that good, either

http://mediamatters.org/items/200602070006
On October 13, 2003, Time magazine ran an article that included a quote from White House press secretary Scott McClellan insisting that White House senior adviser Karl Rove had nothing to do with outing undercover CIA operative Valerie Plame. As Media Matters for America has previously noted, at least two Time editorial employees involved in the article knew McClellan's denial was false: correspondent Matthew Cooper and Washington bureau chief Michael Duffy. Cooper knew the denial was false because Rove had outed Plame to him. Duffy knew the denial was false because Cooper had sent him an email relating what Rove had told him. . . Former Time White House correspondent John Dickerson, in a first-person account of his knowledge of the Plame matter, now acknowledges that he, too, knew that Rove was Cooper's source well before the October 2003 article -- an article on which he, like Cooper, received reporting credit. . .

When word spread last week that the Department of Justice (DOJ) was launching a full criminal probe into who had leaked Plame's identity, Democrats immediately raised a public alarm: How could Justice credibly investigate so secretive an Administration, especially when the investigators are led by Attorney General John Ashcroft, whose former paid political consultant Karl Rove was initially accused by Wilson of being the man behind the leak? A TIME review of federal and state election records reveals that Ashcroft paid Rove's Texas firm $746,000 for direct-mail services in two gubernatorial campaigns and one Senate race from 1984 through 1994. White House spokesman Scott McClellan said accusations of Rove's peddling information are "ridiculous." Says McClellan: "There is simply no truth to that suggestion."

Cooper, Duffy, and Dickerson all knew McClellan's statement was false. But despite that knowledge, they participated in the publication of an article containing that quote, with no indication that it was untrue. . .

The missing stories on the missing WH emails

http://mediamatters.org/items/200602070004

On FISA

Leading Republican breaks with Bush over illegal spying

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/02/08/politics/08nsa.html
A House Republican whose subcommittee oversees the National Security Agency broke ranks with the White House on Tuesday and called for a full Congressional inquiry into the Bush administration's domestic eavesdropping program. . . The lawmaker, Representative Heather A. Wilson of New Mexico, chairwoman of the House Intelligence Subcommittee on Technical and Tactical Intelligence, said in an interview that she had "serious concerns" about the surveillance program. By withholding information about its operations from many lawmakers, she said, the administration has deepened her apprehension about whom the agency is monitoring and why. . .

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2006_02/008173.php
[Kevin Drum] I think the NSA's domestic spying program has a good chance of becoming a serious wedge issue in the Republican Party. There's a group of hardcore conservatives who find the program unsettling on ideological small government grounds, and another group who find it unsettling because it's exposed George Bush's apparent contempt for other branches of government ("we have all the legal authority we need," says Dick Cheney). Put 'em together and there's a significant minority within the party who really aren't very happy about this.

There is a reason why Gonzales refused to respond to any questions about what Bush might be doing, beyond warrantless spying, or what he might feel entitled to do under the expansive view of executive power they are advocating – that’s because they don’t think there are any limits

http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room/2006/02/07/gonzales/index.html
[Tim Grieve] South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham said Monday that if the Bush administration's defense of warrantless spying must rely on the president's power as commander in chief, then it's a theory that "seems to have no boundaries when it comes to executive decisions in a time of war."

It was a remarkable statement coming from a Republican senator, but what was more remarkable still is that Alberto Gonzales wasn't able to -- or just didn't want to -- lay out some specific "boundaries" in response. . .

During the first day of hearings on the president's warrantless spying plan, Gonzales was asked again and again whether the Bush administration was either engaged in or thought it had the power to engage in all sorts of intrusive or otherwise troubling wartime activities. Again and again, Gonzales declined to answer any such questions.

Gonzales wouldn't answer when Sen. Patrick Leahy asked him if he thought the use-of-force resolution authorizes the administration to search Americans' first-class mail. He wouldn't say when Sen. Dianne Feinstein asked him whether the president's commander-in-chief power authorizes him to suspend the National Security Act's prohibition against domestic propaganda. He said he couldn't answer, at least not immediately, when Sen. Russ Feingold asked whether the administration has engaged in "other actions under the use of military force for Afghanistan resolution that, without the inherent power, would not be permitted because of the FISA statute." He wouldn't answer when Sen. Chuck Schumer asked him whether the government has searched -- or placed a listening device in -- the home or office of an American citizen without a warrant since 9/11.

When Schumer asked about warrantless searches of Americans' homes and offices, Gonzales did what he did a number of times Monday: He narrowed the question to the very edge of existence, then refused to answer it anyway. . .

More: http://www.warandpiece.com/blogdirs/003629.html

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/02/07/AR2006020701745.html

Rude Pundit: http://makeashorterlink.com/?F3CC51A9C

There is a reason why the Bush people don’t want to revise FISA, even though Congress has expressed a willingness, even eagerness, to do so. The easy answer is that they think they don’t need that law, and want to press the point that they can do whatever they damn well please. But a more conspiratorial answer is that there are elements of their spying program that they don’t want to have to present or defend, even to the highly accommodating FISA court

http://talkleft.com/new_archives/013964.html
In an interview to air on Tuesday night on PBS' "Newshour," Cheney was asked whether President George W. Bush was willing to work with Congress to settle some of the legal questions about the spy program. . . "We believe. . . that we have all the legal authority we need," Cheney said.

