PROGRESS REPORT

Psst. . .don’t tell anyone in the press, but there STILL isn’t an operational government in Iraq

http://www.americanprogressaction.org/site/apps/nl/newsletter2.asp?c=klLWJcP7H&b=917053
[CAP] When Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki took office 10 days ago, he announced the formation of a new cabinet but did not name individuals to head three important security posts. Maliki said the announcement would come "within two or three days." More than a week later, the security posts -- the ministries of Interior, Defense, and National Security -- remain vacant, with some expecting the posts to be filled "within two or three days." There are signs, however, that the process could take longer. . . The truth may be, however, that even the announcement of new cabinet ministers for security will have little impact on the violence because the Iraq forces are largely controlled by militias and other elements loyal to terrorists and religious clerics. . . The most powerful man in Iraq may not be the prime minister or president, but rather Shiite cleric Moqtada al Sadr, who commands the powerful Mahdi Army and holds court with foreign dignitaries, including most recently the Iranian Foreign Minister. "In Baghdad and most of Iraq, the police are the Mahdi Army and the Mahdi Army is the police."

One year ago . . .

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/7546.html
"I think we may well have some kind of presence there over a period of time. But I think the level of activity that we see today, from a military standpoint, I think will clearly decline. I think they're in the last throes, if you will, of the insurgency." — Dick Cheney, May 30, 2005

Today, instead of reducing troops, we’re INCREASING them

http://americablog.blogspot.com/2006/05/on-anniversary-of-last-throes-bush.html

http://www.needlenose.com/node/view/3005
[AP] The Sunni Arab heart of the Iraqi insurgency seems likely to hold its strength the rest of the year, and some of its leaders are now collaborating with al-Qaida terrorists, the Pentagon said Tuesday.

Meanwhile, in that Other War

http://makeashorterlink.com/?V21F2203D
[AP] Hundreds of suspected Taliban fighters attacked a remote central Afghan town on Wednesday and occupied a district police headquarters after the battle, driving out security forces, an official said. . . Also Wednesday, Afghanistan's parliament approved a motion calling for the government to prosecute the U.S. soldiers responsible for a deadly road crash that sparked the worst riots in Kabul in years. . .

The new Iraqi Ambassador comes to see Bush, says on national television that Haditha was a massacre

http://americablog.blogspot.com/2006/05/nice-to-meet-you-you-killed-my-cousin.html

Haditha: there’s a good chance that the biggest story before all this is over is not the massacre itself, but the cover-up

http://edition.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/meast/05/29/marines.haditha/
The formal findings of investigations into the matter are several weeks away, said Gen. Peter Pace, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Pace cautioned against a rush to judgment.

"There are two ongoing investigations," he told CNN. "One has to do with what happened. The other investigation goes to why didn't we know about it sooner than we knew about it."

http://www.slate.com/id/2142694/fr/rss/
[Eric Umansky] The NYT off-leads details of an initial military inquiry into Marines apparent murder of Iraqis in Haditha. It's hard to tell what if any new info there is here—though the inquiry turned up evidence that officers, including a battalion commander, were involved in a cover-up.

Or, maybe not: http://americablog.blogspot.com/2006/05/surprise-officers-reportedly-not.html

A “war on terror” might be a good thing – if we were serious about it

http://americablog.blogspot.com/2006/05/im-all-for-war-on-terror-when-does-it.html

http://www.mydd.com/story/2006/5/30/14359/8492

Bush’s new Supreme Court loses little time in restricting free speech

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/30/washington/30cnd-scotus.html

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/7548.html

http://makeashorterlink.com/?K1F92603D

http://talkleft.com/new_archives/014975.html
[TChris] The decision is nonsense. . .

John Snow’s replacement as Treasury Secretary might actually be an improvement – if they let him be

http://www.prospect.org/weblog/2006/05/post_474.html

http://www.slate.com/id/2142640/

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2006_05/008909.php

http://www.americanprogressaction.org/site/apps/nl/newsletter2.asp?c=klLWJcP7H&b=917053
[CAP] President Bush's new nominee for Treasury Secretary, Goldman Sachs Chairman Henry M. Paulson Jr., not only endorses the Kyoto Protocol to limit greenhouse emissions, but argues that America's failure to enact Kyoto undermines the competitiveness of U.S. companies. Paulson serves as chairman of the board of directors for the Nature Conservancy, which has issued statements endorsing Kyoto: "The Kyoto Protocol is a key first step to help slow the onslaught of global warming and benefit conservation efforts. ... Additionally, without enacting our own emission limits, U.S. companies will lose ground to their competitors in Europe, Canada, Japan, and other countries participating in the Protocol who are developing clean technologies." Goldman Sachs, under Paulson's leadership, has also argued that the danger from global warming is imminent and requires "urgent" action by government to reduce emissions. As a result, Paulson's nomination is strongly opposed by a coalition right-wing groups seeking to cast doubt on climate science, such as the National Center for Public Policy Research, describing Paulson as "diametrically opposed to the positions of [the Bush] Administration.". . .

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/7541.html
[Steve Benen] The more important question, I suppose, is whether Bush will actually let the guy do anything. . . Paulson was right to leak word that he was worried about a substantial role in the administration. The Bush gang has made little secret of the fact that they don't want someone with policy experience; they want a cheerleader at Treasury. The office of the Treasury Secretary used to be a very big deal, but under Bush, it, like the rest of his cabinet, serves no apparent purpose at all.

Bush just doesn’t care about telling the truth, even about the little things

http://thinkprogress.org/2006/05/30/bush-snow-lie/

Oh, now I see, he HAD to lie: http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/7549.html

http://www.samefacts.com/archives/gwb_the_beloved_leader_/2006/05/is_reality_infiltrating_the_treasury_department.php

I’m so impressed by how Bush has followed through with his promise not to exploit 9-11 for political purposes

http://www.attytood.com/archives/003468.html

Karl Zinsmeister, Bush’s new domestic policy advisor, is looking worse and worse as we get to know him

http://www.prospect.org/weblog/2006/05/post_484.html

http://www.prospect.org/weblog/2006/05/post_477.html

http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1002577367

http://glenngreenwald.blogspot.com/2006/05/karl-zinsmeister-should-lose-his-white.html

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2006_05_01_digbysblog_archive.html#114903655195495860
[Digby] John Amato has all the dirt on this fine fellow, but he leaves out what I think is the most impressive item on Karl's list of accomplishment. It seems he writes comic books too. . .

In an exaggerated effort to create a false equivalence, the AP’s John Solomon labors to find a “scandal” affecting Harry Reid (D-NV). CNN and other cable news outlets give a big assist. Only one problem: it isn’t a scandal at all

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2006/5/30/133433/775

http://www.prospect.org/weblog/2006/05/post_470.html

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/7543.html
[Steve Benen] So, is there anything to this? Not even a little. In fact, the closer one looks at the details, the better Reid looks. . .

More: http://mediamatters.org/items/200605300007

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2006_05_28.php#008594

HERE’S the scandal

http://americablog.blogspot.com/2006/05/associated-press-caught-deleting-line.html
[John Aravosis] This is rather serious. The Associated Press ran a story yesterday (byline John Solomon) attacking Senator Harry Reid for accepting tickets to a boxing match in Nevada as the guest of the Nevada state government (something that appears totally fine under Senate ethics rules).

AP then comes under some rather severe criticism from bloggers, this blog included, because the article notes in its second paragraph that rather than doing the bidding of the Nevada boxing folks, Reid was in fact pushing legislation they didn't like. . . Today, Josh Marshall discovered that AP appears to have edited its story and deleted the sentence. . .

A trash piece on Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) too, this one from the NYT

http://atrios.blogspot.com/2006_05_28_atrios_archive.html#114900639080778735

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2006_05/008908.php

http://www.prospect.org/weblog/2006/05/post_478.html

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/7539.html

Uh, has anyone noticed that Rick Santorum (R-PA) isn’t a resident of the state he supposedly represents?

http://politicalwire.com/archives/2006/05/30/santorums_residency_questioned.html

OK, I’ll say it: William Jefferson (D-LA) looks like a crook, acts like a crook, and sounds like a crook

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2006_05_28.php#008595
[Josh Marshall] The FBI is now saying that during their earlier raid on his house, Rep. Jefferson (D-LA) was on the premises during the raid and tried to hide documents from FBI agents as they were conducting the search. That's not proven. But it's the sworn testimony of one of the FBI agents.

CNN returns its attention to a missing blonde white girl in Aruba – because, hey, what ELSE is there to talk about?

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2006_05/008911.php

Bonus item: Oh, what’s a little hyperbole in politics?

http://thinkprogress.org/2006/05/28/comparing-gore-to-hitler/
Last week, Sterling Burnett – a senior fellow at the Exxon-backed National Center for Policy Analysis – compared Al Gore to Nazi propagandist Joseph Goebbels. . . In this weekend’s Washington Post magazine, meteorologist Bill Gray – one of the most prominent climate skeptics – directly compared Al Gore to Adolf Hitler: “Gore believed in global warming almost as much as Hitler believed there was something wrong with the Jews.”

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

I don't get anything personally out of this project, except the satisfaction of doing it (I don't run ads, etc). The credit really all goes to the people whose material I copy and redistribute. But if I do have a "mission," it is to get this information into the hands of as many people as I can.***
- posted by Nick Burbules @ 5:52 AM

 
WHO’S IN CHARGE HERE?

Mr. President!

http://www.boston.com/news/nation/washington/articles/2006/05/28/cheney_aide_is_screening_legislation/
The office of Vice President Dick Cheney routinely reviews pieces of legislation before they reach the president's desk, searching for provisions that Cheney believes would infringe on presidential power . . .

More: http://www.mydd.com/story/2006/5/28/21111/4742

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/7535.html

Now it begins. . .

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2006/5/27/144538/547
[AP] The Bush administration asked federal judges in New York and Michigan to dismiss a pair of lawsuits filed over the National Security Agency's domestic eavesdropping program, saying litigation would jeopardize state secrets.

In legal papers filed late Friday, Justice Department lawyers said it would be impossible to defend the legality of the spying program without disclosing classified information that could be of value to suspected terrorists.

[SusanG] Let's make sure we've got this straight. The NSA won't grant clearances to DOJ attorneys to look into the program. The FCC refuses to look into whether the phone companies illegally turned over data. SEC rules of accounting and reporting are waived at the behest of the John Negroponte, thus eliminating any "follow the money" trail for investigators.

Absolutely NO oversight, no way in to investigate anything at all about this data mining program, not through the Department of Justice, not through the SEC walking back the money end, not through the agency that regulates the telecoms. And oh, yeah ... anyone who gets the bright idea to go to the press to leak ... well, even the reporter may get prosecuted now, as well as the whistleblower. . .

Iraqification – how’s it going?

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/30/world/middleeast/30troops.html
The top American commander in Iraq has decided to move reserve troops now deployed in Kuwait into the volatile Anbar Province in western Iraq to help quell a rise in insurgent attacks there . . .

http://www.slate.com/id/2142620/fr/rss/
[WP] "Zarqawi is the one who is in control" of Anbar's capital Ramadi, said one sheik. "He kills anyone who goes in and out of the U.S. base. We have stopped meetings with the Americans, because, frankly speaking, we have lost confidence in the U.S. side, as they can't protect us." . . .

http://www.needlenose.com/node/view/3003
[Swopa] I wrote two weeks ago about the unresolved tension between the Bushites' political need to begin withdrawing troops from Iraq (even if many remain in would-be permanent bases) and their equally strong need to avoid the appearance of retreat.

Ramadi is an example of how that circle is proving unsquareable. In a city of a few hundred thousand people, the U.S. controls five blocks. If we pull out of those five blocks, you might as well change the town's name to Zarqawiville. It seems like the Bushites have no more idea what to do about this problem than they did a year ago. . .

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/05/26/AR2006052601578.html
[Nir Rosen] I have spent nearly two of the three years since Baghdad fell in Iraq. On my last trip, a few weeks back, I flew out of the city overcome with fatalism. . .

http://www.juancole.com/2006/05/60-dead-including-us-major-2-british.html

Fake news: http://news.independent.co.uk/world/americas/article621189.ece

The big story over the weekend, which I assume everyone followed, was the growing internecine warfare between the WH, House and Senate Republicans, over the FBI’s authority to search Congressional offices and seize incriminating evidence. The most delicious moment was when Gonzales and two other top Justice Dept officials threatened to quit if the William Jefferson (D-LA) materials were returned. How bad is it getting when Gonzales, the ultimate loyalist, is pissed off with Bush?

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/27/washington/27inquire.html

http://makeashorterlink.com/?N16822F2D

Gonzales: http://americablog.blogspot.com/2006/05/bush-team-drama-gonzales-threatened-to.html

http://talkleft.com/new_archives/014956.html

Frist: http://americablog.blogspot.com/2006/05/flip-flopping-frist.html

Is there or isn’t there a serious Constitutional issue about this search and seizure?

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2006_05_01_digbysblog_archive.html#114867181107969231

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2006_05_28.php#008590

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2006_05_28.php#008586

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2006_05_28.php#008588

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2006_05_28.php#008591

I think this time it might backfire: it’s just so transparent. In the midst of war, corruption, fiscal difficulty, skyrocketing gas prices, education, health, and social programs in crisis, what do the Republicans want to make the most important issues this fall?

http://americablog.blogspot.com/2006/05/gop-senates-top-priority-is-passing.html
There's an election this November. The Republicans who currently control the US House and the US Senate think flag burning and gay marriage are the top two issues in America today. . .

http://makeashorterlink.com/?S4D726F2D
[AP] Amending the Constitution to prohibit flag burning may be considered political posturing in the nation's capital, says Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, but it's not pandering to the GOP's conservative base to pursue such protection. . . "It's important to the heart and soul of the American people," said Frist, R-Tenn. . .

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/7534.html
[ABC] Frist defended a constitutional ban on gay marriage because "that union between a man and a woman is the cornerstone of our society. It is under attack today." . . .

He’ll fit right in

http://glenngreenwald.blogspot.com/2006/05/new-bush-appointee-caught-changing-and.html
[Glenn Greenwald] Several days ago, the Bush administration announced that Karl Zinsmeister, the long-time Editor of the right-wing American Enterprise magazine, would become its new Domestic Policy Advisor. . .

But an exposè today in The New York Sun documents rather compellingly that integrity does not exactly appear to be one of Zinsmeister's strong suits. In 2004, The Syracuse New Times published a profile and interview with Zinsmeister which contained some rather controversial and provocative quotes, as well as some disrespectful and critical quotes about the Commander-in-Chief. But when Zinsmeister re-published the New Times profile on the American Enterprise website, he fundamentally changed the controversial quotations in order to make it appear that he never said them. . .

Ralph Reed (R-GA), sinking fast (and it couldn’t happen to a more deserving guy)

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/05/28/AR2006052800964.html

Today’s must-read

http://mediamatters.org/items/200605260016
[Jamison Foser] The defining issue of our time is not the Iraq war. It is not the "global war on terror." It is not our inability (or unwillingness) to ensure that all Americans have access to affordable health care. Nor is it immigration, outsourcing, or growing income inequity. It is not education, it is not global warming, and it is not Social Security.

The defining issue of our time is the media. . .

A special place in hell

http://atrios.blogspot.com/2006_05_28_atrios_archive.html#114891858094970145
[Laura Ingraham, Dartmouth co-ed, wanna-be war hero] “To do a show from Iraq means to talk to the Iraqi military, to go out with the Iraqi military, to actually have a conversation with the people instead of reporting from hotel balconies about the latest IEDs going off.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/30/world/middleeast/30embed.html
By some reckonings, the death of two journalists working for CBS News on Monday firmly secured the Iraq war as the deadliest conflict for reporters in modern times. . .

Bonus item: Bush on Memorial Day

http://www.discourse.net/archives/2006/05/rebarbative.html
"In this place where valor sleeps, we are reminded why America has always gone to war reluctantly, because we know the costs of war."

Uh-huh: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A17347-2004Apr16.html

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

I don't get anything personally out of this project, except the satisfaction of doing it (I don't run ads, etc). The credit really all goes to the people whose material I copy and redistribute. But if I do have a "mission," it is to get this information into the hands of as many people as I can.***
- posted by Nick Burbules @ 6:58 AM

 
I am away from Internet access for the next couple of days -- so the next regular issue of PBD will be on Tuesday the 30th.
- posted by Nick Burbules @ 7:19 AM

 
GUILTY, GUILTY, GUILTY!

Murray Waas (not Jason Leopold) reports that Karl Rove really is in big trouble – and Bob Novak too, apparently

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2006_05_21.php#008567
Murray Waas reports that Karl Rove, Robert Novak's source for learning Valerie Plame's identity, may have collaborated with the columnist to cover up his leak. Upon first learning of the federal probe into the Plame leak, Rove and Novak spoke and invented a "cover story" to hide the truth about the leak, Fitzgerald's investigators believe.

More: http://news.nationaljournal.com/articles/0525nj1.htm

http://talkleft.com/new_archives/014941.html

Libby fingers Cheney

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/05/24/AR2006052402597.html
Vice President Cheney was personally angered by a former U.S. ambassador's newspaper column attacking a key rationale for the war in Iraq and repeatedly directed I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, then his chief of staff, to "get all the facts out" related to the critique. . . Libby also told the grand jury that Cheney raised as an issue that the former ambassador's wife worked at the CIA and that she allegedly played a role in sending him to investigate the Iraqi government's interest in acquiring nuclear weapons materials. That issue formed the basis of former ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV's published critique.

In the court filing that included the formerly secret testimony, Fitzgerald did not assert that Cheney instructed Libby to tell reporters the name and role of Valerie Plame, Wilson's wife. But he said Cheney's interactions with Libby on that topic were a key part of the reason Libby allegedly made false statements to the FBI about his conversations with reporters around the time her name was disclosed in news accounts. . . "The state of mind of the Vice President as communicated to defendant is directly relevant to the issue of whether defendant knowingly made false statements to federal agents and the grand jury regarding when and how he learned about Ms. Wilson's employment and what he said to reporters regarding this issue," he said.

More: http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/7506.html

If called, Cheney will have to testify http://makeashorterlink.com/?H10415B2D

Enron execs Kenneth Lay and Jeffrey Skilling found guilty

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2006/5/25/12911/2132
Lay is known to be a very close personal friend of current US president George W. Bush, and was one of the largest contributors to his presidential campaigns . . .

George Bush’s close links with “Kenny Boy”

http://www.first-draft.com//modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=6121
[January 2002] THE PRESIDENT: Well, first of all, Ken Lay is a supporter. And I got to know Ken Lay when he was the head of the -- what they call the Governor's Business Council in Texas. He was a supporter of Ann Richards in my run in 1994.

http://www.slate.com/id/2060884/
"In distancing himself from Enron, President Bush said that CEO Kenneth Lay 'was a supporter' of Democrat Ann Richards in his first race for Texas governor in 1994.

"But records and interviews with people involved in the Richards campaign show that he was a far bigger Bush supporter.

"Mr. Lay and his wife gave Mr. Bush three times more money . . . than Ms. Richards in their gubernatorial contest, according to a computer-assisted review of campaign finance reports by The Dallas Morning News. … Mr. Bush, a Republican, collected $37,500 from the Lays in his successful bid to unseat the Democratic incumbent, state records show. Ms. Richards received $12,500."

Much more: http://www.consortiumnews.com/2002/020602a1.html

http://www.consortiumnews.com/2006/052506.html

But did the press ask about these ties once the Enron convictions came down?

http://www.first-draft.com//modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=6124

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2006_05_01_digbysblog_archive.html#114857532090744210
[Digby] So Kenny Boy Lay went down today. Let's hear it for the justice system.

But let's also hear it for the White House press corps who after eight long years of invetigating every transaction that members of the Clinton administration ever made, never really gave a damn about Kenny Boy's very intimate connection to George W. Bush and apparently still don't.

One pathetic, half-hearted attempt http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/05/25/AR2006052501958.html

Sounds like a cover-up

http://news.nationaljournal.com/articles/0525nj2.htm
An internal Justice Department inquiry into whether department officials -- including Attorney General Alberto Gonzales and then-Attorney General John Ashcroft -- acted properly in approving and overseeing the Bush administration's domestic eavesdropping program was stymied because investigators were denied security clearances to do their work. The investigators, however, were only seeking information and documents relating to the National Security Agency's surveillance program that were already in the Justice Department's possession. . .

Haditha: it really was a massacre

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/26/world/middleeast/26haditha.html
A military investigation into the deaths of two dozen Iraqis last November is expected to find that a small number of marines in western Iraq carried out extensive, unprovoked killings of civilians . . .

http://www.slate.com/id/2142545/fr/rss/
[Eric Umansky] The New York Times and Los Angeles Times front what military officials say appears to be the murder of two dozen Iraqis by Marines last November. A congressional official said the shootings were "methodical in nature." The Marines reportedly killed a few unarmed men taken from a taxi. Then they went into houses, where they killed women and children.

An initial press release from the military said most of the civilians were killed by a "roadside bomb." The NYT, which has the more detailed report, asked a "senior defense official" how many Iraqis were really killed by the bomb. The answer: "Zero."

The military only investigated after Time magazine started digging and reported the story back in March. The killings are now the focus of three investigations, including one into the possible cover-up.

"When these investigations come out, there's going to be a firestorm," one retired military lawyer told the Washington Post. "It will be worse than Abu Ghraib— nobody was killed at Abu Ghraib."

[NB: I think that's unlikely. Haditha wasn't the result of clear and systematic instructions from higher-ups. Horrible as it is, it's the kind of thing that happens in war. Abu Ghraib was a result of policy.]

Will anyone apologize to Murtha? http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2006_05_01_digbysblog_archive.html#114861845387764439

Republicans at war with one another over immigration policy

http://americablog.blogspot.com/2006/05/senate-to-pass-immigration-bill-today.html
The immigrant bashers in the House aren't backing down. . .

“Coming train wreck” http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2006/5/25/165713/129

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/26/washington/26assess.html

Funny. Jimmy Carter endorses Bush's approach (which will further inflame the far-right opponents on this issue, naturally)

http://www.mydd.com/story/2006/5/26/0325/28229

Senate Republicans are scared to death of the stem cell issue

http://www.mydd.com/story/2006/5/25/172057/119

ABC stands by its story that Hastert IS being investigated for Abramoff connections

http://americablog.blogspot.com/2006/05/abc-news-update-hastert-story-is.html
[John Aravosis] Is this why Hastert was complaining so loudly about the FBI raid that sought documents from Cong. Jefferson? And is this why Hastert himself called today for the agents who conducted the raid to be taken off the case? Tell me that isn't obstruction off justice, trying to get the guys investigating YOU fired.

More: http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/7504.html

Was the leak of this story punishment?

http://www.cnn.com/2006/POLITICS/05/25/abc.hastert/index.html
The White House tried to cool congressional anger Thursday over a report linking House Speaker Dennis Hastert to a wide-ranging corruption probe, denying the story was leaked to punish Hastert for criticizing the FBI's raid of a lawmaker's office. . .

Hastert has been a particularly vocal critic of an FBI search of a Democratic lawmaker's office Saturday and suggested the leak was meant to intimidate him. . . "This is one of the leaks that come out to try to intimidate people, and we're just not going to be intimidated on it," Hastert told Chicago radio station WGN on Thursday. . .

Perfect, just perfect. On the brink of a total rout because of Republican corruption, the Democrats collapse into racially charged squabbling over how to deal with the William Jefferson (D-LA) scandal

http://thehill.com/thehill/export/TheHill/News/Frontpage/052506/news1.html

Stupid and unnecessary http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/7514.html

http://americablog.blogspot.com/2006/05/steve-gilliard-speaks-truth-to-black.html

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2006/5/25/94746/8158

http://www.samefacts.com/archives/_/2006/05/nancy_pelosis_sister_souljah_moment.php

Arlen Specter (R-PA) and Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) jointly sponsor bill requiring Bush to follow FISA requirements. I assume this could pass the Senate, but never the House. Though if it did, would Bush veto it?

http://glenngreenwald.blogspot.com/2006/05/specter-and-feinstein-propose-ban-on.html

Bill Nelson (D) vs Katherine Harris (R) in the Florida senate race

http://politicalwire.com/archives/2006/05/25/in_florida_nelson_crushing_harris_in_new_poll.html
56%/26%

New guy in the White House: once again media savvy and ideological conformity matter more than government policy experience

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/7515.html
[Steve Benen] When Claude Allen was forced to resign from the White House after getting caught in some unfortunate shoplifting incidents, the West Wing was temporarily without a chief domestic policy advisor. It probably didn't matter too much — the Bush gang shows about as much interest in policy as the president shows in sightseeing in France — but yesterday, the White House announced Allen's replacement. . .

Treasury Secretary John Snow will (finally) resign

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/05/25/AR2006052501612.html

Bonus item: The kind of little story that tells so much

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2006_05_01_digbysblog_archive.html#114856727225533233
[Elisabeth Bumiller, NYT] Reporters en route to Arizona on Air Force One last week opted to watch the movie "King Kong" in the press cabin. Not so Tony Snow, the new White House press secretary and former Fox News commentator, who told reporters that he spent the flight in the staff cabin watching Gen. Michael V. Hayden's confirmation hearings to be the new C.I.A. director — on CNN.

[Digby] Okay, once you're back from the dental surgery room and had your jaw returned to its proper place, let's state the obvious: In a country with a rational press, any reporter on that plane who was watching "King Kong" instead of the Hayden hearings would be fired within 1 hour of the publication of Bumiller's story. Including, apparently, Bumiller herself.

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

I don't get anything personally out of this project, except the satisfaction of doing it (I don't run ads, etc). The credit really all goes to the people whose material I copy and redistribute. But if I do have a "mission," it is to get this information into the hands of as many people as I can.***
- posted by Nick Burbules @ 5:33 AM

 
INVESTIGATION WATCH

Cheney may be called upon to testify in Libby case. Wow. What happens once this guy gets put on the stand under oath (assuming he agrees to do it)?

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/25/washington/25cheney.html

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2006_05/008890.php

http://talkleft.com/new_archives/014938.html

http://www.warandpiece.com/blogdirs/004255.html
[NY Daily News] "Two top CIA officials will bolster prosecutors' charge that Vice President Cheney's chief aide lied to them, court papers show”. . .

More: http://americablog.blogspot.com/2006/05/somebody-doesnt-look-very-happy.html

Bush’s Security State draws broader and broader guidelines around information they won’t provide in criminal cases

http://makeashorterlink.com/?W21F1392D

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/7500.html

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2006/5/24/115758/212

Glenn Greenwald, of course: http://glenngreenwald.blogspot.com/2006/05/snapshots-of-us-under-bush.html

More: http://www.warandpiece.com/blogdirs/004262.html

Speaker of the House Denny Hastert under investigation?!?

http://blogs.abcnews.com/theblotter/2006/05/federal_officia.html

Maybe not: http://talkleft.com/new_archives/014937.html

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/7503.html

GOP House leaders are furious that the FBI is collecting evidence from congressional offices (and with good reason)

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2006/5/23/175514/839

Why they should worry: http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/000717.php#more

http://americablog.blogspot.com/2006/05/gop-leaders-should-be-worried-about.html

Contrarians Yglesias and Kleiman agree with them: http://www.prospect.org/weblog/2006/05/post_445.html

http://www.samefacts.com/archives/corruption_in_washington_/2006/05/quis_custodiet_ipsos_custodes.php

Why the Democrats just can’t figure out how to play the corruption issue

http://www.prospect.org/weblog/2006/05/post_446.html

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2006/5/24/20302/4409

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2006_05_01_digbysblog_archive.html#114852527093684731

The WH won’t tell us how often Abramoff visited, who he visited with, and why – and no one seems inclined to make them

http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/000720.php

Rove: who the hell knows?

http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room/2006/05/23/rovewatch/index.html

Bush has been trying for more than a year to find someone to replace John Snow. And he still can’t find anyone. . .

http://www.prospect.org/weblog/2006/05/post_444.html

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2006_05/008883.php

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/25/world/americas/25zoellick.html

Good question, idiotic answer

http://www.first-draft.com//modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=6110
Q The U.S. has the most powerful military in the world, and they have been unable to bring down the violence in any substantial way in several of the provinces. So how can you expect the Iraqis to do that?. . . [read on]

More: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/blog/2006/05/24/BL2006052401423.html

Chalabi, Allawi, Jaafari, Maliki – who’s next in the line of great Iraqi democratic heroes?

http://www.needlenose.com/node/view/2986

GOP foreign policy: clueless

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2006_05_01_digbysblog_archive.html#114850233153380775

What’s going on at the Washington Post?

http://americablog.blogspot.com/2006/05/bizarre-wash-post-suck-up-story-on.html

Bonus item: Priceless. DeLay’s legal team turns to that noted right-wing commentator, Stephen Colbert (no kidding!)

http://thinkprogress.org/2006/05/24/delay-colbert/

***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 @ 6:44 AM

 
LOWERED EXPECTATIONS

Is Bush starting to lay the groundwork for a troop pullout from Iraq? Here we have a situation that MUST be trumpeted as a “turning point” – but how many of these have we seen in the past?

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/05/22/AR2006052200115.html
"We can expect the violence to continue, but something fundamental changed this weekend," Bush said. . .

[NB: “We can expect the violence to continue. . .”]

The press helps: http://mediamatters.org/items/200605220005

Mr. Mandate, Mr. Bold Agenda, Mr. Political Capital, is now reduced to trying to find the “rational middle ground” and “incrementalism”

http://www.suntimes.com/output/news/cst-nws-bush23.html
President Bush acknowledged to a Chicago audience Monday that "there's an unease in America" over the war in Iraq, but he insisted that . . our progress is incremental”. . .

More: http://www.needlenose.com/node/view/2981




More: http://www.savagenet.com/oz/Oz/
I met a traveler from an antique land
Who said: Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read,
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed,
And on the pedestal these words appear:
"My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings:
Look upon my works, ye Mighty, and despair!"
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.

-Percy Bysshe Shelley
1792-1822

Blair faces the same problem in Britain

http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/article570217.ece

So. . . .like clockwork

http://www.rawstory.com/news/2006/Report_Bush_Blair_to_announce_phased_0522.html
Tony Blair and George Bush will announce that they are to begin withdrawing troops from Iraq at a summit in Washington as early as this week, RAW STORY has learned.

The process has already been carefully choreographed in an attempt to bolster the popularity of both Bush and Blair who have suffered domestically for their handling of the war. . .

http://msnbc.msn.com/id/12920385/site/newsweek
An old word is gaining new currency in Washington: containment. You may be hearing a lot more of it as the Bush administration hunkers down for its final two years. Containment of Iraq’s low-level civil war, which shows every sign of persisting for years despite the new government inaugurated this week. Containment of Iran’s nuclear power, which may lead to a missile defense system in Europe. Containment of the Islamism revived by Hamas and Hizbullah, by the Sunni suicide bombers in Iraq, as well as by the “Shiite Crescent”—as Jordan’s King Abdullah once called it—running from Iran through Southern Iraq and into the Gulf. . .

So, now it’s “containment,” huh?

http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2005/03/20050308-3.html
[Bush, March 8, 2005] For the sake of our long-term security, all free nations must stand with the forces of democracy and justice that have begun to transform the Middle East. . .

http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2005/12/20051214-1.html
[Bush, December 14, 2005] As I stated in a speech in the lead-up to the war, a liberated Iraq could show the power of freedom to transform the Middle East . . .

I don’t get it. I think this Seymour Hersh story is HUGE. I’m out of the country, but I see no indication that it’s caught on. Why not?

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2006_05/008865.php

Report: Libby knew Plame was classified

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/05/21/AR2006052101024.html

He’s screwed: http://www.nydailynews.com/news/wn_report/story/420152p-354720c.html

“At any time”

http://www.rawstory.com/news/2006/MSNBC_Roves_legal_team_expects_decision_0522.html
MSNBC's David Shuster declared Monday evening that Karl Rove's legal team expects Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald to announce a decision "at any time". . .

More: http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2006_05/008862.php

http://talkleft.com/new_archives/014910.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 @ 10:28 AM

 
STORM CLOUDS

Sy Hersh: guess what? The NSA program WASN’T just limited to collecting a data base of unidentified phone calls: their content WAS being monitored

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/7475.html

More: http://www.newyorker.com/talk/content/articles/060529ta_talk_hersh

Bush gang threatens to prosecute reporters over revealing illegal domestic spying. I say, “bring it on, guys.” Do they really want to turn the press into their blood enemy?

