A LOST CAUSE

Alberto Gonzales, desperately fighting to keep his job, falls back on the two classic Bush gang defenses: (1) I don’t remember, and (2) I can’t be held accountable for the unfortunate missteps of my subordinates

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/03/30/AR2007033000226.html
Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, amid a growing clamor for his resignation, acknowledged Friday confusion about of his role in firing eight U.S. attorneys but said he doesn't "recall being involved in deliberations" over which prosecutors were to be ousted.

"I believe in truth and accountability and every step that I've taken is consistent with that principle," Gonzales said when asked why he is not heeding calls to resign. "I am fighting for the truth as well."

Gonzales said he had his former chief of staff, Kyle Sampson, coordinated performance evaluations for the 93 U.S. attorneys "to see where changes might be appropriate."

"I signed off on the recommendations and signed off on the implementation plan, and that's the extent of my involvement," he told reporters . . .

"From time to time Kyle would tell me things that would tell me that this effort was ongoing. I don't recall being involved in deliberations involving the question of whether or not a U.S. attorney should or should not be asked to resign. I didn't focus on specific concerns about individuals," he said. . . .

The White House, meanwhile, predicted Friday, that Gonzales will survive the crisis. . . .

[NB: Can somebody explain why this isn’t just as bad, or more damning? Hiring and firing US Attorneys must be one of the most important things an Attorney General does. Delegating this to a staffer, merely signing off on it, and not inquiring about the reasons why career prosecutors working under him were being let go – with potentially devastating consequences to their careers – is unacceptable even given the most innocent of motives. And if, as appears certain, political and partisan factors actually underlaid why some were picked out for firing and others were not (and even IF Gonzales didn’t know that, which is hard to believe), why isn’t that still in some sense his fault?]

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/3/30/1729/73484
[Kyle] Sampson rejected the notion that the dismissals were ordered by young or inexperienced Justice Department officials.

"The decision makers in this case were the attorney general and the counsel to the president," he told the Senate Judiciary Committee. "I and others made staff recommendations but they were approved and signed off on by the principals...."

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/032907J.shtml
[Jason Leopold] [T]he common thread in the thousands of pages of documents released by the Department of Justice in conjunction with a Congressional probe into the US attorney dismissals is that top officials in the DOJ who worked behind the scenes believed that they were doing something improper in selectively dismissing the attorneys and acted with a clear intent to deceive lawmakers if any questions into reasons for the firings arose.

Instead of pointing to the president's broad discretion to fire the prosecutors, Justice officials conceived a plan that they would execute on a specific date and time, and then cooked up a story that they all agreed upon in the event that their actions were scrutinized. . .

With Iglesias out of the way, Republicans get the New Mexico indictment he refused to file – but the story may be more complicated than that

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2007_03_25.php#013358
[Josh Marshall] New Mexico Democrat Manny Aragon was indicted yesterday by the guy who replaced David Iglesias. This was the indictment that Sen. Domenici (R-NM) and Rep. Wilson (R-NM) wanted Iglesias to pop before the November election, to help Wilson head off the challenge from Democrat Patricia Madrid.

Now, the first thing to say is that I don't know enough about the particulars of the Aragon case to comment on it specifically. But I will say that my assumption has always been that Iglesias was investigating this case as a very real and serious criminal inquiry and probably intended eventually to bring indictments. The article notes that three of the four people indicted had actually reached sealed plea deals earlier this year. So those may actually have been secured during Iglesias's tenure.

However that may be, I would caution people against jumping to the conclusion that Iglesias's successor has brought an indictment that Iglesias himself was unwilling to seek. Given how much wrongdoing we've found in this story I wouldn't say it's impossible either. But my impression has always been that the issue here was timing. Domenici and Wilson wanted Iglesias to rush an indictment in time for the election to help Wilson hold on to her House seat. He refused.

More: http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2007_03_25.php#013359
[Josh Marshall] This is a good example of one of the many reasons why political appointees and members of Congress shouldn't start trying to game criminal indictments. Once you start mucking around, politicizing the process, it's very hard to restore any faith that indictments aren't being used as proxies for spin and electioneering. . .

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/3/31/0719/15917

Kyle Sampson: torn and tattered

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/03/29/AR2007032901366.html
[Dana Milbank] Sampson seemed content to fall on his sword rather than naming names when he was questioned about the prosecutor mess. Only the red felt on the witness table concealed the blood. "I could have and should have helped to prevent this," Sampson offered. "I let the attorney general and the department down. . . . I failed to organize a more effective response. . . . It was a failure on my part. . . . I will hold myself responsible. . . . I wish we could do it all over again."

The witness fessed up to an expanding list of sins. He admitted that the Justice Department was trying to circumvent the Senate confirmation process. He confessed that he proposed firing Patrick Fitzgerald, the prosecutor in the Valerie Plame leak case. "I regretted it," he explained. "I knew that it was the wrong thing to do."

But the self-sacrificing witness still managed -- inadvertently, perhaps -- to implicate Gonzales and Bush's chief political strategist, Karl Rove. Sampson, who resigned from the Justice Department earlier this month, admitted that Gonzales "had received a complaint from Karl Rove about U.S. attorneys in three jurisdictions." Asked about the accuracy of Gonzales's claim of non-involvement, Sampson confessed: "I don't think it's entirely accurate what he said." . . .

Sampson, however, was a little fuzzy

"I can't pretend to know or remember every fact that may be of relevance," he warned at the start -- and he wasn't kidding. He used the phrase "I don't remember" a memorable 122 times.

It may have been a tactical effort to limit his risk of perjury, but Sampson displayed the recall of a man who recently fell off a ladder.

"Since the 2004 election, did you speak with the president about replacing U.S. attorneys?" Leahy asked.

"I don't ever remember speaking to the president after the 2004 election," he said. (He later remembered that he had.) "Did you have further communications with the White House regarding the plan to regard and replace several U.S. attorneys?"

"I don't remember specifically."

"I wish you did remember," Leahy finally said. "I would hope that you would search your memory as we go along."

Sampson searched. He came up empty. . . .

http://www.slate.com/id/2162972?nav=tap3
[Emily Bazelon] Kyle Sampson tried to stand by his man today. But he just couldn't. . . . [read on]

House committee will interview DOJ officials McNulty, Goodling, and others IN PRIVATE. Why?

http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/002923.php

Appalling, truly appalling. Time magazine’s weekly issue is out, and there is NOTHING in it about the US Attorney case. Not a big enough story for you guys?

http://www.radaronline.com/exclusives/2007/03/time-to-admit-oversight.php

More: http://www.talkleft.com/story/2007/3/30/151653/433

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/10367.html

More on the Wade/Wilkes/Cunningham scandal

http://www.prospect.org/web/page.ww?section=root&name=ViewWeb&articleId=12612

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/013135.php

We can’t even be surprised any more

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/03/29/AR2007032902003.html
A senior Bush political appointee at the Interior Department has repeatedly altered scientific field reports to minimize protections for imperiled species and disclosed confidential information to private groups seeking to affect policy decisions, the department's inspector general concluded.

The investigator's report on Julie A. MacDonald, deputy assistant secretary for fish and wildlife and parks -- which was triggered by an anonymous complaint from a Fish and Wildlife Service employee and expanded in October after a Washington Post article about MacDonald -- said she frequently sought to reshape the agency's scientific reports in an effort to ease the impact of agency decisions on private landowners. . . .

More: http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/10365.html

Voter suppression is alive and well

http://mydd.com/story/2007/3/30/17559/4328

Bush’s legacy

http://www.firedoglake.com/2007/03/30/whats-left-of-the-republican-party/
[Scarecrow] As we watch daily hearings expose more horrors that define the Bush Administration, we are all groping for theories that explain what the regime has done to America and why the regime continues to command support from the core of the Republican Party. John Dean’s book, Conservatives Without Conscience, describes an authoritarian mentality that drives allegiance to the Bush/Cheney regime and accounts for Republican acceptance of expanding government intrusions into the private lives of individuals. Glenn Greenwald, in How Would a Patriot Act, carries the theme further, cataloguing the regime’s pervasive lawlessness and the theories behind it, while Sidney Blumenthal’s How Bush Rules provides further insights on the ruling mentality. Three recent essays seem to confirm and expand on the main hypothesis and further reveal the monster that confronts us and still controls much of our government. . .