More: http://www.tpmcafe.com/node/26322

http://www.prospect.org/weblog/archives/2006/02/index.html#009068

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2006_02/008164.php

Here is one piece of the story: FISA was passed in 1978 under Jimmy Carter (BOO! Hiss!!! from the right). It’s a law for wimps, passed as an over-reaction to the abuses of Nixon (some of which look pretty mild by comparison with the latest gang’s antics). They aren’t able to repeal it, they don’t want to revise it, so they are trying to establish the precedent that they can just ignore it. What does Jimmy Carter think about all this?

http://americablog.blogspot.com/2006/02/jimmy-carter-its-illegal.html
"Under the Bush administration, there's been a disgraceful and illegal decision — we're not going to the let the judges or the Congress or anyone else know that we're spying on the American people," Carter told reporters. "And no one knows how many innocent Americans have had their privacy violated under this secret act.". . . .

The former president also rebuked Attorney General Alberto Gonzales for telling Congress that the spying program is authorized under Article 2 of the Constitution and does not violate the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act passed during Carter's administration. Gonzales made the assertions in testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee, which began investigating the eavesdropping program Monday.

"It's a ridiculous argument, not only bad, it's ridiculous. Obviously, the attorney general who said it's all right to torture prisoners and so forth is going to support the person who put him in office. But he's a very partisan attorney general and there's no doubt that he would say that," Carter said. "I hope that eventually the case will go to the Supreme Court. I have no doubt that when it's over, the Supreme Court will rule that Bush has violated the law."

More: http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2006/2/7/14850/01838

[NB: Will we see Carter testify to the Senate over this?]

Just a hypothetical

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2006/2/7/12596/23228
BIDEN: How will we know, General, when this war it over?

GONZALES: I presume the straightforward answer, Senator, is that when Al Qaida is destroyed and it no longer poses a threat to the United States. . .

BIDEN: The truth is, there is no definition of when we're going to know whether we've won, because Al Qaida, as the president points out, has mutated into many other organizations that are not directly dealing with bin Laden and are free agents themselves. . .

GONZALES: It is certainly true that there are a number of terrorist groups who share many of the same objectives of Al Qaida in terms of destroying America.

BIDEN: So as long as any of them are there, I assume you would assert you have this plenary authority.

GONZALES: Well, Senator, obviously if Congress were to take some kind of action, and say the president no longer has the authority to engage in electronic surveillance of the enemy. . . that would present a much harder question as to whether or not the president has the authority.

[Georgia10] Um, didn't Congress "take some kind of action". . . when it enacted FISA?

Now, granted, this is from a publication of the Moonie Washington Times – but why would a conservative publication be running these stories?

http://www.insightmag.com/Media/MediaManager/Rove2.htm
Congressional sources said Deputy Chief of Staff Karl Rove has threatened to blacklist any Republican who votes against the president. . . The sources said the administration has been alarmed over the damage that could result from the Senate hearings, which began on Monday, Feb. 6. They said the defection of even a handful of Republican committee members could result in a determination that the president violated the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. Such a determination could lead to impeachment proceedings.

http://www.insightmag.com/Media/MediaManager/impeachment.htm
The Bush administration is bracing for impeachment hearings in Congress. . .

More: http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/6555.html

http://www.first-draft.com//modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=5162

The truly, truly awful tv coverage of the Gonzales hearings

http://mediamatters.org/items/200602070009
On the February 6 broadcast of ABC's World News Tonight, anchor Elizabeth Vargas and ABC News chief Washington correspondent George Stephanopoulos agreed that Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales "held his own" at the February 6 Senate Judiciary Committee hearings into the Bush administration's warrantless domestic surveillance program, and Stephanopoulos further commented that "at times ... it got personal.". . . In saying that "it got personal," Stephanopoulos appeared to be referring to Sen. Russ Feingold's (D-WI) accusation that Gonzales made misleading statements under oath at his January 2005 confirmation hearing. . .

http://mediamatters.org/items/200602070007
In reporting on Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales's February 6 testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee regarding the Bush administration's warrantless domestic surveillance program, a number of major print and broadcast media outlets failed to report the dispute and the party-line rejection of the Democrats' demand that Gonzales be sworn in, or even the fact that committee chairman Sen. Arlen Specter (R-PA) did not swear in Gonzales even though Gonzales had reportedly agreed to testify under oath. . .

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/blog/2006/02/07/BL2006020700303.html
[Howard Kurtz] Cable news is driving me crazy.