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/05/21/AR2006052100348.html
Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales raised the possibility yesterday that New York Times journalists could be prosecuted for publishing classified information based on the outcome of the criminal investigation underway into leaks to the Times of data about the National Security Agency's surveillance of terrorist-related calls between the United States and abroad. . .

http://americablog.blogspot.com/2006/05/gonzales-reiterates-intent-to.html
[Joe] Obviously, they intend to stifle the free press in America. It's really quite amazing because the traditional media has been overly kind and deferential to Bush and his cronies. But in Bush world, there is no room for criticism. Exposing unconstitutional behavior by the Bush team can result in criminal charges--and not just your run of the mill charges--they're talking espionage. . .

http://glenngreenwald.blogspot.com/2006/05/imprisoning-journalists.html
[Glenn Greenwald] An aggressive and adversarial press in our country was intended by the founders to be one of the most critical checks on abuses of presidential power, every bit as much as Congress and the courts were created as checks. . . . And the only reason, in turn, that the press is a check against the Government is because it searches for and then discloses information which the Government wants to keep secret. That is what investigative journalism, by definition, does. The Government always wants to conceal its wrongdoing from the public, and the principal safeguard in this country against that behavior is an adversarial press, which is devoted to uncovering such conduct and disclosing it to the country.

Virtually every issue of political controversy during the Bush administration has been the result of the disclosure to a journalist by a concerned Government source that the administration is engaging in illegal, improper and/or highly controversial conduct. Whatever criticisms one wants to make of the American press -- and such criticisms are numerous -- it is still the case that what we do know about this Administration's conduct is the result of the press. Literally, if George Bush had his way -- if government sources were sufficiently intimidated out of disclosing classified information and journalists were sufficiently intimidated out of writing about it -- we would not know about any of these matters:

* Abu Ghraib

* The Bybee Torture Memorandum

* The use of torture as an interrogation tool

* The illegal eavesdropping on Americans without warrants

* The creation of secret gulags in Eastern Europe

* The existence of abundant pre-war information undermining and even negating the administration's WMD claims

* Policies of rendering prisoners to the worst human rights-abusing countries. . . [read on!]

Although, my optimism rests on the assumption that the major press will strike back . . .

http://glenngreenwald.blogspot.com/2006/05/imprisoning-journalists.html
[Glenn Greenwald] One of the most striking aspects of these escalating attacks on the press is just how silent the major media outlets are about any of this. The Attorney General threatened journalists with prison this weekend on national television. Shouldn't the Times and the Post be editorializing against those threats, at the very least? And yet, from what I've seen today, no newspaper has published an editorial response to the administration. Just silence.

Condi Rice’s shameless lies about Gitmo

http://www.ericumansky.com/2006/05/rice_cooking_th.html

Longtime readers have become more than familiar with Larry Di Rita’s lies and distortions as Press Secretary for Rumsfeld’s Defense Dept. But even from him this is impressive. . .

http://www.boomantribune.com/story/2006/5/22/8550/92657

Plame keeps slipping down the priority list as everyone shifts into “wait and see” mode. But deep in the blogsophere, speculation continues

Dick Armitage, hero? http://www.needlenose.com/node/view/2977

Libby’s laughable defense excuse http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/05/21/AR2006052101024.html

Alberto Gonzales, defendant? http://www.discourse.net/archives/2006/05/gonzales_in_the_cross_hairs.html

Truthout, on the defensive http://www.ericumansky.com/2006/05/you_want_the_tr.html

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/7471.html

http://talkleft.com/new_archives/014903.html

Rove cooperating? http://forum.truthout.org/blog/story/2006/5/21/115826/135

Of course Presidents campaign for candidates as the leader of their party. But Bush has turned this into something more

http://americablog.blogspot.com/2006/05/white-house-is-now-rnc.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 @ 11:20 AM

 
KINDA SORTA

(Sporadic posting over the next couple of days, while I’m traveling.)

Iraq forms government! (Well, kinda sorta)

http://makeashorterlink.com/?O63B5242D
[AP] The inauguration of Iraq's new government marks a new era in relations with the country that the U.S. has occupied for more than three years, President Bush said Sunday.

"The formation of a unity government in Iraq is a new day for the millions of Iraqis who want to live in peace," Bush said. "And the formation of the unity government in Iraq begins a new chapter in our relationship with Iraq."

Bush briefly spoke to reporters from the White House with his wife, Laura, at his side, to highlight the political development without mentioning the violence that still rages in Iraq.

The president did not speak of the spree of bombing, mortar rounds and a drive-by shooting that killed at least 18 Iraqis and wounded dozens. . .

http://www.slate.com/id/2142128/fr/rss/
Even thought the new government boasts a Sunni Arab vice president and deputy prime minister, 15 Sunni politicians stormed out of the celebrations to protest Maliki's decision to proceed with a vote even though three key Cabinet positions have yet to be filled—defense, interior, and national security, the three ministries that will share control of the country's new security forces. . .

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2006_05/008854.php
[Kevin Drum] After months of haggling, Iraqi leaders finally formed a government today. However, they were forced to leave three important ministries unfilled — all related to oversight of security forces — because Shiites, Sunnis, and Kurds couldn't agree on who to appoint.

That's obviously troubling, but I have a feeling that an even bigger problem was buried in a single paragraph inside this morning's New York Times account:

The incident underscored how difficult it could be for the new government to act with any degree of decisiveness. And it presages the bitter conflicts that lie ahead, especially over amendments to the Constitution, which Sunni leaders are insisting on as a condition for remaining in the democratic process.

Last October, in a desperate attempt to get Sunni support for the referendum on the proposed Iraqi constitution, Shiite leaders agreed to form a special committee to consider amendments to the constitution within four months of forming a government. That was mostly a fig leaf, since no one agreed to actually change the constitution, but it was enough to allow the Sunni bloc to hold out hope that they'd eventually get some of the concessions they were after.

But that's been on hold ever since the December parliamentary elections because no government had been formed. Now, though, the clock is ticking. With a government in place, Iraq's leadership is obligated to form the promised committee and begin considering constitutional changes.

So what's going to happen? The leader of Iraq's biggest Shiite party pretty much repudiated the deal months ago, and the most likely outcome seems to be either no changes or else mere cosmetic changes. And then the Sunnis will have to decide: do they decide to live with the constitution they hated back in October, or do they pull out of the government when the constitutional committee fails to deliver on any substantive changes? . . .

More: http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2006/5/20/131535/926

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2006/5/21/142458/344

Iraq’s police force (Well, kinda sorta)

http://www.slate.com/id/2142128/fr/rss/
Much more in-depth is a piece the NYT fronts on the Iraqi police force and the failure of the Bush administration to adequately train it. The administration rejected a plan to rebuild the force using thousands of American civilian trainers. Instead, a dozen ill-equipped advisers were initially sent to rebuild the force. Former New York City police commissioner Bernard Kerik said he was sent to Baghdad with 10 days' notice and no preparation; he prepared himself by watching A&E Network documentaries on Saddam Hussein. In the two weeks he had to ready himself for his job, L. Paul Bremer wasn't sure he'd even been briefed on the Iraqi police. Even more troublesome—despite being unable to find foreign field trainers for the force or to trust the Iraqis signing up, American officials never sounded alarm bells. When Kerik returned to the U.S., he said the force had made "tremendous progress.". . .

FUBAR: http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2006_05/008858.php

Bush speaks Spanish (Well, kinda sorta)

http://atrios.blogspot.com/2006_05_21_atrios_archive.html#114821651267515301

Bush speaks English (Well, kinda sorta)

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/7468.html

Truthout apologizes for mistaken Rove story (Well, kinda sorta)

http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room/2006/05/20/truthout/index.html
[Tim Grieve] "The time has now come. . . to issue a partial apology to our readership for this story," Truthout Executive Director Marc Ash said in a post on the site Friday. "While we paid very careful attention to the sourcing on this story, we erred in getting too far out in front of the news cycle. In moving as quickly as we did, we caused more confusion than clarity. And that was a disservice to our readership and we regret it. As such, we will be taking the wait-and-see approach for the time being. We will keep you posted."

An apology for "getting too far out in front of the news cycle"? How's that again? Where we come from, reporters try to get out in front of the news cycle. It's called aggressive reporting, breaking some news, a scoop. And it's not the sort of thing that warrants an apology -- unless, of course, you've gotten the story wrong.

So is Truthout saying that Jason Leopold's reporting was wrong? We put that question to Ash this morning, and his answer seemed to be a pretty unequivocal no. Although Rove's lawyer and his spokesman have both said that Leopold's story was false, Ash said that Truthout still believes that Patrick Fitzgerald, Karl Rove and Rove lawyer Robert Luskin participated in a 15-hour plea-negotiation session at Patton Boggs last Friday; that Fitzgerald gave Rove's lawyers a copy of an indictment charging Rove with perjury and lying to investigators; and that Fitzgerald told Rove's lawyers that their client had 24 hours -- or 24 business hours -- to get his affairs in order.

So why apologize for the story? Leopold's story quoted "sources close to the case" who predicted an indictment announcement last week, and Ash told us this morning that Truthout "hoped and felt strongly" that Fitzgerald would announce Rove's indictment on Friday. That it didn't happen was a cause for concern, Ash said.

In addition, Ash said that he's uncertain about some of the events leading up to and following the meeting that supposedly happened last Friday at Patton Boggs. Ash said he isn't sure now when the grand jury voted to indict Rove, although he said he remains confident that it did so before last Friday. He said that he isn't sure what's going on now to warrant keeping the alleged indictment under wraps, although he suggested that it must mean that Rove's team is cooperating with Fitzgerald somehow.

Finally, Ash said that "there are people whose life was made inconvenient by our story," and that "not all of them are Karl Rove or people beholden to Karl Rove." Who are they? "I can't tell you any more than that," Ash said. Is one of them Leopold? "You're making my life complicated now," Ash said. . .

Wayne Madsen goes all in, stands by the story and adds a new piece of speculation: Fitzgerald really was all ready to announce an indictment for Rove, but Attorney General Gonzales (the one who said he was recusing himself from the investigation, remember?), Madsen seems to suggest, un-recused himself to intervene and override Fitzgerald. I don’t believe that, and I can’t imagine how they would think they’d get away with it – but, man, if it were true. . .

http://www.waynemadsenreport.com/
May 20, 2006 -- Yesterday came and passed without an announcement by Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald in Leakgate. . .

WMR stands by its report that there was a meeting between Fitzgerald and Rove and his attorneys at Patton Boggs LLC in Washington on Friday, May 12. The meeting was to inform Rove that he would be indicted. The Attorney General had been informed in person by the Grand Jury that they had indicted Rove -- the same courtesy afforded him last October in the Libby case. The Grand Jury was apparently not in session yesterday but that does not mean the Rove matter was off the agenda. According to the daily docket in the Clerk's Office, two US District Court judges were deliberating cases in which there were potentially sealed indictments. Judge Alan Kay heard a case titled "UNITED STATES v. SEALED." Judge Reggie Walton, the presiding judge in the Libby trial, deliberated a number of cases titled "SEALED v. SEALED." With a sealed indictment in hand, the Special Prosecutor could have been negotiating a plea agreement with the Rove camp during the last week. And that may have set off a guerre royale between the Special Prosecutor and White House, with the prosecutor at a severe disadvantage.

Even before WMR reported on Rove's likely indictment yesterday, there were clear signs that something was amiss. Rather than keep Rove out of the public eye, the White House put him out in front of the neocon American Enterprise Institute on Monday, had him arm twisting GOP members of Congress during the week, and had him fly to Lake County, Illinois Friday night for a GOP fundraiser and pep talk. Washington insiders report that if the White House were confident that Rove would soon be indicted, they would refrain from having him out among GOP ranks taking part in future embarrassing photo ops. Which brings us back to yesterday's item about the power of the Special Counsel as opposed to that of an Independent Special Counsel. Even Watergate independent counsel Archibald Cox was not immune enough to prevent him from being fired by Richard Nixon. (Although the Attorney General and Deputy Attorney General refused to fire Cox and resigned, the dirty work was carried out by the Solicitor General, Robert Bork). Fitzgerald is merely protected by a series of Justice Department administrative directives and not by anything even close to an Independent Counsel Statute. In taking on the most powerful and unconstitutional administration in the history of the United States, Fitzgerald's brief is certainly vulnerable to pressure from the White House. And it is clear that something drastic followed the May 12 meeting at Patton & Boggs. . .

Mid-week, WMR received an email from someone claiming to be a reporter for a major TV news network. It claimed that Gonzales was nowhere near the US Courthouse on May 12 and insinuated that the reporter was able to see the members of the secret Grand Jury come and go, that the same Grand Jury deliberating the Rove matter was also hearing a drug case, and that the reporter had somehow been given inside information into the secret Grand Jury proceedings. The "reporter" failed to mention the well-armed, multi-vehicle motorcade that arrived at the Courthouse from the Justice Department at the rear garage of the courthouse, placed the Attorney General's personal security detail throughout the courthouse annex, and returned to Justice some 30 minutes later. . .

WMR apologizes to its loyal and supportive readers for being led, along with our sources, down the Rove rabbit hole of media mirages and public relations B.S. Until an actual announcement is made by the Special Prosecutor regarding Rove, we will concentrate our limited resources on other, more important, stories, including continuing CIA rendition flights, NSA eavesdropping, and Iraq war atrocities.

Plame update: Richard Armitage

http://talkleft.com/new_archives/014894.html

http://www.needlenose.com/node/view/2977

***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 @ 2:58 PM

 
WHICH SIDE ARE YOU ON?

General Hayden is getting a pretty soft touch from the Senate, but he has said some things that should make us all worry

http://balkin.blogspot.com/2006/05/michael-hayden-and-article-ii.html
[Marty Lederman] According to accounts of General Michael Hayden's testimony yesterday, in the days following September 11th, Hayden was of the view that FISA outlawed the sort of surveillance program that the NSA eventually implemented. Indeed, one year later he even testified to a joint House-Senate Committee that the legislators and their constituents needed to reconsider, in light of modern developments and 9/11, the balance between liberties and security that Congress and the President had struck when they enacted FISA in 1978.

But in October 2001, he approved the NSA surveillance program anyway. Why didn't he abide by FISA? Because he received assurances from the Attorney General, the Office of Legal Counsel, and the White House Counsel that the President had Article II authority to supresede (i.e., violate) that statute and its criminal prohibitions. Apparently, the top three NSA attorneys agreed with this constitutional analysis, which was enough for Hayden -- even though their views were not provided in writing and Hayden had not read the OLC opinions (still not public, by the way) setting out the Article II argument. . . [read on!]

http://glenngreenwald.blogspot.com/2006/05/gen-hayden-admits-administration-knew.html
[Glenn Greenwald] In his confirmation hearing yesterday, Gen. Hayden yesterday all but acknowledged that when President Bush ordered the NSA to engage in warrantless eavesdropping on Americans, the administration did not, at that time, rely upon any purported claim that Congress had authorized the President to engage in warrantless eavesdropping via its authorization to use military force against Al Qaeda. That legal theory justifying violations of FISA only came much later. The sole justification the administration had when the President ordered warrantless eavesdropping was its claim that the president has "inherent authority" to violate the law.

Thus, when President Bush ordered warrantless eavesdropping, the administration did not believe that this eavesdropping was authorized by Congress as a result of the AUMF, nor did it believe that the eavesdropping was consistent with FISA. To the contrary, it knew that the eavesdropping it had ordered was criminally prohibited by FISA, and the sole legal justification it relied upon was its belief that the President had the power to order eavesdropping in violation of that law . . . [read on]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/05/19/AR2006051901557.html
AT THE SENATE intelligence committee hearing Thursday on Gen. Michael V. Hayden's nomination to head the CIA, Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) asked the nominee a simple question: Is "waterboarding" an acceptable interrogation technique? Gen. Hayden responded: "Let me defer that to closed session, and I would be happy to discuss it in some detail." That was the wrong answer. The right one would have been simple: No. Last year Congress banned cruel, degrading and inhumane treatment of detainees; one of its explicit aims was to stop the CIA's use of waterboarding, which induces an excruciating sensation of drowning and is considered by most human rights organizations to constitute torture. So why couldn't Gen. Hayden say clearly that the technique is now off-limits?. . . [read on]

http://www.ericumansky.com/2006/05/hayden_spinning.html
Spencer Ackerman argues that when the law and his bosses' desires have been in conflict, Hayden has always sided with the latter. . .

More: http://www.buzzflash.com/alerts/06/05/ale06056.html

http://www.samefacts.com/archives/torture_/2006/05/hayden_the_senate_and_torture.php

Pat Roberts (R-KS): this is what passes today for “patriotism”

http://americablog.blogspot.com/2006/05/gop-senator-pat-roberts-is-big-girl.html
"I am a strong supporter of the First Amendment, the Fourth Amendment and civil liberties," Senator Pat Roberts (R-Kansas) remarked at yesterday's Hayden confirmation hearings, "but you have no civil liberties if you are dead."

[John Aravosis] Patrick Henry once said: "Give me liberty or give me death."

Pat Roberts said yesterday: Take my liberty and spare me death. . . . [which is becoming a standard GOP talking point: read on]

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/008513.php
[Josh Marshall] First off is the sheer cowardice of it. . .

Second is just this dogmatic post-9/11 insistence on acting as if human history began suddenly in 1997 or something. The United States was able to face down such threats as the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany without indefinite detentions, widespread use of torture as an interrogative technique, or all-pervasive surveillance. . . .

Last, there's the unargued assumption that civil rights and the rule of law are some kind of near-intolerable impediment to national security. . .

More: http://www.samefacts.com/archives/torture_/2006/05/liberty_torture_and_cowardice.php

Repeated suicide attempts, and now a prison riot. The UN says, time to shut down Gitmo

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/05/19/AR2006051901900.html

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/20/world/americas/20torture.html

Hell: http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2006/5/19/145057/953

[NB: I heard an execrable analysis on CNN, saying “This shows that these prisoners are still determined to attack Americans.” NO! What it shows is that when you lock up people indefinitely, with no hope of release, they have nothing to lose but to fight back.]

Consistently inconsistent on their reasons for the Iraq War

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/7462.html

Is Cunningham cooperating? A few cocktails just got spilled at the Old Boy’s Club

http://www.nctimes.com/articles/2006/05/19/news/top_stories/21_21_195_18_06.txt

How does the Department of Homeland Security plan to evacuate big-wigs in the case of a national emergency? Sit down, put down any sharp objects, then read this

http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/000693.php

Paul Krugman, trying hard to teach America a bit of Economics 101, when the Bush gang is working at dumbing us all down

http://www.prospect.org/weblog/2006/05/post_416.html

George Bush’s buddies over at the phone companies

http://rockthrower.blogs.com/rockthrower/2006/05/the_tip_of_the_.html
[John McDonald] President Bush is top recipient of political funds from phone companies that turned over calling records of millions of Americans. AT&T, Verizon and BellSouth gave Bush $511,955. . . [read on]

http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/000698.php
A new Business Week article may help explain how AT&T and BellSouth can say they didn't help the NSA, despite the spy agency having millions of their records showing the call details of Americans using their networks.

The magazine reveals a hidden corner of the telecommunications world: a small group of companies who specialize in granting the government access to telecommunications records, conversations and real-time data on behalf of the telecom giants.

That's right: the government now makes so many requests for wiretaps, phone records and call information that an industry has sprung up to handle the load.

Rather than respond themselves to requests from the FBI and others, a telco can sign up with one of these companies, give them access to their call records and equipment, and let that third party do all the hard work. . .

But. . . . http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2006_05/008851.php

The kind of people they are

http://www.democrats.com/node/8975
[Bob Geiger] OK, let's face it, we're as jaded as they come when it comes to the low-rent campaign tactics Republicans will use to smear their opponents. We've seen them swift-boat decorated Veterans like John Kerry and Max Cleland and we've watched them go after the wives of candidates, such as in 1988 when they exploited Kitty Dukakis's battle with alcoholism and floated a rumor that she had once burned an American flag to protest the Vietnam War.

But this may be a new low even for them… And this is GOP-on-GOP smearing in the form of a mailer sent out by California Republican Bill Conrad, a candidate for State Assembly, attacking his primary opponent Tom Berryhill for having -- are you ready for this? -- heart surgery and promoting the idea that voters should not support Berryhill because he might die soon.

"Tom Berryhill doesn't have the HEART for State Assembly," says the mailer, which then goes on to list "facts" about the survival rates of people who have Berryhill's surgery and implores voters to consider "…the costs to taxpayers for a special election when poor health renders him unable to fulfill the duties of office.". . .

The kind of person Bush is: He realizes people have lost faith in him – but what lesson does he draw from it?

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/7459.html
[NBC] Gregory: "In the most recent survey, your disapproval rating is now one point lower than Richard Nixon's before he resigned the presidency. You're laughing, but …

Bush: "I'm not laughing, I just …"

Gregory: "Why do you think that is?"

Bush: "Because we're at war, and war unsettles people. We got — listen, we've got a great economy. We've added 5.2 million jobs in the last two-and-a-half years. But … people are unsettled. They don't look at the economy and say life is good. They know we're at war and I'm not surprised that people are unsettled because of war."

Gregory: "But they're just not unsettled, sir. They disapprove of the job you're doing."

Bush: "That's unsettled."

[Steve Benen] So, if the public disapproves of the president's job performance, it's our fault? We're unsettled because the war he's mismanaged from the start is going poorly?

And if it's really Iraq that's dragging Bush's poll numbers down, why is it that the public also strongly disapproves of the president's handling of the economy, ethics in government, taxes, immigration, energy policy, and the federal budget deficit?

The video is worth watching to see how just unconcerned the man really is. I'm not in his shoes, but if I had support like this, I wouldn't be laughing.

Laugh at this headline, George (thanks to Kevin Drum for the link)

http://www.realcities.com/mld/krwashington/14622000.htm
[K-R] Americans don't like President Bush personally much anymore, either . . .

The silliness of the “English as national language” bill – and the incoherence of the Bush position(s) on it

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/7454.html

Tony Snow: http://thinkprogress.org/2006/05/19/snow-contradicts-gonzales
As you know, there were actually a couple of amendments that came up yesterday, an Inhofe amendment and also a Salazar amendment. And what has come out of that is a description of English as the national language. And I think — and we have supported both of these. … And I think both of these amendments are consistent with that stated presidential desire.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20060519/pl_nm/usa_immigration_gonzales_dc_1
Alberto Gonzales: "The president has never supported making English the national language," Gonzales said after meeting with state and local officials in Texas to discuss cooperation on enforcement of immigration laws.

[Huh?]

He said Bush has instead long supported a concept called "English-Plus," believing that it was good to be proficient in more than one language.

"English represents freedom in our country and anybody who wants to be successful in our country has a much better chance of doing so if they speak English," Gonzales said. "It is of course a common language."

[NB: Well, who doesn’t believe THAT? Bush wants it both ways: riding the wave of nativism, then backing off the jingoistic sentiments he has unleashed]

More: http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2006/5/19/181747/884

What reporter will dig deeper into the New Hampshire phone jamming scandal?

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/7460.html

How dumb is this? Someone looks inside the Santorums’ “voting residence” in Pennsylvania, finds out it’s totally empty and unoccupied. Their response? “Arrest the person who trespassed”

http://atrios.blogspot.com/2006_05_14_atrios_archive.html#114805259287923852

This Plame business is driving me crazy. One day after reporting that Armitage was under investigation, the same sources say he isn’t, that he’s actually HELPING the investigation. Look, folks, I’m not a reporter: I just read other people I trust to know what they’re talking about. And that list is getting shorter and shorter

http://talkleft.com/new_archives/014888.html
[Jeralyn Merritt] Several people wrote me yesterday asking why I wasn't covering The Washington Note's report that Bobby Ray Inman suggested Richard Armitage was in criminal jeopardy in the Valerie Plame investigation. The short answer is I don't believe it. I have believed for months that it is Armitage whom Patrick Fitzgerald refers to in Libby pleadings as "an innocent accused." Which to me means that he got immunity for his cooperation with Fitzgerald.

The Washington Note today updates and acknowledges Bobby Ray Inman was wrong. New sources provide opposite information on Armitage, i.e., he's been helping Fitzgerald.

That's the self-correcting nature of the blogosphere at work. . .

More: http://www.thewashingtonnote.com/archives/001399.php

http://www.rawstory.com/news/2006/Lawyers_discount_claims_Powell_aide_in_0519.html
Perhaps the most interesting element to Clemons' post Friday is a claim by one individual close to the case -- which jibes with the legal action in the investigation to date -- that the focus of Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald's inquiry has shifted away from the actual outing towards those who were dishonest in their testimony and interviews. This, of course, would raise the stakes for senior presidential adviser Karl Rove, who seems to have lied to FBI investigators about his role in Plame's outing. . . . "Another person with deep knowledge about this investigation called to say that Fitzgerald seems to have abandoned any interest in securing indictments regarding the "outing" of Plame and has invested his efforts in challenging the "white collar cover-ups" involved," Clemons writes. "According to this source, the information provided by Richard Armitage is -- more than any other information -- what has put Karl Rove at major risk of indictment."

Truthout apologizes (sort of)

http://forum.truthout.org/blog/story/2006/5/19/162339/178

Leopold doesn’t (and this critical analysis partly explains why)

http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room/2006/05/16/rovereporting/index.html

A sick cat: http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room/2006/05/19/rove/index.html

The growing prospects for a Democratic (and democratic) takeover in the House

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/05/19/AR2006051901921.html

http://www.mydd.com/story/2006/5/19/14519/7348

http://www.mydd.com/story/2006/5/20/23247/5999

Some things we just can’t let alone: more irregularities in Bush’s National Guard service (thanks to David K. for the link)

http://www.apj.us/20060517Graham.html
No one in journalism has picked up one aspect of Bush's past: He never was properly trained to be a second lieutenant in the first place! I'm talking about before flight school, entrance to which requires an officer's commission.

Those of us in the real Air Force got commissioned in one of three ways: The Air Force Academy, ROTC, or -- if already college graduates -- the Officer Training School at Lackland Air Force Base, Texas. If you saw the film An Officer and a Gentleman, depicting the Navy's version, you have a rough idea of what that training was like. It was goddamned hard.

But young Georgie didn't have to go through it. If you examine his records, you will find that he was given a direct commission as a second lieutenant after completing enlisted basic training and nothing more! Bang: He went directly from Airman Third Class, which is the rank of someone just out of basic, to a second lieutenant with a few typewriter keystrokes. Then he went to flight school.

Bonus item: I have nothing to say here about “The DaVinci Code,” but I do have something to say about really stupid attacks on it

http://susiemadrak.com/2006/05/19/14/05/wiggy-peggy/

More: http://www.michaelberube.com/index.php/weblog/what_do_you_call_a_right_wing_christian_ear_lie_in_the_morning/

***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 @ 6:05 AM

 
STRAIGHT TALK EXPRESS

The Haditha massacre: could become synonymous with My Lai. Rep. Jack Murtha, one of the strongest military backers in either party (and who often speaks on behalf of military officers who say things to him they can't say publicly) comes out and calls it a travesty -- which, if true, it certainly is. Can you guess what happens next?

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/7444.html
[Steve Benen] It's obviously a horrifying tragedy. It's even more frustrating, however, to see the far right lash out, not at the military for offering a false initial account of the incident, but at Murtha for telling the truth.

Some are calling Murtha "dishonorable." Others labeled him a "traitor" and recommended that he be sent to "jail." Another added, "Murtha has no honor left, no dignity, and will never be considered as a Marine except by his liberal buddies who would hate him for wearing that uniform in the first place."

http://billmon.org/archives/002452.html
[Billmon] Well, after taking a quick swim through the moral sewer of Right Blogistan this morning, I can see how the authoritarian right is going to play this story: It's all Jack Murtha's fault. He's just grandstanding to please his commie puppetmasters and raise money in Hollywood and get in Jane Fonda's pants. Or something like that. . .

http://glenngreenwald.blogspot.com/2006/05/escalating-rhetoric.html
[Glenn Greenwald] The "California Conservative," in a post concisely entitled "John Murtha, Traitor", recommends these actions against Murtha:

Frankly, this is the actions of a traitor or a sellout. He deserves to be ridiculed, excoriated and frog-marched off Capitol Hill, then remanded to jail. No bail. Doesn’t his idiot know the type of damage this inflicts on the Marines?

Michelle Malkin accuses Murtha of "hanging the Marines." GatewayPundit laments that "it's sad that this 'war crimes conspirator' is the best the democrats have to offer on Defense... very sad." Confederate Yankees alleges that Murtha "has dishonored his seat, the military criminal justice system, the Marine Corps and the United States of America." . . .

Liars’ compact

http://americablog.blogspot.com/2006/05/phone-companies-deny-involvement-in.html
[John Aravosis] I'd read yesterday on another blog (can't find the link now), and just had it confirmed by a second source today, that's there's a memo out there from the Bush administration, an "Executive Memorandum" dated May 5th of this year, that grants the phone companies participating in the NSA domestic spying scandal the right to publicly deny their involvement.

BellSouth demands a retraction from USA Today: http://www.chicagotribune.com/business/chi-0605190220may19,1,5572556.story

Fox News: Qwest “helped the terrorists” by not releasing caller info http://mediamatters.org/items/200605180007

General “Snarky” Hayden

http://www.slate.com/id/2142043/fr/rss/
[Eric Umansky] Hayden did take a few swipes during his testimony. "You get a lot more authority when the workforce doesn't think it's amateur hour on the top floor," he said in not-so-veiled reference to since-disappeared CIA chief Porter Goss.

Hayden saved his biggest smackdown for one-time top Pentagon official Douglas Feith, whose office cherry-picked raw intel and insisted on a "strong connection" between Saddam and al-Qaida. "I've got three great kids," said Hayden. "But if you tell me, 'Go out and find all the bad things they've done, Hayden,' I could build you a pretty good dossier and you'd think they were pretty bad people. That'd be very wrong, OK?"

Oh, and one teeny weeny little detail. . .

http://www.slate.com/id/2142043/fr/rss/
The Washington Post and, as it happens, a NYT editorial both notice that Hayden—as the Post puts it—suggested the NSA's domestic snooping "may go beyond what is publicly known."

Woulda, coulda, shoulda

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2006/5/18/182654/491
[Georgia10] Mind you, [Hayden] made this statement under oath:

"Had this been in place prior to the attacks, the two hijackers who were in San Diego, Khalid Almihdhar and Nawaf Alhazmi, almost certainly would have been identified as who they were, what they were and, most importantly, where they were," Hayden told the Senate Intelligence Committee.

Facts or propaganda aimed at boosting support for the domestic spying program? Hayden doesn't mention that the two hijackers were living with an FBI informant. He doesn't mention that several investigations, from the 9/11 commission to investigations by the Justice Department, concluded that the two hijackers were able to attack us not because of a lack of surveillance powers, but because the FBI screwed up (five times, actually). And he didn't mention this:

A few days after the Kuala Lumpur meeting, NEWSWEEK has learned, the CIA tracked one of the terrorists, Nawaf Alhazmi, as he flew from the meeting to Los Angeles. Agents discovered that another of the men, Khalid Almihdhar, had already obtained a multiple-entry visa that allowed him to enter and leave the United States as he pleased. (They later learned that he had in fact arrived in the United States on the same flight as Alhazmi.). . . Yet astonishingly, the CIA did nothing with this information. . .

“The lie lives on. . .” http://www.huffingtonpost.com/larry-beinhart/the-lie-lives-on-and-_b_21266.html

More lousy media coverage: http://mediamatters.org/items/200605180017

Could Judith Miller have prevented 9-11?

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2006_05_01_digbysblog_archive.html#114797168581194458

More: http://talkleft.com/new_archives/014881.html

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2006_05/008838.php

Another day, another military contracting scandal

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2006_05_14.php#008505

This New Hampshire phone jamming scandal, while a sordid little piece of political thuggery in itself, still has the potential to blow up big time, if journalists pursue the obvious questions

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2006_05_14.php#008508
[Manchester Union Leader] The former Chairman of the Republican National Committee remembers telling someone at the White House that he had decided to have the RNC pay the legal defense bills for convicted phone-jamming conspirator James Tobin, but he can’t remember who.

Ed Gillespie told the New Hampshire Union Leader yesterday he informed the White House after he decided to authorize payment.

The Washington Post reported on Wednesday that Gillespie told its reporter that he had “informed the White House, without seeking formal approval, before authorizing the payments.”

Gillespie told the Union Leader the two accounts were “consistent” because he decided to authorize the payments before telling the White House and actually authorized the payments after telling the White House.