The Dems get serious about oversight – here’s a handy outline of hearings to come

http://www.firedoglake.com/2007/03/30/oversight-the-coming-attractions/

Next up: Rove/Abramoff go-between Susan Ralston

http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/002930.php

Rats, sinking ship, etc.

http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/002927.php
White House political director Sara Taylor is out the door at the White House, according to Washington Wire. Taylor came up a number of times yesterday during the Kyle Sampson hearing as having worked closely with Sampson (along with another Karl Rove aide Scott Jennings) to install Rove's former aide Tim Griffin as the U.S. Attorney in eastern Arkansas.

"Barry Jackson, a longtime aide to Karl Rove, also is thought to be leaving soon....”

Subpoenas to come? http://www.rawstory.com/news/2007/Key_Rove_aide_fingered_in_Attorneygate_0330.html

Bush says “the clock is ticking” and Congress better send him a troop funding bill to his liking. Of course, he also says he will veto a bill he doesn’t like, seriously delaying the release of much-needed funds. Which is it, George?

http://thinkprogress.org/2007/03/30/bush-crs-spending-iraq/

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/10368.html

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/3/30/175931/537

Friendly fire

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070331/ap_on_re_us/tillman_friendly_fire_20
Just seven days after Pat Tillman's death, a top general warned there were strong indications that it was friendly fire and President Bush might embarrass himself if he said the NFL star-turned-soldier died in an ambush, according to a memo obtained by The Associated Press. . . .

Dana Perino, Tony Snow’s replacement, is making the cardinal error of press flacks – spending time correcting the interpretations of her own poorly framed answers. Granted, she has bad material to work with in the first place, but she’s clearly overmatched in this role

http://www.first-draft.com/2007/03/today_on_holden_17.html

More: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/03/28/AR2007032802340.html
Perino projects an earnest, ever-polite demeanor, like an airline ticket agent who keeps smiling as irate customers demand to know why their flight has been canceled. . .

Perino has been flooded with calls of support, including one, she says, from Education Secretary Margaret Spellings, who told her: "Put your big-girl panties on.". . . [read on]

The Bush gang attacks Nancy Pelosi for a planned trip to Syria – but a deputation of Republicans is already there!

http://thinkprogress.org/2007/03/30/syria-hypocrisy/
[Dana Perino] I do think that, as a general rule — and this would go for Speaker of the House Pelosi and this apparent trip that she is going to be taking — that we don’t think it’s a good idea. …

I’m not sure what the hopes are to — what she’s hoping to accomplish there. I know that Assad probably really wants people to come and have a photo opportunity and have tea with him, and have discussions about where they’re coming from, but we do think that’s a really bad idea.

More on Bush’s plans for Syria: http://www.realcities.com/mld/krwashington/news/columnists/warren_p_strobel/17002420.htm

Why “Rudy McRomney” is a disaster for the Republicans

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/10369.html

The scandals just keep coming

http://www.warandpiece.com/blogdirs/005914.html
The WSJ reports today, "The wife of Nevada Gov. Jim Gibbons was hired as a consultant to a defense contractor at the same time that her husband, who was then a member of Congress, helped the company get funding for a no-bid federal contract. Dawn Gibbons got about $35,000 in consulting fees in 2004 from Sierra Nevada Corp., of Sparks, Nev., the company said. Mr. Gibbons, a five-term Republican who served on the armed services and intelligence committees, sought funding that year for Sierra Nevada for a $4 million contract to develop a helicopter radar-landing system. ... One of the military contracts that Sierra Nevada got in 2004 was $2 million for research on a 'helicopter autonomous landing system,' to help pilots land in 'brownouts' of blowing sand, a technology several firms were seeking to develop for the Pentagon. House records indicate that Mr. Gibbons asked for $4 million, and got $2 million in the final bill. In a June 22, 2004, news release, he hailed the project and a separate $3 million for eTreppid as 'cutting-edge technology being developed in Nevada to improve our defense systems.' . . .

Here’s the GOP’s battle plan for 2008

http://rawstory.com/news/2007/White_House_Power_Point_slides_target_0330.html

Jesse Jackson blasts the Congressional Black Caucus for dealing with Fox News to sponsor a Presidential debate. Haven’t we already been through this?

http://colorofchange.org/cbci/jackson.html

It gets worse: http://www.mydd.com/story/2007/3/30/174338/386

***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 @ 7:03 AM

 
MAN OVERBOARD!

Short version of Kyle Sampson’s testimony – give up Gonzales, he’s a goner anyway, but build a big high wall keeping this scandal away from Karl Rove, and squash any suggestion that these prosecutors were fired because they weren’t willing to tilt their investigations to suit Republican interests. Though it's still not clear why they WERE fired

Bye, bye, Alberto: http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1003564888
Specter asked about Gonzales' "candor" in saying earlier this month that he was not a part of any discussions on the firings. He asked about the November 27, 2006 meeting "where there were discussions" and Gonzales allegedly attended. Was Gonzales' statement about taking part in no discussions accurate?

"I don’t think it’s accurate,” Sampson replied. “I think he’s recently clarified it. But I remember discussing with him this process of asking certain U.S. attorneys to resign, and I believe that he was present at the meeting on Nov. 27.”

"So he was involved in discussions in contrast to his statement" this month? Specter asked.

"Yes," Sampson replied.

Sen. Charles Schumer then asked about Gonzales also claiming that he saw no documents on this matter.

Sampson replied: "I don't think it's entirely accurate."

Schumer: "There was repeated discussions?"

Sampson : "Yes."

Schumer: "As many as, say, five."

Sampson: "Yes."

Schumer then asked if Gonzales was truthful in saying Sampson's information on the firings was not shared within the department.

Sampson: "I shared information with whoever asked....I was very open and collaborative in the process."

Schumer: "So the Attorney General's statement is false?"

Sampson: "I don't think it is accurate."

More: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070329/ap_on_go_ca_st_pe/fired_prosecutors;_ylt=AolHWlqChFdLY8E4Ai7.EH2s0NUE

Take a hint: http://www.first-draft.com/2007/03/today_on_holden_16.html
Q Kyle Sampson testified today, as you know. He said, "I don't think the Attorney General's statement that he was not involved in any discussions of U.S. attorney removals was accurate. I remember discussing with him this process of asking certain U.S. attorneys to resign." What's the White House reaction to that? Do you feel like Attorney General Gonzales needs to get up to the Hill much more quickly to explain himself?

MS. PERINO: Well, he's said, as the President has said since we were in Mérida, Mexico, that, yes, the Attorney General has some work to do up on Capitol Hill; that he wasn't satisfied with incomplete or inconsistent information being provided to Capitol Hill. . . .

Q But if this right that the Attorney General actually was involved in the process, which is different from what he has said, would that change the President's support for him?

MS. PERINO: I think the key to that is "if," and I know that the Attorney General is going to be testifying in front of Congress, and I think it's best for me to allow the Attorney General to either explain further today, if they choose to, or to wait for his testimony. . .

Q Can you sort of characterize -- because this really, this morning, brought into very sharp focus a dispute -- I mean, essentially, the Attorney General's former chief of staff is calling into direct question the crux of what the Attorney General has said about having never had any conversations. He's counting at least five conversations they've had. So how can the Attorney General, in your opinion, continue to be effective if, apparently, he stood up and said something that was categorically false?

MS. PERINO: I'm going to let the Justice Department and the Attorney General speak for himself. And, obviously, I understand how people can have different recollections, and I'm going to have to let the Attorney General speak for himself. . . .

Sampson: what did he mean by labeling some US Attorneys “loyal Bushies”?

http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/002908.php

Sampson tries to suggest that “political” reasons for firing prosecutors are legitimate

http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/002900.php

http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0703/29/cnr.06.html
[David Iglesias] Kyle Sampson has never been a prosecutor, much less a federal prosecutor. He doesn't understand what we do.

I couldn't disagree more with his statement that the distinction is artificial. Then Attorney General John Ashcroft told me in his office politics stay outside the door once you become a United States attorney. He told all my colleagues that.

So, I could not disagree more. And we are not rated on political effectiveness. We're rated on performance. And all of us had good performance evaluations by a team of 20 to 25 members of the Justice Department, by career people. . .

Sampson says he thought it would be a neat idea to fire Patrick Fitzgerald

http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/002915.php
"On one occasion in 2006, in discussing the removal of U.S. attorneys... that I was speaking with Harriet Miers and Bill Kelley and I raised Pat Fitzgerald, and immediately after I did it, I regretted it. I thought, I knew it was the wrong thing to do, I knew it was inappropriate. And I remember at the time that Harriet Miers and Bill Kelley just looked at me.... I said, "Patrick Fitzgerald could be added to this list."... They just looked at me."

Durbin asks why he suggested that. And Sampson says he doesn't know why, that maybe it was just to "get a reaction out of them." . .