What's been the biggest domestic issue of the last month or so? Bush administration eavesdropping without court orders. And yesterday was the first congressional oversight hearing on the controversy, with Alberto Gonzales as the star witness. . . The cable nets all made a great show of "covering" the Senate Judiciary hearing by carrying the AG's opening statement, then maybe a question or two from Arlen Specter. Then they trotted out their legal analysts to talk about the meaning of the hearing, which by then must have been eight or nine minutes old. The hearing became video wallpaper as the cable talkers talked. They never even got to Pat Leahy, the panel's top Democrat, meaning that only Republican voices were heard. Gonzales essentially got a free ride. . . Then everyone moved on to other subjects.

More: http://www.mydd.com/story/2006/2/7/94012/67896

On Guantanamo

http://americablog.blogspot.com/2006/02/theyre-really-lying-about-guantanamo.html
[Stuart Taylor] A high percentage, perhaps the majority, of the 500-odd men now held at Guantanamo were not captured on any battlefield, let alone on "the battlefield in Afghanistan" (as Bush asserted) while "trying to kill American forces" (as McClellan claimed).

Fewer than 20 percent of the Guantanamo detainees, the best available evidence suggests, have ever been Qaeda members.

Many scores, and perhaps hundreds, of the detainees were not even Taliban foot soldiers, let alone Qaeda terrorists. They were innocent, wrongly seized noncombatants with no intention of joining the Qaeda campaign to murder Americans.

The majority were not captured by U.S. forces but rather handed over by reward-seeking Pakistanis and Afghan warlords and by villagers of highly doubtful reliability. . .

Last July, the Pentagon elaborated in a report of an investigation into complaints by FBI agents of abusive interrogation methods. Many of these methods -- such as shackling detainees to the floor for hours in painful positions, keeping them shivering cold during interrogations, grilling them for 16 hours nonstop, waking them up by moving them every few hours, using loud music and strobe lights -- had been officially approved as "humane," the Pentagon report explained.

Bush has also pledged that the Guantanamo detainees are treated "humanely." At the same time, he has stressed, "I know for certain. . . that these are bad people" -- all of them, he has implied.

If the president believes either of these assertions, he is a fool. If he does not, choose your own word for him.

The Bolton approach to foreign policy

http://www.warandpiece.com/blogdirs/003633.html
[K-R] State Department political appointees have sidelined career weapons experts who don't share their animosity to arms control agreements and have placed less experienced political operatives in key slots, according to 10 current and former officials and documents obtained by Knight Ridder. . . The reorganization [of the department's arms control and international security bureaus] was conducted largely in secret by a panel of four political appointees. A career expert was allowed to join the group only after most decisions had been made. Its work was overseen by Frederick Fleitz, a CIA officer who was detailed to the State Department as senior adviser to former Undersecretary of State John Bolton, a critic of arms agreements and international organizations. . . Thomas Lehrman, a political appointee who heads the new office of Weapons of Mass Destruction Terrorism, advertised outside the State Department to fill jobs in his office. In an e-mail to universities and research centers, a copy of which was obtained by Knight Ridder, he listed loyalty to Bush and Rice's priorities as a qualification. Lehrman reportedly recalled the e-mail after it was pointed out that such loyalty tests are improper.

Is this a joke? Bolton for Nobel Peace Prize?!

http://www.thewashingtonnote.com/archives/001232.php

Bush wants the line item veto

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/6556.html

[NB: Gee, don’t let the fact that it was RULED UNCONSTITUTIONAL get in your way. But if it strengthens the President and weakens Congressional authority, they’re all for it]

Don’t let the Bush gang prepare your taxes

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2006/2/7/13411/37983
[NYT] On paper, President Bush's budget seems to meet his promise of cutting the federal deficit in half by the time he leaves office.

But in practice, the budget is much less realistic than it appears because it omits nearly a half-trillion dollars in costs that are likely to be incurred over the next five years.

The omissions include any costs for the war in Iraq after 2007, any additional reconstruction costs for New Orleans after 2006 and any plan for preventing a huge expansion in the alternative minimum tax after the end of this year.

And because Mr. Bush's blueprint is limited to the next five years, it offers little guidance on how he would restrain the soaring costs of Medicare and Social Security as the nation's 70 million-plus baby boomers begin to retire in 2008.

How the Times covered it, and how the Post did: http://www.first-draft.com//modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=5161

Boehner, the new GOP Majority Leader: did they think this was the guy to put the corruption scandal to bed? His election is going to prove a MAJOR problem. You watch: either he will have to step down too, or he will become the poster child, alongside DeLay, Cunningham, Ney, et al. for the thoroughgoing and irredeemable corruption of the party

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2006_02_05.php#007626
[Newsweek] Over the years, [John Boehner] has made the most of controversial rules allowing members to accept free trips to luxury retreats around the world. Since 2000, Boehner has taken more than $150,000 worth of junkets paid for by private interests—ranking him in the top 10 of all members of Congress.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/02/07/AR2006020701913.html
Rep. John A. Boehner (R-Ohio), who was elected House majority leader last week, is renting his Capitol Hill apartment from a veteran lobbyist whose clients have direct stakes in legislation Boehner has co-written and that he has overseen as chairman of the Education and the Workforce Committee.