Flip-flopper: Bush was against it before he was for it (or vice versa)

Border fence: http://www.first-draft.com//modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=6063

House bill: http://makeashorterlink.com/?W2D21222D
Rep. Jim Sensenbrenner, who has pushed a tough border security bill through the House, accused President Bush on Wednesday of abandoning the legislation after asking for many of its provisions. . . "He basically turned his back on provisions of the House-passed bill, a lot of which we were requested to put in the bill by the White House," Sensenbrenner, R-Wis., angrily told reporters in a conference call. . .

Wish I could have been there

http://politicalwire.com/archives/2006/05/18/hastert_lets_cheney_have_it.html
House Speaker Dennis Hastert (R-IL) "engaged in a high-decibel rant last week when he met with Vice President Dick Cheney," Robert Novak reports. "The speaker was enraged by the sacking of his friend and former colleague, Porter Goss."

"Hastert was so vituperative that a private session with President Bush in the living quarters of the White House was scheduled immediately."

"That wrath reflects the feeling in the House Republican cloakroom that Goss, who gave up a safe congressional seat from Florida for a thankless cleanup mission at the CIA, is being made a scapegoat for the government's intelligence mess. But Hastert's discontent goes beyond the CIA. The GOP mood on Capitol Hill, particularly the House, is poisonous."

Libertarian issues make for strange bedfellows: Sensenbrenner/Conyers on Net Neutrality

http://www.mydd.com/story/2006/5/18/152656/978

Another Republican (and former Bush official) linked to Abramoff

http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/14605795.htm

John McCain: Master of Doubletalk

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/05/18/AR2006051801775.html

Giuliani follows McCain in sucking up to the Religious Right

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2006_05_14.php#008502

Theocracy watch: look, I am not a religious person, but even if I were I would find it repulsive for religious leaders to go around telling me what God is thinking

http://www.wftv.com/news/9235304/detail.html

Pelosi’s plans to remake the House if the Dems gain a majority: and I have to say, this doesn’t seem like a smart beginning

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-harman18may18,0,7815253.story

http://www.warandpiece.com/blogdirs/004223.html
[Laura Rozen] Given the legal troubles of a recent member of the House Intel committee, Duke Cunningham, it's hard to quite comprehend by what internal political logic the Democratic leadership would want to appoint to be the ranking Democrat on the committee someone who has been impeached for conspiracy and perjury. . .

I just want to ask: if nothing happens today on the Plame front (as looks doubtful), what will Leopold and Madsen do?

Madsen: http://talkleft.com/new_archives/014884.html

Armitage a target? http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2006_05/008844.php

Bonus item: Tony still thinks he’s at Fox News

http://www.crooksandliars.com/2006/05/17.html#a8329

***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 @ 6:49 AM

 
GUESS WHAT?

War crimes

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2006_05_01_digbysblog_archive.html#114792087828301713
[Digby] So, Don Rumsfeld admits that the pentagon is still weighing whether they need to treat "unlawful combatants" humanely or whether our military can be depraved barbarians and make them walk around on all fours and bark like dogs after sitting in their own vomit, excrement and feces for hours on end. It appears to be quite a dilemma for some people. . . [read on!]

http://billmon.org/archives/002452.html
[Billmon] When the Abu Ghraib horror show first aired on 60 Minutes, I remember wondering whether it would prove to be the Iraq War's version of the My Lai Massacre. . . But now it appears that instead of a symbolic My Lai, we have the genuine article. . .

More: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/12838343/

Déjà vu all over again

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2006_05_14.php#008495
[US News] Some Bush administration officials are unhappy with the consensus intelligence community assessment that Iran could attain a weapons capability sometime between 2010 and 2015, based on assumptions about its ability to overcome technical problems. More-hawkish officials view the CIA, scorched by criticism over its exaggerated reports on Iraqi nuclear efforts, as timid on Iran, and Vice President Dick Cheney is said to have recently criticized the intelligence assessment in private as "too cautious.". . .

The NSA originally developed a better method of tracking phone calls, one that did more to protect personal privacy. Guess what happened to it?

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2006_05_14.php#008498

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2006_05/008835.php

Gee, guess who’s bellying up to the trough of Bush’s new expensive border security proposals?

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/18/washington/18border.html

More: http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2006_05_14.php#008499

Covering up corporate deals on national security

http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room/2006/05/17/calls/index.html
[Tim Grieve] Cruising through the White House Web site earlier this month, we noticed a rather cryptic Memorandum for the Director National Intelligence. In the memorandum, dated May 5, 2006, and posted a few days later, George W. Bush delegated to John Negroponte "the function of the president under section 13(b)(3)(A) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended (15 U.S.C. 78m(b)(3)(A))."

We didn't know what it meant, and -- the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 not being our first choice for leisure reading -- we didn't take the time to find out. But Think Progress is connecting the dots this morning, and the picture that's emerging is a pretty interesting one.

The Securities Exchange Act requires companies to "make and keep books, records, and accounts" which "accurately and fairly" reflect their transactions. But the Securities Exchange Act provision Bush cited in his memorandum waives that requirement for transactions involving national security in which a company has cooperated with the federal government after receiving a "directive" from a government official who has been authorized by the president to give one. In issuing his memorandum, Bush gave Negroponte the authority to issue such a directive.

What does that mean? It means that Negroponte now has the authority to free companies that cooperate with him from the obligation to record -- and potentially reveal -- the activities in which they're engaged. And what does that mean? Negroponte now apparently has the power to allow the telephone companies that have been turning over telephone records to the NSA to keep their "transactions" -- the payments they're getting from the NSA -- off of their books.

What are they hiding? http://www.ericumansky.com/2006/05/the_telcos_hand.html

Why are the companies denying it? Different versions http://www.cbsnews.com/blogs/2006/05/16/publiceye/entry1622693.shtml

http://www.prospect.org/weblog/2006/05/post_393.html

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/7433.html

Good news: we still have courts

http://www.warandpiece.com/blogdirs/004216.html
[AP] Secret documents that allegedly detail the surveillance of AT&T phone lines under the Bush administration's domestic spying program can be used in a lawsuit against the telephone giant, a federal judge ruled Wednesday. . .

“Trust us”

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2006_05/008830.php
[Kevin Drum] Yesterday, President Bush insisted, again, that he has been "clear about the fact that we do not listen to domestic phone calls without court approval."

That's great to hear. But we'd all feel a lot better about this if both Michael Hayden and Alberto Gonzales hadn't told us that this could change at any time:

• Hayden: Asked why domestic calls weren't tapped, said simply, "that's where we've decided to draw that balance between security and liberty."

• Gonzales: Asked if the president might authorize domestic taps, said, "I'm not going to rule it out."

Both men specifically suggested that the only reason domestic calls weren't being tapped was because the president had decided not to — and that this might change in the future.

Pat Roberts (R-KS): not just a liar, a stupid liar

http://www.warandpiece.com/blogdirs/004217.html
Pat Roberts on NPR's All Things Considered: "We are not data mining."

Why can’t we get a clear answer on Abramoff’s visits to the White House?

http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/000674.php

http://americablog.blogspot.com/2006/05/somebody-is-playing-games-with-secret.html
[John Aravosis] How is it that the Secret Service now claims. . . to have no visitor logs prior to October 2004 - supposedly the Secret Service gave all the pre-10/04 logs to the White House which you can't really FOIA - when Congress was able to FOIA Secret Service logs about Jeff Gannon's visits going back to February of 2003?

For Plame junkies only. The Leopold story on Rove has morphed into an interesting story ABOUT the Leopold story. What happens when a solo reporter breaks a massive expose that no one else reports, the details of which start unraveling almost from the moment it is written? Here’s where it gets interesting, and in the course of it I think we get some hints about what is really going on between Fitzgerald and Rove.

First, Wayne Madsen claims independent confirmation of the basic story

http://www.first-draft.com//modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=6055
[WMR] WMR can confirm that the appearance of Attorney General Alberto Gonzales before the Grand Jury at the US Federal Courthouse in Washington was a formality in which the jury informed the Attorney General of their decision to indict Karl Rove. That proceeding lasted for less than 30 minutes and took place shortly after noon. Gonzales's personal security detachment was present in the courthouse during the Grand Jury briefing. From the courthouse, Gonzales's motorcade proceeded directly down Constitution Avenue to the Department of Justice.

According to sources within the Patton and Boggs law firm, Karl Rove was present at the law firm's building on M Street. WMR was told by a credible source that a Patton and Boggs attorney confirmed that Fitzgerald paid a visit to the law firm to inform Rove attorney Robert Luskin and Rove that an indictment would be returned by the Grand Jury against Rove. Contrary to other reports, some of which may have emanated from the Rove camp in order to create diversions and smokescreens, the meetings at Patton and Boggs did not last 15 hours nor was a 24-hour notice of intent to indict delivered to Rove. . . Several sources have told WMR that an announcement concerning the indictment of Rove will be made on Friday, May 19 generally following the same scenario from October 28, 2005 -- the posting of the indictment on the Special Prosecutor's web site followed by a press conference at Main Justice.

Smokescreens? You have to remember, this is how Rove operates: the leak of partly true, or even entirely true, information to control the timing and spin of stories, or mixing truth and falsehood to muddy the waters and discredit other sources

http://www.buzzflash.com/contributors/04/09/con04385.html
[Mike Burke] If you think this sounds like a nutty conspiracy theory, you probably haven't been following Karl Rove's career; a career replete with dirty tricks and sophisticated, preemptive political strikes.

Remember the allegations that Bush was arrested in 1972 on drug possession charges, specifically cocaine? Today it is basically a non-story. But it is worth looking back at why.

In 1999, St. Martin's Press published a critical biography of Bush titled "Fortunate Son". The book quoted an unnamed "high-ranking advisor to Bush," who revealed Bush's 1972 drug bust. The source told author J.H. Hatfield, Bush "was ordered by a Texas judge to perform community service in exchange for expunging his record showing illicit drug use."

Hatfield later revealed that his source was none other than Karl Rove. That might seem ridiculous, considering Rove's lifelong loyalty to the Bushes and the fact that he now has an office adjacent to Bush's in the White House. But leaking the story to Hatfield essentially discredited the story and sent it into the annals of conspiracy theory. Soon after the book was published and just as St. Martin's was preparing a high profile launching of the book, the "Dallas Morning News" ran a story revealing that Hatfield was a felon who had served time in jail. In response, St. Martin's pulled the book.

"When the media stumbled upon a story regarding George W. Bush's 1972 cocaine possession arrest, Rove had to find a way to kill the story. He did so by destroying the messenger," says Sander Hicks. . .

Consider also the history of Rove's dirty tricks, chronicled by James Moore and Wayne Slater in their book "Bush's Brain: How Karl Rove Made George W. Bush Presidential."

In 1986, according to the book, Rove told reporters that someone had bugged his office where he was campaign manager for Texas gubernatorial candidate Bill Clements. On the morning of a major debate Rove called a press conference. He said, "Obviously I don't know who did this. But there is no doubt in my mind that the only ones who would benefit from this detailed, sensitive information would be the political opposition." The press quickly assumed the bugging was done by Clements' opponent, Mark White, who was leading in the polls. By election day, Rove's candidate won and the source of the bug was never found -- but many reporters later concluded that Rove himself had placed it.

Four years ago during the Bush-Gore race, the Gore camp mysteriously obtained sensitive campaign materials from the Bush campaign including a video of the Texas governor prepping for a debate and detailed campaign strategy notes. Rove soon accused the Gore campaign of secretly taping Bush. Later a former employee of a Bush campaign adviser admitted supplying the information to Gore. . .

So, did Leopold get used? He (and Truthout) stand by the story, and claim additional support

http://talkleft.com/new_archives/014864.html
Jason says he confirmed the story with more than 2 sources. He says Knights-Ridder, MSNBC and ABC News now have one source for the story.

http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room/2006/05/17/rove/index.html
When Schultz asked Leopold if bloggers or journalists who question his coverage are motivated by "jealousy," Leopold said: "I think there's some hatred. I wouldn't say 'jealousy.' I'd say 'hatred.'"

[NB: I think that’s a bum rap. When Aravosis or Kleiman or others expressed skepticism about Leopold’s original story, hatred or jealousy had nothing to do with it. There was plenty of reason to be skeptical about a story that sensational, with no external confirmation.]

http://forum.truthout.org/blog/story/2006/5/17/125248/099
[Mark Ash] For the past few days, we have endured non-stop attacks on our credibility, and we have fought hard to defend our reputation. . . Here's what we now know: I spoke personally yesterday with both Rove's spokesman Mark Corallo and Rove's attorney Robert Luskin. Both men categorically denied all key points of our recent reporting on this issue. Both said, "Rove is not a target," "Rove did not inform the White House late last week that he would be indicted," and "Rove has not been indicted." Further, both Corallo and Luskin denied Leopold's account of events at the offices of Patton Boggs, the law firm that represents Karl Rove. They specifically stated again that no such meeting ever occurred, that Fitzgerald was not there, that Rove was not there, and that a major meeting did not take place. Both men were unequivocal on that point.

We can now report, however, that we have additional, independent sources that refute those denials by Corallo and Luskin. While we had only our own sources to work with in the beginning, additional sources have now come forward and offered corroboration to us.

We have been contacted by at least three reporters from mainstream media - network level organizations - who shared with us off-the-record confirmation and moral support. When we asked why they were not going public with this information, in each case they expressed frustration with superiors who would not allow it.

We also learned the following: The events at the office building that houses the law firm of Patton Boggs were not in fact a very well-guarded secret. Despite denials by Corallo and Luskin, there was intense activity at the office building. In fact, the building was staked out by at least two major network news crews. Further, although Corallo and Luskin are not prepared to talk about what happened in the offices of Patton Boggs, others emerging from the building were, both on background and off-the-record. There were a lot of talkers, and they confirmed our accounts. We do have more information, but want additional confirmation before going public with it.

Even Jeralyn Merritt, who’s been pretty active in promoting Leopold’s reporting, now sounds a bit more skeptical about Leopold and Madsen

http://talkleft.com/new_archives/014875.html

Here’s what I’m waiting for: if Leopold’s story doesn’t pan out, he has promised to reveal the sources who deceived him. If this is a Rovean disinformation campaign, that could be interesting

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/mark-kleiman/does-fitzmas-come-in-may-_b_21022.html
[Mark Kleiman] He claims to have had "more than two" sources, some of them in the White House. In a radio interview, Leopold threatened to reveal his sources if what they told him wasn't true . . .

[NB] So, where are we? The simple answer is, we’ll know when we know. But here’s part of what is going on, I think. This isn’t based on reporting, but on reading just about everything I can get my hands on about this issue. First, what is this pas-de-deux that Fitzgerald and Rove have been playing for months? Either Fitzgerald’s case isn’t very strong, and he’s trying to get Rove to plead, or he is using a strong case to try to force Rove to implicate others. There’s only one person that can be: Dick Cheney. It certainly appears that the vicious plan to destroy Wilson and Plame came from the Cheney/Libby office. Rove was an active participant, but it’s plausible that he wasn’t the main instigator of this particular operation. This is the kind of deal prosecutors set up all the time. Now I doubt that Rove will ever turn in Cheney, but it would explain why up until the very last moment Fitzgerald was giving him time to change his mind before actually issuing an indictment, and even now is delaying a formal announcement.

Why would other media sources have independent confirmation of Leopold’s story, but still ignore it? If Rove ever does make a deal, you can be sure that part of it will be quashing any serious charges against him, so he can stay in his job at the WH. There’d be no other reason for him to make the deal – which means that any news agency running a story about his indictment now could be damaged the way 60 Minutes was in going with a National Guard story that was 95% true, but discredited after the fact. Leaking phony or inconsistent details about the terms and timing of the indictment (if that’s what Rove’s people are doing) could be part of setting up that kind of attack if and when he ever cuts a deal. In the short term it muddies the waters and buys them time.

In other news. . .

New Hampshire phone jammers found guilty, despite millions from the RNC to cover their defense costs – and we still don’t know who they were coordinating plans with at the White House (Ken Mehlman?)

http://politicalwire.com/archives/2006/05/17/phone_jammers_found_guilty.html

Another lying Republican running in a district where he doesn’t live

http://news.yahoo.com/s/kgtv/20060518/lo_kgtv/9235464

Attorney General Alberto Gonzales’ family: illegal aliens?

http://americablog.blogspot.com/2006/05/attorney-general-alberto-gonzales.html
He says “it’s unclear”. . .

Bill O’Reilly has lost his mind

http://mediamatters.org/items/200605170006
O'Reilly claimed NY Times, other "lefty zealots" believe "the white Christians who hold power must be swept out by a new multicultural tide". . .

Bonus item: Billmon, what a treasure. . .

http://billmon.org/archives/002451.html
President Bush . . . has a positive job approval in just three of the 50 United States. . .

***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 @ 8:11 AM

 
CREDIBILITY GAP

Something strange is going on. Phone companies are now denying that they turned over any records to the govt. But we know they did. So I can only see four possibilities: (1) these “denials” are using extremely careful legal language to protect the companies from inevitable lawsuits; (2) they actually didn’t give up the numbers willingly, but the govt seized them through some sort of “eminent domain” claim; (3) they’re lying, and they are banking on the fact that if they don’t admit that they gave up the records and the govt denies ever receiving them, nothing can ever be proven in court; (4) the original USAT story was mistaken, in part or in whole. I’m voting #1, through #3 is a distinct possibility

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/16/business/16cnd-phone.html

http://money.cnn.com/2006/05/15/news/companies/bellsouth.reut/

Parsing the language: http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2006_05_14.php#008478

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2006_05_14.php#008479

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2006_05_14.php#008482

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/7425.html

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2006_05/008827.php

http://americablog.blogspot.com/2006/05/after-five-days-of-silence-verizon.html

http://www.slate.com/id/2141921
[Eric Umansky] In any case, there seems to be some exquisitely crafted spin going on. Because, as the NYT puts it, a "senior government official confirmed" that the NSA has "access to records of most telephone calls in the United States." The Times hints at a possible explanation for the discrepancy: The spooks are tracking only long-distance calls, and Verizon and BellSouth hand those calls off to other providers, such as, say, AT&T, which is the one company named that has stayed mum.

How the NSA program (probably) works

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2006_05/008828.php

Typical: Bush gang “informs” judges about what they are doing (rather than submit to formal legal review, as required). So much for checks and balances

http://americablog.blogspot.com/2006/05/oh-so-now-were-informing-judges-rather.html

“Nixonesque”

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2006/5/16/212127/489

Arlen Specter (R-PA): talks tough, then always backs down on the real substance

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/7422.html

http://glenngreenwald.blogspot.com/2006/05/gop-senators-block-judicial-review-of.html

http://billmon.org/archives/002447.html

To investigate, or not to investigate?

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2006_05/008829.php

Credibility gap. As another day passes with no Plame developments, or even hints of them, a question emerges: is the Jason Leopold/Rove indictment story the left blogosphere’s version of the 60 Minutes National Guard memos? In other words, is Rove’s communications strategy (and you can be sure he has one – it’s what he DOES) to pepper the landscape with false, semi-true, and/or misleading leaks, which deflect attention away from the real stories, make it look like Fitzgerald’s team is doing the leaking, make himself look like the victim, and undermine the credibility of critical news outlets? And did Leopold, and many of the rest of us, fall into that trap? (Though it must be said, many progressive blogs reacted skeptically to the Leopold story from the very start – for good reason, as it turns out.)

http://americablog.blogspot.com/2006/05/wall-street-journal-bashes-liberal.html
The [Wall Street] Journal's Anne Marie Squeo checks in today on Leopold's report that Rove has already been indicted in the Valerie Plame case, and she uses her story as an occasion for a little blog-bashing. Squeo says that bloggers have "blurred the lines with traditional media and changed both the dynamics of the reporting process and how political rumors swirl”. . .

http://daoureport.salon.com/synopsis.aspx?synopsisId=0c6ba946-eac9-4b24-919d-3c2d64485169
[Peter Daou] I've been watching with intense interest as Jason Leopold has written a series of stories that scoop every major news outlet in America. I've watched with intense interest as thousands of bloggers and message board users have welcomed his writing uncritically and have questioned why the traditional media have ignored his groundbreaking reporting. . .

More: http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room/2006/05/16/rovereporting/index.html

http://talkleft.com/new_archives/014843.html
[Jeralyn Merritt] Karl Rove's spokesman, Mark Corallo, called me at 8:20 a.m. Mountain Time today. He said someone had read him my post over the phone about my conversation with Jason Leopold (and he had picked up my voice-mail from Saturday night) and he wanted to respond. Here is Mr. Corallo's version. . .

Leopold's version: http://talkleft.com/new_archives/014842.html

Mitchell Wade may eventually ruin as many Republicans as Abramoff will!

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2006_05_14.php#008486

GOP House blocks investigators’ access to documents

http://www.samefacts.com/archives/corruption_in_washington_/2006/05/coverup.php

Reactions to Bush’s immigration speech – from his base

http://glenngreenwald.blogspot.com/2006/05/presidents-speech-mauled-by-his-base.html

Who said it?

http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/000661.php
"Well, the National Guard is really, first of all, not trained for that mission. . . I mean, the fact of the matter is the border is a special place. There are special challenges that are faced there." . . .

"I think it would be a horribly over-expensive and very difficult way to manage this problem. . . Unless you would be prepared to leave those people in the National Guard day and night for month after month after month, you would eventually have to come to grips with the challenge in a more comprehensive way."

A renewed assault on RU-486

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/05/16/AR2006051601607.html

“Tar baby?!?” Tony Snow’s first televised press briefing

http://talkleft.com/new_archives/014860.html
Random House notes, "some people suggest avoiding the use of the term in any context." Now that you are no longer at Fox News, you may want to take them up on their advice.

New poll: people trust the Democrats over the Republicans on every single issue

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/05/16/AR2006051601264.html

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2006_05/008826.php

“An Inconvenient Truth”

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2006/5/16/65158/1823

Bonus item: The Daily Show on NSA spying

http://www.discourse.net/archives/2006/05/daily_show_outdoes_itself.html

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

I don't get anything personally out of this project, except the satisfaction of doing it (I don't run ads, etc). The credit really all goes to the people whose material I copy and redistribute. But if I do have a "mission," it is to get this information into the hands of as many people as I can.***
- posted by Nick Burbules @ 6:38 AM

 
THE VOICE OF MODERATION

How hilarious it is to hear these people talk about a “rational middle ground”

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/05/15/AR2006051500618.html
President Bush said last night that he will dispatch 6,000 National Guard troops starting next month to help secure the porous U.S.-Mexican border, calling on a divided Congress and country to find "a rational middle ground" on immigration . . .

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/16/us/16react.html
President's Middle Path Disappoints Both Sides of Sharply Divisive Immigration Issue . . .

It’s not amnesty – it’s not, it’s not! http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2006_05/008818.php

How will he pay for it? http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2006_05_14.php#008469

Temporary? http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2006_05_14.php#008462
[A reader] "The White House is now saying the troops would only be temporary. But temporary until when? I guess just until there aren't any more illegals trying to come across the border from Latin America."

In other words, you're suggesting the White House doesn't have an exit strategy from getting the troops out of. . . our own country?

ID card? http://www.prospect.org/weblog/2006/05/post_375.html
[Garance Franke-Ruta] In his speech on immigration tonight, President Bush will be calling, once again, for "a tamper-proof card" to "help us enforce the law – and leave employers with no excuse for violating it." Whoever wrote this speech obviously hasn't been reading The New York Times lately, or he'd have known that the reason we don't have a tamper-proof card already is because of the self-dealing ways of a certain Kentucky Republican known to his local paper as "The Prince of Pork". . .

More analysis: http://www.needlenose.com/node/view/2964
[Greenboy] Man it was refreshing hearing all the GoOPers attack the Preznit and his plan!. . . .

http://www.tpmcafe.com/node/29893
[Matt Yglesias] Well, I think we "learned" two things tonight. One -- the president is in political trouble. Two -- the president is oddly averse to the truth. As Kevin Drum notes the main elements of the plan are to deploy the military to the border without calling it "militarizing the border," to launch a guest worker program without calling it a "guest worker program," and to offer amnesty to illegal immigrants without calling it "amnesty." The rhetoric's so slippery that I couldn't tell if we was endorsing the idea of a wall across the border without saying the word "wall," or if he was opposing the idea while trying to avoid saying so clearly. . .

http://www.slate.com/id/2141850
[Eric Umansky] The troops won't be patrolling and they won't be making arrests. They'll be doing back-office duty and giving engineering help to the Border Patrol. Bush said the soldiers will hang around for about a year until more Border Patrol agents come on line.

The Los Angeles Times has a particularly strong piece on the substance of the move—or the lack of it. There's a consensus that 6,000 troops is going to change…not a heckuva lot. . .

http://www.samefacts.com/archives/_/2006/05/two_quick_questions_on_immigration.php
[Jonathan Zasloff] Actually, the President's speech demonstrates the perfection of Sir Humphrey Appleby's syllogism on political crisis decision-making:

1) We must do something.
2) This is something.
3) Therefore, we must do this.

A big smooch http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/16/washington/16assess.html
[Elisabeth Bumiller, of course] The president's speech on immigration reflected the subtle approach of a man shaped by Texas border-state politics and longtime personal views. . .

Slippery slopes: What do you get when you combine widespread domestic surveillance, secrecy, and unaccountable executive authority? You get abuses like this – which I’m sure will be justified as “protecting national security” (investigating unauthorized leaks, don’t you know)

http://blogs.abcnews.com/theblotter/2006/05/fbi_acknowledge.html
The FBI acknowledged late Monday that it is increasingly seeking reporters’ phone records in leak investigations. . . The acknowledgement followed our blotter item that ABC News reporters had been warned by a federal source that the government knew who we were calling. . . FBI officials did not deny that phone records of ABC News, the New York Times and the Washington Post had been sought as part of a investigation of leaks at the CIA.

Analysis: http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2006_05_14.php#008458
[Josh Marshall] I think we can set aside any pretense that administration policy on all manner of electronic surveillance isn't being brought to bear on political opponents, media critics, the press, everybody.

I think part of the issue for many people on the administration's various forms of surveillance is not just that some of activities seem to be illegal or unconstitutional on their face. I think many people are probably willing to be open-minded, for better or worse, on pushing the constitutional envelope. But given the people in charge of the executive branch today, you just can't have any confidence that these tools will be restricted to targeting terrorists. Start grabbing up phone records to data-mine for terrorists and then the tools are just too tempting for your leak investigations. Once you do that, why not just keep an eye on your critics too? After all, they're the ones most likely to get the leaks, right? So, same difference. The folks around the president don't recognize any real distinctions among those they consider enemies. So we'd be foolish to think they wouldn't bring these tools to bear on all of them. Once you set aside the law as your guide for action and view the president's will as a source of legitimacy in itself, then everything becomes possible and justifiable.

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2006_05/008819.php

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2006/5/15/155834/017

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/7417.html

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2006_05_14.php#008470

Priceless quotes: http://atrios.blogspot.com/2006_05_14_atrios_archive.html#114773683303533021
“It used to be very hard and complicated to do this, but it no longer is in the Bush administration,” said a senior federal official.

http://americablog.blogspot.com/2006/05/fbi-says-journalists-phone-records-are.html
The official said [it] was wrong to suggest that ABC News phone calls were being “tracked.”

“Think of it more as backtracking,” said a senior federal official.

Will journalists rebel? http://atrios.blogspot.com/2006_05_14_atrios_archive.html#114774569807124289

Nixon Redux

http://www.digbysblog.blogspot.com/2006_05_01_digbysblog_archive.html#114771780097714178

Uh, about those U.S. generals in Iraq who “got all the troops they asked for”?

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2006_05/008816.php

Will the Bush gang use the “war on terror” as a pretext for going after Venezuela's elected leader, Hugo Chavez (again)?

http://www.tpmcafe.com/node/29884

Well, the blogosphere is abuzz with people defending (or criticizing) Jason Leopold’s “scoop” about Rove’s indictment. Several people claim to have sources that confirm Leopold’s account, but it’s all turtles standing on turtles as far as I can see. Leopold is standing by his story. But one unfortunate consequence of Leopold’s unsubstantiated blockbuster is that it distracted attention from a story the same day that could turn out to be much bigger in its consequences: the release of memos showing that Dick Cheney was obsessively concerned with Joe Wilson’s trip and his wife’s role in it. While we have known the basic outlines of Rove’s legal status for months now, with Cheney we are actually getting new revelations. What comes next?

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/blog/2006/05/15/BL2006051500651.html
[Dan Froomkin] Handwritten notes from Vice President Cheney once and for all place the vice president at the epicenter of a scandal that still threatens to tear apart the Bush White House. . .

http://atrios.blogspot.com/2006_05_14_atrios_archive.html#114772967276759394
US News has an interview with Murray Waas. The whole thing is worth reading, and it concludes with this:

What's your next story?

It's another story about the level of knowledge among high-level administration officials about attempts to discredit Wilson and when they knew about it.

More trouble for Libby

http://www.rawstory.com/news/2006/New_filing_may_spell_trouble_for_0515.html

Plame grand jury meeting Wednesday. Let’s see what comes of it

http://www.thewashingtonnote.com/archives/001395.php
[Steven Clemons] Wednesday this week, the Valerie Plame grand jury will assemble again, and that might be the day that Jason Leopold's report on Rove's indictment last Friday either makes global news or fizzles out.

While I haven't been in the position to work my own sources who have been close to the Fitzgerald investigation, one of the nuances of the Rove-watching I have done in the past may be in play here. . .

The clearest explanation yet of why Goss was fired so abruptly and rudely: they wanted him to get rid of Foggo (whom he had hired), and he refused to do it

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2006_05_14.php#008459

http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room/2006/05/15/foggo/index.html

Joe Klein, considered by some to be a “liberal,” plays the race card

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2006/5/15/19200/6232

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2006_05_01_digbysblog_archive.html#114773323007963325

Racism is dead, huh?

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2006_05_01_digbysblog_archive.html#114773136464356381
[Digby] Dear God. Crooks and Liars caught the World Net Daily making explicit arguments that the US should use the example of Nazi germany to expel illegal immigrants. . .

Who were the “leading Democrats” Nagourney relied on for his much-criticized article yesterday?

http://www.prospect.org/weblog/2006/05/post_372.html

Let’s see, Democrats have been pressured to forswear impeachment as an option, should they ever retake Congress – but look who’s calling for Bush’s impeachment now

http://glenngreenwald.blogspot.com/2006/05/conservatives-debate-bush-impeachment.html

Quote of the day

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2006/5/15/195955/629
[Gandhi] "First they ignore you, then they ridicule you, then they fight you, then you win.". . . [read on]

Rove on polls: he says he only pays attention to the RNC’s own polls, which show Bush with 60% approval! Uh-huh: who do you think the intended audience is for such polls?

http://thinkprogress.org/2006/05/15/rove-polls-bush/

Regression toward the mean?

http://www.prospect.org/weblog/2006/05/post_371.html
[Matt Yglesias] [M]y fear is that since Bush's poll numbers are so very low right now that he's almost destined for a small rebound into the mid thirties or so. . .

Laura Bush reads the polls too

http://www.prospect.org/weblog/2006/05/post_358.html
[Greg Sargent] In Laura Bush’s interview yesterday with Fox News, in which she blamed the media for her husband's abysmal poll numbers, the first lady said this:

And I think right now what we're seeing with these poll numbers is a lot of fun in the press with taking a poll every other week and putting it on the news, on the front page of the newspaper. When his polls were really high, they weren't on the front page.

Really? Here's a list of headlines. . .

Bonus item: Oops!

http://www.crooksandliars.com/2006/05/15.html#a8302
Wolf: Let me interrupt for a second. I think what happened Jeff, is that the President is rehearsing and the pool, the network pool inadvertently went to the President as he was rehearsing. . .

Of course, it was intentional (right?) http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1632939/posts

***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

 
FED UP

Okay, as of today I’m not going to link to any more Jason Leopold pieces unless I see the information supported by at least one other source. Something may very well be breaking soon on Karl Rove, but until then. . . .

http://americablog.blogspot.com/2006/05/open-thread_14.html
[John Aravosis] [I]f Rove were indicted 36 hours ago, I think we'd all have heard about it by now. . .

More: http://talkleft.com/new_archives/014841.html

http://talkleft.com/new_archives/014842.html

Bush wants to militarize our borders (great idea), and use already-overextended National Guard troops to do it

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/05/14/AR2006051400773.html

Skeptical responses: http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2006/05/15/putting_guard_on_border_debated/

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2006_05_14.php#008456
[Josh Marshall] [A]ll I can make of this plan to help guard the border with soldiers is that it's one more example that there is simply no gambit too craven or silly for this president not to resort to it.