[NB: Or maybe, just maybe, this was proof that Sampson thought it was acceptable to target prosecutors who were giving Republicans a hard time. Now, where would he have gotten the notion that this was an acceptable thing to do?]

Did he talk with Rove about it? http://thinkprogress.org/2007/03/29/rove-sampson-fitz/
Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) repeatedly asked Kyle Sampson whether he ever discussed drawing up this ranking with Karl Rove. On eight different occasions, Sampson refused to rule out that he had discussed firing Fitzgerald with Rove or his office. . .

After all this, there STILL isn’t a clear answer from the DOJ about how and why these eight prosecutors were selected for firing (you know, a suspicious person might start to doubt that they HAD good reasons)

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2007_03/011034.php

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/013350.php
[Josh Marshall] A question from TPM Reader PE: "Did Sampson ever explain how names got put on the list? Who was responsible for that? It seems he just kept saying he just kept the list."

[On] every delicate particular Sampson said that he was collecting viewpoints from various administration officials about their views on particular US Attorneys but that he couldn't remember specifics. . . He also said whatever records or notes he kept about the process likely no longer exist.

Kennedy: is it a coincidence that these states are also key 2008 battleground states?

http://www.boston.com/news/nation/washington/articles/2007/03/29/kennedy_justice_firings_are_keyed_to_08_vote/

Iglesias

http://www.slate.com/id/2163042
[Daniel Politi] Sampson also acknowledged that David Iglesias, the fired U.S. attorney of New Mexico, wasn't added to the list until shortly before the November elections and after Karl Rove complained to Gonzales about him. This was right around the time when two Republican lawmakers were also expressing that they weren't happy with Iglesias and his handling of a public corruption investigation that dealt with Democrats.

Rove’s role in getting his boy Tim Griffin installed as the US Attorney for Arkansas

http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/002914.php

Lam: Sampson repeated again that she wasn’t fired for going after Cunningham and CIA corruption, even though we have an email from him saying she’s becoming “a real problem” the day after she announced a search warrant to go after Dusty Foggo!

http://www.commondreams.org/headlines07/0315-05.htm

No, it was supposedly because of her weak performance on immigration issues. Two little problems there

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/013343.php
Sampson has just confirmed that for all their deep concern about her border enforcement policy, no one from the DOJ ever raised the issue with Lam. Ever.

http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/politics/20070330-9999-1n30lam.html
Sen. Dianne Feinstein yesterday challenged assertions by a former top Justice Department official that Carol Lam was fired from her job as U.S. attorney in San Diego because of a mediocre record in prosecuting immigration cases.

During a hearing of the Senate Judiciary Committee, the California Democrat produced a recent letter from a top federal immigration official in San Diego praising Lam's record in combating immigrant smuggling. . . .

More: http://www.warandpiece.com/blogdirs/005910.html

The letter: http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/docs/lam-commendation/?resultpage=1&

Liveblogging Sampson’s testimony, from FDL

http://www.firedoglake.com/2007/03/29/kyle-sampson-testimony-part-i/

http://www.firedoglake.com/2007/03/29/kyle-sampson-testimony-part-ii/

http://www.firedoglake.com/2007/03/29/kyle-sampson-testimony-part-iii/

http://www.firedoglake.com/2007/03/29/kyle-sampson-testimony-part-iv/

http://www.firedoglake.com/2007/03/29/kyle-sampson-testimony-part-v/

http://www.firedoglake.com/2007/03/29/kyle-sampson-testimony-part-vi/

http://www.firedoglake.com/2007/03/29/kyle-sampson-hearing-vii/

How Monica Goodling rose so quickly in the Justice Dept, and the larger tale it tells

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/03/29/AR2007032901964.html

What Bush’s people have done to the Justice Dept

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/3/29/21102/5832
[Joseph Rich, the former head of the Voting Section of the DOJ's Civil Rights Division] I spent more than 35 years in the department enforcing federal civil rights laws — particularly voting rights. Before leaving in 2005, I worked for attorneys general with dramatically different political philosophies — from John Mitchell to Ed Meese to Janet Reno. Regardless of the administration, the political appointees had respect for the experience and judgment of longtime civil servants.

Under the Bush administration, however, all that changed. Over the last six years, this Justice Department has ignored the advice of its staff and skewed aspects of law enforcement in ways that clearly were intended to influence the outcome of elections. . .

More: http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2007/03/machiavellis-inbred-children-by-digby.html

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2007_03/011028.php

Henry Waxman is NOT going to let the GSA scandal go away just because of Lurita Doan’s ridiculously spotty memory (thanks to Steve Benen for the link)

http://www.speaker.gov/blog/?p=195

Bonus item: McCain further cements his reputation as the putative standard-bearer of the Republican party – he was ready to switch over to the Democrats in 2001

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/10351.html

http://www.prospect.org/weblog/2007/03/post_3290.html
[Mark Schmitt] This has really been the McCain M.O. He's neither a maverick, nor a classic flip-flopper who goes where the wind blows, rather, his consistent pattern has been to maneuver to put himself in the position where his consent can be the make-or-break factor. . . .

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

I don't get anything personally out of this project, except the satisfaction of doing it (I don't run ads, etc). The credit really all goes to the people whose material I copy and redistribute. But if I do have a "mission," it is to get this information into the hands of as many people as I can.***
- posted by Nick Burbules @ 6:22 AM

 
LEAKING OIL

Terrible news for the Bush gang, and more to come. Things could change (again), but right now the Bush machine is leaking oil at every joint and the wheels are falling off

First, Bush blusters that the Dems better drop any troop withdrawal deadline, or he just won’t sign the troop funding bill, then blame them for not supporting the troops – yeah, that’ll work

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/28/world/middleeast/28cnd-prexy.html
A defiant President Bush vowed today not to negotiate with Congress about setting a date for withdrawing American troops from Iraq, and he said the American people would blame lawmakers if there is any delay in approving money for the war effort.

“Now, some of them believe that by delaying funding for our troops, they can force me to accept restrictions on our commanders . . . That’s not going to happen. . . .

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/n/a/2007/03/28/national/w021650D50.DTL
Congressional Democrats are showing no signs of backing down on their rebuke of the Iraq war, insisting President Bush will have to accept some sort of legislative timetable in exchange for the billions of dollars needed to fund the war.

"We would hope that the president understands how serious we are," said Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev . . .

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/3/28/20920/0563
[Reid and Pelosi] Given the importance and urgency of this legislation to our troops and our security, we are quite disturbed by your insistence to veto it. Rather than work with the Congress to develop a bill you could sign, you apparently intend to follow a political strategy that would needlessly delay funding for our troops. . . .

http://americablog.blogspot.com/2007/03/pelosi-bush-needs-to-calm-down.html
[Pelosi] "On this very important matter I would extend a hand of friendship to the president, just to say to him: 'Calm down with the threats, there's a new Congress in town. We respect your constitutional role, we want you to respect ours. This war must end, the American people have lost faith in the president's conduct of the war, let's see how we can work together.'"

And Bush thinks he has public opinion on his side!

http://electioncentral.tpmcafe.com/blog/electioncentral/2007/mar/28/bush_on_iraq_public_opinion_is_on_my_side
[Bush] Members of Congress need to stop making political statements, and start providing vital funds for our troops. They need to get that bill to my desk so I can sign it into law.

Now, some of them believe that by delaying funding for our troops, they can force me to accept restrictions on our commanders that I believe would make withdrawal and defeat more likely. That's not going to happen. If Congress fails to pass a bill to fund our troops on the front lines, the American people will know who to hold responsible.

[Pew poll, March 26] A solid majority of Americans say they want their congressional representative to support a bill calling for a withdrawal of U.S. forces from Iraq by August 2008. Nearly six-in-ten (59%) say they would like to see their representative vote for such legislation, compared with just 33% who want their representative to oppose it.

Bush’s dilemma

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/blog/2007/03/28/BL2007032801082.html
[Dan Froomkin] Yesterday's Senate vote has put President Bush in a real bind.

The combination of veto power and a sizeable Republican minority means the president can reliably block any Democratic legislation he dislikes from becoming law.

But in this case, Bush affirmatively needs Congress to send him a war funding bill so he can keep fighting the war in Iraq. Now that the Democrats have succeeded in attaching a timetable for troop withdrawal to the funding bill, he is left with two basic options: negotiate with the Democrats -- or play a hugely consequential game of chicken. . . .