Reform candidate? http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/02/05/AR2006020500934.html
Newly elected House Majority Leader John A. Boehner (R-Ohio) said he opposed efforts to ban privately funded travel for members of Congress and provisions in spending bills that fund lawmakers' pet projects.

More: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/11180108/site/newsweek/

More on the prospects for a Democratic takeover of the House

http://www.mydd.com/story/2006/2/7/131437/1181

http://www.mydd.com/story/2006/2/7/19510/54245

Missed opportunities?

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/02/08/politics/08dems.html

http://time.blogs.com/daily_dish/2006/02/the_dems_defens.html

A funny little DC three-way. John McCain undertakes a calculated swipe at Barak Obama – while Joe Lieberman stands on the sideline

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2006_02_05.php#007621

http://www.prospect.org/weblog/archives/2006/02/index.html#009073

http://www.mydd.com/story/2006/2/7/16438/20556

Bonus item: George Deutsch, Mr. “Big Bang Theory,” forced to quit

http://atrios.blogspot.com/2006_02_05_atrios_archive.html#113937659461630717
Mr. Deutsch's resignation came on the same day that officials at Texas A&M University confirmed that he did not graduate from there, as his résumé on file at the agency asserted. . .

More: http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2006_02_05.php#007628

***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 @ 7:32 AM

 
THE ARROGANCE OF POWER

Well, now we know what to blame for 9-11: it’s those damn LAWS. If we didn’t have them, just think what the govt could do to protect us better

http://www.warandpiece.com/blogdirs/003621.html

http://www.forbes.com/work/feeds/afx/2005/12/18/afx2400383.html
Vice President Richard Cheney said the September 11 attacks on the United States could have been averted, if the government had the power to monitor electronic communications inside the country. . .

The NSA hearings got off to a lousy start, with Arlen Specter suddenly announcing that Alberto Gonzales (already accused, rightly, of lying to the committee) didn’t have to testify under oath!

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/6541.html
Big surprise — every Republican on the Judiciary Committee agreed that he should not be sworn in. . .

More: http://www.themoderatevoice.com/posts/1139249024.shtml

http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room/2006/02/06/specter/index.html

Video: http://thinkprogress.org/2006/02/06/gonzales-under-oath/

Buzzflash: The Dems should have walked out

http://www.buzzflash.com/index.php?story=Story

Lying

http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room/2006/02/06/graham/index.html
[Tim Grieve] Sen. Russ Feingold just called Alberto Gonzales on what he said was his "materially misleading" prior testimony about warrantless spying. . .

More: http://feingold.senate.gov/Gonzales_NSA_13006.pdf

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2006_02/008162.php
[Kevin Drum] Attorney General Alberto Gonzales wins today's chutzpah award for his defense of the NSA's domestic spying program:

As for news accounts about the domestic eavesdropping, Mr. Gonzales said, they have been "in almost every case, in one way or another, misinformed, confused or wrong."

Needless to say, Gonzales can clear that up anytime he wants to. All he has to do is tell us in general terms what criteria the NSA uses to decide which U.S. citizens to listen in on so we can all get it straight.

Truth

http://www.slate.com/id/2135610/fr/rss/
Asked why the White House didn't chat with Congress before it decided to bypass the whole warrant thing, Gonzales said, "The short answer is that we didn't think we needed to, quite frankly.”

But once the questioning starts, two things become clear. One, the Bush admin doesn’t have a very strong case in favor of their expansive (i.e. unlimited) view of Presidential authority. Two, Al Gonzales isn’t a very smart guy

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2006/2/6/12332/45838
[Georgia10] Gonzales has made some remarkably stupid legal statements. Democrats are scoring points, especially on how illogical the domestic spying program is if protecting America is its claimed purpose. Again, if the President believes he has inherent authority to eavesdrop on Al Qaeda, why doesn't his order apply to domestic Al Qaeda calls?. . .

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2006/2/6/18416/60063
[SusanG] What struck me today listening to Gonzales was that he is relying on us - and emphatically trying to rouse in us - a regression to that "Oh, my God! The house is on fire! Again!" mentality. Leahy did a nice job of cutting the attorney general short when Gonzales started his warm-up to panic pitch, beginning to evoke the dreaded day in verbal sketches clearly designed to make us see those planes flying into the towers over and over and over again. Leahy deserves a great deal of credit for shutting down that attempt to once again reduce us to a primitive, quivering state with his brusque “You don't need to recap for me. I was there. We all were there. The American people were there.” He couldn't have signaled sanity more clearly: That was then, this is now, and we're having a very serious constitutional discussion here, so knock off the scare tactics.

How’d the Dems do?

http://www.needlenose.com/node/view/2612
[Swopa] The early word on today's Senate hearings is that Democrats are, at long last, adopting an aggressive stance on the Bush administration's illegal eavesdropping. . .

http://www.first-draft.com//modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=5152
[Athenae] Leahy just laid down an awesome smackdown. He was asking when the president issued his first authorization for wiretapping, and pressing Gonzales on which law, PRECISELY, allowed the president to ignore the law. Gonzales stumbled and bumbled and finally pulled out the old "I've got to have my staff look it up" defense. . .