My reading and reporting attention hasn't been focused on the immigration debate. But am I wrong to think that the president simply couldn't square the circle between the corporate cheap-labor forces who fund his campaigns and the cultural conservatives who supply his voters? Growing out of that failure, this 'militarize the border' hokum is the policy announcement equalivent of crawling under his desk and screaming "Help!"

What does Mexico think? http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/ap/world/3862834.html

Think about it: How many of the really disastrous screw-ups of the Bush administration can be laid directly at the feet of Dick Cheney’s power behind the throne?

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/7406.html

More: http://www.tpmcafe.com/node/29840

Chaos at the CIA: no accident?

http://www.salon.com/opinion/blumenthal/2006/05/11/cia/index_np.html
[Sidney Blumenthal] The moment that the destruction of the Central Intelligence Agency began can be pinpointed to a time, a place and even a memo. . .

http://markschmitt.typepad.com/decembrist/2006/05/parricide_at_th.html
[Mark Schmitt] Sidney Blumenthal has a fine piece in Salon today that demonstrates that Bush and Cheney have essentially, and quite deliberately, destroyed the CIA.

Others have hinted at this, but the Goss debacle and the Hayden nomination add much to the story, and Blumenthal knits it all together well. But what he doesn’t touch on, and I’ve never seen mentioned in any previous discussion of Bush and the CIA is the element of parricide involved.

We all take it for granted that Bush’s feelings about his father had something to do with the compulsion to invade Iraq. It could have been the genuine loyalty of a loving son -- Bush supposedly said of Saddam, "he tried to kill my father," sufficient proof that Saddam was evil. Or it could be a lot more complicated, such as a desire to prove to his withholding father, after decades as the inadequate older son, that he could accomplish something, something that had eluded the father himself. Or perhaps to stick it to the father for his perceived loss of nerve in not finishing the job. It’s all fodder for the psychobiographer in every one of us.

But why wouldn’t a similar analysis apply equally, or moreso, to the CIA? The elder Bush was director of the CIA when W was in his late twenties, roughly the period when he had the legendary confrontation with his father over his drinking and general loser-ness, and challenged the father to fight him, "mano a mano." The CIA building is named after his father. . .

“Some call it unaccountability.” Yeah, I guess you could call it that

http://www.ericumansky.com/2006/05/state_secrets_n.html
[NYT] Invoking the need to protect "state secrets," the Justice Department urged a federal judge on Friday to dismiss a lawsuit brought by a man whose experience came to symbolize what some have called the unaccountability of a government program that secretly ships terrorism suspects to overseas prisons. . .

[Eric Umansky] To recap: You have a German citizen kidnapped by the U.S., shipped to a secret jail in Afghanistan, where he was jailed, shackled, beaten and eventually released a month or so after officials concluded they had the wrong guy. He was given no apologies, no compensation and no official acknowledgement that he was kidnapped. So he sues and the government tries to squirm out of that too, even though the general circumstances of his capture are already widely known.

What counts as “monitoring”?

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/05/14/AR2006051400762.html
When he was asked about the National Security Agency's controversial domestic surveillance program last Monday, U.S. intelligence chief John D. Negroponte objected to the question and said the government was "absolutely not" monitoring domestic calls without warrants. . . [A]dministration officials have been punctilious in discussing the NSA program over the past five months, parsing their words with care and limiting comments to the portion of the program that had been confirmed by the president in December.

In doing so, the administration rarely offered any hint that a much broader operation, involving millions of domestic calls, was underway. Even yesterday -- after days of congressional furor and extensive media reports -- administration officials declined to confirm or deny the existence of the telephone-call program, in part because of court challenges that the government is attempting to derail. . .

Another poll shows a majority DON’T want the NSA collecting their phone records

http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2006-05-14-nsa-reax-poll_x.htm

Pat Leahy (D-VT)

http://www.needlenose.com/node/view/2961
"If you have hundreds of millions of phone calls you're trying to track a day, what do you get out of it? Remember, this is the same administration that had the information that could have stopped 9/11 from happening. They didn't translate it until September 12 . . . Every time this administration screws up, whether it's with homeland security, after Katrina, a massive failure even though they spent billions of dollars to make sure that thing wouldn't happen, when they screw up along the border, when they get caught doing illegal surveillance of Americans, they say, well, but 9/11, 9/11.

Well, I'd remind them 9/11 happened on their watch. I think Americans are getting fed up with simply using an excuse for your mistakes and classify everything else so that you can't talk about it. . . ." [read on]

Always looking for a way to spin bad news as somehow “helpful” to Bush: because, you know, everyone really WANTS to see him do well

http://www.mydd.com/story/2006/5/14/17508/5378
[Matt Stoller] Bush is at 29%. Will he rebound? That's the question on some journalists' minds. . .

More: http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2006/5/14/19452/2175

http://atrios.blogspot.com/2006_05_14_atrios_archive.html#114764408146860390
It's pathological. They need to get back to their story where Bush is popular, and likeable, and thought to be an honest straight-shooter. It drives them crazy that they left that little world behind. . . .

http://mediamatters.org/items/200511290001
[Chris Matthews] "Everybody sort of likes the president, except for the real whack-jobs"

Likeable? The character of George Bush

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2006_05_01_digbysblog_archive.html#114761723605865227

Everyone’s favorite George Bush anecdote: http://www.nationalreview.com/daily/nr080999.html
In the week before [Karla Faye Tucker's] execution, Bush says, Bianca Jagger and a number of other protesters came to Austin to demand clemency for Tucker. "Did you meet with any of them?" I ask.

Bush whips around and stares at me. "No, I didn't meet with any of them," he snaps, as though I've just asked the dumbest, most offensive question ever posed. "I didn't meet with Larry King either when he came down for it. I watched his interview with [Tucker], though. He asked her real difficult questions, like 'What would you say to Governor Bush?' "

"What was her answer?" I wonder.

"Please," Bush whimpers, his lips pursed in mock desperation, "don't kill me."

Connecting the dots: where the Duke Cunningham conviction might lead

http://www.warandpiece.com/blogdirs/004179.html

The return of Voodoo Economics

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2006_05/008812.php

I don’t know if this says more about the cravenness of some “Leading Democrats,” or about the NYT reporter (Nagourney) who wrote the piece

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2006_05_01_digbysblog_archive.html#114758592590357754
[Digby] Leading Democrats tell the New York Times that it would be better if the party doesn't win in the fall --- and if it has the sad misfortune to do so, it would be better off not holding any investigations into the Bush administration.

And if, somehow, the party does unfortunately win and "the loud left" insists that the party holds Bush responsible for his misdeeds against the wishes of these wise men, we already know Democrats will be like the Republicans in 1996 who lost seats because they shut down the government and like Republicans in 1998 because they impeached Bill Clinton. (Lord knows the Republicans have suffered in the wilderness ever since then.)

Besides, everything's a big old mess and you just know the Republicans are going to blame it all on us. Wouldn't it be better to let Bush stew in his juices until 2008? Of course, the country will still be in a mess then (undoubtedly worse than it is today even) and the loud left will be causing all sorts of trouble so maybe it would be just as well if they don't win then either.

In fact, the best thing to do would be to keep losing until everything is perfect so they don't have to do anything unpleasant and the loud and angry left will have nothing to scream about.

If anyone's wondering what the Democrats' master plan has been for the last few years, I think we've found it.

More: http://www.mydd.com/story/2006/5/14/132421/767

Theocracy watch: blackmail edition

http://www.slate.com/id/2141783
[Justin Peters] The NYT fronts news that conservative Christian leaders, smarting over what they consider a values betrayal by an administration that courted their support in 2004 and has done little for them since, are threatening to withhold support in the midterm elections unless Republicans get serious about social issues. "There is a growing feeling among conservatives that the only way to cure the problem is for Republicans to lose the Congressional elections this fall," one man said. That'll teach Congress to put vanity projects like "the budget" and "immigration reform" ahead of critical issues like banning gay marriage!

Bonus item: Waiting for Godot in Iraq (don’t miss it)

http://www.needlenose.com/node/view/2960
ESTRAGON: Let's go.
VLADIMIR: We can't.
ESTRAGON: Why not?
VLADIMIR: We're waiting for the political and security environment to stabilize.
ESTRAGON (despairingly): Ah!

***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 @ 6:31 AM

 
APPEARANCES CAN BE DECEIVING

Well, either Jason Leopold is making stuff up, or he has a very, very Big Scoop

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/051306W.shtml
Karl Rove Indicted on Charges of Perjury, Lying to Investigators

Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald spent more than half a day Friday at the offices of Patton Boggs, the law firm representing Karl Rove.

During the course of that meeting, Fitzgerald served attorneys for former Deputy White House Chief of Staff Karl Rove with an indictment charging the embattled White House official with perjury and lying to investigators related to his role in the CIA leak case, and instructed one of the attorneys to tell Rove that he has 24 hours to get his affairs in order, high level sources with direct knowledge of the meeting said Saturday morning.

Robert Luskin, Rove's attorney, did not return a call for comment. Sources said Fitzgerald was in Washington, DC, Friday and met with Luskin for about 15 hours to go over the charges against Rove, which include perjury and lying to investigators about how and when Rove discovered that Valerie Plame Wilson was a covert CIA operative and whether he shared that information with reporters, sources with direct knowledge of the meeting said.

It was still unknown Saturday whether Fitzgerald charged Rove with a more serious obstruction of justice charge. Sources close to the case said Friday that it appeared very likely that an obstruction charge against Rove would be included with charges of perjury and lying to investigators.

An announcement by Fitzgerald is expected to come this week. . .

http://talkleft.com/new_archives/014833.html
[Jeralyn Merritt] Jason said the meeting lasted 15 hours. That tells me they were hammering out a plea deal to the charges. Were they successful in coming to terms? Stay tuned.

Update: I'm still thinking out the scenarios. If I had to take bets, I'd say efforts at a plea agreement failed. . .

Mark Kleiman chides me (and others) for taking Leopold seriously

http://www.samefacts.com/archives/valerie_plame_/2006/05/ok_i_give_up.php
1. Who would have told Jason Leopold, but no reporter with a mass outlet, that Rove had been indicted?

2. If the rumors are flying around the White House, why does Leopold have a monopoly on hearing about them?

3. If Rove has been told that he has been indicted, why doesn't he quit to spare Bush the embarrassment of having current, rather than a former, Assistant to the President mugged and booked? Even Clueless Claude Allen could figure out that much.

4. If Rove told Bolten that Rove has been indicted, why didn't Bolten reply, "The President accepts your resignation to spend more time with your family with great regret and great admiration for your loyal service"?

Rove’s speech to AEI on Monday cancelled?

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=364&topic_id=1181186

This would have been the big story if not for the Leopold piece: new memos show Dick Cheney closely involved in Plame/Wilson discussions . . .

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/12774274/site/newsweek/
The role of Vice President Dick Cheney in the criminal case stemming from the outing of White House critic Joseph Wilson's CIA wife is likely to get fresh attention as a result of newly disclosed notes showing that Cheney personally asked whether Wilson had been sent by his wife on a "junket" to Africa. . .

http://thenexthurrah.typepad.com/the_next_hurrah/2006/05/dick_takes_note.html

Would Rove give up Cheney? http://www.needlenose.com/node/view/2959

. . . AND, Cheney was an early and vigorous advocate for domestic spying. Was there NOTHING these people didn’t want to use 9-11 as an excuse for?

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/14/washington/14nsa.html

More: http://americablog.blogspot.com/2006/05/fitzgerald-probe-again-notes-cheneys.html

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2006_05_01_digbysblog_archive.html#114750530213194753

Did the CIA lie to Congress? (sure looks like it)

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/05/13/AR2006051301311.html

The Big Lie

http://americablog.blogspot.com/2006/05/bush-claims-hes-protecting-your.html
[Bush] "The privacy of all Americans is fiercely protected in all our activities," Bush said Saturday in his weekly radio address. "The government does not listen to domestic phone calls without court approval. We are not trolling through the personal lives of millions of innocent Americans."

Did General Hayden break the law?

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2006/5/13/12374/1235

http://susiemadrak.com/2006/05/13/08/32/tweet-tweet-5/

Another poll, counterbalancing the WP poll, saying a majority DON’T want their phone records collected by the govt. Why the different results?

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2006_05_07.php#008453

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/7404.html

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2006_05/008805.php

Why you can’t govern by referendum

http://billmon.org/archives/002441.html

Either way, IT’S ILLEGAL: http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2006_05/008806.php

More phone company lawsuits

http://americablog.blogspot.com/2006/05/second-20-billion-lawsuit-filed.html

http://thinkprogress.org/2006/05/13/falkenrath-wrong/

Of course. . .

http://www.slate.com/id/2141776
The LAT goes inside with the Justice Department asking a federal judge to dismiss a lawsuit against AT&T Inc. for its collaboration in the NSA's warrantless eavesdropping program. The government says that going through with the suit could damage national security. . .

The telephone good guys; and how to reward them

http://americablog.blogspot.com/2006/05/add-virgin-mobile-and-cox-to-list-of.html

http://www.samefacts.com/archives/_/2006/05/voip_as_a_patriotic_alternative.php

WMD lies: still lying (thanks to Susan Madrak for the link)

http://wcbstv.com/politics/politicsnational_story_133170651.html
A year after Bush administration claims about Iraqi "bioweapons trailers" were discredited by American experts, U.S. officials were still suppressing the findings, says a senior member of the CIA-led Iraq inspection team. . . At one point, former U.N. arms inspector Rod Barton says, a CIA officer told him it was "politically not possible" to report that the White House claims were untrue. . .

How desperate are they for new troops?

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2006/5/13/224825/389
Troops Who Show Signs of Mental Illness Are Being Forced Into Combat . . .

Frank Rich (NYT): Who are the traitors?

http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1002502419
"We can see this charade for what it is: a Hail Mary pass by the leaders who bungled a war and want to change the subject to the journalists who caught them in the act. What really angers the White House and its defenders about both the Post and Times scoops are not the legal questions the stories raise about unregulated gulags and unconstitutional domestic snooping, but the unmasking of yet more administration failures in a war effort riddled with ineptitude. It's the recklessness at the top of our government, not the press's exposure of it, that has truly aided the enemy, put American lives at risk and potentially sabotaged national security. That's where the buck stops, and if there's to be a witch hunt for traitors, that's where it should begin."

Wilkes and Foggo: ladies’ men

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2006_05_01_digbysblog_archive.html#114754139632614030

More e-voting problems

http://americablog.blogspot.com/2006/05/more-problems-with-diebold-voting.html
[Baltimore Sun] On a scale of one to 10, if the problems we found before were a six, this is a 10. It's a totally different ballgame," he said. . .

Sunday talk show line-ups

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/05/13/AR2006051300973.html
FOX NEWS SUNDAY: First lady Laura Bush, author Mary Cheney and columnist Art Buchwald.

THIS WEEK (ABC): Sens. Joseph R. Biden Jr. (D-Del.) and Chuck Hagel (R-Neb.), actress Reese Witherspoon and Bush.

FACE THE NATION (CBS): Sen. Arlen Specter (R-Pa.), Rep. Jane Harman (D-Calif.) and national security adviser Stephen J. Hadley.

MEET THE PRESS (NBC): Former House speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.) and journalists John Harwood, Judy Woodruff and Jon Meacham.

LATE EDITION (CNN): Sens. Bill Frist (R-Tenn.) and Patrick J. Leahy (D-Vt.); Jordanian Foreign Minister Abdul-Ilah al-Khatib, former national security adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski and Hadley.

Bonus item: Republican tax cuts -- how they help YOU

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/7398.html
$10,000-$20,000: $2
$20,000-$30,000: $9
$30,000-$40,000: $16
$40,000-$50,000: $46
$50,000-$75,000: $100
$75,000-$100,000: $403
$100,000-$200,000: $1,388
$200,000-$500,000: $4,499
$500,000-$1 million: $5,562
More than $1 million: $41,977

***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 @ 7:17 AM

 
COMING ATTRACTIONS

Well, my sources seem to have been wrong about a Plame grand jury meeting Friday. But here’s another Jason Leopold report to tide you over (as usual, Leopold’s the only person reporting this, so you have to take it with a grain of salt)

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/051206Y.shtml
Within the last week, Karl Rove told President Bush and Chief of Staff Joshua Bolten, as well as a few other high level administration officials, that he will be indicted in the CIA leak case and will immediately resign his White House job when the special counsel publicly announces the charges against him, according to sources. . .

Even bigger NSA revelations to come?

http://thinkprogress.org/2006/05/12/more-unlawful-activity/
CongressDaily reports that former NSA staffer Russell Tice will testify to the Senate Armed Services Committee next week that not only do employees at the agency believe the activities they are being asked to perform are unlawful, but that what has been disclosed so far is only the tip of the iceberg. Tice will tell Congress that former NSA head Gen. Michael Hayden, Bush’s nominee to be the next CIA director, oversaw more illegal activity that has yet to be disclosed:

. . . “I think the people I talk to next week are going to be shocked when I tell them what I have to tell them. It’s pretty hard to believe,” Tice said.

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2006/5/12/10344/5885
[Georgia10] We learn now that data-collection is Phase I of the domestic spying program . . .

http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20060511-6813
TIA (aka Topsail) unveiled: the real scope of the NSA's domestic spying program . . .

Of course, they say they don’t govern based on polls (right), but then why are they trumpeting the latest poll saying that 2/3 of Americans don’t mind the NSA gathering phone information? It’s not really news that most people say they are willing to see their civil liberties compromised if it will keep them “safe” in the face of terror: this is the world Rove et al. have worked so hard to create. Besides, there are reasons to doubt the poll results

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/05/12/AR2006051200375.html
A majority of Americans initially support a controversial National Security Agency program to collect information on telephone calls made in the United States in an effort to identify and investigate potential terrorist threats, according to a Washington Post-ABC News poll. . .

The politics of fear: http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/7396.html

Problems with the poll: http://www.prospect.org/weblog/2006/05/post_362.html

http://www.prospect.org/weblog/2006/05/post_357.html

http://glenngreenwald.blogspot.com/2006/05/polling-hysteria-and-nsa-program.html

Then there are the niggling little issues like: IT’S ILLEGAL

http://americablog.blogspot.com/2006/05/actual-legal-experts-say-latest-bush.html
[USAT] The U.S. government's secret collection of Americans' phone records may not breach the Fourth Amendment's privacy guarantee, legal analysts said Thursday, but it could violate federal surveillance and telecommunication laws. . .

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/12/washington/12cnd-phone.html
The telecommunications company Qwest turned down requests by the National Security Agency for private telephone records because it concluded that doing so would violate federal privacy laws, a lawyer for the telephone company's former chief executive said today. . .

More: http://www.nybooks.com/articles/18650

A few more problems: http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2006/5/12/123644/354
[SusanG] It's inefficient. . . It's costly. . . It's been lied about. Repeatedly. . . [read on!]

Questions to come at the Hayden hearings

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2006/5/12/155436/270

Myths and falsehoods about NSA spying

http://mediamatters.org/items/200605120018

“Anonymized”? http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2006_05/008804.php
[Kevin Drum] Can we please cut the crap? Even a child knows that phone numbers can be linked to names and addresses using ordinary commercial databases. There is absolutely nothing anonymous about this data, and only a shameless con man would try to convince us otherwise. Why does the Post give space to this obvious agitprop?

Here it comes: phone company lawsuits

http://americablog.blogspot.com/2006/05/verizon-sued-for-handing-out-records.html

http://www.slate.com/id/2141772/
[Andrew Rice] "This is not a happy day for the general counsels" of the phone companies, one law professor tells the NYT. . .

You want polls? You want polls? Here’s one: Bush vs Clinton

http://www.cnn.com/2006/POLITICS/05/12/bush.clinton.poll/index.html
In a new poll comparing President Bush's job performance with that of his predecessor, a strong majority of respondents said President Clinton outperformed Bush on a host of issues. . .

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2006_05_01_digbysblog_archive.html#114748947953569431
[Digby] What the story fails to mention is that Clinton outperformed Bush while fighting off the rabid, slavering GOP congress of Newt Gingrich and Trent Lott that was determined not only to thwart his program but used every institutional lever of power they had to destroy him personally. . .

“We have nothing to hide” in our treatment of prisoners -- but then why won’t we let the Red Cross see them?

http://www.commondreams.org/headlines06/0512-03.htm

What the Bush gang is working on isn’t just a new set of security policies, but a separate and unaccountable view of legality, defined only by executive authority and conducted largely in secret. (There’s a word for that, you know)

http://susiemadrak.com/2006/05/12/17/10/new-rules-2/
[AP] As lawmakers demand answers about warrantless electronic eavesdropping on Americans, the Bush administration says its secretive program’s constitutionality cannot be challenged. . .

http://www.prospect.org/weblog/2006/05/post_351.html

http://atrios.blogspot.com/2006_05_07_atrios_archive.html#114744407519349276

If at first you don’t succeed: where this very bad idea came from

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2006_05_01_digbysblog_archive.html#114747575912819517
[Digby] But I wonder what the nation would think if they knew that the very same people who initiated this program in the name of the war on terror tried this long before there was any war on terror: more than 30 years ago. From Jason Vest. . .

The Ford White House responded by ordering, on the grounds of executive privilege, the FBI and NSA employees to remain silent . . . There were some meetings, he said, that were particularly memorable because of the vehement opposition voiced by two men who were intractably hostile to the notion that executive privilege did not allow for things like surveillance without oversight and gagging civil servants and CEOs before Congress. . .

[NB: Who were the two men? Can you guess?. . .]

In Iraq: as they stand up. . . we stand out of the way

http://americablog.blogspot.com/2006/05/iragi-troops-killing-each-other.html

Dusty Foggo’s home, office, searched by federal investigators (gee, do you think this has anything to do with why he quit?)

http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/nation/20060512-0906-foggo.html

http://atrios.blogspot.com/2006_05_07_atrios_archive.html#114745705917693148
[Atrios] Just in case it wasn't clear, it's rather a big deal with the guy who just quit as #3 of the CIA gets his home and office raided by the FBI.

http://www.tpmcafe.com/node/29798
[Larry Johnson] So, how much trouble looms on the horizon for Dusty Foggo? . . .

http://blogs.abcnews.com/theblotter/2006/05/criminal_charge.html
Federal officials tell ABC News criminal charges against Foggo are considered likely . .

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2006_05_07.php#008447
[Josh Marshall] Foggo's memory gets foggy . .

More, more, more: http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2006_05_07.php#008449

VERY interesting. . .

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2006_05_07.php#008448
[Josh Marshall] Here's one other graf that jumped out at me in the Post's piece. . .

During his tenure, Foggo tightened the agency's publication rules and launched several probes of leaks to the media.

I'm not quite sure what to make of this. . . . The biggest scalp bagged by those leak investigations was CIA historian and Africa specialist Mary McCarthy. You remember that a few weeks ago she was fired from the Agency, just before retiring, allegedly for leaking information to the Washington Post's Dana Priest.

Now, in emails today, several readers noted the fact that at the time of her firing, McCarthy was working in the CIA's Inspector General's office, the same office that was then investigating Foggo and not more than a few weeks after McCarthy's firing would participating in raids on Foggo's home and office.

Is there some connection here? My professional instincts tell me not to jump to conclusions based on what are likely coincidences or press for the nefarious and complex explanation when the banal and simple ones are more common. . . .But my experience with this case -- and by that I mean the whole thing leading back the Cunningham part of the story -- points in a somewhat different direction. At most every point there's been much more going on under the surface of the story than was known at the time. And that's continued to be the case over the last couple weeks.

So I'm not sure I'd dismiss this suggested connection out of hand. When McCarthy was fired, "several former senior intelligence officials [told the Post] they could not recall a similar sanction being levied against a serving CIA officer in the past several decades." Current and former Agency used similar words today with both the Post and the Times, explaining that a non-espionage criminal investigation of a CIA official seemed unprecedented.

Clearly, over the last month you've had several things pop at the CIA that insiders call unprecedented in the Agency's history. And I don't think we can dismiss the possibility that they may interconnect in ways we don't yet understand. I'm not saying it as simple as that Foggo managed to whack the IG's office before they whacked him. Perhaps it is simply that the pressures that blew up over the last week had the place in such a tight vise that weird things were happening all over. Who knows.

At a minimum, if Foggo was the prime mover behind investigating and firing McCarthy and today he's barred from entering the CIA campus and the target of a corruption investigation, the whole McCarthy saga deserves a fresh look. . .

The state of the House races, and Democratic prospects

http://politicalwire.com/archives/2006/05/13/cooks_house_rankings.html

http://www.mydd.com/story/2006/5/12/195833/799

Eventually, someone will give us an itemized list, but here’s a start in calculating the extent of Republican corruption and scandal

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2006_05_07.php#008445

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2006_05_07.php#008438

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/7391.html

But, hey, brighten up! Tony Snow’s first press gaggle was a “complete disaster”

http://www.first-draft.com//modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=6016
[Holden] OH MY GOD, what a complete disaster! . . .

QUESTION: I'd like -- this was 9:00 a.m., then it was pushed back to 9:30 a.m., and then I walk in at 9:20 a.m., and it's already well underway.

QUESTION: Do not do that again.

QUESTION: This isn't good.

TONY SNOW: Well, this is -- it's my fault. . .

QUESTION: Is he going to fire the HUD Secretary?

TONY SNOW: No. He stands behind Alphonso Jackson. Alphonso Jackson has admitted that what he said earlier was improper, that it was a mistake, and the President accepts that and still supports a man with whom he's had a long and close relationship.

QUESTION: Have they talked, do you know?

TONY SNOW: I do not know. I think they have, but I don't know. I don't want to mislead you on that. I don't know.

QUESTION: So you're not waiting for the Inspector General's investigation, you're just saying blanket, he's not going to ask Alphonso to go?

TONY SNOW: Well, at this point the President is supporting Alphonso Jackson.

QUESTION: "At this point"?

TONY SNOW: Look, again, you're getting me ahead of my brief. I don't know any more than I've told you. . .

QUESTION: Tony, what has the White House -- what's the White House position on this report that the Justice Department investigation into the NSA program was blocked because people couldn't get security clearance? Was that --

TONY SNOW: Dana, I'm going to toss that to you, because you've got a better brief on that. You don't mind if I do that, do you?

MS. PERINO: That's fine. The Justice Department has spoken to their office of professional responsibility. I think that they put out a statement I think last night, or on Tuesday night, when it was first reported back.

QUESTION: (Inaudible.)

MS. PERINO: Excuse me?

QUESTION: Louder

QUESTION: We can't hear any of the discussion.

TONY SNOW: I'll tell you what, I'll speak up. You'll forgive me, but I'll just -- I will do the talking points on this because, again, as the new kid on the block, I'm not fully briefed into everything, but here it is. . .

QUESTION: Is there some effort to say -- this is highly unusual, that these people wouldn't be granted security clearance --

TONY SNOW: I'm not going to -- as a lawyer, I'm not going to argue with legal experts.

MS. PERINO: There's a very limited number of people who are fully briefed on that program.

QUESTION: We're not asking you -- isn't it peculiar that Justice Department lawyers cannot get security clearance to look into the NSA?

TONY SNOW: Honestly, I can't answer the question.

QUESTION: Why?

TONY SNOW: Because I don't know enough about it.

QUESTION: Can you find out?. . .

QUESTION: How are you going to make this administration more credible?

TONY SNOW: I'm not going to answer questions about credibility, other than to say that I'm eager to be here and I'm happy to be working with you.

Read it all: http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/000638.php
TONY SNOW: Okay, well, I'll tell you what we will do then is we will move it back into the Briefing Room. I had this wonderful idea that this would be nice and collegial and relaxed, but it obviously at this point is just a mess. . .

[NB: Notice that there's no transcript of this fiasco at the WH site: http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/briefings/]

http://blogs.abcnews.com/theworldnewser/2006/05/tonys_gaggle.html
[Martha Raddatz] Tony Snow had his first morning "gaggle" today. He decided to move it to his office. It was a really, really bad idea. . .

More on Snow’s aggressive “push-back” strategy: http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1002501851

Yes, it’s a sad story and probably has all sorts of personal details and complexities that are none of our business. . . but isn’t it tasty?

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/05/12/AR2006051201670.html
Robert W. Ray, the former independent counsel who investigated President Bill Clinton's affair with Monica S. Lewinsky, turned himself in to police Thursday on charges of stalking a former girlfriend . . .

Bonus item: another photo of Dick Cheney asleep at the job

http://makeashorterlink.com/?M29912A1D

http://atrios.blogspot.com/2006_05_07_atrios_archive.html#114745420204267257
[Atrios] Really, what's up with Big Time? These snaps of him snoozing haven't been surreptitiously taken, they've been taken at high profile photo ops were one imagines he would at least try to stay awake. . .

***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 @ 7:23 AM

 
THINGS FALL APART

We have a lot to cover on the newest disclosures about illegal domestic spying, but first, three little items that may seem to be unrelated to one another. . .

1. Plame grand jury to meet Friday

http://www.rawstory.com/news/2006/Networks_plan_stakeout_of_Fitzgerald_court_0511.html
Reporters at the major cable television networks plan to be on the ground Friday outside a federal district court where the jury considering the fate of President Bush's senior adviser Karl Rove.

No formal indication has been given of Rove's status, though lawyers close to the case have said his fate is likely to be determined soon.

http://talkleft.com/new_archives/014817.html
[Jeralyn Merritt] Will Rove be indicted? I think that comes next week. But stay glued to the news. . .

2. Under 30%

http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1002501667
President Bush’s job approval rating has fallen to 29%, its lowest mark of his presidency, and down 6% in one month, according to a new Harris poll. And this was before Thursday's revelations about NSA phone surveillance. . .

3. Aircraft carriers headed toward Iran?

http://talkleft.com/new_archives/014812.html

More: http://www.rawstory.com/news/2006/US_military_seen_ready_for_Iran_0511.html

Today the outrage grows over the massive NSA database of innocent Americans’ phone calls: and I’ll tell you this, “trust us” isn’t going to work any more

http://www.prospect.org/weblog/2006/05/post_342.html
[NYT] "Bush Denies Massive Spying on U.S. Citizens"
[Matt Yglesias] Good headline. So maybe everyone in a tizzy about this morning's USA Today blockbuster is all worked up over nothing? Maybe the liberal media got it wrong again? But no. Bush didn't actually deny massive spying on U.S. citizens. He said the government isn't "mining or trolling through the personal lives of innocent Americans," but as the article goes on to note, he "did not directly address the collection of phone records."

Since the phone records is what's at issue here, he didn't deny anything. To be generous, I guess he was denying that collecting, storing, and analyzing all this information amounts to "mining or trolling" through people's "personal lives." This cavalier view of privacy comes, of course, from an administration that's been second to none in terms of desiring to keep its own dealings secret. One way or another, massive spying does, in fact, seem to be what's going on and the White House isn't really denying it. And, of course, each step of the way down surveillance road, it's consistently turned out that the administration had secretly rolled back privacy protections much more than it previously admitted. Realistically, whatever they turn out to be doing or not doing, they clearly don't think there's any legal, practical, or moral constraint on what they're allowed to do if they feel like it.

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/7386.html
[Steve Benen] We could, I suppose, quibble over the meaning of the word "monitor," but the president was, at a minimum, being disingenuous. The law-abiding American's call Houston to L.A. is monitored, inasmuch as the NSA enters that call into a secret government database for still-unknown reasons. . .[read on]

http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room/2006/05/11/bush/index.html
[Tim Grieve] Even if the president's assurances were factually correct -- they're not -- they would be irrelevant in the context of USA Today's report. The newspaper wasn't describing the warrantless spying program under which the Bush administration claims to be listening in on telephone calls with suspected terrorists. Rather, it described a much broader program under which the NSA is seeking -- and, in most cases, obtaining -- data on all telephone calls made in the United States. This isn't about listening in when "al-Qaida or their associates are making calls into the United States or out of the United States," as Bush suggested today; it's about collecting information on every single phone call made to or from any home or business in the country.

The president's diversion may confuse the public about the breadth of the NSA program, but it shouldn't work for long. Democrats are expressing shock and outrage over the news that the administration is keeping tabs on the phone calls of tens of millions of Americans, and Senate Judiciary Committee chairman Arlen Specter said today that he'll hold hearings into the program. Specter said that he will subpoena representatives of the cooperating telephone companies, if necessary, to find out "what we can't find out from the Department of Justice or other administration officials."