Things fall apart

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2007_03/011022.php
[Eve Fairbanks] In the last couple of weeks, even in the minds of the lawmakers tasked with oversight, the administration's scandals and screw-ups have started to blur together into one Meta Screw-Up -- a situation in which every procedural safeguard, institutional norm, and carefully designed plan seems to have "just melted into oblivion with this sloppy administration," as Senator Dianne Feinstein put it at the Mueller hearing. The impression that we are, by now, witnessing the unfolding of one giant, undifferentiated scandal is compounded by the sense that this is some kind of watershed moment: The U.S. attorneys affair unleashed last Thursday's complaint that Bush partisans meddled with a Justice Department tobacco prosecution, which unleashed Monday's accusation that the General Services Administration was misused for political ends, and on and on.

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/3/28/22142/7181
[Bloomberg] The Justice Department said it provided inaccurate information to members of Congress in a February letter about the firings of eight U.S. attorneys.

Writing today to lawmakers investigating the terminations, the agency's acting head of legislative affairs, Richard Hertling, said that "certain statements" in the Feb. 23 letter were contradicted by documents that the department provided to Congress this month. Hertling didn't specify what the misstatements were. . . .

Another document dump

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2007_03_25.php#013308
[Josh Marshall] They appear to clearly show that [Kyle] Sampson attempted to mislead Congress by proxy -- that is to say, he gave false information to DOJ officials who were preparing to provide information to Congress.

Update: And it looks like those false statements were cleared by the White House.

Yep: http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2007_03_25.php#013313
[Josh Marshall] The White House Counsel's Office gave explicit sign off to the DOJ's letter falsely claiming Rove and Miers played no role in Tim Griffin's appointment as US Attorney. And the sign off came from Chris Oprison, the guy at the Counsel's office who Sampson had told about Rove's and Miers' role only a couple months earlier.

Background for Kyle Sampson’s testimony later today

http://www.cumberlink.com/articles/2007/03/28/ap/politics/d8o5g58o2.txt
[AP] Eight federal prosecutors were fired last year because they did not sufficiently support President Bush's priorities, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales' former chief of staff says in remarks prepared for delivery to Congress on Thursday. . .

Gonzales' former chief of staff, Kyle Sampson, in remarks obtained Wednesday by The Associated Press, spoke dismissively of Democrats' condemnation of what they call political pressure in the firings.

"The distinction between 'political' and 'performance-related' reasons for removing a United States attorney is, in my view, largely artificial," he said. "A U.S. attorney who is unsuccessful from a political perspective ... is unsuccessful." . . .

In his prepared testimony, he maintained that adherence to the priorities of the president and attorney general was a legitimate standard.

"Presidential appointees are judged not only on their professional skills but also their management abilities, their relationships with law enforcement and other governmental leaders and their support for the priorities of the president and the attorney general," Sampson said.

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2007_03_25.php#013315
[Josh Marshall] This use of the word 'political' is at the heart of Sampson's and others effort to lie their way out of what happened here.

'Political' can mean many things in different contexts. US Attorneys are 'political' appointees, in that they are overwhelmingly, though not exclusively, drawn from among the president's political supporters. They are also subject to 'political' direction, in that they are expected to follow the administration's law enforcement priorities -- more or less gun prosecutions, crack downs on dead beat dads or pornography, etc.

Neither of these meanings of the word 'political' are what this investigation is about. And, like others, Sampson is using these multiple meanings of the word as a dodge. The charge against Sampson and crew is not that they fired them for 'political' reasons. The charge is that they fired these prosecutors for not using their law enforcement powers to help the Republican party. . . [read on!]

More: http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2007_03_25.php#013302

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/03/28/AR2007032802302.html

The Dems make clear that they are going after those non-WH email accounts too – which are not covered by executive privilege

http://ww1.salon.com/opinion/blumenthal/2007/03/29/attorney_firings/
[Sidney Blumenthal] The rise and fall of the Bush presidency has had four phases: the befuddled period of steady political decline during the president's first nine months; the high tide of hubris from Sept. 11, 2001, through the 2004 election; the self-destructive overreaching to consolidate a one-party state from 2005 to 2006, culminating in the repudiation of the Republican Congress; and, now, the terminal stage, the great unraveling, as the Democratic Congress works to uncover the abuses of the previous six years. . . .

The discovery of a hitherto unknown treasure-trove of e-mails buried by the Bush White House may prove to be as informative as Nixon's secret White House tapes. Last week the National Journal disclosed that Karl Rove does "about 95 percent" of his e-mails outside the White House system, instead using a Republican National Committee account. What's more, Rove doesn't tap most of his messages on a White House computer, but rather on a BlackBerry provided by the RNC. By this method, Rove and other White House aides evade the legally required archiving of official e-mails. . . .

When I worked in the Clinton White House, people brought in their personal computers if they were engaged in any campaign work, but all official transactions had to be done within the White House system as stipulated by the Presidential Records Act of 1978. (The PRA requires that "the President shall take all such steps as may be necessary to assure that the activities, deliberations, decisions, and policies that reflect the performance of his constitutional, statutory, or other official or ceremonial duties are adequately documented and that such records are maintained as Presidential records.") Having forsaken the use of Executive Office of the President e-mail, executive privilege has been sacrificed. Moreover, Rove's and the others' practice may not be legal. . . .

More: http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/002897.php

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2007_03/011021.php

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2007_03_25.php#013297
[Josh Marshall] White House personnel appear to have been systematically avoiding using their government emails on the job because they knew they might some day be subpoenaed.

But as we noted earlier with Karl Rove, this may have been too clever by half. If the president's aides were using RNC emails or emails from other Republican political committees, they can't have even the vaguest claim to shielding those communications behind executive privilege.

http://www.warandpiece.com/blogdirs/005895.html
[Laura Rozen] A reader who has a security role at a federal agency writes, "On the issue of using outside/unofficial e-mail address from official sites, the CIO at [redacted] has expressly forbade the practice for security reasons as it is all too easy to put sensitive information in an e-mail. ... Needless to say, hearing that the WH does not mandate that practice and lets [Rove] do 95% of his e-mailing from a blackberry, presumably with access to an unofficial address, is quite shocking. . .

Rove!

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2007_03_25.php#013310
[Josh Marshall] Mike Isikoff notes that Karl Rove is one of the recipients of an email Sen. Domenici's Chief of Staff, Steve Bell, sent on January 8th thanking Rove and two other White House aides for help getting Iglesias replaced. "Thanks for everything," writes Bell. . .

More: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/17837826/site/newsweek/

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/29/washington/29rove.html

Monica Goodling was reportedly part of the phone call between Pete Domenici and David Iglesias (in which Domenici was pressing him to push forward a corruption probe against a Democratic official) – thanks to Josh Marshall for the link

http://www.kobtv.com/index.cfm?viewer=storyviewer&id=31289&cat=NMTOPSTORIES

Iglesias speaks

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2007_03_25.php#013314
[Josh Marshall] Mike Battle, the apparently apolitical former Director of the Executive Office of the United States Attorney, was the one who actually placed the firing calls to the seven US Attorneys. During Iglesias's call, Iglesias asked Battle what was going on. "I don't know, and I don't wanna know. All I know is that this came from on high," Battle told Iglesias.

Battle resigned his post in early February. . .

More: http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2007/03/republican-on-paper-by-digby-david.html

Since there is nothing the Republicans can say to defend what they’ve been doing, their only option is to attack. And sure enough, they’re launching radio attack ads against Iglesias!

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2007_03_25.php#013316

Who’s behind it: http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2007_03_25.php#013318

The conservative bellwether, the National Review, says resign, Alberto!

http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=NTNjY2U3Yjk0NTRmNTcyNjg1M2EwM2FlNTA0OTYyMzU
The story of the eight fired U.S. attorneys has been relentlessly overhyped. We do not know that any of them was fired because the administration put its political interests ahead of his or her prosecutorial judgment. . .

We do not need more evidence, however, to reach a conclusion about the suitability of Alberto Gonzales for the leadership of the Department of Justice. While we defended him from some of the outlandish charges made during his confirmation hearings, we have never seen evidence that he has a fine legal mind, good judgment, or managerial ability. Nor has his conduct at any stage of this controversy gained our confidence.

His claim not to have been involved in the firings suggests that he was either deceptive or inexcusably detached from the operations of his own department.

Worse and worse

http://politicalwire.com/archives/2007/03/28/emmanuel_sees_big_story.html
[Evans-Novak] "The attitude of Capitol Hill Republicans toward President George W. Bush has reached a new low with Atty. Gen. Alberto Gonzales's incompetent handling of the U.S. attorneys matter. It is not just that there is so little GOP support for Gonzales, but that there is considerable distancing from the President. There is a consensus among congressional Republicans that Bush's policies -- starting with Iraq -- are at the heart of the party's problems."