Ted Kennedy just framed this perfectly, saying if we illegally wiretap, we won't be able to use this information in court to prosecute terrorists, and it will hurt the efforts of actual front-line NSA agents to go after terrorists. Beautiful. . .

Gonzales' responses so far have been that we're at war, and we're at war, and we're at war, and I have to say, both Kennedy and Leahy gave examples of how Democrats should respond to that kind of misdirection: We've been at war before. . .

Biden just asked when the war on terrorism will be over. He's pointing out that if they're conferring on Bush some kind of "wartime authority," when does the war stop?. . .

Diane Feinstein outlined Gonzales' strategy quite nicely: that the president has the authority to override FISA, and Congress is at best a kind of housepet which should be fed kibble and ignored. Gonzales is tremendously offended that anyone would dare to suggest either he or the president violated the law. . .

Feingold: The President seems to have a pre-1776 view of the world. . .

More: http://www.mydd.com/story/2006/2/6/225229/5754

How’d the Repubs do?

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2006_02_05_digbysblog_archive.html#113925413224557933
[Digby] I've been digesting this morning's hearings and I am dumbstruck by the totality of the Republicans' abdication of their duty. These men who spent years running on Madisonian principles ("The essence of government is power; and power, lodged as it must be in human hands, will ever be liable to abuse") now argue without any sense of irony or embarrassment that Republican Senators are nothing more than eunuchs in President Bush's political harem. They have voluntarily rendered the congress of the United States impotent to his power. . .

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/6547.html
[Steve Benen] I've lost count, for example, of how many GOP senators have defended the administration for briefing members of Congress on the program. The truth is the non-partisan Congressional Research Service has said these briefings were inadequate and possibly illegal. For that matter, these are also the same briefings in which lawmakers' concerns were ignored. Republican spin notwithstanding, there was no oversight, and the "briefings" were little more than cursory, incomplete notifications to a handful lawmakers whose concerns were rendered irrelevant. Clearly, Republican senators on the Judiciary Committee know all of this. Why do they pretend otherwise? I have to assume it's because they don't care.

Similarly, I've also lost count of how many GOP senators have insisted that Clinton did the same thing Bush has done. It's seems to be a particular favorite of Orrin Hatch. Of course the truth is, the surveillance the Republicans keep referring to was done before FISA was changed to cover physical searches in 1995. Clinton supported the change, signed the updated law, and followed it. Clearly, Republican senators on the Judiciary Committee know all of this and realize why the comparison doesn't make any sense. Why do they pretend otherwise? I have to assume because they don't care.

More: http://firedoglake.blogspot.com/2006_02_05_firedoglake_archive.html#113927493089318021

Credit where it’s due (sort of): Lindsey Graham (R-SC)

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/6546.html
Graham has been one of a handful of Republican lawmakers to publicly criticize the domestic spying program, telling CBS shortly after this controversy came to public light that he doesn't know of "any legal basis" for the administration to circumvent FISA.

Today, Graham was relatively conciliatory to Gonzales, but was more pointed than any other Republican on the Judiciary Committee in his questioning, noting, for example, that the administration's interpretation of Congress' 9/11 resolution is, as he put it, "dangerous," because it might make it less likely for future presidents to get similar resolutions in the future.

For that matter, Gonzales' principal talking point of the day — that Bush has "inherent authority" under Article II to do almost anything — also came under fire from Graham, who noted that Gonzales' interpretation of the Constitution reflects a president with "no boundaries" in executing a war. . .

Update: Digby points out, accurately, that Graham's "concerns" aren't worth getting too excited about. "This is his schtick. Going all the way back to the impeachment hearings, he has done this. He hems and haws in his cornpone way how he's 'troubled' by one thing or another until he finally 'decides' after much 'deliberation' that the Republican line is correct after all and he has no choice but to endorse it." That's a good point.

More: http://thinkprogress.org/2006/02/06/no-boundries/

Trap laid?

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2006_02_05_digbysblog_archive.html#113926017733025099
[Digby] I'm beginning to wonder if the Democrats might not have some information that the administration has done domestic surveillance without a warrant. They keep asking. Pointedly. And Gonzales keeps saying that he isn't "comfortable" acknowledging the question.

It is indisputable that the admnistration has engaged in surveillance of political groups. We know this. It has been verified. We also know that they believe that political dissent gives aid and comfort to the enemy. The president says so himself.

Therefore, it is entirely reasonable to suspect that this administration would use this illegal surveillance program for purposes other than that to which they have admitted, particularly since they consider political dissent to be bordering on treason. . .

http://www.ostroyreport.blogspot.com/#2606
[Andy Ostroy] The real question that begs to be asked is whether Bush & Co's controversial spying is more far-reaching than anyone currently imagines. For example, did the NSA wiretap any Democratic politicians and or staffers? This question must be asked. And it needs to be asked directly, under-oath, to Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, former AG John Ashcroft, and all other Bush administration officials that have been and/or are currently party to this ongoing wiretapping campaign. . .

http://susiemadrak.com/2006/02/06/12/26/surprising/
Biden: Can you assure us that you, Gonzales, that you personally know the details of this and that no one is being eavesdropped on in the US under this program? AG: No, I can’t give you that assurance.