Pat Leahy (D-VT)

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2006/5/11/16480/1132
"Are you telling me that tens of millions of Americans are involved with Al Qaeda?" Senator Patrick J. Leahy of Vermont, the committee's ranking minority member, asked angrily. . . "It's our government, our government!" he said, turning red in the face and waving a copy of USA Today. "It's not one party's government, it's America's government!"

Reed Hundt

http://atrios.blogspot.com/2006_05_07_atrios_archive.html#114737152732708265
No one should imagine that what NSA has done, if reports are accurate, is normal behavior or standard procedure in the interaction between a private communications network and the government. In an authoritarian country without a bill of rights and with state ownership of the communications network, such eavesdropping by people and computers is assumed to exist. But in the United States it is assumed not to occur, except under very carefully defined circumstances that, according to reports, were not present as NSA allegedly arm-twisted telephone companies into compliance. That is a topic that can't be avoided in the general's hearing, if he gets that far.

Matt Yglesias

http://www.prospect.org/weblog/2006/05/post_336.html#002317
Turns out the NSA, with the collaboration of every phone company except Qwest, is monitoring all of our calls -- not to listen in to what's being said, but simply to gather data about the calls and draw inferences from that. It's important to link this up to the broader chain. One thing the Bush administration says it can do with this meta-data is to start tapping your calls and listening in, without getting a warrant from anyone. Having listened in on your calls, the administration asserts that if it doesn't like what it hears, it has the authority to detain you indefinitely without trial or charges, torture you until you confess or implicate others, extradite you to a Third World country to be tortured, ship you to a secret prison facility in Eastern Europe, or all of the above. If, having kidnapped and tortured you, the administration determines you were innocent after all, you'll be dumped without papers somewhere in Albania left to fend for yourself. . . Once you start in with this business, it's a widening cycle of lawlessness with almost endless possibilities for abuse.

http://atrios.blogspot.com/2006_05_07_atrios_archive.html#114735772731487317
[Atrios] It's actually worse than that. They don't really believe the Supreme Court will agree so they'll keep ensuring that no cases ever reach the Court, not until more Alito clones get put on the bench. More than that, it's a way of sidestepping our entire criminal justice system. Once you start with the "fruit of the poison tree" - derived from illegal searches, illegal wiretapping, torture-inspired confessions - you ensure that no one scooped up through these means can actually go through the system, so you get indefinite detainment without charges, gitmo, rendition, etc. . . It's all one thing. You can't separate them.

Jack Cafferty is ON FIRE

Watch it: http://www.crooksandliars.com/2006/05/11.html#a8245
Cafferty: We all hope nothing happens to Arlen Specter, the Republican head of the Senate Judiciary Committee, cause he might be all that stands between us and a full blown dictatorship in this country. He's vowed to question these phone company executives about volunteering to provide the government with my telephone records, and yours, and tens of millions of other Americans.

Shortly after 9/11, AT&T, Verizon, and BellSouth began providing the super-secret NSA with information on phone calls of millions of our citizens, all part of the War on Terror, President Bush says. Why don't you go find Osama bin Laden, and seal the country's borders, and start inspecting the containers that come into our ports?

The President rushed out this morning in the wake of this front page story in USA Today and declared the government is doing nothing wrong, and all this is just fine. Is it? Is it legal? Then why did the Justice Department suddenly drop its investigation of the warrantless spying on citizens because the NSA said Justice Department lawyers didn't have the necessary security clearance to do the investigation. Read that sentence again. A secret government agency has told our Justice Department that it's not allowed to investigate it. And the Justice Department just says ok and drops the whole thing. We're in some serious trouble, boys and girls

The Republicans respond: we don’t want to know, we don’t want YOU to know, and besides there’s nothing wrong with it

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2006/5/11/16480/1132
"This is nuts," Kyl [R-AZ] said. "We are in a war and we've go to collect intelligence on the enemy, and you can't tell the enemy in advance how you are going to do it. And discussing all of this in public leads to that."

But not all of them: http://americablog.blogspot.com/2006/05/more-complaints-from-republicans-on.html

Alberto Gonzales lied to Congress about it

http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/000622.php

http://www.discourse.net/archives/2006/05/merely_parsimonious_with_the_truth.html

Suddenly General Hayden becomes unavailable

http://americablog.blogspot.com/2006/05/bush-claims-to-fully-support-hayden.html

CNN finds a way to excuse it, of course

http://americablog.blogspot.com/2006/05/cnns-david-ensor-defends-bush-domestic.html
DAVID ENSOR: The key question is whether laws have been broken here. This has probably been lawyered out pretty thoroughly by the telephone company lawyers and the US government. It's unlikely they're gonna find law-breaking... I'd be a little surprised to hear that any laws have been broken because companies and governments go into this kind of thing with their eyes pretty wide open.

[John Aravosis] Why is David Ensor so sure that American companies wouldn't break the law? Why wouldn't they? Because companies don't do things like that? Can you spell Enron? And why so sure that Bush didn't break the law - because we know in the domestic spying realm Bush never breaks laws? Uh huh.

It would be nice if Mr. Ensor could be more careful about presenting both sides of the story, or at the very least try to avoid always reaching conclusions that favor the Bush administration, especially when there is no factual evidence to back up these conclusions.

More: http://mediamatters.org/items/200605110008

Boiling the frog

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2006/5/11/202649/737

Glenn Greenwald: the legal issues at stake

http://glenngreenwald.blogspot.com/2006/05/legal-issues-governing-administrations.html

http://glenngreenwald.blogspot.com/2006/05/no-need-for-congress-no-need-for.html
This theme emerges again and again. We continuously hear that the Bush administration has legal authority to do anything the President orders. Claims that he is acting illegally are just frivolous and the by-product of Bush hatred. And yet, as I detailed here, each and every time the administration has the opportunity to obtain an adjudication of the legality of its conduct from a federal court (which, unbeknownst to the administration, is the branch of our government which has the authority and responsibility to interpret and apply the law), it does everything possible to avoid that adjudication.

This continuous evasion of judicial review by the administration is much more serious and disturbing than has been discussed and realized. By proclaiming the power to ignore Congressional law and to do whatever it wants in the area of national security, it is seizing the powers of the legislative branch. But by blocking courts from ruling on the multiple claims of illegality which have been made against it, the administration is essentially seizing the judicial power as well. It becomes the creator, the executor, and the interpreter of the law.

Jane Harman (D-CA) proposes a bill to explicitly require Bush to follow FISA. It may sound superfluous, but politically it’s brilliant

http://www.samefacts.com/archives/terrorism_and_its_control_/2006/05/harman_gets_it_right.php

http://www.tpmcafe.com/node/29771

http://atrios.blogspot.com/2006_05_07_atrios_archive.html#114737978922583949

How they got the phone companies (except Qwest) to go along – there’s a story here, for sure

http://atrios.blogspot.com/2006_05_07_atrios_archive.html#114736323736491111
[USAT] Trying to put pressure on Qwest, NSA representatives pointedly told Qwest that it was the lone holdout among the big telecommunications companies. It also tried appealing to Qwest's patriotic side: In one meeting, an NSA representative suggested that Qwest's refusal to contribute to the database could compromise national security, one person recalled.

In addition, the agency suggested that Qwest's foot-dragging might affect its ability to get future classified work with the government. Like other big telecommunications companies, Qwest already had classified contracts and hoped to get more.

Unable to get comfortable with what NSA was proposing, Qwest's lawyers asked NSA to take its proposal to the FISA court. According to the sources, the agency refused.

The NSA's explanation did little to satisfy Qwest's lawyers. "They told (Qwest) they didn't want to do that because FISA might not agree with them," one person recalled. For similar reasons, this person said, NSA rejected Qwest's suggestion of getting a letter of authorization from the U.S. attorney general's office. A second person confirmed this version of events.

http://www.slate.com/id/2141706
[WP] One government lawyer who has participated in negotiations with telecommunications providers said the Bush administration has argued that a company can turn over its entire database of customer records—and even the stored content of calls and e-mails—because customers "have consented to that" when they establish accounts.

A little background on data bases and data mining: you have to ask yourself, why are they maintaining a data base with tens of millions of domestic phone calls, when all they’re interested in is calls overseas with known Al Qaeda associates? What it tells you is that there is even more to this story. . . .

http://atrios.blogspot.com/2006_05_07_atrios_archive.html#114736367581089066
"Not Mining Or Trolling" Sez Bush

[Atrios] Um, so you're collecting this massive database and just . . . letting it sit there?

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2006_05_01_digbysblog_archive.html#114738430705192235
[Digby] But not to worry. The NY Times webpage greets us with this reassuring news: Bush Says U.S. Spying Is Not Widespread. And let's face it, he's right. After all there are, what, 250 million Americans, and Bush has only "obtained information on on numbers dialed by "tens of millions of Americans" and used it for 'data mining.' "

That's right. Tens of millions. Do the math, people, there's no widespread spying in the US if less than 100 million people are being spied on and no one's claiming that many. The spying effort is carefully focused on the mere 10's of millions of evil Americans. Those of us, the good people, needn't concern ourselves. And besides, we can't. It's too top secret.

http://talkleft.com/new_archives/014808.html
[Jeralyn Merritt] There is much more going on than even the massive datamining discussed in USA Today. . .

How it works

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/05/11/AR2006051100539.html

More: http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/008434.php

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/7379.html

http://americablog.blogspot.com/2006/05/we-dont-even-remotely-have-entire.html

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2006/5/11/125132/743

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2006_05_01_digbysblog_archive.html#114741522966481123

Nancy Pelosi (D-CA): impeachment is “off the table” (gee, and just when it is starting to seem so plausible)

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/05/11/AR2006051101950.html

We’re starting to see the extent of the Cunningham scandal: not just the chairman, but “several” GOP members of the Appropriations Committee

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2006_05_07.php#008436

Did federal prosecutors let Duke Cunningham cut a deal without forcing him to give up others?

http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/000609.php#more

http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/000624.php

More information about Goss, Foggo, Wilkes, and the CIA

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2006_05_07.php#008435

Must read: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/05/11/AR2006051101947.html
[David Ignatius] To understand what went so badly wrong at the CIA under Porter Goss, it's worth examining the career of his executive director, the onomatopoetic Kyle "Dusty" Foggo. His rise illustrates the conservative cronyism, leak paranoia and political vendettas that undermined Goss's tenure. . .

Another Republican official indicted: Ernie Fletcher (R-KY) – remember him? He’s the governor who pardoned the only person who could testify against him, then took the Fifth himself. It didn’t work

http://atrios.blogspot.com/2006_05_07_atrios_archive.html#114738090579001229

Tom DeLay (R-TX) will resign on June 9th

http://www.rawstory.com/news/2006/DeLay_notifies_Speaker_of_House_he_0511.html

Katherine Harris (R-FL): could she be any dumber?

http://www.crooksandliars.com/2006/05/11.html#a8244

Speaking of dumb, we haven’t had any good Doug Feith material since he resigned from Rummy’s cabal (Feith: “"the dumbest f-cking guy on the planet" according to General Tommy Franks)

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2006_05_07.php#008424

The kind of people they are. You know, Michael Luttig was once the golden boy, destined for a sure Supreme Court seat: the perfect conservative jurist. Then he made a big mistake, ruling against the Bush gang on the Padilla case. No Supreme Court seat for you, fella. First Roberts, then Alito. Now he’s quit a lifelong appointment on the bench to make big bucks with Boeing

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2006_05_01_digbysblog_archive.html#114737788061215438

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2006_05/008787.php

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/05/10/AR2006051000929.html

How they stole the John Roberts file on affirmative action

http://www.slate.com/id/2141672/entry/2141666/fr/rss/
[Timothy Noah] Although the file disappeared after a White House employee and two assistants vetted the Roberts-related files, National Archives officials assured reporters that no one had been permitted to bring bags into the room with the documents and no one was left alone with the documents. . . That turns out not to be true. . .

Theocracy watch

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/05/11/AR2006051102009.html
The House passed a $513 billion defense authorization bill yesterday that includes language intended to allow chaplains to pray in the name of Jesus at public military ceremonies, undercutting new Air Force and Navy guidelines on religion . . .

MORE problems with e-voting, and a priceless line

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2006_05_01_digbysblog_archive.html#114741048052984199
David Bear, a spokesman for Diebold Election Systems, said the potential risk existed because the company's technicians had intentionally built the machines in such a way that election officials would be able to update their systems in years ahead.

"For there to be a problem here, you're basically assuming a premise where you have some evil and nefarious election officials who would sneak in and introduce a piece of software," he said. "I don't believe these evil elections people exist."

Here’s an indication that part of the new WH press strategy is going to be a full-on assault against the news media. You know how vicious they can be when backed into a corner

http://www.first-draft.com//modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=6002

More on Rove’s scorched-earth politics: http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/7385.html

I guess there just isn’t anything a right-winger can say anymore that people will condemn

http://mediamatters.org/items/200605110002
[Rush] It's even some liberal Hollywood Jewish people talking point. . .

***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 @ 6:25 AM

 
WHAT ARE THEY DOING TO US?

We knew it, and now we KNOW it: NSA monitored “tens of millions” of phone calls. This should make for some interesting questions for General Hayden . . .

http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2006-05-10-nsa_x.htm?csp=34
NSA has massive database of Americans' phone calls . . .

More: http://americablog.blogspot.com/2006/05/att-verizon-and-bellsouth-giving-nsa.html

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2006_05/008786.php

But don’t worry, this is all being looked into – oops – no, wait a second. . .

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2006/5/10/213549/944
[AP] The government has abruptly ended an inquiry into the warrantless eavesdropping program because the National Security Agency refused to grant Justice Department lawyers the necessary security clearance to probe the matter. . . [read on]

More: http://makeashorterlink.com/?B2AE3571D

I missed this yesterday. What is happening to us?

http://www.ericumansky.com/2006/05/todays_buried_l.html
[NYT] In an effort to enhance military interrogations, Mr. Cambone is also overseeing the politically sensitive task of rewriting the Army's field manual. Just last week, he and other top Pentagon officials briefed senior senators on a Pentagon proposal to have one set of interrogation techniques for enemy prisoners of war and another, presumably more coercive, set for the suspected terrorists imprisoned at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, said Senate aides, who were granted anonymity because the discussions were confidential. . . [read on!]

More: http://www.tnr.com/blog/theplank?pid=16764

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-manual11may11,1,4302670.story
The Pentagon has been forced to delay the release of its updated Army Field Manual on interrogation because of congressional opposition to several provisions, including one that would allow tougher techniques for unlawful combatants than for traditional prisoners of war. . .

Republicans make it EASIER for graft and corruption in Iraq (really!)

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/7370.html
[Steve Benen] Stuart Bowen has led the office of the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction. When the White House tapped Bowen for the job in January 2004, Bush critics were deeply disappointed — Bowen was widely recognized as a close Bush ally, so few expected him to be thorough and aggressive.

The critics were wrong. Bowen has not only taken his job as inspector general seriously, he's been the leading figure in exposing fraud and corruption. The Wall Street Journal reported in July that Bowen "has become one of the most prominent and credible critics of how the administration has handled the occupation of Iraq," and considering his record, it's a more-than-fair description. The guy even took on Halliburton.

So, what do Republicans do in response? They quietly make it easier for corruption to take place by going around Bowen. . . [read on]

Domestically, too: http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2006/5/10/19420/2770
[AP] The government is at risk of squandering significantly more money in a Gulf Coast rebuilding effort that has already wasted hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars, federal investigators said Wednesday. . .

No limit to their ugliness

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2006_05_01_digbysblog_archive.html#114731018715364743
[Howard Fineman] The way I read the recent moves of Karl Rove & Co., they are preparing to wage war the only way open to them: not by touting George Bush, Lord knows, but by waging a national campaign to paint a nightmarish picture of what a Democratic Congress would look like. . .

Secret Service releases incomplete and clearly edited records of Abramoff’s visits to the WH, managing to tell us LESS than we already knew. Something to hide, boys?

http://atrios.blogspot.com/2006_05_07_atrios_archive.html#114729688211534067
White House released records of Abramoff visits don't include the 3 visits already known about.

http://www.first-draft.com//modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=5988
The New York Daily News quotes a "Bush Loyalist": "There are a bunch of visits..."

http://www.rawstory.com/news/2006/White_House_records_show_just_two_0510.html
“At first glance, these documents seem incomplete when compared to other White House visitor logs obtained by Judicial Watch. We therefore have reason to believe there are additional details about Jack Abramoff’s visits to the White House that have not been disclosed,” Tom Fitton, Judicial Watch president, told Cox. “However, now we know there are at least two visits by admitted felon Jack Abramoff that the White House must explain. What was Jack Abramoff doing at the White House? With whom did he meet? The public deserves to know answers to these questions.”

Alphonso Jackson tries to deny his comments, then explain his comments, then redefine what he actually said, then simply apologizes for them. And once again, we ask, “Is the media going to let him get away with this?”

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/10/washington/10cnd-hud.html
Mr. Jackson and his aides have tried to portray his remarks as anecdotal, meant to illustrate how Washington works rather than a recounting of an actual incident. . .

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2006/5/10/94733/7326

Just anecdotal, eh?

http://thinkprogress.org/2006/05/10/dustee-scheduled-leave/
May 3: Tucker tells the Dallas Business Journal that the contract Jackson was referring to in Dallas was an actual HUD “advertising contract with a minority publication.”

Early yesterday: Tucker tells the Dallas Morning News that Alphonso Jackson was referring to a real contract that was canceled. She even provided additional details of Jackson’s encounter with the contractor. . .

Later yesterday: Tucker tells the Dallas Business Journal that Alphonso Jackson made the whole thing up: “He was merely trying to explain to the audience how people in D.C., will say critical things about the secretary, will unfairly characterize the president and then turn around and ask you for money,” Tucker said. “He did not actually meet with someone and turn down a contract. . . ’It’s not a true story. It’s a made-up story,’ said Jackson spokeswoman Dustee Tucker, adding that he was only trying to make a point about how Washington works.”

ThinkProgress made several attempts to contact Dustee Tucker at the Department of Housing and Urban Development. We were routed to Jerry Brown in the Office of Press Relations. Mr. Brown couldn’t answer our questions about the inconsistencies in Ms. Tucker’s statements. He also informed us that Ms. Tucker was now on “scheduled leave” and would not return until “next week.”. . .

Word games

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2006_05_07.php#008417
[Josh Marshall] This reminds me of the time I walked into a bank and told them I'd stolen a bunch of their money even though I hadn't. I really regretted that . . .

http://www.samefacts.com/archives/lying_in_politics_/2006/05/vocabulary_lesson.php
[Mark Kleiman] Did you know that "anecdotal" was a synonym for "false"? Me neither. . .

HUD’s own Inspector General opens an investigation (uh-huh)

http://atrios.blogspot.com/2006_05_07_atrios_archive.html#114729851969016422

Believe it or not, Jackson is ALSO linked to the Shirlington Limousine Company!

http://www.mydd.com/story/2006/5/10/154920/171
Shirlington Limousine and Transportation Inc. is the firm that defense contractor Brent Wilkes used to “transport congressmen, CIA officials, and perhaps prostitutes to his Washington parties.” . . .

Another Republican congressman under investigation: but this one’s a doozy

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2006_05_07.php#008420
Jerry Lewis (R-CA). . . who chairs the powerful House Appropriations Committee. . .

Who is Duke Cunningham trying to protect?

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/008412.php
[Josh Marshall] Says Rick Gwin, regional head of the Defense Criminal Investigative Service, "In my opinion, he has not been cooperative and I have not gotten any information from him to further develop other targets. I was hoping that from a jail cell, he might become more cooperative, but we just don't have the cooperation that I think we should have."

And then Gwin says this: "This is much bigger and wider than just Randy 'Duke' Cunningham. All that has just not come out yet, but it won't be much longer and then you will know just how widespread this is."

More: http://www.warandpiece.com/blogdirs/004144.html

Meanwhile, another Republican pleads guilty

http://talkleft.com/new_archives/014802.html

“Dusty” Foggo’s defense

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2006_05_07.php#008414
Foggo "really more of a victim here", says lawyer. . .

The pliant media: http://www.prospect.org/weblog/2006/05/post_327.html

Katherine Harris’s campaign (R-FL), on life support

http://americablog.blogspot.com/2006/05/jeb-bush-says-katherine-harris-cant.html
Jeb Bush says Katherine Harris can't win Senate race this fall

W’s famous “loyalty” only goes so far, apparently

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/7370.html

How much further will John McCain compromise and humiliate himself to pander to the religious right? We haven’t seen the worst of it yet, I’m sure

http://americablog.blogspot.com/2006/05/now-its-honor-for-mccain-to-speak-at.html

The end of the “K Street Project”?

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/7371.html

Bush and the Republicans are only worried about one group’s health: their own

http://www.prospect.org/weblog/2006/05/post_332.html

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2006/05/10/national/w170632D11.DTL

I guess Bush has already run through all the QUALIFIED Republican court nominees

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/05/10/AR2006051002101.html

Admittedly, this can be read more than one way. . . . but how do YOU read it?

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2006_05_01_digbysblog_archive.html#114727872241591860
Bush visited with some waiting in a courtyard where Frank Sinatra's "Young At Heart" played on the loudspeakers, then he went indoors where people were looking over the laptops. He walked around giving handshakes and hugs to those who rose for his entrance, and greeted a man who remained sitting in a wheelchair with, "You look mighty comfortable." . .

I remember this, do you?

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/05/10/AR2006051002232.html
The country has John G. Roberts Jr. as its newest chief justice. What it doesn't have is an answer to the mystery of the missing file of his work papers on affirmative action.

The file, compiled during Roberts's tenure as an associate counsel in the Reagan White House, vanished in July when lawyers from the Bush administration were reviewing the materials at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in Simi Valley, Calif., as part of a vetting process before Roberts's formal nomination to the Supreme Court. . .

A tale of two political parties

http://atrios.blogspot.com/2006_05_07_atrios_archive.html#114728546498379578
Will Bunch reminds us yet again how majority-supported Democratic positions are regularly claimed to be "out of the mainstream."

http://www.pnionline.com/dnblog/attytood/archives/003296.html
[Will Bunch] We were reading the New York Times on Sunday, which had an interesting article about the political situation in Ohio, where the Democrats have a good chance of wresting control of the statehouse and a Senate and several House seats. But this passage leaped off the page at us:

Mr. Brown is considered one of the more liberal members of the state's Congressional delegation; he supports abortion rights, opposed the constitutional amendment prohibiting same-sex marriage and voted against the war in Iraq.

"Sherrod Brown is out of the mainstream," Mrs. Dole said. "I don't think his kind of liberalism will sell across the state. Drawing the contrast is the key here: it's the choice between the two candidates, despite the environment."

Incredibly, that exchange just stood there, unchallenged. So just how far out of the mainstream is Sherrod Brown? . . .

-- A new poll just out shows that a majority of Americans -- some 57 percent -- now believe that sending troops to Iraq was a mistake, in essence agreeing that Brown's opposition to the war was correct.

-- On an amendment to ban gay marriage, a poll released just this week found that voters rank this at the very bottom of issues that they want Congress to take up, and some 63 percent of Americans are either strongly or somewhat concerned about changing the Constitution over this issue.

-- On abortion rights, the nation is fairly evenly divided. A poll taken in April shows 51 percent opposed to most abortion rights and 46 percent generally in favor -- but a majority opposed a law in South Dakota seeking to ban them.

Based on that, Sherrod Brown may be the most mainstream candidate in America. However, you could almost forgive someone for thinking the opposite, given the media's failings to provide any context. The Democrat's positions are very much in the majority -- a new kind of "silent majority" that leans to center-left as opposed to Nixon's center-right grouping. . .

VERSUS

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2006_05_01_digbysblog_archive.html#114729602533760246
[Thereisnospoon] Do you see how this works? Systematically, piece by piece, the GOP takes what had been considered impossibly radical positions and makes them worthy of consideration just by talking about them--and then makes what had been considered outside possibilities truly possible. Now, I happen to believe that legalization of homeschooling is a good thing (though there should be oversight)--others may disagree.

But the important thing to remember is that the Republicans are carrying out this same exercise with every public policy debate today--from invading Iran to making birth control illegal to eliminating Social Security. The once unthinkable becomes possible--and they don't care if they take some heat for it initially. . .

Another contrast: http://www.mydd.com/story/2006/5/11/02512/5617
Ethics: Democrats Chide Their Own, GOP Cheers Theirs . . .

If you can stand it, even more evidence of how badly Brownie and FEMA screwed up the Katrina response

http://www.first-draft.com//modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=5989

Ann Coulter, felon?

http://www.first-draft.com//modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=5999

Bonus item: “50 Simple Things You Can Do. . ."

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2006/5/10/62127/5735

***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 @ 7:24 AM

 
HAD ENOUGH?

The lies, the hypocrisy, the corruption, the arrogance, the abuse of power: we’ve got ‘em all today, folks. . .

HUD Secretary blurts out what we always knew about the Bush gang: they use government contracts to reward their political allies and punish their enemies. One problem: it’s illegal

http://atrios.blogspot.com/2006_05_07_atrios_archive.html#114718808868941056
After discussing the huge strides the agency has made in doing business with minority-owned companies, Jackson closed with a cautionary tale, relaying a conversation he had with a prospective advertising contractor.

"He had made every effort to get a contract with HUD for 10 years," [HUD Sect’y Alfonso] Jackson said of the prospective contractor. "He made a heck of a proposal and was on the (General Services Administration) list, so we selected him. He came to see me and thank me for selecting him. Then he said something. . . he said, 'I have a problem with your president.'

"I said, 'What do you mean?' He said, 'I don't like President Bush.' I thought to myself, 'Brother, you have a disconnect -- the president is elected, I was selected. You wouldn't be getting the contract unless I was sitting here. If you have a problem with the president, don't tell the secretary.'

"He didn't get the contract," Jackson continued. "Why should I reward someone who doesn't like the president, so they can use funds to try to campaign against the president? Logic says they don't get the contract. That's the way I believe."

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/7362.html
[Steve Benen] So, to summarize, the secretary of HUD admitted, in public, that he denied a qualified minority contractor funding because the contractor said he didn't like the president. In Jackson's mind, this is "logical."

This is probably illegal, and is definitely moronic. If some congressional Dems made an effort to follow up on this, it's the kind of incident that could force Jackson to resign.

IT IS illegal: http://thinkprogress.org/2006/05/09/jackson-canceled-contract
From the Federal Acquisition Regulations, 48 CFR 3.101-1:

Government business shall be conducted in a manner above reproach and, except as authorized by statute or regulation, with complete impartiality and with preferential treatment for none. Transactions relating to the expenditure of public funds require the highest degree of public trust and an impeccable standard of conduct.

. . . The Competition in Contracting Act (41 U.S.C. 253(b)(1)) details the six circumstances in which a particular contractor can be excluded. Needless to say, political views are not on the list.

http://americablog.blogspot.com/2006/05/hud-secretary-i-was-just-kidding-when.html
[John Aravosis] As I noted earlier, there are really two issues here. First, the issue of denying government contracts based on the political views of the recipient, which appears illegal. But second, the issue of federal contracts being given out for political/electioneering purposes, which is most certainly illegal. See my analysis below.

PS One of my readers just wrote and raised a good point. How did the topic of the grantee's politics come up in the first place? It's hard to believe that you're trying to get money from the Bush administration and you just happen to bring up, out of nowhere, "oh yeah, by the way, I hate George Bush." Did the secretary veer the discussion to politics, inquire about the grantee's leanings, ask for a donation and/or help for the campaign?

That’s a good question: http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2006_05_07.php#008407

More on Jackson: http://www.mydd.com/story/2006/5/9/153716/9158

http://www.first-draft.com//modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=5982

Calls already begin for Jackson’s resignation

http://atrios.blogspot.com/2006_05_07_atrios_archive.html#114720926047701979

And the lying excuses begin. . .

http://thinkprogress.org/2006/05/09/jackson-responds/
[Jackson spokeswoman] “He was merely trying to explain to the audience how people in D.C., will say critical things about the secretary, will unfairly characterize the president and then turn around and ask you for money,” Tucker said. “He did not actually meet with someone and turn down a contract. He’s not part of the contracting process.”

More: http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room/2006/05/09/hud2/index.html

Man, that’s COLD

http://politicalwire.com/archives/2006/05/09/bolten_fired_goss.html
U.S. News and World Report: "Intelligence insiders say that former CIA Director Porter Goss was given less than a day to pack his bags by new White House Chief of Staff Josh Bolten, who is moving swiftly to put a new and more aggressive face on the administration." . . .

[NB: Anybody still believe this was just a regular job turnover of a loyal, valued colleague?]

More evidence of corruption: http://www.warandpiece.com/blogdirs/004141.html

Foggo’s departure is “pretty standard.” What the hell is WRONG with CNN?

http://americablog.blogspot.com/2006/05/foggos-departure-is-pretty-standard.html
[CNN] Goss announced his resignation Friday after what intelligence sources described as a power struggle with National Intelligence Director John Negroponte.

Intelligence officials said Foggo's departure would be "pretty standard" because the executive director "tends to follow the CIA director's career trajectory."

[NB: Yeah, that and the fact that he is UNDER CRIMINAL INVESTIGATION]

Just wind him up. . .

http://www.americanprogressaction.org/site/apps/nl/newsletter2.asp?c=klLWJcP7H&b=917053
[Daily Show] "He's the right man to lead this important agency at this critical moment in our nation's history."
-- President Bush, 8/10/04, on Porter Goss's nomination to be Director of the CIA. . .

"He's the right man to lead the CIA at this critical moment in our nation's history."
-- Bush, 5/8/06, on Michael Hayden's nomination to be Director of the CIA

Republican House Speaker comes out against Hayden’s nomination

http://americablog.blogspot.com/2006/05/roll-call-speaker-hastert-comes-out.html

Other problems with military men running the (civilian) CIA

http://americablog.blogspot.com/2006/05/bushs-supposed-pick-for-cia-2-is.html

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2006_05_01_digbysblog_archive.html#114721775236304855

What, you don’t believe him?

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/05/09/AR2006050900953.html
Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld dismissed the idea that he has been involved in a bureaucratic power play to boost the military's role in intelligence-gathering. . .

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/10/washington/10cambone.html
President Bush's selection of Gen. Michael V. Hayden to be the next director of the Central Intelligence Agency sets the stage for new wrangling with the Pentagon, which is rapidly expanding its own global spying and terrorist-tracking operations, both long considered C.I.A. roles. . . Overseeing Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld's drive to broaden the military's clandestine reconnaissance and man-hunting missions is Stephen A. Cambone, the Pentagon's intelligence czar and one of Mr. Rumsfeld's most trusted aides, whose low public profile masks his influence as one of the nation's most powerful intelligence officials. . .

More lies from Rummy: http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2006_05/008776.php

Why do those mean old Democrats want to investigate our Commander in Chief?

http://www.prospect.org/weblog/2006/05/post_323.html
Michael Crowley has a very good post over at The Plank where he excerpts a chunk of text from the latest National Republican Senatorial Committee fundraising letter. It has an astounding eight paragraphs sounding the alarm about the investigations and imminent impeachment proceedings the GOP says Dems will launch if they take back one or both houses of Congress. As Crowley notes, "it's pretty clear what Republicans--who, after all, have no other good choices--want this election to be about."

More: http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2006_05/008773.php

http://glenngreenwald.blogspot.com/2006/05/investigations-are-so-very-rude-and.html

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2006_05_01_digbysblog_archive.html#114722162414793593

[Thanks to Mark M. and David S. for the photo]

More new polling lows for Bush – and these numbers are getting downright scary

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/09/washington/09cnd-poll.html
Americans have a bleaker view of the country's direction than at any time in more than two decades. . . Mr. Bush's approval rating for his management of foreign policy, Iraq and the economy have fallen to the lowest levels of his presidency. . .

How the Right tries to explain away Bush’s plummeting popularity

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/7364.html

I have to tell you, it’s these little things that make me HATE him

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2006_05_07.php#008403
[CNN] Those who don't sign [for the Medicare drug benefit] up by May 15 will have to pay a penalty to enroll, although Bush repeatedly pointed out that there are exceptions for the poor. Many lawmakers want to extend the deadline, but Bush has opposed those calls.

"Deadlines are important," Bush said. "Deadlines help people understand there is finality and people have to get after it."