"While congressional Republicans are furious that a Gonzales aide is invoking the 5th Amendment before Congress, the Democratic leaders are interested in much more than embarrassing the GOP. Rep. Rahm Emmanuel (D-Ill.), chairman of the House Democratic Caucus, is targeting the case of three deposed U.S. attorneys who were investigating major cases of public corruption. Emmanuel is after what he thinks is a major story."

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/29/washington/29gonzales.html
Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales endured blunt criticism Tuesday from federal prosecutors who questioned the firings of eight United States attorneys, complained that the dismissals had undermined morale and expressed broader grievances about his leadership, according to people briefed on the discussion.

About a half-dozen United States attorneys voiced their concerns at a private meeting with Mr. Gonzales in Chicago.

Several of the prosecutors said the dismissals caused them to wonder about their own standing and distracted their employees, according to one person familiar with the discussions. Others asked Mr. Gonzales about the removal of Daniel C. Bogden, the former United States attorney in Nevada, a respected career prosecutor whose ouster has never been fully explained by the Justice Department. . . .

They’re ALL wrapped up in it

http://www.warandpiece.com/blogdirs/005902.html
[Laura Rozen] Check out Ari Berman's report on the alleged role of now deputy attorney general Paul McNulty in suppressing a DOJ report that would have been damaging to clients of Jack Abramoff. . . [read on!]

Also interesting to note that Justice Department official Monica Goodling was prosecuting low level cases out of McNulty's US attorney's office in Alexandria VA in 2004. McNulty has reportedly in recent communications with Judiciary committee member Sen. Chuck Schumer blamed his false testimony to Congress on Goodling, who has invoked her Fifth Amendment rights to avoid testifying before the committee. McNulty's boss Gonzales is taking a similar tack, blaming any of his misstatements on his fired chief of staff, Kyle Sampson, set to testify Thursday. . . .

GSA director suffers massive memory loss

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/03/28/AR2007032801808.html
The chief of the General Services Administration testified on Capitol Hill yesterday that she could not recall details of a Jan. 26 videoconference in which a White House official briefed top political appointees at the agency about targeting 20 congressional Democrats in 2008.

Lurita Alexis Doan, the GSA's administrator, appeared before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee to answer questions about her 10-month tenure at the government's premier contracting agency, including her attempt to award a no-bid job to a business associate and her alleged intervention in a contract dispute with a technology company.

Chairman Henry A. Waxman (D-Calif.) said the committee was focusing on the videoconference at GSA facilities because it might have violated the Hatch Act, a federal law that restricts government agencies and employees from engaging in political activity on the job.

Waxman's investigators said they took statements from six political appointees involved in the videoconference who maintained that Doan asked her employees how they could help Republicans in the upcoming elections.

Under sharp questioning, Doan acknowledged attending the videoconference. She and up to 40 of the agency's Republican appointees scattered around the country watched a PowerPoint presentation by J. Scott Jennings, White House deputy director of political affairs, who works for Karl Rove.

On at least 10 occasions, she testified that she could not recall asking employees to help the GOP or remember details of the presentation.

"I'm a little bit embarrassed to admit this, but I can say that I honestly don't have recollection of the presentation at all," she said.

In a slide called "2008 House Targets: Top 20," the presentation named 20 Democrats the GOP will key on in 2008. Another slide, called "2008 House GOP Defense," had a list of Republicans the party wants to protect.

"I do not recollect this," she said. "I honestly and absolutely do not recollect this."

Doan also said she did not recall asking appointees what they could do to "help our candidates," as alleged in a letter to Doan from Waxman citing the multiple sources.

"I do not have any recollection of saying that," she said. . . .

Watch it: http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/002896.php

More: http://thinkprogress.org/2007/03/28/lurita-cookies-doan/

http://nitpicker.blogspot.com/2007/03/doan-totally-paranoid.html
Listening into the live webcast of the GSA hearings just now, the camera was down, but the audio was still up and you could here GSA Administrator Lurita Doan griping about the investigation and telling one of her people to take her glass, cause she doesn't want "them to have my fingerprints. They've got me totally paranoid!" . . .

http://federaltimes.com/index.php?S=2653729
Even as the head of the General Services Administration prepares to address allegations of improper conduct at a House Oversight and Government Reform Committee hearing Wednesday, new information about her actions continues to emerge.

A March 27 memorandum from committee Democrats states that GSA Administrator Lurita Doan overrode longtime contracting officers to intervene on behalf of Sun Microsystems in a pricing dispute with the agency “after direct intervention by Sun representatives with Doan herself.”

That and other details show that Doan misled Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, in a March 13 letter playing down her involvement with the Sun Microsystems contract, the memo says. Grassley was added to the committee’s witness list on Tuesday. . . .

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/3/28/122134/409
[Kagro X] This is as corrupt as corruption gets, folks . . .

Times have changed

http://www.prospect.org/web/page.ww?section=root&name=ViewWeb&articleId=12605
[Harold Meyerson] The truly astonishing thing about the latest scandals besetting the Bush administration is that they stem from actions the administration took after the November elections, when Democratic control of Congress was a fait accompli.

Attorney General Alberto Gonzales' hour-long meeting on sacking federal prosecutors took place after the election. The subsequent sacking took place after the election. The videoconference between leaders of the General Services Administration and Karl Rove's deputy about how to help Republican candidates in 2008, according to people who attended the meeting, took place Jan. 26 this year. . . .

GSA, US Attorneys, secret email systems. . . it’s all well and good to say that we’re finally learning about these things because the Dems control the Congress and have subpoena power now – but as we learn more and more about how this administration has run its business for the past six years, the question arises, Has this been common knowledge within the Beltway? How could we not have been told this earlier?

http://atrios.blogspot.com/2007_03_25_atrios_archive.html#117513868957406933
[Atrios] It's late so I don't have it in me to support this thesis, but it really seems that we're getting to a level of corruption and coverup that wouldn't even be close to being possible without sycophants in the media who enable it. . .

Let’s call the Republican obsession with “voter fraud” exactly what it is

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2007_03/011024.php

More: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/03/28/AR2007032801969.html

Pork city

http://www.prospect.org/weblog/2007/03/post_3276.html
[Sam Rosenfeld] A page 1 story in The Washington Post today passes on the president's harsh criticisms of Congress's Iraq supplemental bills, devoting many paragraphs to Bush's indignant recitation of several porky domestic spending provisions in the packages. Could it have hurt the authors to at least briefly mention that every emergency Iraq supplemental devised and passed by Republican Congresses in the last several years -- and happily signed by the president -- has included such provisions? . . .

Bush’s BFF doesn’t want to be friends any more

http://www.warandpiece.com/blogdirs/005900.html
[NYT] "King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia told Arab leaders on Wednesday that the American occupation of Iraq is 'illegal.' . . The king’s speech, at the opening of the Arab League summit meeting here, underscored growing differences between Saudi Arabia and the Bush administration as the Saudis take on a greater regional leadership role, partly at American urging. The Saudis seem to be emphasizing that they will not be beholden to the policies of their longtime ally. . .”

Ouch!

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/03/27/AR2007032700471.html
Angry senators accused FBI Director Robert S. Mueller III yesterday of management failures that resulted in the dispatch of hundreds of national security letters and intelligence surveillance warrants containing erroneous information, and Mueller said he accepted that characterization.

Both Republicans and Democrats at a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing said the abuses have undermined the FBI's reputation and its authority to continue using such letters and warrants under conditions that Congress eased in the wake of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. . . .

More defeats

http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/002895.php
Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., and other Democrats are raising concerns about Fox's nomination to be ambassador to Belgium because of a $50,000 contribution Fox made in 2004 to the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth . . .

With a vote on Fox expected Wednesday in the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Kerry's Vietnam crew mates on Tuesday sent a letter urging committee members to oppose Fox's nomination. A copy of the letter was obtained by The Associated Press.

“In our judgment, those who finance smears and lies of combat veterans don't deserve to represent America on the world stage,” said the letter signed by James Rassman and 10 other Vietnam Swift Boat veterans who served with Kerry.

Sen. Chris Dodd, D-Conn., said Tuesday he opposes the nomination because Fox “refused to apologize for his behavior” during his confirmation hearing last month. . . .