More questions Gonzales won’t answer

http://www.mydd.com/story/2006/2/6/132427/2016

http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room/2006/02/06/gonzales2/index.html

http://talkleft.com/new_archives/013956.html

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/02/06/AR2006020601426.html
[Dana Milbank] More interesting than what the attorney general said was what he would not say. Has President Bush, invoking his "inherent powers" under the Constitution, also authorized warrantless eavesdropping on domestic calls, opening of Americans' mail and e-mail, and searches of their homes and offices?

"I am not comfortable going down the road of saying yes or no as to what the president has or has not authorized," Gonzales, shifting frequently in his chair, informed the senators.

This. . .is. . .dumb

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2006/2/6/213440/2226
BIDEN: Thank you very much.

General, how has this revelation damaged the program?

I'm almost confused by it but, I mean, it seems to presuppose that these very sophisticated Al Qaida folks didn't think we were intercepting their phone calls.

I mean, I'm a little confused. How did it damage this?

GONZALES: Well, Senator, I would first refer to the experts in the Intel Committee who are making that statement, first of all. I'm just the lawyer.

And so, when the director of the CIA says this should really damage our intel capabilities, I would defer to that statement. I think, based on my experience, it is true -- you would assume that the enemy is presuming that we are engaged in some kind of surveillance.

But if they're not reminded about it all the time in the newspapers and in stories, they sometimes forget.

(LAUGHTER)

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2006_02_05_digbysblog_archive.html#113926440199553622
[Digby] The oceans no longer protect us. The terrorists are coming over any minute to kill us all in our beds. They are a ruthless enemy who hide in caves until they suddenly decide to strike without mercy. But they have an achilles heel. They are all suffering from serious memory problems. Unless they see it in the paper they forget that we are tapping telephones. Then they slap themselves in the forehead and say "Oh no! I've been calling my friend Mohammed in LA planning that awesome terrorist attack and like, totally fergot that the infidels are listening in. Fuck. Man, Zawahiri is gonna to be so pissed."

This is why it was so horrible that that the NY Times revealed the program. It jogged the terrorists' memories and now they won't use their phone and e-mail accounts anymore. Until they forget again, that is. So, shhhh. Loose lips sink ships.

VERY dumb

http://atrios.blogspot.com/2006_02_05_atrios_archive.html#113928072499894761
Alberto: President Washington, President Lincoln, President Wilson, President Roosevelt have all authorized electronic surveillance on a far broader scale.

[Atrios] Aside from the rather obvious issue of, you know, lacking electronic communications at the time, what war was President Washington fighting?

Why the allusion to pre-FISA Presidents matters

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2006_02_05.php#007619
[Kevin Drum] I'm also more tired than you can imagine of his constant invocation of presidents from Washington to Roosevelt who authorized warrantless surveillance in wartime. All of that happened before FISA was passed in 1978 and is completely meaningless. And he knows it.

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2006_02_05.php#007620
[From a reader] The constant invocation of the practices of pre-FISA presidents is an incredibly important legal and constitutional point. If the president has the inherent authority to conduct surveillance, FISA might be unconstitutional. The main issue is whether Congress was able to limit this supposedly inherent authority with its enactment of FISA. Thus, the pre-FISA presidential precedent becomes an important issue.

There is no good reason, NONE, against modifying the FISA laws to accommodate new technologies and warrant requirements – if, that is, this gang believed they needed warrants in the first place

http://www.warandpiece.com/blogdirs/003619.html

http://www.slate.com/id/2135556/nav/tap/1/
[Emily Bazelon] Gonzales' dance on FISA—it's the best of laws; it's the worst of laws—makes the administration's defense of the NSA program seem all the more like a power grab. The most important thing isn't to make sure that the agency has undisputed legal authority to spy as it says it needs to. It's to make sure that Congress doesn't tell the president what he can and can't do. . .

Here’s the story of the day

http://www.insightmag.com/Media/MediaManager/Rove2.htm
The White House has been twisting arms to ensure that no Republican member votes against President Bush in the Senate Judiciary Committee’s investigation of the administration's unauthorized wiretapping.

Congressional sources said Deputy Chief of Staff Karl Rove has threatened to blacklist any Republican who votes against the president. The sources said the blacklist would mean a halt in any White House political or financial support of senators running for re-election in November.

"It's hardball all the way," a senior GOP congressional aide said. . .