Death in Iraq

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/050306J.shtml
[Dahr Jamail] Death lurks everywhere in Iraq today. Keeping up with the numbers of dead is impossible. . . [read on]

[Thanks to Robert M. and Walter F. for the link]

Sick, sick, sick

http://americablog.blogspot.com/2006/05/military-recruiters-enlist-autistic.html
Jared didn’t know there was a war raging in Iraq until his parents told him last fall — shortly after a military recruiter stopped him outside a Portland strip mall and complimented his black Converse All-Stars.

“When Jared first started talking about joining the Army, I thought, `Well, that isn’t going to happen,”‘ said Paul Guinther, Jared’s father. “I told my wife not to worry about it. They’re not going to take anybody in the service who’s autistic.”

But they did. Last month, Jared came home with papers showing that he had not only enlisted, but signed up for the Army’s most dangerous job: cavalry scout. He is scheduled to leave for basic training Aug. 16. . . [more!]

How they do things

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2006_05/008771.php
[Kevin Drum] The Bush administration has a real thing for keeping people imprisoned without charges and then suddenly freeing or transferring them just as a court is about to hear their appeals. Is it all a big coincidence? Or are they afraid that no court in the country is likely to rule in their favor, and they're willing to do just about anything to avoid an adverse ruling that would hamstring them in the future?

More: http://talkleft.com/new_archives/014785.html

Real? Fake? Who cares?

http://americablog.blogspot.com/2006/05/file-this-in-youve-got-to-be-kidding.html
[Reality] A purported al Qaeda document published by the U.S. military may or may not be authentic but its message that the Sunni Islamist guerrillas face problems in Iraq could reflect reality, security experts said on Tuesday.

[NB: Too bad they didn’t take this position with the CBS National Guard documents]

The Internet Outreach Specialist

http://politicalwire.com/archives/2006/05/09/politicians_embrace_blogs.html

Bonus item: “Here are the latest techniques for crop rotation and oh hey, by the way, did you know that President Bush has a clear strategy for victory in Iraq?”

http://americablog.blogspot.com/2006/05/white-house-demanding-all-agencies.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 @ 5:00 AM

 
BREAK OUT THE POPCORN

The coming Negroponte/Rumsfeld Steel Cage Death Match?

Yes: http://www.thewashingtonnote.com/archives/001382.php

No: http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2006_05_07.php#008395

Maybe: http://www.prospect.org/weblog/2006/05/post_310.html

As expected, Dusty Foggo (Goss's #3 man) quits the CIA before the sh-t hits the fan. But it’s so important to coordinate the timing of these things: if Goss quits first, then Foggo, people can try to say they were unrelated; if it happens the other way around, they can’t

http://www.upi.com/SecurityTerrorism/view.php?StoryID=20060508-033605-8277r

He’s screwed: http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/008391.php

Goss isn’t off the hook yet, either

http://www.warandpiece.com/blogdirs/004127.html

Was Goss blindsided?

http://www.warandpiece.com/blogdirs/004122.html

Another abrupt CIA departure. . .

http://americablog.blogspot.com/2006/05/bush-offers-olive-branch-to-cia-agents.html
[WP] Under the plan, Vice Adm. Albert M. Calland III would be replaced as deputy director by retired CIA official Stephen R. Kappes, who quit in November 2004 in a dispute with then-Director Porter J. Goss.

The move was seen as a direct repudiation of Goss's leadership and as an olive branch to CIA veterans disaffected by his 18-month tenure, during which many other senior officials followed Kappes out the door. . .

. . . is this why?

http://americablog.blogspot.com/2006/05/general-haydens-cia-nomination-may.html
Sailor over at Vidiot Speak blog noted that there seems to be a law on the books that says either the Director of Central Intelligence or his deputy can be active or retired military, but not both. . .

More: http://www.warandpiece.com/blogdirs/004122.html

Oh, man. General Hayden, Bush’s new nominee, ALSO has ties to Cunningham/Wilkes/Wade!

http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/000581.php

http://www.samefacts.com/archives/_/2006/05/the_haydenmzm_connection.php

Will the Democrats stand up against the Hayden nomination?

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2006/5/8/162154/2742

http://glenngreenwald.blogspot.com/2006/05/helpful-democrats-run-to-bushs-rescue.html

That bad ol’ liberal CIA

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2006_05_01_digbysblog_archive.html#114712799510326489
[Digby, being sarcastic] Today, the CIA is crawling with liberals. The military is crawling with liberals. The Bush administration itself is nothing but a bunch of liberals as must be the GOP congress since they signed off on everything Bush has proposed. The media are, needless to say, nothing but squishy liberals.

The country is going to hell in a handbasket. The president and the congress and all their policies are dramatically unpopular. This, then, is just further proof of the failure of liberalism.

http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=MjJlY2ZhNzZkNThhODg0YTVjNTk0MzkxMWU5ZDQ2YjE
[National Review, dead serious] The CIA has always had a leftist bent, well represented in its upper echelons even under directors of staunchly anti-Communist and pro-national-security orientation.

During the Bush presidency, however, the agency has not been content with subtly pushing its own agenda while underperforming its nominal mission. It has run amok. In fact, it worked assiduously—though unsuccessfully—to depose the administration in the 2004 election, and since then has continued brazenly undermining Bush’s foreign policy.

More: http://www.tpmcafe.com/node/29634

Molly Ivins offers some perspective (don’t miss it!)

http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/20060508_molly_ivins_whorehouse/

David Shuster: Rove is goin’ down

http://www.rawstory.com/news/2006/MSNBC_reporter_I_am_convinced_that_0508.html
[MSNBC] And I am convinced that Karl Rove will, in fact, be indicted. And there are a couple of reasons why. First of all, you don't put somebody in front of a grand jury at the end of an investigation or for the fifth time, as Karl Rove testified a couple, a week and a half ago, unless you feel that's your only chance of avoiding indictment. So in other words, the burden starts with Karl Rove to stop the charges. Secondly, it's now been 13 days since Rove testified. After testifying for three and a half hours, prosecutors refused to give him any indication that he was clear. He has not gotten any indication since then. And the lawyers that I've spoken with outside of this case say that if Rove had gotten himself out of the jam, he would have heard something by now. And then the third issue is something we've talked about before. And that is, in the Scooter Libby indictment, Karl Rove was identified as 'Official A.' It's the term that prosecutors use when they try to get around restrictions on naming somebody in an indictment. We've looked through the records of Patrick Fitzgerald from when he was prosecuting cases in New York and from when he's been US attorney in Chicago. And in every single investigation, whenever Fitzgerald has identified somebody as Official A, that person eventually gets indicted themselves, in every single investigation. Will Karl Rove defy history in this particular case? I suppose anything is possible when you are dealing with a White House official. But the lawyers that I've been speaking with who know this stuff say, don't bet on Karl Rove getting out of this.

Read this and see if you don’t agree

http://www.prospect.org/weblog/2006/05/post_305.html
[Greg Sargent] Today's Washington Post piece on Karl Rove reminds us just how implausible Karl Rove's Plamegate story has always been. . .

More: http://www.firedoglake.com/2006/05/08/and-more-to-be-revealed/

http://talkleft.com/new_archives/014766.html

A contest!

http://talkleft.com/new_archives/014780.html
[Jeralyn Merritt] Firedoglake beat me to it, but I've been pondering contest questions for a few days now. So I'm joining in with a TalkLeft contest. Feel free to enter them both. To win TalkLeft's contest, you need to correctly answer these questions:

1. What date with the Indictment be returned by the Grand Jury?
2. Will the Indictment name only Karl Rove or Karl Rove and others? If others, who will they be?
3. What crimes will be charged for each person you name and how many counts for each? (Example: Only Karl Rove, Three counts of false statements to investigators, two counts of perjury to the grand jury, one count of obstruction of justice, one count of conspiracy)
4. Who, if anyone, will be "Offical A" in the Rove Indictment?

Double your bets! http://www.firedoglake.com/2006/05/08/late-nite-fdl-place-your-bets/

Bush and the Republicans are presiding over a fiscal train wreck

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/05/08/AR2006050801425.html
A $2.7 trillion budget plan pending before the House would raise the federal debt ceiling to nearly $10 trillion, less than two months after Congress last raised the federal government's borrowing limit. . . Leaders also hope to pass a package of tax-cut extensions that would cost the Treasury $70 billion over the next five years. . .

Bush falls to 31% in the Bush-friendly Gallup poll

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2006_05_07.php#008399

http://www.samefacts.com/archives/gwb_the_beloved_leader_/2006/05/lincoln_was_right.php

Top aide to Bob Ney (R-OH) pleads guilty and cuts a deal – so you know what THAT means

http://makeashorterlink.com/?F45E5241D

Kavanaugh’s nomination is already in trouble

http://susiemadrak.com/2006/05/08/21/31/hmm-20/
[AP] The American Bar Association downgraded its rating of President Bush’s appellate court nominee Brett Kavanaugh. . . from ‘’well-qualified'’ to ‘’qualified'. . .

Ann Coulter: nightmare from hell

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2006_05_01_digbysblog_archive.html#114712662529331181
[Loyola University] Coulter of course went on her usual bloviating saying that Democrats have bumper stickers that say, "I heart partial birth abortion.". . . The protesting from the balcony only increased. . .

Ann addressed her supporters in the crowd with this statement. "You're men. You're heterosexuals. Take 'em out." She chided them further when they did not rise. Before you knew it there was about 25 students marching to the balcony to supposedly "take out" the protestors above. I saw a priest holding students back and deans and security warning the students to go back to their seats. Chaos erupted.

Blog-baiting

http://www.prospect.org/weblog/2006/05/post_314.html

More: http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2006_05/008769.php

http://billmon.org/archives/002432.html

Bonus item: Fish story. Bush’s claim (yesterday) that his “best moment as President” was catching a FISH? It turns out, like so many things he has told us, to be untrue

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2006/5/8/123228/7545
[Kos] Is Bush even capable of telling the truth?

Bush says the highlight of his presidential career was catching a 7.5 pound perch in his lake. Except that...

The only problem is that the world's record for the largest freshwater perch caught is 4 pounds 3 ounces.

So, now the WH transcript (and the news story) have been rewritten! http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/7343.html
“I caught a 7 1/2-pound largemouth bass. . .”

http://americablog.blogspot.com/2006/05/bush-tells-german-paper-he-caught.html

[NB: Either way, it was a really stupid thing to say]

Extra bonus item: Rug story

http://susiemadrak.com/2006/05/08/10/40/an-interview-with-bubble-boy/
THE PRESIDENT: I’ll give you a quick tour before our interview. So, the first thing that a President does, which I didn’t realize, was pick a rug. I have no idea about rugs. And so in this job you’ve got to delegate. The American President is in a position where there’s just unbelievable complexities to the job — Darfur, Iran — a whole lot of issues. So I delegated the decision about the rug to my wife.

The second thing a President has got to do is have a strategic mind. In order to be successful, in my judgment, as the President, you’ve got to constantly think strategically. And so I said to her, you pick out the colors, you be the tactical person, but I want it to say “optimistic person.” That’s all I wanted it to say. Here is the result. Isn’t it beautiful?

Q Yes, it is very beautiful.

THE PRESIDENT: There’s a sense of optimism when you come in here. And there’s a reason why. You cannot lead people unless you’re optimistic about what you’re doing. You’ve got to believe it in your very soul. One of the interesting things about the presidency is people watch me like a hawk. They’re looking at my moves. And if I’m going to be ringing my hands and if I’m all worried about the decisions I make are not going to lead to a better tomorrow, they’ll figure it out.

And so when you talk to me today, I just want you to know I not only strongly believe in the decisions I make, I’m optimistic that they’re going to work — very optimistic.

***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 @ 6:31 AM

 
ARE WE MORE SECURE?

Today marks the second anniversary of Progressive Blog Digest. Our first issue was posted in the midst of the Abu Ghraib disclosures, and what began to dawn on people at that moment – apart from the horrors of the torture itself – was the growing recognition that, under the guise of promoting national security, the Bush administration was recklessly pursuing policies that in fact made the country more isolated, more mistrusted, and more alienated from the supposed principles we were trying to protect. Are we more secure?, we asked.

For two years since then we have seen revelation after revelation showing that these people are weakening national security in pursuit of their ends: or, rather, have pursued a superficial and politically driven conception of security, at the expense of security in a deeper sense.

In the area of national defense, they have kept in office a stubborn and arrogant Secretary of Defense who sent U.S. troops into war without needed equipment and in inadequate numbers, in pursuit of a “plan” that beyond the initial invasion of Iraq has since then been nothing but “make it up as you go.” Because of overextended tours of duty, an indefinite and constantly-retreating end-goal, and an insurgency that carries out relentless and debilitating attacks through IED’s and other indirect actions, leaving U.S. troops with no one to attack and no territory to seize and hold, there has been a decline in morale and sense of purpose in being there. What does it mean to “win” in Iraq? No one can say. Despite lowering standards, new enlistments for many of the services have declined. Underprepared National Guard and Reservists have been thrown into combat roles they weren’t suited to, because there weren’t enough regular troops. And now even the generals are speaking out against the futility of throwing more lives, and more money, into this bottomless pit. Are we more secure?

The Bush administration ignored the CIA’s warnings before 9-11 (“Bin Laden Determined to Strike in the U.S.”), and then blamed them after it happened. In the lead-up to the Iraq War, they ignored contrary evidence on WMD’s and Iraqi capabilities, choosing instead to selectively “stovepipe” intelligence that they could bend to justify a decision to go to war that had already been made. And when WMD’s were not found, they again blamed the CIA. They forced out its director, putting in place a political lackey whose job was to purge the Agency of doubters and disloyalists – and who brought in untrained congressional staffers to browbeat career professionals and intelligence experts. Predictably, many of the best people quit. Are we more secure?

Morale at the Agency was hardly improved as it became clear that Bush officials, for the most cynical and opportunistic of political reasons, outed the identity of one of their own – the most serious crime imaginable, next to espionage, within that community – and then had the audacity to leave those officials in place without any internal investigation to find them and punish them. On the contrary, despite protestations that those responsible would be held accountable, the Bush administration has done nothing but minimize the act (“she wasn’t really covert,” “she deserved it,” “she was a Democrat”). And it turns out that Valerie Plame was working on Iranian nuclear capabilities – one of the most sensitive and urgent issues facing U.S. intelligence. Now she is out of work. Are we more secure?

More recently, the Bush administration has declared open war on internal leaks of classified information, forcing the ouster of at least one senior CIA official, while hypocritically asserting its own right to leak classified information, for any reason, at any time. Are we more secure?

And now we learn that the partisan hack they brought in to run the agency (Porter Goss) also promoted his own crony, “Dusty” Foggo, who, based on recent reports, brought corruption and scandal into the CIA. We do not know the extent of this story yet, nor Goss’s own level of involvement, but the man brought in to restore the credibility of the CIA has left it more chaotic and demoralized than ever. Are we more secure?

Over at the Department of Homeland Security, an endless string of searches and rejected job offers brought us Bernie Kerik, an unqualified and dishonest former cop, whose only qualification was a job endorsement from Rudy Giuliani. Kerik’s nomination had to be pulled days after it was announced. Eventually the process settled on Michael Chertoff, who himself was in danger of being fired after the bungled Katrina relief effort – a misadventure that threw into serious doubt the capacity of his agency to anticipate or respond to any widespread crisis. Are we more secure?

Finally, the likely replacement for Porter Goss as head of the CIA is the same man (Gen. Michael Hayden) who developed and rationalized the most aggressive program of domestic spying since the paranoid days of the Nixon administration. Though repackaged as the “Terrorist Surveillance Program,” which supposedly only targeted known associates of Al Qaeda inside the U.S., no one has given an adequate answer to the extent of innocent citizens caught up in its wide net. When questioned, Hayden refused to discuss other domestic surveillance programs that might go beyond what has already been made public. If Hayden is confirmed, for the first time uniformed military officers will be in charge of all three major intelligence agencies (CIA, NSA, and DIA). This is especially alarming given Donald Rumsfeld’s largely successful efforts to expand intelligence activities within the Department of Defense. Are we more secure?

At every stage, this administration has undermined the principle of independent intelligence and analysis that could provide some check upon their reckless policies. In the infamous words of the Downing Street Memo, “Bush wanted to remove Saddam, through military action, justified by the conjunction of terrorism and WMD. But the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy.” And anyone who openly challenged that way of doing business has been trampled or pushed aside. Cronies and underqualified people have been put forward for many key positions, because the central job requirement in this regime is loyalty to the agenda. Rigid control and obsessive secrecy cover up misjudgments and scandal. “National Security” is a thoroughly politicized term now, referring only to the consolidation of government resources to advance and rationalize Bush policies.

Opposition to Hayden growing – and he hasn’t even been nominated yet

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/05/07/AR2006050700180.html
The Republican chairmen of the House and Senate intelligence panels raised serious concerns about Gen. Michael V. Hayden on the eve of his expected nomination today as CIA director, with Rep. Peter Hoekstra (R-Mich.) calling him "the wrong man at the wrong place at the wrong time."

Other Republicans and Democrats, appearing on Sunday talk shows, praised Hayden's credentials but said they, too, are troubled by President Bush's decision to place a military officer at the helm of a civilian intelligence agency. . .

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-hayden8may08,1,6911501.story
[C]ritics contend that naming the general to head the CIA would be a further demoralizing blow for the agency. . .

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/08/washington/08cia.html
Senator Saxby Chambliss, a Georgia Republican and White House ally, said that even if General Hayden were to resign his military commission, he would still face problems being accepted at the spy agency.

"Just resigning commission and moving on, putting on a pin-striped suit versus an Air Force uniform, I don't think makes much difference," Mr. Chambliss said on "This Week" on ABC. . .

http://www.slate.com/id/2141241
The Journal also mentions concern from officials inside the CIA, who worry that Hayden, who has worked mainly with intelligence gathered via satellite and wiretap, may not understand the human intelligence work that is the agency's mainstay.

More: http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2006/5/7/135812/3524

http://www.samefacts.com/archives/_/2006/05/the_hayden_nomination_too_clever_by_half.php

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2006_05/008760.php
[NYT] White House aides have indicated that they are fully aware that General Hayden might face a tough confirmation battle — though the process has gone smoothly for him in the past — but defend his competence and say they welcome a new chance to defend the surveillance program as a necessary tool in seeking to ferret out terrorists.

[Kevin Drum] Why am I not surprised? I assume the White House figures that Republican critics will air out a few mild criticisms and then shut up, leaving them free to paint Democrats as weak on national security because they think the NSA ought to get search warrants if they want to spy on U.S. citizens. They went to this well in 2002 and 2004, and I assume they figure it's not dry yet.

More on Hayden’s shaky relationship with the Constitution

http://talkleft.com/new_archives/014767.html

Why Goss quit: and why you are hearing radically different explanations for it

http://www.nydailynews.com/front/story/415620p-351086c.html
Alarms were set off at the advisory board by a widening FBI sex and cronyism investigation that's targeted Kyle (Dusty) Foggo, the No.3 official at the CIA, and also touched on Goss himself. . .

http://www.warandpiece.com/blogdirs/004110.html
[Laura Rozen] So a challenge, if you're so inclined; help find me a story about the tension, turf war, heartburn, whispering campaigns (you get the picture) between the CIA's Porter Goss and DNI's Negroponte, or their staffs, that was written before Friday. . .

http://www.warandpiece.com/blogdirs/004109.html
[A reader] My best guess for the groupthink is who's doin' the writin'. National security folks [...] are going to talk to national security sources and get national security explanations. Sometimes that's all it takes for this kind of narrative to develop. Daily News and others, though, are going with non-nat/sec sources, and as a result they are getting a different explanation (that may also happen as Congressional correspondents sink their teeth into the story).

More: http://www.warandpiece.com/blogdirs/004112.html

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2006_05/008761.php

Decision on Rove indictment coming soon

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/05/07/AR2006050700717.html
Rove expects to learn as soon as this month if he will be indicted -- or publicly cleared of wrongdoing -- for making false statements in the CIA leak case, according to sources close to the presidential adviser.

An indictment would be devastating to a White House already battered by low poll numbers, a staff shake-up and a stalled agenda. If Rove is cleared, however, it would allow Bush's longtime top aide to resume his central role as White House strategic guru without a legal threat hanging over him. . .

More: http://talkleft.com/new_archives/014766.html

http://www.needlenose.com/node/view/2937

I don’t buy this, but I do love to hear it

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/05/06/AR2006050600909_pf.html
The recent White House shake-up was an attempt to jump-start the administration and boost President Bush's rock-bottom approval ratings, but have those efforts come too late to salvage the presidency? A prominent GOP pollster thinks that may be the case.

"This administration may be over," Lance Tarrance, a chief architect of the Republicans' 1960s and '70s Southern strategy, told a gathering of journalists and political wonks last week. "By and large, if you want to be tough about it, the relevancy of this administration on policy may be over." . . .

Fear factor: Republicans can’t argue that they should be kept in office, so they are reduced to threatening, “the Democrats would be worse!”

http://politicalwire.com/archives/2006/05/07/rnc_chief_predicts_loss_of_seats.html
After a briefing of congressional Republicans by RNC chief Ken Mehlmann last week, "word circulated around Capitol Hill that Mehlman warned that 45 seats could be lost in the House on Nov. 7."

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/08/washington/08stakes.html
Heading into the election, many conservatives are disheartened by the war in Iraq, upset at what they see as a White House tolerance for bigger government and escalating federal spending, and divided over issues like immigration. The abrupt resignation on Friday of the director of the Central Intelligence Agency, Porter J. Goss, promised to feed the impression of an administration that is off balance.

But White House and Republican officials, trying to turn vulnerability to advantage, say conservatives could be united and re-energized by the possibility that Democrats could put Mr. Bush and his policies on political trial by winning control of even one chamber of Congress. . .

What they really fear: http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2006/5/7/21629/51672
[John Conyers] For five years, from 1989 to 1994, I was the Chairman of the House Government Operations Committee, now called the Government Reform Committee. I have a record of trying to expose government waste, fraud and abuse.

That was back when Congress did something called "oversight." You know, in our tri-partite system of government, when Congress actually acted like a co-equal branch. The Republican Congress decided to be a rubber stamp for President Bush instead.

Perhaps, if we had a little oversight, we wouldn't be mired in a war based on false pretenses in which we have lost thousands of our brave men and women in uniform and tens of thousands of innocent Iraqis.

Perhaps we would not have had an energy policy drawn up in secret with oil company executives that has led to gas prices of more than three dollars per gallon.

Perhaps, if we had a little oversight, we wouldn't have a prescription drug plan written by the pharmaceutical companies, that prohibits the government from negotiating for lower prices with the same drug companies, and that no one really understands.

Perhaps, if we had a little oversight, we would know the extent to which our own government is spying on our phone calls, emails and other communications, contrary to the law of the land

Another tacit admission of failed war planning

http://www.slate.com/id/2141241
National Guard and reserve military units are going to be phased out of combat roles in the Iraq war, the Los Angeles Times reports in its top story (at least online). These units were designed as a last resort in an all-out war, and are generally more poorly equipped, have less training and have a higher number of medically ineligible soldiers. Active duty officers privately criticize their performance in Iraq. . .

Krugman

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2006_05_01_digbysblog_archive.html#114708442574529378
But the administration officials who told us that Saddam had an active nuclear program and insinuated that he was responsible for 9/11 weren't part of a covert alliance; they all worked for President Bush. The claim that these officials hyped the case for war isn't a conspiracy theory; it's simply an assertion that people in a position of power abused that position. And that assertion only seems wildly implausible if you take it as axiomatic that Mr. Bush and those around him wouldn't do such a thing.

The truth is that many of the people who throw around terms like 'loopy conspiracy theories' are lazy bullies who, as Zachary Roth put it on CJR Daily, The Columbia Journalism Review's Web site, want to 'confer instant illegitimacy on any argument with which they disagree.' Instead of facing up to hard questions, they try to suggest that anyone who asks those questions is crazy.

Indeed, right-wing pundits have consistently questioned the sanity of Bush critics; 'It looks as if Al Gore has gone off his lithium again,' said Charles Krauthammer, the Washington Post columnist, after Mr. Gore gave a perfectly sensible if hard-hitting speech. Even moderates have tended to dismiss the administration's harsh critics as victims of irrational Bush hatred.

But now those harsh critics have been vindicated. And it turns out that many of the administration supporters can't handle the truth. They won't admit that they built a personality cult around a man who has proved almost pathetically unequal to the job. Nor will they admit that opponents of the Iraq war, whom they called traitors for warning that invading Iraq was a mistake, have been proved right. So they have taken refuge in the belief that a vast conspiracy of America-haters in the media is hiding the good news from the public.

Unlike the crazy conspiracy theories of the left - which do exist, but are supported only by a tiny fringe - the crazy conspiracy theories of the right are supported by important people: powerful politicians, television personalities with large audiences. And we can safely predict that these people will never concede that they were wrong. When the Iraq venture comes to a bad end, they won't blame those who led us into the quagmire; they'll claim that it was all the fault of the liberal media, which stabbed our troops in the back.

Here we go again: fear and lies on Social Security

http://susiemadrak.com/2006/05/07/19/45/overachiever/

Hey, the Bush admin investigates itself and finds that it did nothing wrong – why shouldn’t corporations be allowed to do the same thing?

http://susiemadrak.com/2006/05/07/19/52/you-mean-self-reporting-isnt-accurate/

Theocracy watch, pt. 1

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20060507/pl_nm/bush_merkel_soul_dc
BERLIN (Reuters) - President George W. Bush said on Sunday he gained a glimpse into German Chancellor Angela Merkel's soul when they met in Washington last week. . . “She spoke of her childhood, of her father who was a pastor, of the (communist youth group) young pioneers, of her school life. And I have to say I got a glimpse into her soul. . .” he said. . . His comments echo ones he made about Russian President Vladimir Putin five years ago. "I was able to get a sense of his soul, a man deeply committed to his country and the best interests of his country," Bush said then.

[NB: It isn’t just Bush’s preference for this sort of metaphor, but his claim to be able to discern such things, that worries me]

Theocracy watch, pt. 2: science has a liberal bias (thanks to John Aravosis for the link)

http://www.centredaily.com/mld/centredaily/news/local/14518329.htm
Researchers organizing a federal panel on sexually transmitted diseases say the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention allowed a congressman to include two abstinence-only proponents, bypassing the scientific approval process.

Rep. Mark Souder, R-Ind., who chairs the House subcommittee on drug policy, questioned the balance of the original panel, which focused on the failure of abstinence-until-marriage programs. In e-mail to Health and Human Services officials, his office asked whether the CDC was "clear about the controversial nature of this session and its obvious anti-abstinence objective."

Lazy, stupid commentary (from supposed “liberals”) continues

http://thinkprogress.org/2006/05/07/liasson-abramoff-false/
NPR’s Liasson Falsely Claims “It’s Democrats, Not Just Republicans Taking Money From Abramoff”. . .

More: http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2006/5/7/161659/1428
[McJoan] Want to know how clueless Mara Liasson is? Even Deborah Howell admits this is a Republican scandal.

[WP] My mistake set off a firestorm. I heard that I was lying, that Democrats never got a penny of Abramoff-tainted money, that I was trying to say it was a bipartisan scandal, as some Republicans claim. I didn't say that. It's not a bipartisan scandal; it's a Republican scandal, and that's why the Republicans are scurrying around trying to enact lobbying reforms.

Bonus item: Hilarious? Idiotic? Sad? Pathetic? You decide

http://www.mydd.com/story/2006/5/7/14024/14859
[Jonathan Singer] In an interview with the German newspaper Bild am Sonntag that has been picked up by British wire service Reuters, President Bush explained that his best moment in office -- his best moment in office -- "was when I caught a 7.5 pound (3.402 kilos) perch in my lake.". . .

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2006_05_01_digbysblog_archive.html#114702721390851346
[Digby] There are, imo, only three ways to understand this comment, assuming it's true. . .

***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 @ 6:43 AM

 
ON A MISSION

“World War III”?!? As things go worse and worse in the real world of choices and consequences, the messianic rhetoric of George W. Bush’s Historical Mission become more and more aggrandizing. What’s next, “The Struggle for the Survival of Humanity”? “The Final Battle Between Good and Evil”?

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20060505/pl_afp/usattacksbushwwiii_060505220719
Bush said the September 11 revolt of passengers against their hijackers on board Flight 93 [was] “our first successful counter-attack in our homeland in this new global war -- World War III.”. . .

In 2002, then-White House spokesman Ari Fleischer explicitly declined to call the hunt for Osama bin Laden's Al-Qaeda group and its followers "World War III."

More: http://americablog.blogspot.com/2006/05/bush-thinks-hes-commander-in-chief-of.html
[John Aravosis] What Bush fails to appreciate is that World War III has always been a metaphor for doomsday, the end of the world. It's not some quaint phrase that brings back the glorious memories of our victory in World War II (days which weren't that quaint, by the way). Bush should know better than to invoke global war. Then again, that's assuming he didn't intend to suggest exactly what he said - that he's leading the battle of the end of times.

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2006/5/6/10153/12430
How is it a world war, Mr. President, when almost all of your "Coalition of the Willing", your Allies if you will, have fled from your cause? Al Zarqawi isn't Hitler, and "Iraqi Liberation Day" won't go down as D-day in the history books. . . It was Osama bin Laden (hey, Mr. President, remember him?) who declared that the war in Iraq was "the Third World War."

“My belief is we will, in fact, be greeted as liberators” (Dick Cheney, September 2003)

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2006/5/6/153757/1223
[NYT] A British military helicopter crashed in the southern city of Basra on Saturday, apparently after being hit by a rocket, drawing crowds of cheering local residents . . .

More: http://www.juancole.com/2006/05/basra-explodes-in-shiite-rage.html

WH excuses for Goss’s sudden departure from the CIA keep multiplying – anything but his connections to Foggo, Wilkes, Cunningham, and Hookergate (then why is it happening now, you wonder, just as that story is breaking and Foggo is about to quit too?)

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/7340.html

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/07/washington/07goss.html

What’s Goss’s explanation?

http://www.cnn.com/2006/POLITICS/05/06/goss.resignation/index.html
Porter Goss said Saturday that his surprise resignation as CIA director is "just one of those mysteries”. . .

Why do CNN and other outlets take these bogus explanations at face value?

http://glenngreenwald.blogspot.com/2006/05/what-happened-to-medias-love-of-sex.html

Well, we’re not buying it, and here’s why

http://www.warandpiece.com/blogdirs/004100.html
[Laura Rozen] According to the WP, the NYT, Time, etc. Goss was forced out yesterday after months of tension between him and John Negroponte over the CIA's reduced turf, and that President Bush lost confidence in Goss "almost from the beginning" (WP).

So then he was forced out on very short notice? No notification to the House Intelligence committee? . . . Does something about this story line that Goss suddenly left because of his long-standing tension with Negroponte, his fraternity brother from Yale, over Goss fighting to hold CIA turf seem a bit canned to you?

The main question is why Goss's departure suddenly became a matter of the deepest urgency yesterday. . .

Negroponte has President Bush's ear every single day when he delivers the President's daily intel brief. If he had been lobbying to get rid of Goss, and the President was inclined to support that decision, there were a hundred ways to do it in a way that would project stability, confidence, normalcy. There was hardly a show of that yesterday. They could have named a successor. There could have been a leak to the press about Goss being tired (remember all the foreshadowing in the press about how tired Andy Card was after all those 20 hour days that preceded his departure?) and wanting to spend more time with his family, or that Bush was unhappy with him. There was none of that. It was a surprise move. What happened this week that Negroponte and Bush acted so swiftly?

More: http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2006_05/008751.php
[Kevin Drum] After all, as Laura points out, the press seems to have rather suddenly discovered this turf war. In fact, I just checked Nexis, and here's what I found: in the week before Friday's announcement, not one single reporter even mentioned the names Porter Goss and John Negroponte in the same story. In the month prior, there was only one piece that mentioned the phrase "turf war," and it wasn't being used to describe problems between Goss and Negroponte. On Thursday, a mere 24 hours before the Goss announcement, the Washington Post's Dana Priest did a one-hour online Q&A and never alluded to tension between Goss and Negroponte, even though she had several chances to do so.

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2006_05_01_digbysblog_archive.html#114692427054638852

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2006_05_01_digbysblog_archive.html#114693614930756421

http://www.needlenose.com/node/view/2935

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2006_04_30.php#008384
[NY Daily News] "It's all about the Duke Cunningham scandal," a senior law enforcement official told the Daily News in reference to Goss' resignation. . .