Nomination withdrawn: http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2007/03/20070328-1.html

And now they’ve lost the charming liar Tony Snow to handle press briefings. Instead, they have this nitwit

http://www.first-draft.com/2007/03/today_on_holden_15.html

Theocracy watch: the religious right vetoes Fred Thompson too

http://www.usnews.com/usnews/news/articles/070328/28dobson.htm

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2007/03/kissing-ring-by-digby-speaking-of.html

Bonus item: Ick. Double-ick. Karl Rove “raps” at the Radio and TV Correspondents Dinner

http://thinkprogress.org/2007/03/28/video-rove-raps-at-correspondents-dinner/

More “humor”: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070329/ap_on_go_pr_wh/bush_broadcasters;_ylt=AmbH5nyfjWfkhPgxCejptgLMWM0F
[Bush] "A year ago my approval rating was in the 30s, my nominee for the Supreme Court had just withdrawn, and my vice president had shot someone," President Bush said Wednesday night during the annual gathering.

"Ah," he said, "those were the good ol' days." . . .

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

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

 
THOSE STUBBORN FACTS

The Senate takes a big step toward a funding bill for the Iraq war with a cut-off date. This is being spun by Cheney and the pro-war right as capitulation, even treason. Setting a cut-off date is equated with defeatism and betraying the troops. But let’s remember that there are at least three PRO-VICTORY arguments for setting a cut-off date: (1) Our continued presence may be making things worse -- as long as the troops stay there, they are a prime target for insurgent attacks (this is separate from the factional killing of the civil war, which we’ve also made worse but in a different way); (2) The Iraq govt says they can never gain stability or legitimacy as long as we are there – our continuation as an occupying force undermines their ability to do some of the things we expect them to do; (3) The prospect of a US troop withdrawal would hasten the day when the Iraq govt is forced to get serious about dealing with some of their own problems. I’m not saying that pulling out troops would make things instantly better – it may make things worse, especially in the short term. But staying longer is DEFINITELY making things worse. The Dems shouldn’t let their stance be spun as defeatism

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/28/washington/28cong.html
The Senate went on record for the first time on Tuesday in favor of a withdrawal date from Iraq, with Democrats marshaling the votes they needed to deliver a forceful rebuke to President Bush’s war policy. . . .

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/3/27/175448/954
Democrats voting for amendment (or the wrong way): Mark Pryor (AR)

Independents voting for it: Joe Lieberman (CT)

Republicans voting against it: Chuck Hagel (NE), Gordon Smith (OR)

Not voting: Mike Enzi (R-WY), Tim Johnson (D-SD)

This means that the following Republicans facing tough or potentially tough reelection battles in 2008 just voted to escalate Bush's war with no accountability. These guys just voted to attach themselves even closer to Bush's hip:

Norm Coleman (NM)
Susan Collins (ME)
John Cornyn (TX)
Liddy Dole (NC)
Pete Domenici (NM)
Mitch McConnel (KY)
Pete Sessions (AL)
John Sununu (NH)
John Warner (VA)



http://thehill.com/leading-the-news/democrats-win-senate-vote-on-iraq-withdrawal-date-2007-03-27.html
[John] McCain called the provision “one of the most shameful things I’ve ever seen.”

Fox News adds its own subtle commentary: http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/3/27/1317/17196

What will Bush do? http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/10334.html

Sunny Joe

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/3/27/22223/3102
"It is clear that for the first time in a long time, there is reason for cautious optimism about Iraq." . . .

http://electioncentral.tpmcafe.com/blog/electioncentral/2007/mar/27/lieberman

His buddy John

http://www.juancole.com/2007/03/mccain-checks-into-cloud-cuckooland-116.html
[Juan Cole] Senator John McCain has contracted Rumsfeld's Disease. This malady consists of a combination of bad temper, misuse of language to obfuscate reality, and a Panglossian optimism in the face of stubborn, sanguinary facts on the ground. . . .

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/10331.html

Those stubborn facts

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/03/27/AR2007032701923.html
An influential retired Army general released a dire assessment of the situation in Iraq, based on a recent round of meetings there with Gen. David H. Petraeus and 16 other senior U.S. commanders.

"The population is in despair," retired Gen. Barry McCaffrey wrote in an eight-page document compiled in his capacity as a professor at West Point. "Life in many of the urban areas is now desperate.". . .

More: http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2007/03/straight-talk-in-neverland-by-digby-on.html

What does the Right REALLY think about Bush’s war?

http://www.firedoglake.com/2007/03/27/comeuppance/

When the British magazine The Lancet reported a figure of 650,000 Iraqi civilians killed in the war, the outraged response from war defenders was instantaneous – it was a wildly exaggerated figure, driven by anti-war hysteria and dubious methodologies. Well, guess what?

http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/richard_horton/2007/03/counting_the_cost.html
[Richard Horton] Immediately after publication, the prime minister's official spokesman said that The Lancet's study "was not one we believe to be anywhere near accurate". The foreign secretary, Margaret Beckett, said that the Lancet figures were "extrapolated" and a "leap". President Bush said: "I don't consider it a credible report".

Scientists at the UK's Department for International Development thought differently. They concluded that the study's methods were "tried and tested". Indeed, the Hopkins approach would likely lead to an "underestimation of mortality".

The Ministry of Defence's chief scientific advisor said the research was "robust", close to "best practice", and "balanced". He recommended "caution in publicly criticising the study".

When these recommendations went to the prime minister's advisers, they were horrified. One person briefing Tony Blair wrote: "are we really sure that the report is likely to be right? That is certainly what the brief implies?" A Foreign Office official was forced to conclude that the government "should not be rubbishing The Lancet".

The prime minister's adviser finally gave in. He wrote: "the survey methodology used here cannot be rubbished, it is a tried and tested way of measuring mortality in conflict zones".

How would the government respond?

Would it welcome the Hopkins study as an important contribution to understanding the military threat to Iraqi civilians? Would it ask for urgent independent verification? Would it invite the Iraqi government to upgrade civilian security?

Of course, our government did none of these things. Tony Blair was advised to say: "the overriding message is that there are no accurate or reliable figures of deaths in Iraq". . . .

Bush’s Monica

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/blog/2007/03/27/BL2007032701000.html
[Dan Froomkin] [W]hen a fairly minor player in what had heretofore not been considered a criminal investigation suddenly admits that she faces legal jeopardy if she tells the truth to a Congressional panel? Well, in that case, wild speculation is an inevitable and appropriate reaction.

For one, it's not at all clear what she's trying to say. Undeniably, if she chose to lie to the panel, she could face perjury charges. Her recourse, therefore, would appear to be to tell the truth.

So is she saying that if she told the truth, she would have to admit a crime? What crime?

Or is she saying something else: That she'd have to admit someone else's criminal behavior? Well, that's not something you can take the Fifth to avoid. Sorry.

Or is she just afraid of being grilled by an antagonistic bunch of congressmen? Well, that's not something you can take the Fifth to avoid either. . .

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2007/03/imperial-life-on-potomac-by-digby-last.html
[Digby] Last night I noted that Monica Goodling, Alberto Gonzales' senior counsel and white house liason graduated from Pat Robertson's Regent University law school. Apparently, she did her undergraduate work at someplace known as Messiah University, so it's pretty clear that this 33 year old is a dyed in the wool social conservative who was likely hired for that reason. Apparently, the Bush Emerald City hiring practices were more systemic than we thought: there are more than 150 graduates of Regent University serving in the Bush Administration

It sure does make you wonder about the ethical and moral instruction at these conservative Christian colleges, doesn't it? . . . [read on]

Why Monica Goodling may have a reason to plead the Fifth after all

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/013277.php
[BK] Monica Goodling does have a good faith basis for pleading the Fifth Amendment - just not the ones in her lawyer's letter that are getting all the attention.

Under the federal False Statements statute, 18 USC 1001, it is a felony to cause another person to make a false statement to Congress. Since McNulty has allegedly told Senator Schumer that he made a false statement to Congress based on information provided to him by Monica Goodling, Goodling could very well be prosecuted for a Section 1001 violation.

All the rest of the crap in her lawyer's letter is intended to sooth as much as possible WH anger at her for invoking the Fifth.

Paul McNulty has a story to tell

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/17664172/site/newsweek/page/3/
[A] pair of senior Justice officials gave accounts to lawmakers that were, at best, incomplete. At a hearing before the House Judiciary Committee, William Moschella, a top aide to Deputy Attorney General Paul McNulty, vigorously defended the firings of the U.S. attorneys as a purely managerial move that had originated within the Justice Department. He said nothing about any nudging from the White House. McNulty had earlier given similar testimony, saying the attorneys had been let go for "job performance" reasons, an assertion that infuriated the fired prosecutors. But the two Justice officials have told colleagues that when they saw the e-mail accounts showing the attorney-purge idea had originated in the White House, they were surprised and appalled. "I felt sick," Moschella told NEWSWEEK. "I basically saw my professional life flash before my eyes." Moschella and McNulty blamed [Kyle] Sampson. The attorney general's chief of staff had sat in as they prepped for their testimony and "never said a word," according to a Justice Department official who wished to remain anonymous discussing a private meeting. . . .