Lots of good people live-blogged the hearings. Here’s Glenn Greenwald’s

http://glenngreenwald.blogspot.com/2006/02/live-blogging-nsa-hearings.html

Transcripts

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/02/06/AR2006020600931.html

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/02/06/AR2006020601001.html

The (predictably) awful media coverage

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/blog/2006/02/07/BL2006020700303.html

More departures from Goss’s CIA (thanks to Laura Rozen for the link)

http://dailynightly.msnbc.com/2006/02/another_departu.html
The director of the CIA's Counter Terrorism Center has resigned under pressure, telling his staff that his boss, the head of the CIA's Clandestine Service, has "lost confidence in my leadership". . . The names of both the official and his boss are classified and they can only be referred to by their first names: "Bob," the CTC director, and "Jose," the director of the clandestine service. As director of the CTC, "Bob" was responsible for covert operations against al-Qaida and other terrorist groups, including Predator attacks on al-Qaida leadership and other "special activities.". . . Other CIA officials tell NBC News that "Jose" viewed "Bob" as "too cautious" and insist the CIA's controversial Predator attack against suspected al-Qaida targets in Damodola, Pakistan last month had nothing to do with his departure. In that attack 18 people were killed, 13 of whom were villagers. The main target in the attack was al-Qaida No. 2, Ayman al-Zawahri, who was not killed and who last week showed up in a videotape message to ridicule the attempt on his life.

Scotty’s gaggle is just a sideshow today

http://www.first-draft.com//modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=5155
Q There is no rationale to disobey the law.

MR. McCLELLAN: Well, he's not -- are we a nation at war?

Q That's not the question.

MR. McCLELLAN: No, that is the issue here. . .

Except for this. . .

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2006_02_05.php#007618
Q Scott, there have been various reports that photographs of the President with Jack Abramoff have disappeared from the archives of photographic studios, at least one. Could you tell us whether the White House or anyone working at the White House's behest has taken any steps to remove any photographs that the President --

MR. McCLELLAN: I don't know anything about that. I think that I saw some story where the very company that you're mentioning said otherwise. So I think you ought to see what they said.

Q They acknowledged that the photographs had disappeared from their work site.

MR. McCLELLAN: I think they said something other than that.

[NB: Not exactly a denial, eh?]

The Arrogance of Power: Don Rumsfeld edition

http://www.thewashingtonnote.com/archives/001228.php

When will the Dems unveil their policy alternatives to the GOP? Will it be a “Contract With America” type document?

http://rollcall.com/issues/51_78/news/12048-1.html

Encouraging analysis: how to tell if the Repubs are REALLY in trouble in the fall elections

http://www.mydd.com/story/2006/2/6/15611/08043

Bonus item: E-voting machines fail AGAIN, requiring a revote

http://www.bradblog.com/archives/00002379.htm
[A] special "re-vote" will be held tomorrow in Montgomery county, OH on an issue where last November's election results were set aside due to more votes being cast on Diebold's AccuVote TSX touch-screen voting machines than there were actually registered voters who voted!

***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 @ 6:29 AM

 
A LARGER FABRIC

Oh-oh

http://whateveralready.blogspot.com/2006/02/special-prosecutor-in-cia-leak-case.html
[Murray Waas] The special prosecutor in the CIA leak case, Patrick Fitzgerald, has indicated in correspondence unsealed in federal court in recent days that President Bush might have been briefed regarding former ambassador Joseph Wilson’s February 2002 CIA-sponsored mission to Niger during regular morning intelligence briefing.

The information provided to Bush occurred in the form of one of the “President’s Daily Briefs,” a typically 30-to 45-minute early-morning national security briefing. . . In court papers made public late last week, Fitzgerald revealed that there was information regarding Wilson’s mission to Niger contained in at least one PDB, or possibly more. . .

http://talkleft.com/new_archives/013947.html
[Jeralyn Merritt] It is sounding more and more likely to me like Cheney is one of the as yet non-publicly disclosed subjects. He may not be a target, but it sounds like Fitz is investigating him. Fitz's prosecutors interviewed Cheney in the presence of Cheney's lawyer around June, 2004. Did he tell the Fitz the truth about his requesting info on Wilson-- or his disclosure to Libby -- or the July 12 discussion aboard Air Force Two about how to respond to Wilson's July 6 op-ed?. . .

Who the Libby defense is really defending

http://firedoglake.blogspot.com/2006_02_05_firedoglake_archive.html#113918489077955891
[Paul Lukasiak] Libby's people are demanding everything that Fitz has on Rove, Hadley, and everyone else . . and if you think that Libby's attorneys will keep that a secret, then you don't know who is paying Libby's legal bills. . .

More: http://www.thewashingtonnote.com/archives/001226.php

The missing emails: no accident

http://www.samefacts.com/archives/valerie_plame_/2006/02/the_missing_emails.php

Well, shoot down one of the misdirections of the Plame apologists: she WAS a covert agent

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2006_02_05_digbysblog_archive.html#113916982574312575

Or was she? http://www.samefacts.com/archives/valerie_plame_/2006/02/not_so_fast.php

Didn’t have time to get through the massive WP expose yesterday on the (questionable) effectiveness of the NSA program? Kevin Drum provides a digest version

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2006_02/008158.php

Getting prepped for the illegal spying hearings: questions you may hear asked, but won’t hear answered

http://americablog.blogspot.com/2006/02/some-questions-to-consider-for.html
[John Aravosis] 1. Attorney General Gonzales, who will be testifying tomorrow, lied under oath to the US Senate last year about the Bush administration's spying-on-Americans program. Why did he perjure himself then, and why should we trust his testimony now?