Goss allegedly knew about Foggo’s shenanigans and has been covering up for him

http://www.warandpiece.com/blogdirs/004101.html
[Laura Rozen] It's my understanding that the CIA has been hearing detailed allegations about Foggo since as early as the first week of December. I don't mean gossip. I mean multiple-sourced, first hand accounts, going back thirty years, as well as outlines of contracts. The natural thing for CIA public affairs to do is: push back very hard on the press. But also -- to go upstairs and tell the boss's staff that there may be a problem.

The thing is, it wasn't only CIA that got early warnings about Foggo - and that he legitimately could be a subject of the FBI corruption investigation surrounding Duke Cunningham and Brent Wilkes, Mitchell Wade, etc. Those details were also shared with the House Intel committee, HIPSI, it is my understanding. Detailed memos. With information that would become known to federal investigators.

And then come around late December, HIPSI decided to investigate the matter of whether Cunningham had improperly steered any contracts to those involved in the bribery scheme. But in an interview with former Senate Intel committee member, he suggested given his past experience that HIPSI would almost certainly be asking the Director of CIA to check into the Foggo matter on his end, and tell them, whether he's clean or pursue further investigation.

As far as I can tell, there was no sign of any CIA investigation of any Foggo role in the matter even opening until March. And perhaps they thought that it might all be able to be handled very quietly. . .

And don't forget this detail reported by Jason Vest: that the woman now serving as Negroponte's #3, Mary Margaret Graham, left the Agency after raising concerns about the appointment of Foggo in the first place to be the CIA's Executive Director; accompanied by a shouting match in which Goss's deputy Patrick Murray -- in apparently his typical charming style -- threatened Graham that if anything about Foggo's past ever leaked out, she would be held personally responsible. . .

More: http://www.mydd.com/story/2006/5/6/125130/5287

Meet the suspects

http://majikthise.typepad.com/majikthise_/2006/05/gossip_the_late.html
[Lindsay Beyerstein] What's the Wilkes-Cunningham Hookergate scandal?

Here's a brief review of the players. . .

Meet Dusty Foggo, Mr. “Poontang”
http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2006_05_01_digbysblog_archive.html#114689328347818395

More to come: http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2006_04_30.php#008387
Federal investigators have apparently interviewed prostitutes involved in the Wilkes-Wade parties. . .

Another of Goss’s failures

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/07/washington/07goss.html
As the Central Intelligence Agency undergoes its latest round of turmoil, legislators and former intelligence officials say that serious gaps in the United States' knowledge of Iran are among the most critical problems facing a new director of the spy agency. . . . A year after a presidential commission gave a scathing assessment of intelligence on Iran, they say, American spy agencies remain severely handicapped in their efforts to assess its weapons programs and its leaders' intentions. Whoever takes the helm of the C.I.A. after the resignation on Friday of Porter J. Goss will confront a critical target with few, if any, American spies on the ground, sketchy communications intercepts and ambiguous satellite images, the experts say. . .

[NB: Don’t forget, Valerie Plame was working on Iran too before her career was ruined]

Goss’s replacement, General Michael Hayden: Be afraid, be very afraid

http://www.firedoglake.com/2006/05/06/id-like-political-enemies-for-800-alex/
Gen. Michael Hayden refused to answer question about spying on political enemies at National Press Club. At a public appearance, Bush’s pointman in the Office of National Intelligence was asked if the NSA was wiretapping Bush’s political enemies. When Hayden dodged the question, the questioner repeated, "No, I asked, are you targeting us and people who politically oppose the Bush government, the Bush administration? Not a fishing net, but are you targeting specifically political opponents of the Bush administration?" Hayden looked at the questioner, and after a silence called on a different questioner. (Hayden National Press Club remarks, 1/23/06)

http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1002463957
QUESTION: Jonathan Landay with Knight Ridder. I'd like to stay on the same issue, and that had to do with the standard by which you use to target your wiretaps. I'm no lawyer, but my understanding is that the Fourth Amendment of the Constitution specifies that you must have probable cause to be able to do a search that does not violate an American's right against unlawful searches and seizures. Do you use --

GEN. HAYDEN: No, actually -- the Fourth Amendment actually protects all of us against unreasonable search and seizure.

QUESTION: But the --

GEN. HAYDEN: That's what it says.

QUESTION: But the measure is probable cause, I believe.

GEN. HAYDEN: The amendment says unreasonable search and seizure.

QUESTION: But does it not say probable --

GEN. HAYDEN: No. The amendment says --

QUESTION: The court standard, the legal standard --

GEN. HAYDEN: -- unreasonable search and seizure.

QUESTION: The legal standard is probable cause, General. You used the terms just a few minutes ago, "We reasonably believe." And a FISA court, my understanding is, would not give you a warrant if you went before them and say "we reasonably believe"; you have to go to the FISA court, or the attorney general has to go to the FISA court and say, "we have probable cause."

And so what many people believe -- and I'd like you to respond to this -- is that what you've actually done is crafted a detour around the FISA court by creating a new standard of "reasonably believe" in place of probable cause because the FISA court will not give you a warrant based on reasonable belief, you have to show probable cause. Could you respond to that, please?

GEN. HAYDEN: Sure. I didn't craft the authorization. I am responding to a lawful order. All right? The attorney general has averred to the lawfulness of the order.

Just to be very clear -- and believe me, if there's any amendment to the Constitution that employees of the National Security Agency are familiar with, it's the Fourth. And it is a reasonableness standard in the Fourth Amendment. . . .

[E&P] Here's the Fourth Amendment: "The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized. "

http://glenngreenwald.blogspot.com/2006/05/new-branch-of-nsa-scandal-appointing.html
[Glenn Greenwald] [I]t is highly illustrative of this administration's mindset that they believe that the best candidate to direct the CIA is the individual who oversaw and vigorously defended the administration's illegal eavesdropping on American citizens. . . [read on]

More: http://talkleft.com/new_archives/014758.html

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2006_05_01_digbysblog_archive.html#114689036815731707

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/7339.html

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/05/06/AR2006050601335.html

Rumsfeld wins

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/05/06/AR2006050601069.html
Agency insiders probably will be suspicious of Hayden, a career military man. They also will be skeptical that the mild-mannered Hayden can protect them from the bureaucratic maneuverings of Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, who in recent years has built up military intelligence and made it more independent of CIA oversight. . .

Even securing Senate confirmation could be tough, especially during a midterm election year in which Democrats will be seeking to regain control of Congress. Hayden has long worked at developing good relationships with members of Congress, but those ties have frayed lately, mainly because of the NSA's domestic surveillance program.

On Dec. 17, 2005, when the existence of that program was revealed in the New York Times, Rep. Jane Harman (Calif.), the ranking Democrat on the House intelligence panel, called Hayden on her cellphone.

The general was on a family outing in Annapolis, but told Harman he would drive back to Washington to brief her and any intelligence panel colleagues on the program. He promised to be there in two hours. Harman began organizing for a briefing, but within the hour Hayden called and canceled. "The White House yanked his permission to do so," Harman said in an interview.

For lawmakers accustomed to his availability, candor and nonpartisan approach, the turnaround came as a shock. "It certainly made some of us wonder whether he's the independent person we thought he was," another member of Congress said.

If confirmed, Hayden's next hurdle would be running and re-energizing the CIA. A senior intelligence official who was willing to discuss Hayden on the condition of anonymity said his qualifications for CIA director are numerous. "He is affable, he is nice and he is probably the senior most qualified intelligence officer in the United States," the official said.

But, said this and several other officials, it would be a mistake to put someone in uniform in charge of a civilian agency. Officials close to Hayden suggested that the four-star general might retire from the military to alleviate those concerns. "It would be a symbolic gesture that would go a long way in painting him as a civilian, rather than another Pentagon man, taking over," one official said. . .

"How will Hayden deal with the land-grabbing from the Pentagon?" asked a former CIA station chief. "That's going to be the real fight."

http://billmon.org/archives/002430.html

More on Rumsfeld’s power-grab: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/05/06/AR2006050601088.html
Congress is taking its first steps to oversee the Defense Department's rapidly growing activities in the foreign and domestic intelligence fields, focusing also on the growing practice of contracting out intelligence analysis to former military personnel. . .

Another stunning failure of oversight

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2006_05_01_digbysblog_archive.html#114689121578893760
[WP] Shirlington Limousine had financial troubles for years before winning two transportation contracts from the Department of Homeland Security in 2004 and 2005 worth $25 million. Department officials said that Baker's company was not the low bidder on either contract, but that they were awarded for "best value," based on Shirlington Limousine's past performance and technical ability.

Homeland Security officials said they did not know that Shirlington Limousine lost a contract for shuttle bus service with Howard University in 2002 amid charges of poor service. Baker did not cite the university contract on his bid proposal, despite instructions to list recent contracts involving similar services.

If Homeland Security had known about the Howard contract or other previous financial problems of the company and its owner, officials said, Shirlington Limousine's bidding score might have been lower -- but not necessarily enough to give the contract to a competitor.

Officials said Baker's criminal record, which includes numerous misdemeanors and two felony convictions, would not have affected the company's bid. When the agency contracts with a company, officials said, they do not check the criminal backgrounds of its executives -- nor do they run their names against the government's terrorist watch list. In Shirlington Limousine's case, only the drivers' backgrounds were checked.

Clark Kent Ervin, the former inspector general for Homeland Security, said the vetting process was badly flawed because it left security gaps and failed to turn up readily available information about Shirlington Limousine's finances and performance.

"At best," he said, the agency was guilty of "really, really poor -- textbook poor -- due diligence."

The Bush gang keeps denying that they torture, but rationalizing (nudge, nudge, wink, wink) “extraordinary rendition”

http://www.ericumansky.com/2006/05/more_tortured_l.html

Email proves DeLay’s lies and criminal intent, and implicates Susan Ralston (now Karl Rove’s assistant) too

http://americablog.blogspot.com/2006/05/newly-released-delayabramoff-emails_06.html

More: http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/us/AP-Abramoff-DeLay.html

Will Ralston flip? http://makeashorterlink.com/?Q1884321D

Libby: Bush and Cheney authorized me to leak

http://makeashorterlink.com/?H2284321D

Acting like winners: Democrats announce what their legislative priorities will be when they take over the House of Representatives

http://americablog.blogspot.com/2006/05/democratic-agenda-for-their-first-week.html
[WP] Their leaders said a Democratic House would quickly vote to raise the minimum wage for the first time since 1997. It would roll back a provision in the Republicans' Medicare prescription drug benefit that prohibits the Department of Health and Human Services from negotiating prices for drugs offered under the program.

It would vote to fully implement the recommendations of the bipartisan panel convened to shore up homeland security after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, Democratic leaders said.

And it would reinstate lapsed rules that say any tax cuts or spending increases have to be offset by spending cuts or tax increases to prevent the federal deficit from growing. . .

The coming right-wing attack on contraception

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2006_05_01_digbysblog_archive.html#114692427514464600

More: http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/07/magazine/07contraception.html

Sunday Talk Show Lineup

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2006/5/7/173/64365
FOX NEWS SUNDAY: Sens. Arlen Specter (R-Pa.) and Joseph R. Biden Jr. (D-Del.), Rep. Peter Hoekstra (R-Mich.) and Washington Nationals owner Mark Lerner.

THIS WEEK (ABC): Sens. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) and Saxby Chambliss (R-Ga.), former House majority leader Tom DeLay (R-Tex.), Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean and outgoing White House press secretary Scott McClellan.

FACE THE NATION (CBS): Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) and Washington Post columnist Colbert I. King.

MEET THE PRESS (NBC): House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), comedian Steve Bridges, Washington Post staff writer Dan Balz and Vanity Fair national editor Todd Purdum.

LATE EDITION (CNN): Health and Human Services Secretary Mike Leavitt, Sen. Pat Roberts (R-Kan.), Rep. Jane Harman (D-Calif.), Iraqi national security adviser Mowaffak al-Rubaie and former CIA deputy director John E. McLaughlin.

Bonus item: “The Death of Policy”

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2006_05/008756.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 @ 7:05 AM

 
PROSTITUTES

Porter Goss, Director of the CIA, quits suddenly with no explanation. The Bush gang wants desperately for people to think this is no big deal – and much of the media helps

http://atrios.blogspot.com/2006_04_30_atrios_archive.html#114685279338412488
CNN is treating this as a perfectly normal event. . . .

http://atrios.blogspot.com/2006_04_30_atrios_archive.html#114685576453345217
According to Tim Russert this is all perfectly normal. . .

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/008375.php
[T]he talking heads on CNN were speculating whether Goss's departure might be part of Josh Bolten's 'new blood' shake up in the Bush administration. . . .

Sadly, it takes Fox News to admit that something more was behind it: http://thinkprogress.org/2006/05/05/kristol-goss/

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2006/5/5/141116/9565
This isn't part of some White House shake-up. This is a scandal-plagued Bush appointee resigning just as an investigation into another Republican corruption scandal hits too close to home. . .

http://www.samefacts.com/archives/the_wayward_press_/2006/05/a_tale_of_two_newspapers.php
[Mark Kleiman] A tale of two newspapers. . .

More: http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2006_05_01_digbysblog_archive.html#114686548523085134

The real reasons: probably more than one

http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1002463645
Asked on MSNBC why Goss really quit, The Washington Post's Dana Priest said, "You're going to have to wait for the morning paper for that. But I'll tell you, the agency is not on an even keel," as Goss claimed today. "His tenure has been very rough. He has not mended fences....Staffers he brought over with him [from Congress] created ill will with senior operatives who ended up resigning," she added.

"It's still very much an agency adrift. Goss did not really fight hard to keep the agency anywhere near what it used to be....Some people have said it is a shadow of its former self....They tried cosmetic changes, but really people there kept asking, what's his plan, what is the strategy, questons that have persisted to this day."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/05/05/AR2006050500937.html
[S]enior administration officials said Bush had lost confidence in Goss, 67, almost from the beginning and decided months ago to replace him. In what was described as a difficult meeting in April with Negroponte, Goss was told to prepare to leave by May, according to several officials with knowledge of the conversation.

"There has been an open conversation for a few weeks, through Negroponte, with the acknowledgment of the president" about replacing Goss, said a senior White House official who discussed the internal deliberations on the condition of anonymity. Another senior White House official said Goss had always been viewed as a "transitional figure" who would leave by year's end. . .

http://www.ericumansky.com/2006/05/pssst_he_was_du.html
[WP] [A]dministration officials said Goss never forged a strong relationship with Bush. "It just didn't click," one official said, speaking on the condition of anonymity. The former congressman's reserved personality and inability to master details of intelligence activities dampened the atmosphere of the president's morning intelligence briefing, which had been a central feature of the close relationship between Bush and Tenet.

[Eric Umansky] Right, that would be the guy y'all hired to head the CIA.

http://www.slate.com/id/2141224/
Around a dozen senior agency officials either resigned in protest or asked for reassignment under Goss's leadership. . .

http://americablog.blogspot.com/2006/05/wash-post-goss-was-forced-out-for.html
[John Aravosis] Porter Goss was the guy who once admitted that he wasn't even qualified to be an analyst at the CIA, let alone run the place. . . Now Goss is being forced out for being incompetent. During wartime, no less.

But don't even forget why this incompetent man was put in charge of the CIA during wartime. The Great Decider put him there. This is what happens when an incompetent joke of a president sits in the Oval Office. . .

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/06/washington/06intel.html
The president "has been pleased" with Mr. Goss's leadership, the official said, adding that the agency had "gone through a tumultuous period of change, and he's been the figure who's had to implement that change, and that makes you a divisive figure." . . .

http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/story?id=1928997&page=1
Sources tell ABC News that Negroponte told Goss just last week that it was time for him to resign. A senior CIA source said that the two men had at least three management disputes — including Negroponte's desire to move personnel out of the CIA Counterterrorism Center into the new National Counterterrorism Center, and Negroponte's perceived micromanaging in which he wanted a say over CIA station chiefs.

The same source said that some of Negroponte's senior staff were ex-CIA workers and had a grudge against Goss. . .

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/05/05/AR2006050501738.html
Goss, then the Republican chairman of the House intelligence panel, was handpicked by the White House to purge what some in the administration viewed as a cabal of wily spies working to oppose administration policy in Iraq. "He came in to clean up without knowing what he was going to clean up," one former intelligence official said.

Goss's counterinsurgency campaign was so crudely executed by his top lieutenants, some of them former congressional staffers, that they drove out senior and mid-level civil servants who were unwilling to accept the accusation that their actions were politically motivated, some intelligence officers and outside experts said. . .

Four former deputy directors of operations once tried to offer Goss advice about changing the clandestine service without setting off a rebellion, but Goss declined to speak to any of them, said former CIA officials who are aware of the communications. The perception that Goss was conducting a partisan witch hunt grew, too, as staffers asked about the party affiliation of officers who sent in cables or analyses on Iraq that contradicted the Defense Department's more optimistic scenarios. . .

http://www.tpmcafe.com/node/29574
[Larry Johnson] A former CIA buddy tells me that Porter's main problem, however, is a key staffer who is linked to both Brent Wilkes and the CIA's Executive Director, Dusty Foggo. My friend also said that it is highly likely that the Goss staffer did participate in the hooker extravaganza. Goss, politician that he is, probably recognized that even though he did not participate in the sexual escapades and poker games, his staffer's participation created a huge problem for him that would be difficult to escape. . . .

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2006/5/5/141116/9565
Goss's hand-picked #3 man at the CIA, Kyle "Dusty" Foggo. . .is under serious investigation in connection with a massive bribery scheme that touches on sweetheart deals, million dollar contracts, and yes, even hookers. . .

http://billmon.org/archives/002429.html
[Billmon] I definitely have the feeling that we don't even know one quarter of the story behind Porter Goss's resignation. . .

Background on “Hookergate” http://www.alternet.org/story/35841/

http://thinkprogress.org/2006/05/05/breaking-cia-director-porter-goss-resigns/

More to come!

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/008376.php
[Josh Marshall] The hookers in Hookergate are, of course, the sizzle. But there's a bigger story. It stems directly from the Randy "Duke" Cunningham bribery scandal, which many had figured was over. But it's not. You may have noticed that while Duke Cunningham is already in jail and Mitchell Wade has already pled guilty to multiple charges, Brent Wilkes has never been touched. Wilkes is the ur-briber at the heart of the Cunningham scandal, you can see pretty clearly by reading the other indictments and plea agreements. Wade was Wilkes' protege.

Now, on the surface one might surmise that the prosecutors are just taking their time, putting together their best case.

I hear different.

Wilkes has deep ties into the CIA. The focal point of those ties is to Kyle "Dusty" Foggo, the man Porter Goss appointed to the #3 position at CIA when he took over the Agency last year. Remember, Wilkes' scam was getting corrupt contracts deep in the 'black' world of intelligence and defense appropriations, where there's little or no oversight. Foggo was in the contracting and procurement field at the CIA. So you can see how he and Wilkes, who have been friends since high school, had plenty to talk about.

The CIA wasn't the only place Wilkes and his protege Wade plied their corrupt trade. There were also in the mix contracting on the Bush Pentagon's extra-constitutional spying operations. And I am told that senior appointees at the DOD knew about their corruption but overlooked it. . . [more!]

http://www.warandpiece.com/blogdirs/004093.html
Spencer Ackerman gets a flat out denial from CIA public affairs that Goss's resignation has anything to do with CIA Executive Director Dusty Foggo. . .

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2006_04_30.php#008383
[T]he WSJ got the goods. Kyle "Dusty" Foggo, #3 man at CIA, hand-picked by Porter Goss, is under federal criminal investigation in the Wilkes-Cunningham bribery and contracts scandal.

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/008381.php
WaPo: Foggo tells colleagues he's resigning next week. . .

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2006/05/05/were-hearing-resignat_n_20444.html
We're Hearing. . . Resignation Of A Pentagon Under-Secretary Also Imminent. . .

More: http://www.warandpiece.com/blogdirs/004092.html

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/7334.html
[Steve Benen] I think it's fair to say that Porter Goss' resignation is poised to be the next big disaster for Bush's presidency. . .

Goss’s replacement may be even worse

http://www.cosmictap.com/2006/05/hayden_as_goss_repla_1.html
[Anthony Citrano] General Michael Hayden's name is being floated tonight by senior officials as a potential replacement for fired CIA chief Porter Goss. Hayden is principal deputy director of US intelligence and was the director of the NSA for five years. He carried out the President's unconstitutional spying on hundreds (or possibly thousands) of Americans . . .

More: http://americablog.blogspot.com/2006/05/bushs-new-cia-chief-will-likely-be-man.html

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/06/washington/06hayden.html
General Hayden, the principal deputy director of national intelligence, would also face serious questions about the controversy over the National Security Agency's domestic surveillance program, which he oversaw and has vigorously defended.

His Senate nomination hearing, if he is chosen to succeed Director Porter J. Goss, is likely to reignite debate over what civil libertarians say is the program's violation of Americans' privacy. . .

And in Britain!

http://www.thewashingtonnote.com/archives/001380.php
Tony Blair is demoting British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw . . .

Straws in the wind on Plame?

http://atrios.blogspot.com/2006_04_30_atrios_archive.html#114687600187896710
[MSNBC]
• Inbetween chatting with Miller and chatting with Cooper about Plame the CIA warned Libby about the implications of discussing Plame (opens up the possibility of actually charging him for the leak itself).
• "Tea leaves" say Rove's going to be indicted.

Ray McGovern, as covered here yesterday, confronted Rumsfeld with one of his most blatant lies about WMD in Iraq. How does the press cover this? McGovern must be an extremist and nutjob with an axe to grind

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2006/5/5/115429/1086

http://glenngreenwald.blogspot.com/2006/05/time-to-smear-latest-bush-critic.html

http://www.discourse.net/archives/2006/05/more_on_rumsfled.html
[Michael Froomkin] I was quite struck by two features of this AP article, Rumsfeld Is Confronted by Antiwar Protesters, on Rumsfeld's encounter with Ray McGovern.

Consider the first three paragraphs:

ATLANTA, May 4 -- Antiwar protesters repeatedly interrupted Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld during a speech Thursday, and one man, a former CIA analyst, accused him in a question-and-answer session of lying about prewar intelligence on Iraq.

"Why did you lie to get us into a war that caused these kind of casualties and was not necessary?" asked Ray McGovern, the former analyst.

"I did not lie," shot back Rumsfeld, who waved off security guards ready to remove McGovern from the hall at the Southern Center for International Studies.

First, note that neither here nor elsewhere in the article does the reporter note that McGovern read Rumsfeld his own statement. The result is to suggest the trading of accusations, not the allegation of a fact and the failure to respond to it.

Second, and most shocking of all, the reporter seems utterly unfazed by the idea that asking a tough question in a public meeting might suffice as grounds to have security wrestle McGovern away. Only Rumsfeld's indulgence, he 'waved off security guards' saved him.

How have we come to this?

More: http://mediamatters.org/items/200605060001
NBC, CBS, Fox cropped Rumsfeld questioner's challenges, Rumsfeld's "stammer[ing]" replies . . .

U.S. still ducking torture questions

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2006/5/5/21933/18370
The U.S. launched a defense of its policy on human rights today at a hearing meant to evaluate American compliance with the U.N. Convention Against Torture. It marked the first time in six years that the U.S. has appeared before the U.N. panel. The panelists grilled the U.S. delegation on Guantanamo, the U.S. definition of torture, and more. . .

More: http://www.first-draft.com//modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=5957

Two horrible court nominees who have been repeatedly rejected get renominated by Bush: one is already dead in the water – let’s get the other one too

Boyle: http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room/2006/05/05/boyle/index.html

Kavanaugh: http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/nationworld/bal-te.kavanaugh05may05,0,2345850.story

Voter intensity: the key to the 2006 elections

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2006/5/5/10182/02940

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

I don't get anything personally out of this project, except the satisfaction of doing it (I don't run ads, etc). The credit really all goes to the people whose material I copy and redistribute. But if I do have a "mission," it is to get this information into the hands of as many people as I can.***
- posted by Nick Burbules @ 7:39 AM

 
SPEAKING TRUTH TO POWER

On the Iraq war

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/008361.php
[Josh Marshall] It is with a special anguish that I now read George Packer's New Yorker dispatches on Iraq. But I thought George captured the moral dimension of our current national predicament in one sentence in his piece in this week's Talk of the Town, where he describes the president's strategy as "muddling through the rest of the Bush Presidency, without being forced to admit defeat, until January of 2009, when the war will become a new President's problem."

This really is the issue. Brazen it out, burn off men and money, not admit there's any real problem and then pass it off on the next guy who will take the blame.

The president lacks the courage to change course. The whole country is paralyzed by his cowardice.

More: http://atrios.blogspot.com/2006_04_30_atrios_archive.html#114678670765998789

On prewar lies

http://atrios.blogspot.com/2006_04_30_atrios_archive.html#114677187418432684
QUESTION: So I would like to ask you to be up front with the American people, why did you lie to get us into a war that was not necessary, that has caused these kinds of casualties? why?

RUMSFELD: Well, first of all, I haven’t lied. I did not lie then. . .

QUESTION: You said you knew where they were.

RUMSFELD: I did not. I said I knew where suspect sites were and –

QUESTION: You said you knew where they were Tikrit, Baghdad, northeast, south, west of there. Those are your words.

RUMSFELD: My words — my words were that — no, no, wait a minute, wait a minute. . .

["We know where they are. They’re in the area around Tikrit and Baghdad and east, west, south and north somewhat." Rumsfeld, March 2003]

More: http://www.juancole.com/2006/05/rumsfeld-it-depends-on-what-meaning-of.html

[NB: A big shout out to Ray McGovern, for standing up to Rumsfeld]

On the Moussaoui trial

http://www.samefacts.com/archives/torture_/2006/05/michael_isikoff_connects_the_dots.php
Isikoff's analysis:

1. When Moussaoui was captured, there was some thought that he was centrally involved in the 9-11 plot.

2. Later it was discovered that he wasn't.

3. It was decided to put him on trial anyway, because we needed someone to try.

4. The central plotters (other than bin Laden) are all in U.S. custody, but they haven't been tried and won't be tried.

5. Top people on the President's staff (Gonzales) and the Vice President's staff (Addington) decided to authorize waterboarding and related methods of "aggressive interrogation" as applied to the top plotters.

6. Having tortured them, the Administration can't now put them on trial without having their defense lawyers put the facts about their maltreatment on the official record.

More: http://billmon.org/archives/002425.html

Pathetic

http://www.slate.com/id/2141142
[Eric Umansky] "U.S. TELLS OF IRAQ INSURGENTS' NEW TACTICS," says the LAT. New? Really?

http://www.needlenose.com/node/view/2931
[NYT] . . . with the release of the out-takes today the American military sought to send a . . . message: That Mr. Zarqawi is a poseur who can't even fire a basic infantry weapon and walks around in comfortable shoes.

In last week's video, "He is very proud he can operate this machine gun," General Lynch said. It was, "Look at me. I'm a capable leader of a capable organization."

"But what he didn't show you was the clip I showed you," General Lynch said. "Wearing New Balance sneakers with his uniform, surrounded by supposedly competent subordinates who grabbed the hot barrel of a just-fired machine gun."

The general continued: "We have a warrior leader, Zarqawi, who doesn't understand how to operate his weapons system and has to rely on his subordinates to clear a weapons stoppage. It makes you wonder."

[Swopa] No, it doesn't, Gen. Lynch. You know what makes me wonder? The fact that this guy is supposedly such an ignorant poseur, and yet for three years he's been slaughtering Iraqis at will and you can't stop him.

If Zarqawi is a laughable incompetent, general, what does that make you?. . .

No Habla Español

http://www.first-draft.com//modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=5949
[Reuters] The White House on Thursday disputed an account of President George W. Bush singing the U.S. national anthem in Spanish during the 2000 presidential campaign, saying his Spanish is not that good. . . White House spokesman Scott McClellan said the assertion did not ring true to him because, "The president speaks Spanish, but not that well." . . . "I'm saying that not only was that suggestion absurd, but that he couldn't possibly sing the national anthem in Spanish. He's not that good with his Spanish," McClellan said.

http://atrios.blogspot.com/2006_04_30_atrios_archive.html#114675698298094608
[AP] Bush also speaks fluent Spanish . . .

[NYT] He also showed off his Spanish, which is fluent, by firing off a sentence in Spanish. . .

[National Review] He was fluent in Spanish, which appeals to that minority. . . .

[PBS] RICHARD RODRIGUEZ: I was listening the other day to Governor Bush speak fluent Spanish to Hispanic voters. . .

[CNN] PRESS: Well, I wonder how good George Bush's Spanish is. Did he know what the lyrics were before he said they ought to play the song at the convention? I don't know.

O'BRIEN: Yes, he says he's fluent. . . [more]

Laura stands by her man

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/7319.html
"I don't think there is anything wrong with singing it in Spanish. . . We are a nation of many, many languages, because immigrants come and bring their languages. . .”

[25 seconds later. . .]

"I think it should be sung in English, of course."

Shut UP Laura

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2006_05/008739.php
Apparently Laura Bush defended her hubby yesterday by telling CNN's John King that when he gave a nationally televised speech under a "Mission Accomplished" banner on the U.S.S. Abraham Lincoln three years ago, he only meant that the mission of that particular aircraft carrier had been accomplished. . .

Bush hits another new low in popularity

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060505/ap_on_el_ge/republicans_ap_poll

Abramoff: 200 contacts with the Bush team, just in their first 10 months in office!

http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/news/politics/14474586.htm

The Kavanaugh hearings: this is a BAD guy

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2006/5/4/154524/7162

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2006/5/3/212156/1492

The new GOP fundraising letter

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2006_04_30.php#008366
"If Democrats take control of the Senate in '06, they will cancel the Bush tax cuts, allow liberal activist judges to run our courts and undermine all Republican efforts to win the War on Terror.

Even worse, they will call for endless congressional investigations and possibly call for the impeachment of President Bush!

Please help the NRSC protect our President, our conservative agenda and our critical GOP Senate Majority by making an urgent online donation today."

“The whiff of panic” http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/7316.html

Count your blessings that Bill Frist is the head of the Senate Republicans

http://atrios.blogspot.com/2006_04_30_atrios_archive.html#114679997674639040

Katherine Harris implodes

http://miaculpa.blogspot.com/2006/05/kathy-kathy-kathy.html
Former senior members of U.S. Rep. Katherine Harris' congressional staff say they initially rejected a defense contractor's $10 million appropriation request last year but reversed course after being instructed by Harris to approve it.

Harris insisted that Mitchell Wade's request for funding be given to a defense appropriations subcommittee, despite the request's being late and difficult to understand, according to two former staff members and Harris' former chief political strategist. . .

Flag fetish

http://www.prospect.org/weblog/2006/05/post_275.html
Ryan Lizza's just posted a devastating follow-up to his TNR cover story on Virginia Senator and likely presidential contender George Allen. The take-home: Allen's love affair with the slave-holding past was no youthful affectation. Writes Lizza:

Images of Allen are like a Civil War version of Where's Waldo, with the Confederate flag replacing the bespectacled cartoon character. First, as The New Republic reported last week, there's the senior class photo from Palos Verdes High School with Allen wearing a Confederate flag pin ("Pin Prick," May 8). Now we learn that the Confederate flag appears as a decoration in Allen's first statewide ad, even though he has long maintained that the flag did not adorn his home after 1992. . .

According to his colleagues, classmates, and published reports, Allen has either displayed the flag--on himself, his car, inside his home--or expressed his enthusiastic approval of the emblem from approximately 1967 to 2000.

Is racism dead? You decide

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2006_05_01_digbysblog_archive.html#114671741780975374

Why the Washington press corps doesn’t want to tell us the Emperor has no clothes

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/blog/2006/05/04/BL2006050400967.html
[Dan Froomkin] The way I see it, the Washington press corps is still appropriately embarrassed that they screwed up in the run-up to war. Now, as Bush's approval ratings fester, they are getting bolder in challenging the official White House line on any number of issues. They're justifiably proud of a handful of great investigative pieces. . . But they still haven't addressed the central issue Colbert was raising: Bush's credibility.

More: http://atrios.blogspot.com/2006_04_30_atrios_archive.html#114679812307971930

A little defensive, eh?

http://www.prospect.org/web/page.ww?section=root&name=ViewWeb&articleId=11465
[Greg Sargent] In recent weeks, one member after another of the D.C. media establishment has gone out of his way to depict bloggers as hysterical, angry and destructive. To hear them tell it, bloggers sitting at their computers are akin to squalling brats in high-chairs chucking baby food at their sober, serious elders -- i.e., major figures at the established news organizations.