More: http://www.firedoglake.com/2007/03/27/handouts-anyone/

http://www.warandpiece.com/blogdirs/005887.html

Zippy

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/013282.php
[Chicago Sun Times] Attorney General Alberto Gonzales dashed out of a Chicago news conference this afternoon in just two and a half minutes, ducking questions about how his office gave U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald a subpar rating.

Gonzales. . . had planned a 15-minute press availability. He left after taking just three questions over a firing scandal consuming his administration.

Before leaving, Gonzales said he wanted to "reassure the American people that nothing improper happened here."

Video: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2007/03/27/gonzales-runs-out-of-conf_n_44386.html

And just think: this is his EXCUSE

http://www.talkleft.com/story/2007/3/27/13236/1477
[NYT] "The attorney general said Mr. Sampson was in charge of the process but periodically told him about his progress in identifying under-performing prosecutors. 'I was never focused on specific concerns about United States attorneys as to whether or not they should be asked to resign,' Mr. Gonzales said. "'I was more focused on identifying, or making sure the White House was appropriately advised of the progress of our review.'"

[Jeralyn Merritt] Think about that for a second. The Attorney General of the United States is saying that he delegated to his chief of staff - a thirty-something political type with absolutely no law enforcement experience - the decision on whether to fire United States Attorneys, the chief law enforcement officer of the district - and the Attorney General's only concern was to make sure that the White House was kept informed. What basis did Sampson have for judgment of someone's effectiveness either as a manager or as a prosecutor? Is it really appropriate to delegate to a political operative the authority to determine which Presidentially appointed and senatorially confirmed officials should be fired? And what does it say about the competence and the priorities of the Attorney General that his only concern was the White House side of this? . . .

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070327/ap_on_go_ca_st_pe/fired_prosecutors;_ylt=AnGLUgkctMcpR236EB.ocY.s0NUE
Attorney General Alberto Gonzales' allies on Capitol Hill grew scarce Tuesday as he left it largely to aides to carry out President Bush's order to straighten out the story behind the firing of eight federal prosecutors. . . .

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/3/28/14525/7135
[Meteor Blades] OK, everyone, here's your chance to provide $25 to your favorite charity, blog, activist group or political candidate.

Predict when Alberto Gonzales will announce his departure. Or when somebody will do it for him. . . .

Just in case you had any doubts that the whole purpose of senior WH staffers using secret RNC email accounts was to avoid recording their transactions, here’s a clue from the Abramoff case. . .

http://www.firedoglake.com/2007/03/27/crooksrus-2/
[WP] Susan B. Ralston, while she was executive assistant to Rove, similarly used "georgewbush.com" and "rnchq.org" e-mail accounts to confer in 2001 and 2003 with Abramoff, her former boss, about matters of interest to Abramoff's clients.

In a related e-mail, an Abramoff aide said Ralston had warned that "it is better to not put this stuff in writing in [the White House] . . . email system because it might actually limit what they can do to help us, especially since there could be lawsuits, etc."

Abramoff's response, according to a copy of his e-mail, was: "Dammit. It was sent to Susan on her rnc pager and was not supposed to go into the WH system." . .

In the continuing focus on individual US Attorney cases, here’s the run-down on the Carol Lam case

http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/002888.php
[Paul Kiel] Having spent some time digging into the administration's stated reason for U.S. Attorney Carol Lam's firing, it's time to cleanse the palate with the reasons why we're so suspicious.

So here we go.

-- Lam was never confronted over her approach to immigration prosecutions, the given reason for her dismissal.

-- In November, shortly before Lam was fired, a Justice Department official brainstormed about how to explain firing several U.S. attorneys: "The one common link here is that three of them are along the southern border so you could make the connection that DoJ is unhappy with the immigration prosecution numbers in those districts."

-- Lam was fired midway into a historic, wide-reaching public corruption investigation that targeted a number of Republican members of Congress and the executive director of the CIA. Even Karl Rove has acknowledged the reasonableness of not dismissing U.S. attorneys who are leading "high profile cases, important investigations" -- though for some reason, this one didn't qualify.

-- Despite the fact that it was one of the highest profile federal investigations being undertaken at the Department, Lam's investigation into Duke Cunningham and others is never mentioned in the Justice Department emails that have been released. Not once. This must have been discussed at the highest levels, but we've seen no record of those communications.

-- The FBI's bureau chief in San Diego has said, "I guarantee politics is involved" in Lam's firing. When asked about the given rationales for her ouster (that she pursued corruption cases to the detriment of gun and border prosecutions), he responded “What do you expect her to do? Let corruption exist?”

-- May 11, 2006, the day after Lam informed the Justice Department that she planned to execute a search warrant on CIA Executive Director Kyle "Dusty" Foggo and the same day that it was reported that her investigation had spread to Rep. Jerry Lewis (R-CA), Alberto Gonzales' chief of staff Kyle Sampson wrote to a White House official: "The real problem we have right now with Carol Lam that leads me to conclude that we should have someone ready to be nominated on 11/18, the day her 4-year term expires."

-- On January 5th, 2007, less than a month after Lam had been told she was fired, but before it had been made public, Sampson wrote to his Justice Department colleagues, "... we granted 1-month extensions for [U.S. Attorney for Nevada Daniel Bogden] and [Western Michigan's Margaret Chiara], but not Carol -- right?" Lam was widely known to be leading a grand jury investigation into Foggo and others. Ultimately, she was granted a fifteen day extension, from January 31 until February 15; she ordered her office to bring the indictment against Foggo before she stepped down, and she succeeded.

More: http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/002877.php

http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/002879.php

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2007_03_25.php#013293
[Josh Marshall] Back in January, Dan Dzwilewski, the FBI's special agent in charge of the San Diego field office, told to the San Diego Union-Tribune that Carol Lam's dismissal would jeopardize on-going corruption investigations and that "I guarantee politics is involved."

After his quotes were published, the folks back in DC told him to keep quiet.

Are Cheney and his people working against Condi Rice’s efforts to secure a Middle East agreement?

http://www.thewashingtonnote.com/archives/002032.php

http://delong.typepad.com/sdj/2007/03/an_open_plea_to.html

As obsessive readers of PBD have followed, the whole Cunningham/MZM mess started with a $140,000 contract for “office furniture,” originating out of the WH. Now we learn what this contract was really for

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2007_03_25.php#013285

The return of the ERA?

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/03/27/AR2007032702357.html

I have nothing to say about Tony Snow’s re-emergent cancer here, except to say that I hope the right wing is as generous and sensitive in their reactions to his announcement as they were to Elizabeth Edwards’s announcement

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/03/27/AR2007032700828.html

Oh no, now we’re going to have to put up with Dana Perino!

http://www.first-draft.com/2007/03/today_on_holden_13.html
Q Let me ask you about the email that shows the Attorney General in a meeting on November the 27th, and then the Attorney General's statements on March 13th, "We never had a discussion about where things stood." Do you find anything inconsistent in that?

MS. PERINO: The Justice Department, when they gave their statements on Friday night, said that they weren't inconsistent. And my reading of it is that the Attorney General has said -- I understand that there's a March 13th piece, but I also looked back on March 14th, when he did interviews back and forth -- I think it was with a CNN network -- in which he said, and he said consistently, that he does not recall being involved in deliberations about who -- which U.S. attorneys might be asked to be replaced for the remainder of the term. But he does say that he signed off on the final list. And my reading of that meeting was that was the final decision -- the decisions had been made, the final plan had been in place, and they were asking the Attorney General for a sign-off.

Q So what's he getting out of the 13th, when he said, "We never had a discussion about where things stood"?

MS. PERINO: I think what he's referring to -- and, again, I'm going to refer you to Justice Department for exactly what his thinking is, but when he says he doesn't recall having recollections about having deliberative discussions about the ongoing process over that two-year period, but that he does take responsibility for signing off on the final plan. . . .

http://www.first-draft.com/2007/03/today_on_holden_14.html
Q I'd like to ask you about Monica Goodling. Her decision to take the Fifth contradicts the Attorney General's promise that his staff would be forthcoming. What are your thoughts about that?

MS. PERINO: Well, I think it's unfortunate that a public servant no longer feels that her testimony would be treated fairly before the Congress. And, yes, the Attorney General, with the support of the President, urged all the members of the Justice Department to cooperate with Congress's request for testimony. However, we must respect the constitutional right of the individuals involved, and we are not going to question decisions that she made in private conversations with her and her attorney to protect those right. . .