2 Can Gonzales and the Bush administration guarantee that their eavesdropping never intentionally or unintentionally captured communications of American political opponents or US journalists?

3. If the Bush administration is so confident that it has the power under the constitution to continue spying on Americans, then will it let the FISA court review what its domestic spying program in order to determine if the domestic spying is illegal or unconstitutional?

Echo: http://thinkprogress.org/2006/02/05/three-questions-gonzales-must-answer/
1. Why did you mislead the Judiciary Committee about Bush’s warrantless surveillance during your confirmation hearing last year?

2. If you are so confident that this program is legal, why don’t you let the FISA court review it and make an independent legal judgement?

3. Can you guarantee this program has never — either intentionally or unintentionally — captured communications of political opponents or journalists?

http://glenngreenwald.blogspot.com/2006/02/hearings-begin.html
[Glenn Greenwald] This clip of George Bush should be talked about all week -- why, if the Administration had all the legal authority in the world to eavesdrop without warrants and outside of FISA did it repeatedly make false statements to the public and to the Congress assuring us all that it was eavesdropping only in accordance with FISA? Parties make false statements in order to conceal their behavior only when their behavior is improper and wrong, not when it is justified and legal. And deliberately false statements of that sort from our government officials happen to be unacceptable and wrong, and really constitute a scandal unto itself.

http://www.warandpiece.com/blogdirs/003615.html
[Laura Rozen] Number of warrants sought as a result of the approximately 5,000 US persons spied upon without a warrant? Fewer than ten. Legal standard for probable cause? One out of two. "The minimum legal definition of probable cause, said a government official who has studied the program closely, is that evidence used to support eavesdropping ought to turn out to be 'right for one out of every two guys at least.'"

More: http://www.nytimes.com/2006/02/05/politics/05cnd-intel.html
The Republican who chairs the Senate Judiciary Committee said today that he believed the Bush administration had violated the law with its warrantless surveillance program and that its legal justifications for the program were "strained and unrealistic." . . . The senator, who has clashed with the administration before, said that it was clear to him that the law had been violated. The program, he said on NBC, "is in flat violation of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act." But it remained to be seen, Mr. Specter added, whether that statute is inconsistent with the Constitution.

Specter’s quote gets big play: http://americablog.blogspot.com/2006/02/specters-statement-that-bush-domestic.html

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2006_02_05_digbysblog_archive.html#113916982574312575

http://www.mydd.com/story/2006/2/5/153747/3275

Kennedy’s questions

http://glenngreenwald.blogspot.com/2006/02/preview-of-sen-kennedys-questioning.html
[Glenn Greenwald] Kennedy is going to take an interesting, unexpected approach in Monday's wiretapping hearings. . . [A]ll Dems on the panel are going to emphasize that they take a back seat to no one when it comes to national security, and they aren’t going to fall into Karl Rove’s trap that asking questions about a questionably illegal program is similar to handing the terrorists our playbook.

But Kennedy will take that further by questioning Gonzales about the effectiveness of the program from the national security standpoint, believing that this rogue program is harmful because by ignoring around FISA it 1) our national security is actually weakened when the country is divided – and we aren’t protecting those intelligence officials who are working to protect us (if the President’s legal analysis is wrong – these people could go to jail for breaking the law) and 2) raises the risk that terrorist go free - given that the evidence is tainted because it isn’t sanctioned by law.

In addition, Kennedy will underscore how willing Congress was/is to give the President the tools he needed, and question Gonzales why they parted with history in deciding to circumvent the time honored (and Constitutionally required) system of checks and balances. He will strongly contend that Congress is willing to work with this administration. . .

[NB: Okay, everyone can play at home. Here are my question(s): “In defending the program, you have insisted that it only reviewed phone calls (a) with one end outside the U.S. and (b) in which one caller is a known Al Qaeda associate.

#1 Is that true – are these the ONLY calls monitored?

#2 What do you do with information about any other subject or person that may be accidentally caught up in this net?

#3 If your view is that the President has the constitutional authority to issue any order he thinks necessary to defend the country, why press this restriction as a defense? Aren’t you claiming that, if he thought it was necessary, he could issue warrantless eavesdropping on ANY phone call, at ANY TIME, between ANY people, domestic or foreign?”

#4 Do you believe the FISA law is unconstitutional?]

Is there ANYTHING Bush can’t order? (thanks to Michael Froomkin for the link)

http://jurist.law.pitt.edu/paperchase/2006/02/doj-official-president-may-have-power.php
Steven Bradbury, acting head of the US Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel, told Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-CA, in a closed Senate Intelligence Committee, meeting last week that the president may have the executive power to order the killing of terrorist suspects inside the US. During a closed-door session, Feinstein is s