Not long ago, The Washington Post’s Jim Brady lamented “blog rage.” Joe Klein’s latest column complained about “vitriol” and “all the left-wing screeching.” Former Bill Clinton press secretary Mike McCurry recently told us that reporters are complaining they feel "intimidated" because “most of the blogosphere spends hours making them feel that way.” And a CBS opinion piece recently asked: "Does noise trump contemplation in the blogosphere?"

What’s all this really about? These skirmishes, obviously, are part of a much larger war between established opinion-makers and bloggers, in which the establishment figures continually profess themselves dismayed by the tone of the blogosphere. It’s a conflict that isn’t going away anytime soon. But guess what: This fight doesn’t really have anything to do with the “tone” of the blogosphere at all. Rather, it’s actually about the efforts of bloggers to establish the legitimacy of their medium, and about the reluctance of major news organizations and their employees to recognize that legitimacy. . .

More: http://atrios.blogspot.com/2006_04_30_atrios_archive.html#114677770769523916

Bonus item: Fox “News”

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/05/03/AR2006050302299.html

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

I don't get anything personally out of this project, except the satisfaction of doing it (I don't run ads, etc). The credit really all goes to the people whose material I copy and redistribute. But if I do have a "mission," it is to get this information into the hands of as many people as I can.***
- posted by Nick Burbules @ 7:59 AM

 
WHAT IF?

I’m opposed to the death penalty anyway, but all I want to say about the Moussaoui trial and verdict is how interesting it is that the govt case put all its emphasis on the idea that “if he had given accurate information to FBI investigators, 9-11 could have been prevented.” That may be true – but isn’t it convenient for them to deflect all the other “what if” questions about how 9-11 could have been prevented: What if the FBI had paid attention to information that young Arab men were taking flight training, but weren’t interested in learning to LAND planes? What if various government agencies weren’t so jealous in protecting their turf and actually shared their intelligence with each other? What if we had a President who was paying attention when he received a Daily Briefing headlined “Bin Laden Determined to Strike in the U.S.,” one month before the event? What if, indeed?

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/05/03/AR2006050300324.html
Three jurors took it upon themselves to write that Moussaoui had "limited knowledge of the 9/11 attack plans." . . .

http://www.slate.com/id/2141042
[Eric Umansky] There has never been significant evidence that Moussaoui was in on the 9/11 plot. Alleged 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohamed told investigators Moussaoui was too nuts to be included. In an apparent bid at martyrdom, Moussaoui testified he had been planning to fly a fifth plane that day. But the government later acknowledged there was no evidence of that. . .

In Afghanistan (the supposedly “successful” war), the U.S withdraws and concedes failure. Is this Iraq’s future?

http://www.needlenose.com/node/view/2925
[NYT] Building on a winter campaign of suicide bombings and assassinations and the knowledge that American troops are leaving, the Taliban appear to be moving their insurgency into a new phase, flooding the rural areas of southern Afghanistan with weapons and men. . . "The Taliban and Al Qaeda are everywhere," a shopkeeper, Haji Saifullah, told the commander of American forces in Afghanistan, Lt. Gen. Karl Eikenberry, as the general strolled through the bazaar of this town to talk to people. "It is all right in the city, but if you go outside the city, they are everywhere, and the people have to support them. They have no choice."

The fact that American troops are pulling out of southern Afghanistan in the coming months, and handing matters over to NATO peacekeepers, who have repeatedly stated that they are not going to fight terrorists, has given a lift to the insurgents, and increased the fears of Afghans. . .

http://www.angus-reid.com/polls/index.cfm/fuseaction/viewItem/itemID/11762
Fewer Americans are satisfied with the way their president is dealing with the situation in Iraq, according to a poll by CBS News. 30 per cent of respondents approve of the way George W. Bush is approaching the issue, down eight points since May 2005. . .

Arlen Specter is making noises again about challenging Bush’s claims to untrammeled Presidential power. Maybe he’ll do something about it this time . . .

http://www.boston.com/news/nation/washington/articles/2006/05/03/hearing_vowed_on_bushs_powers/
The chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, accusing the White House of a ''very blatant encroachment" on congressional authority, said yesterday he will hold an oversight hearing into President Bush's assertion that he has the power to bypass more than 750 laws enacted over the past five years. . . ''There is some need for some oversight by Congress to assert its authority here," Arlen Specter, Republican of Pennsylvania, said in an interview. ''What's the point of having a statute if . . . the president can cherry-pick what he likes and what he doesn't like?"

http://glenngreenwald.blogspot.com/2006/05/specter-to-hold-hearings-on-bushs.html
[Glenn Greenwald] To recap: a Republican Senator is vowing to hold hearings because the President of the United States has embraced theories which maintain that he has the right to break the law and has, consistent with those theories, been breaking the law repeatedly and deliberately. Maybe some journalists other than Savage and The Boston Globe could tell their readers about that extremely significant fact. . .

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/blog/2006/05/03/BL2006050301149.html
[Dan Froomkin] It could turn out to be the political event of the summer. Or it could just be another empty promise from the sporadically rebellious Republican chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee . . .

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/7305.html
[Steve Benen] At the risk of sounding optimistic . . .

More on possible filibusters over the Boyle and Kavanaugh nominations

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/7306.html

The fall elections are still six months away – “a lifetime in politics,” as they say – but man are the Republicans in trouble right now

http://susiemadrak.com/2006/05/03/14/37/sea-change-coming/
[Gallup] Most Americans believe that the Democrats will win control of the House of Representatives after the elections this fall. . .

http://politicalwire.com/archives/2006/05/03/is_a_senate_takeover_more_likely.html
The Hotline's Chuck Todd thinks the Senate is more vulnerable than the House for a Democratic takeover this year. . .

http://americablog.blogspot.com/2006/05/gop-energy-policy-panic-stunts-and.html
[Joe] Panic is setting in. . .

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2006/5/3/61149/48815
[DarkSyde] Republicans are practically twitching . . .

http://politicalwire.com/archives/2006/05/03/republicans_face_near_lethal_environment.html
A new strategy memo from James Carville and Stan Greenberg says the discontent with Republicans "has moved now to a new level" and that the GOP's motivation in pushing an immigration bill is "to consolidate and energize their voters in a near lethal environment." . . .

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2006/5/3/10032/54564
[Georgia10] Things are so bad for the GOP, their numbers can't get any worse, can they? Let's look at what Republicans face over the next few months. . .

More: http://billmon.org/archives/002424.html

Whoa ho ho!

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/7311.html
[Pew] Even among one of the president's most supportive constituencies, white evangelical Protestants, Mr. Bush has suffered declines. . .

But the most encouraging indicator is the number of Republicans who are saying that things are just fine, and they don’t plan to change anything

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2006/5/3/11530/42862
[SusanG] GOP incumbents with mammoth war chests seem fairly confident that they can run on local issues and keep their seats. . .

Keep talking: http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2006_04_30.php#008357

The Republicans play the American people for fools, passing an utterly phony “ethics reform” package

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/04/washington/04lobby.html
[T]he measure falls short of what Republican leaders promised . . .

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/7310.html
[Steve Benen] The good news is the House is poised to vote on a measure today that allegedly will change the way the chamber operates. The bad news is it's a plan crafted by House Republicans, which is hollow and insulting. . . .

[NB: Of course, I say this IS the good news, since a phony plan is worse than no plan at all. The Republicans have been saying that they think the scandal issue isn’t a serious threat to them – but the worst news to break is still to come]

As I said, more (much more) to come. . .

http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/000528.php

http://www.warandpiece.com/blogdirs/004087.html

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2006_04_30.php#008359

Did the Plame grand jury meet again?

http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room/2006/05/03/libby/index.html

BradBlog, the source of all things pertaining to vote theft and e-voting abuses, nails Ohio (again)

http://www.bradblog.com/archives/00002774.htm

More: http://americablog.blogspot.com/2006/05/new-voting-machines-in-ohio-cause.html

Rush Limbaugh, liar (so what else is new?)

http://atrios.blogspot.com/2006_04_30_atrios_archive.html#114667635696511088
Conservative king Rush Limbaugh opened his talk show Monday with an account of the agreement he struck with prosecutors and his quick trip to the Palm Beach County Jail Friday.

"There was no arrest. There were no handcuffs. There was no perp walk. There is no charge," said Limbaugh. . .

But according to the agreement, signed and finalized Monday, there is, of course, a charge: withholding information from a practitioner, doctor-shopping, a felony, hanging over his head.

And according to a jail official, Limbaugh's surrender on a warrant and his booking at the jail certainly is an arrest.

"It's all semantics," says Capt. Mark Chamberlain, a jail supervisor, about whether a person who surrenders can be called "arrested." "But it's definitely going to count in our booking statistics as an arrest."

Bonus item: a treasure trove for news junkies

http://politicalwire.com/archives/2006/05/03/full_digital_replicas_of_250_newspapers.html

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

I don't get anything personally out of this project, except the satisfaction of doing it (I don't run ads, etc). The credit really all goes to the people whose material I copy and redistribute. But if I do have a "mission," it is to get this information into the hands of as many people as I can.***
- posted by Nick Burbules @ 7:10 AM

 
OVER THE TOP

Well, we now know the “new and improved” Bush/GOP agenda: more war-mongering, more tax cuts, more reactionary judges

More war: http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2006_04_30.php#008348
Ken Mehlman spoke at the American Jewish Committee's 100th anniversary event this morning. And I hear that when he told the crowd that Iraq is less of a threat or a challenge today than it was under Saddam he got roundly booed. . .

More tax cuts: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/05/02/AR2006050201290.html

More bad judges: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/05/02/AR2006050201536.html
After months of relative quiet, senators raised the prospect yesterday of a return to bitter battles and a possible filibuster over judicial nominations, as the White House urged confirmation of two conservative nominees who have sought approval for years.

http://talkleft.com/new_archives/014723.html

Britain, Italy, prepare to withdraw from Iraq

http://www.juancole.com/2006/05/british-to-withdraw-from-maysan.html

Well, at least ONE thing is going well. . .

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,7374-2162249,00.html
In the chaos of Iraq, one project is on target: a giant US embassy
THE question puzzles and enrages a city: how is it that the Americans cannot keep the electricity running in Baghdad for more than a couple of hours a day, yet still manage to build themselves the biggest embassy on Earth?

Irritation grows as residents deprived of air-conditioning and running water three years after the US-led invasion watch the massive US Embassy they call “George W’s palace” rising from the banks of the Tigris.

In the pavement cafés, people moan that the structure is bigger than anything Saddam Hussein built. They are not impressed by the architects’ claims that the diplomatic outpost will be visible from space . . .

New documents implicate higher officers in torture and prisoner abuse

http://talkleft.com/new_archives/014725.html

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/12602098/
Torture and inhumane treatment are “widespread” in U.S.-run prisons in Afghanistan, Iraq, Cuba and elsewhere despite Washington’s denials, Amnesty International said on Wednesday. . .

More war crimes? http://www.first-draft.com//modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=5921

The New Racism

http://www.opinionjournal.com/editorial/feature.html?id=110008318
[Shelby Steele] Because dissociation from the racist and imperialist stigma is so tied to legitimacy in this age of white guilt, America's act of going to war can have legitimacy only if it seems to be an act of social work--something that uplifts and transforms the poor brown nation (thus dissociating us from the white exploitations of old). . . White guilt makes our Third World enemies into colored victims, people whose problems--even the tyrannies they live under--were created by the historical disruptions and injustices of the white West. We must "understand" and pity our enemy even as we fight him. And, though Islamic extremism is one of the most pernicious forms of evil opportunism that has ever existed, we have felt compelled to fight it with an almost managerial minimalism that shows us to be beyond the passions of war--and thus well dissociated from the avariciousness of the white supremacist past.

Anti-Americanism, whether in Europe or on the American left, works by the mechanism of white guilt. It stigmatizes America with all the imperialistic and racist ugliness of the white Western past so that America becomes a kind of straw man, a construct of Western sin. (The Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo prisons were the focus of such stigmatization campaigns.). . .

There are no serious advocates of white supremacy in America today, because whites see this idea as morally repugnant. If there is still the odd white bigot out there surviving past his time, there are millions of whites who only feel goodwill toward minorities. . . This is a fact that must be integrated into our public life--absorbed as new history--so that America can once again feel the moral authority to seriously tackle its most profound problems. Then, if we decide to go to war, it can be with enough ferocity to win.

Reactions:http://glenngreenwald.blogspot.com/2006/05/time-to-stop-feeling-guilty-and-start.html
[Glenn Greenwald] Time to stop feeling guilty and start really bombing
The Wall St. Journal's Opinion Journal today published an Op-Ed by Shelby Steele that advances one of the most truly incoherent and just plain inane arguments I have read in a long time. And in response, many pro-war Bush defenders are drooling with reverence and praise, and for some reason, are viewing Steele's piece as some sort of license to unleash some of the truly ugly impulses which they usually have the decency, or at least political sense, to hide. . . [read on!]

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2006_05_01_digbysblog_archive.html#114662600539957675
[Digby] The only thing I can add is that I'm not surprised, by either the racism or the embrace of all out war against the the newly "liberated" Iraqis. . . We are finally seeing the facade of civilization crumble, leaving only the conservative id.

The argument here is that racism is dead so we needn't worry about killing, deporting, marginalizing or demonizing "the other." How convenient for the party that has been exploiting the southern strategy for forty years and finds itself nearly as unpopular as the disgraced president who first embraced it.

http://dneiwert.blogspot.com/2006/05/end-of-end-of-racism.html
[David Neiwert] The notion that racism is dead has been a favorite theme of the right for awhile now. It began, probably, with the Thernstroms' America in Black and White, and continued with Dinesh D'Souza's The End of Racism. In a similar vein, the new White House Press Secretary, Tony Snow, suggested awhile back that he thinks racism a dead issue . .

http://billmon.org/archives/002422.html
[Billmon] America, it seems, has lost its warrior mojo because it is crippled -- haunted, tormented, curled up in agony in a fetal position on the floor -- by its historical legacy of racial oppression and injustice, or rather, by the left's determination to keep rubbing white Americans faces in that injustice. . . .

They were for it before they were against it: GOP flip-flops mightily on its own “gas rebate” proposal

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-congress3may03,1,5589334.story
Republicans denounced their own gas price rebate plan Tuesday, acknowledging that sending a $100 check to American taxpayers would do little to ease the pain of high prices or address their cause. . .

Big trouble: http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2006/5/3/61149/48815

The latest on the Wilkes/Cunningham scandal

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2006_04_30.php#008350

Ever notice what happens to Republicans when they try to manage their personal finances the way they manage the federal budget?

http://www.first-draft.com//modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=5918
[Holden] Tom DeLay is spending his legal defense fund money faster than he is taking it in. . .

Hmmm. . . now the WH is hinting that Secret Service records WON’T document all the times when Jack Abramoff visited Bush and his officials (why not?)

http://makeashorterlink.com/?U2DC51D0D

The facts have a liberal bias

http://glenngreenwald.blogspot.com/2006/05/facts-that-reflect-poorly-on-president.html
[Glenn Greenwald] MSNBC reporter David Schuster reported yesterday that at the time the Bush administration disclosed her employment with the CIA, Valerie Plame was working on a project "tracking the proliferation of nuclear weapons material into Iran.". . . For obvious reasons, these facts, if true, reflect very poorly on the administration, particularly given its current claims that Iran is the new Nazi Germany, that it is the world's greatest threat to all that is Good, and that stopping Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons is the overarching national security priority. Outing a CIA agent working on precisely that problem, all in order to discredit a political critic, is extremely embarrassing, to put it mildly.

So, if you are a person who defends the administration no matter what, what is there to say about this? You begin by insisting that it's just not true -- it can't be -- and mix in those denials with some nice, distracting character smears. Jeff Goldstein, for instance, says that this MSNBC report is almost surely not true because, among other reasons, the Leader and his aides would never do something to harm the interests of the United States over something as insignificant as Joe Wilson. . .

Taking a different approach, Bush defender AJ Strata is angry that Americans even learned about this information. . .

And with his characteristically substantive commentary, Tom Maguire insists that the whole thing just can't be true -- it just can't be -- because the reporter, Shuster, is a "lying weasel" and "an ignorant clown.". . .

The denial is so steadfast, immediate and shrill because the notion that perhaps it's true never occurs to them. They begin with the premise that any fact that reflects poorly on the Leader is false, and then set out in search for rationale to prove that. . . .

Poor mainstream media, mean old bloggers

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/008342.php
[Josh Marshall] [I] want to delve a bit deeper into the second claim -- not McCurry's alone -- that mainstream journalists are beleaguered, intimidated and friendless and that the main culprits are a few high traffic bloggers. . . It's really astonishing the amount of self-pity and silliness one hears along these lines today. . .

En Español

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,193582,00.html
The national anthem should be sung in English — not Spanish — President Bush declared Friday. . .

http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2006/05/20060502-4.html
Q Scott, I wonder -- on Friday, the President firmly said he believes the National Anthem should be sung in English. Kevin Phillips, the Republican analyst, wrote a book called American Dynasty, and in there he claims that during the President's 2000 campaign, he did sing the Star Spangled Banner in Spanish at some Hispanic festivals, various campaign events. Are you aware, do you recall that from the 2000 campaign?

MR. McCLELLAN: No, I don't.

Q Do you think that that would be counter to what the President laid out on Friday?

MR. McCLELLAN: I don't recall that, and I'm not going to try to speculate on something I haven't looked into. . .

More: http://thinkprogress.org/2006/05/02/national-anthem-sung-in-spanish-at-first-bush-inaugural/

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2006_05_01_digbysblog_archive.html#114660913140412787

http://www.slate.com/id/2140989
[Eric Umansky] A few days after President Bush said he wants the national anthem solo en ingles, the WP notices: "The State Department posts four Spanish versions of 'The Star-Spangled Banner' on its Web site."

Bonus item: The Colbert Debate -- hilarious lampooning of the Bush gang and the pliant press? Or over-the-top and bad taste?

Judge for yourself: http://dailykos.com/storyonly/2006/4/30/1441/59811

The right wing goes ballistic: http://americablog.blogspot.com/2006/05/right-wingers-apparently-freaking-out.html

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2006_05_01_digbysblog_archive.html#114662402241150437

http://americablog.blogspot.com/2006/05/usnews-stephen-colbert-had-bush-ready.html
[US News] "Colbert crossed the line," said one top Bush aide, who rushed out of the hotel as soon as Colbert finished. Another said that the president was visibly angered by the sharp lines that kept coming.

"I've been there before, and I can see that he is [angry]," said a former top aide. "He's got that look that he's ready to blow."

***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

 
MISSION NOT ACCOMPLISHED

Three years ago today, Bush pulled his stunt of being flown onto an aircraft carrier, striding across the tarmac in an uber-macho flight suit, then declaring under a huge “Mission Accomplished” banner (that the WH said it had nothing to do with, uh-huh), that “major combat operations have ended” in Iraq. How’s it been goin’ since then, big boy?

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2006/5/1/132926/1065
[McJoan] Three years ago today, Bush had the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln positioned for optimal television viewing and, donned in his Commander Codpiece costume, played brave fighter pilot turned commander-in-chief. It was the boldest photo-op this administration has yet staged. . .

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2006_04_30.php#008336
[Josh Marshall] I think this will go down as the symbol of the Bush administration. . . It captures everything. The arrogance. The dingbat personality cult. The fleeting triumph of Potemkin stagecraft over tangible accomplishment. The happy willingness to let others take care of the president's messes.

NOT

http://thinkprogress.org/2006/05/01/mission-accomplished-by-the-numbers/

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/7286.html

http://www.giveemhellharry.com/page/community/post_group/VIPs/VGG
[Harry Reid] Today, our country marks an unfortunate anniversary--the three year anniversary of President Bush donning a flight suit to declare "Mission Accomplished" in Iraq.

President Bush's dramatic landing on the aircraft carrier the Abraham Lincoln will be marked historically as a public relations stunt gone horribly wrong.

Since President Bush rendered his judgment of "mission accomplished," more than 2,200 Americans have lost their lives, about 20,000 have been wounded, many hundreds of billions of taxpayer dollars have been expended, and now, Iraq is engaged in a civil war--the degree of which is unknown.

The image of President Bush standing in front of the "Mission Accomplished" banner has been etched into the minds of the American people as a metaphor for the Bush White House's misleading and dangerous incompetence. It shows a self-described "war President" not ready for the war, or the difficult problems of securing the peace--problems the president and his Secretary of Defense simply ignored or did not understand following the invasion of Iraq. . . .

http://www.first-draft.com//modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=5910
Q Scott, given the current situation in Iraq, what the President described today as "havoc" --

MR. McCLELLAN: As what?

Q Havoc, he used the word havoc today, could he, would he possibly stand under a sign that says "Mission Accomplished" today as he did three years ago?

MR. McCLELLAN: Well, Peter, I think that there are some Democrats that refuse to recognize the important milestone achieved by the formation of a national unity government. And there is an effort simply to distract attention away from the real progress that is being made by misrepresenting and distorting the past. And that really does nothing to help advance our goal of achieving victory in Iraq.

Q Scott, simple yes or no question, could the President stand under a sign that says --

MR. McCLELLAN: No, see, this is -- this is a way that --

Q It has nothing to do with Democrats.

MR. McCLELLAN: Sure it does.

Q I'm asking you, based on a reporter's curiosity, could he stand under a sign again that says, "Mission Accomplished"?

MR. McCLELLAN: Now, Peter, Democrats have tried to raise this issue, and, like I said, misrepresenting and distorting the past --

Q This is not --

MR. McCLELLAN: -- which is what they're doing, does nothing to advance the goal of victory in Iraq.

Q I mean, it's a historical fact that we're all taking notice of --

MR. McCLELLAN: Well, I think the focus ought to be on achieving victory in Iraq and the progress that's being made, and that's where it is. And you know exactly the Democrats are trying to distort the past.

Q Let me ask it another way: Has the mission been accomplished?

MR. McCLELLAN: Next question.

Q Has the mission been accomplished?

MR. McCLELLAN: We're on the way to accomplishing the mission and achieving victory.

The AP lays down

http://americablog.blogspot.com/2006/05/who-writes-headlines-like-this.html
“Mission Gets Closer to Accomplished”

Gallup: all-time low

http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2006-05-01-gallup-poll_x.htm
34%, two points under his previous low. . .

CBS: all-time low

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2006/05/01/opinion/polls/main1567675.shtml
Only 33 percent approve of his job performance, Mr. Bush's lowest approval rating yet in CBS News polls. . .

Valerie Plame was working on Iran and its nuclear ambitions when her career was ruined by Rove, Libby, et al.

http://www.rawstory.com/news/2006/MSNBC_confirms_Raw_Story_report_Outed_0501.html

More: http://americablog.blogspot.com/2006/05/cia-agent-valerie-plame-was-working-on.html
[John Aravosis] This is huge. . .

But, hey, who needs professional intelligence sources when you’ve still got Ahmed?

http://www.rawstory.com/news/2006/Chalabi_0501.html
Ahmed Chalabi, the man who helped provide cooked intelligence on Iraq to the Pentagon and the New York Times in the lead-up to war, is once again being engaged in US policy decisions, current and former intelligence officials say. . .

Iran: coming attractions

http://atrios.blogspot.com/2006_01_08_atrios_archive.html#113726243140279477

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2006_05/008720.php

Bush declares National Irony Day

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2006/5/1/103254/4332
“America's legal system is central to protecting the constitutional principles on which our Nation was founded. As we observe Law Day, we celebrate our heritage of freedom, justice, and equality under the law. . .”

http://glenngreenwald.blogspot.com/2006/04/media-finally-starting-to-report.html
“President Bush has quietly claimed the authority to disobey more than 750 laws enacted since he took office, asserting that he has the power to set aside any statute passed by Congress when it conflicts with his interpretation of the Constitution. . .”

Bill Frist’s ridiculous $100 “gas rebate” plan gets even more ridiculous

http://www.slate.com/id/2140897
[Eric Umansky] The New York Times fronts and others go inside with Republican Senate leaders dropping their plan to tweak a tax on businesses that would have raised money for their prized $100 refund by changing how inventories are written off. The retreat came after businesses seriously objected. Citing a spokeswoman for Majority Leader Bill Frist, the Journal says Republicans might just fund the rebate by….not funding it. That is, they're considering just adding the $15 billion cost to the deficit.

GOP congressmen falling all over themselves to get out of the way of the coming Wilkes/Cunningham prostitute scandal

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2006_04_30.php#008340

More: http://www.warandpiece.com/blogdirs/004082.html

Big news coming on Abramoff too

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2006_04_30.php#008339
How many times did Jack Abramoff visit the White House? The White House did their best to prevent anyone from knowing. But now we'll find out. . .

http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/000517.php
[AP] The Secret Service has agreed to turn over White House visitor logs that will show how often convicted lobbyist Jack Abramoff met with Bush administration officials - and with whom he met. . .

Rush Limbaugh thinks his listeners are stupid

http://mediamatters.org/items/200605010012
"Case closed. Story's over. I won."

The truth: http://mediamatters.org/items/200605010011

http://www.cnn.com/2006/LAW/05/01/limbaugh.deal/index.html

University of Miami’s janitor strike: why it matters

http://www.mydd.com/story/2006/5/1/11315/47479

http://www.discourse.net/archives/2006/05/the_um_strike_is_over_the_aftermath_is_not.html

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

I don't get anything personally out of this project, except the satisfaction of doing it (I don't run ads, etc). The credit really all goes to the people whose material I copy and redistribute. But if I do have a "mission," it is to get this information into the hands of as many people as I can.***
- posted by Nick Burbules @ 6:32 AM

 
SELECTIVE ATTENTION

Now we know why Bush hasn’t vetoed any laws: he doesn’t think he needs to follow them anyway

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2006/5/1/0367/19273
David Golove, a New York University law professor who specializes in executive-power issues, said Bush has cast a cloud over ''the whole idea that there is a rule of law," because no one can be certain of which laws Bush thinks are valid and which he thinks he can ignore.

''Where you have a president who is willing to declare vast quantities of the legislation that is passed during his term unconstitutional, it implies that he also thinks a very significant amount of the other laws that were already on the books before he became president are also unconstitutional," Golove said.

More: http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/7282.html

http://glenngreenwald.blogspot.com/2006/04/media-finally-starting-to-report.html

“Selective secrecy”

http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/news/politics/14468364.htm
This double approach - clamping down on unauthorized disclosures while releasing documents on carefully chosen occasions - illustrates how the White House has attempted to manage closely held government information since the terrorism of Sept. 11 made Bush a wartime president.

"It's selective secrecy for political control," said Tom Blanton, director of the independent National Security Archive at George Washington University. "Secrecy puts power in the hands of officials who then can abuse it. It also covers up the abuse.". . .

Mojo

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/04/30/AR2006043000378.html
White House Chief of Staff Joshua B. Bolten made his television debut in his new role yesterday, describing his West Wing shakeup as an attempt "to get our mojo back". . .

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/008333.php
Be warned. The White House is now telling us that engineering a confrontation with Iran is a key part of their plan to resuscitate the president's dismal approval ratings in time to survive election day. . .

More: http://yglesias.tpmcafe.com/node/29369

Colin Powell pulls back the curtain: we didn’t send enough troops to Iraq, and he told Bush so. Condi Rice is sent out to the Sunday talk show circuit to deny it (sort of)

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2006/4/30/20130/8597
POWELL: I made the case to General Franks and Secretary Rumsfeld before the president though that it was not sure we had enough troops, and so the case was made. It was listened to. It was considered. And those responsible for the troop levels, Mr Rumsfeld and General Franks, and the joint chiefs of staff, which include the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, believed they had the appropriate troop level.

http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory?id=1907712
Asked on CNN's Late Edition if she remembered Powell's dissent, Rice said, "I don't remember specifically what Secretary Powell may be referring to . . .”

http://americablog.blogspot.com/2006/04/not-it-is-not-way-to-run-government.html
[John Aravosis] How does our current Secretary of State, Condi Rice, respond?

"When it came down to it, the president listens to his military advisers who were to execute the plan."

So it was the generals' fault, not Bush's. Bush simply listened to those stupid generals at the Pentagon. They're the ones who told him to send too few troops. . . Do you catch how it's never Bush's fault, even though he's the boss? Well, Powell cuts through that bull pretty quickly.

"The decisions that were made were not made by me or Mr. Cheney or Rumsfeld. They were made by the president of the United States," [Powell] said.

"And my responsibility was to tell him what I thought. And if others were going in at different times and telling him different things, it was his decision to decide whether he wanted to listen to that person or somebody else."

I think Powell is having a bit of fun with Bush's "I'm the decider" line. . .

Iraqification?

http://www.first-draft.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=5900
[Stars and Stripes] The first all-Sunni class of Iraqi army trainees graduated from an American-run basic training course here Sunday, marking what U.S. military officials called a significant step in rebuilding the Iraqi security forces.

Some 978 men — including more than 800 from Fallujah — were sworn in as privates in the new Iraqi army. . .

After the ceremony, word spread through the new troops that they might not, in fact, be deployed in Fallujah, but in other, more violent areas of Anbar. Many of the new troops threw their hats in anger or ripped off their uniform shirts and waved them over their heads.

http://www.needlenose.com/node/view/2917
[WP] American troops trying to tame the restive northern town of Hawijah have done what has proven impossible in many Sunni Arab enclaves: raised a security force from local volunteers. More than 1,500 Iraqi soldiers and 2,000 policemen patrol the area, virtually all of them drawn from the city and the pastoral hamlets that surround it.

But in a town where the local population is hostile to the American presence in Iraq, U.S. soldiers have developed a deep distrust of their Iraqi counterparts following a slew of incidents that suggest the troops they are training are cooperating with their enemies. . .

http://susiemadrak.com/2006/04/30/22/01/rape-pillage-inc-7/
[Guardian] A US congressional inspection team set up to monitor reconstruction in Iraq today publishes a scathing report of failures by contractors, mainly from the US, to carry out projects worth hundreds of millions of dollars. . .

Anyone should have seen this coming: serious talk about partitioning Iraq

http://www.needlenose.com/node/view/2916
[WP] As the U.S. military struggles against persistent sectarian violence in Iraq, military officers and security experts find themselves in a vigorous debate over an idea that just months ago was largely dismissed as a fringe thought: that the surest -- and perhaps now the only -- way to bring stability to Iraq is to divide the country into three pieces.

More: http://www.juancole.com/2006/05/settling-iraq-before-it-blows-up.html

How the Internet nailed the Duke Cunningham scandal

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2006_04_30.php#008332

Ha, ha, ha

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/01/us/01gas.html
The Senate Republican plan to mail $100 checks to voters to ease the burden of high gasoline prices is eliciting more scorn than gratitude from the very people it was intended to help.

Aides for several Republican senators reported a surge of calls and e-mail messages from constituents ridiculing the rebate as a paltry and transparent effort to pander to voters before the midterm elections in November.

"The conservatives think it is socialist bunk, and the liberals think it is conservative trickery," said Don Stewart, a spokesman for Senator John Cornyn, Republican of Texas, pointing out that the criticism was coming from across the ideological spectrum.

Angry constituents have asked, "Do you think we are prostitutes? Do you think you can buy us?" said another Republican senator's aide, who was granted anonymity to openly discuss the feedback because the senator had supported the plan.

Conservative talk radio hosts have been particularly vocal. "What kind of insult is this?" Rush Limbaugh asked on his radio program on Friday. "Instead of buying us off and treating us like we're a bunch of whores, just solve the problem." In commentary on Fox News Sunday, Brit Hume called the idea "silly." . . .

I’ll never forgive John Danforth for shepherding the nomination of Clarence Thomas to get on the Supreme Court, but gotta give him credit for this

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/ap/nation/3830450.html
Former Sen. John Danforth says a conservative push to ban gay marriage through a constitutional amendment is silly, calling it the latest example of how the political influence of evangelical Christians is hurting the GOP. . .

Digby undoes Joe Klein

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2006_04_01_digbysblog_archive.html#114644917458122070

Bonus item: Bush’s nicknames

http://www.etalkinghead.com/archives/the-psychology-of-bushs-nicknames-2006-04-27.html
What are we to make of an American president who refers to his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, as “Pootie-Poot”?. . . [read on!]

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

I don't get anything personally out of this project, except the satisfaction of doing it (I don't run ads, etc). The credit really all goes to the people whose material I copy and redistribute. But if I do have a "mission," it is to get this information into the hands of as many people as I can.***
- posted by Nick Burbules @ 6:03 AM