Q Dana, is pleading the Fifth signifying that a crime has been committed?

MS. PERINO: Well, I think that's an unfortunate interpretation of the Fifth Amendment, which is available to all of us, that in our public -- in our judicial system, invoking the Fifth Amendment is not an admission of guilt. But I would refer you to her lawyer for anything more. . . .

Q Once again -- and I asked Tony this last week -- was a crime committed in firing --

MS. PERINO: There is absolutely no indication that there was any crime committed, nor was there anything improper done.

Q You're saying, "indication;" you're not giving me a flat-out no.

MS. PERINO: I'm telling there's absolutely no indication that would point to that. Absolutely no indication to point to that. . . .

Funny. Someone dug up a fascinating video of Dan Rather doing a piece on Nixon’s 1972 campaign, and the birth of fundraising techniques that have shaped modern politics – it features a VERY young Karl Rove

http://www.mydd.com/story/2007/3/27/135558/764

More (well-earned) Politico bashing

http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2007/03/27/politico/index.html
[Glenn Greenwald] The new online political magazine, The Politico, is a pernicious new presence in our media landscape. As I noted the other day, it really is nothing more than the Drudge Report dressed up with the trappings of mainstream media credibility. Today, Will Bunch of the Philadelphia Daily News writes on his blog about what is merely the latest episode (of many) proving how closely coordinated The Politico is with The Drudge Report. It is not hyperbole to say that the former is all but an arm of the latter.

Last night, The Politico's Mike Allen published a petty, trite hit piece on Barack Obama -- entitled Rookie Mistakes Plague Obama -- claiming that Obama "has also shown a tendency toward seemingly minor contradictions and rhetorical slips" and referencing "imprecise or incomplete statements by Obama over the years." As Bunch noticed, Allen's story was "highlighted on the Drudge Report no later than 18 minutes after it was filed by Allen (how does he do it!)." . . .

No, it was posted one hour BEFORE: http://mediamatters.org/items/200703270006
The Drudge Report flagged the article by posting its headline verbatim approximately one hour before The Politico posted the article on its website on the evening of March 26, according to Google News. . . .

Our liberal media

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2007_03_25.php#013278
[Greg Sargent] The Associated Press launches a cheap, factually questionable hit on Barack Obama.

Update: It gets better. Now the Republican National Committee is aggressively pushing the AP piece to reporters. . . .

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/10336.html
[Steve Benen] When the RNC is using an AP article as a press release, chances are, there’s something wrong with the AP article.

Interesting: the past, and the future, of American democracy

http://www.tpmcafe.com/blog/coffeehouse/2007/mar/27/organizing_for_democratic_renewal

Well, we knew this, didn’t we? (thanks to Holden for the link)

http://blogs.abcnews.com/theblotter/2007/03/exclusive_repor_1.html
Bush administration officials throughout the government have engaged in White House-directed efforts to stifle, delay or dampen the release of climate change research that casts the White House or its policies in a bad light, says a new report that purports to be the most comprehensive assessment to date of the subject.

Researchers for the non-profit watchdog Government Accountability Project reviewed thousands of e-mails, memos and other documents obtained through Freedom of Information Act requests and from government whistle-blowers and conducted dozens of interviews with public affairs staff, scientists, reporters and others.

The group says it has identified hundreds of instances where White House-appointed officials interfered with government scientists' efforts to convey their research findings to the public, at the behest of top administration officials. . . .

The mental challenges of maintaining a wingnut world view

http://crookedtimber.org/2007/03/27/eumerica/
[John Quiggin] There’s been a lot of discussion of a recent Pew Research Center study of US voters . . . which certainly suggests a strong reaction against the Bush Administration and the Republican Party . . .

But the underlying picture is much worse for Republicans than this, as Gary Kamiya observes. On the one hand, the Pew Survey shows that Democrats and Independents are becoming pretty similar in the views to people elsewhere in the developed world (such as Europeans) – liberal on social issues, moderately social-democratic in social policy, preferring peace to war and so on. Not surprisingly, this translates to a strongly negative view of the Republican party, just as it does everywhere else in the world.

On the other hand, Republican support is contracting to a base of about 25 per cent of the population whose views are getting more extreme, not merely because moderate conservatives are peeling off to become Independents, but also because of the party’s success in constructing a parallel universe of news sources, thinktanks, blogs, pseudo-scientists and so on, which has led to the core becoming more tightly committed to an extremist ideology.

http://atrios.blogspot.com/2007_03_25_atrios_archive.html#117499901718778967
[Atrios] [The] wingnut worldview has gotten complex and sprawling. Its cast of characters, bizarre understanding of history, and policy positions have grown and expanded so that only obsessed true believers can really feel a part of it. They've established an entire mythology, and its adherents have become cultlike. . . .

More: http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2007_03/011014.php

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2007/03/faith-based-straight-jacket-by-digby.html

Bonus item: OK, can’t resist this one – it’s just too damn funny. A while back Bill Clinton hosted a lunch with various lefty bloggers. Ann Althouse criticized one of the participants, Jessica Valenti of Feministing, for (supposedly) posing with her breasts stuck out while standing right in front of Clinton. This led to a wild blogging spree on all sides (breasts! breasts!). The latest chapter is a video “conversation” between Althouse and Garance Franke-Ruta of Tapped. Watch what happens next. . . .

The photo: http://flickr.com/photo_zoom.gne?id=243422784&size=l

The start of the blogging spree: http://althouse.blogspot.com/2006/09/bill-clinton-lunching-with-bloggers.html

http://feministing.com/archives/005710.html

The video: http://bloggingheads.tv/video.php?id=231&cid=1214
[Don’t – miss - it!]

More: http://www.firedoglake.com/2007/03/27/late-nite-fdl-in-space-no-one-can-hear-you-scream/

http://www.prospect.org/weblog/2007/03/post_3256.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 @ 7:04 AM

 
CONSCIOUSNESS OF GUILT

Well, well, well. When someone starts talking about taking the Fifth, we’re no longer talking about an “overblown personnel matter,” are we?

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/27/washington/27attorneys.html
An aide to Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales on Monday invoked her constitutional right to refuse to testify before a Senate panel investigating last year’s removal of eight United States attorneys, her lawyer told the committee.

The aide, Monica Goodling, the Justice Department’s White House liaison, who helped coordinate the dismissals, asserted her Fifth Amendment protection against compelled self-incrimination in a letter that her lawyer sent to the Senate Judiciary Committee.

In the letter, Ms. Goodling’s lawyer, John M. Dowd, questioned the fairness of the panel and cited the possibility that she might be a witness in a criminal inquiry, although there is currently no known criminal investigation into the dismissals.

A Justice Department official said that senior agency officials were “concerned” about Ms. Goodling’s refusal to testify because “we had agreed to make Department of Justice officials available to the committee.” The official said Ms. Goodling, who is on leave, had not obtained advance approval for her decision. . . .

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/03/26/AR2007032600935_pf.html
The decision means a senior aide to the nation's top law enforcement official is in the remarkable position of refusing to testify for fear of implicating herself in a crime. . . .

Who is Monica Goodling? (SENIOR advisor to Gonzales)

http://www.warandpiece.com/blogdirs/005882.html
[Laura Rozen] Regarding the significance of the decision of an aide to Alberto Gonzales to take the fifth and refuse to testify to Congress, a Democratic lawyer correspondent writes, "It means that the Griles plea agreement has had its intended effect: letting Bush Administration officials know they can and will be prosecuted for lying to Congress. This means Gonzales' departure from Justice is getting closer ... Republican Senators aren't going to like the spectacle of a former Justice Department official invoking the Fifth - and Senator Leahy will make her appear and take the Fifth." Of the aide, Monica Goodling, who has served as the Justice Department's liaison to the White House, the lawyer notes, "She's a graduate of Regent University Law School in Virginia Beach - a law school that teaches law from a Christian perspective," accredited fairly recently, in 1996. . . .

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2007/03/best-and-brightest-by-digby-it-seems.html
[Digby] Apparently the president of the United States hires the finest legal minds in the Christian Coalition to work in the highest reaches of his administration. I'm not sure he's getting what he prays for . . .

Because Goodling was the DOJ liaison with the White House, she certainly has a story to tell. Is she the “cut-out” that breaks the link from the Justice Dept to the White House? Gonzales is gone, sooner or later – but they desperately need to keep this away from Rove et al.

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2007_03/011009.php
[Kevin Drum] Look, I know Jeralyn might get mad at me for saying this, but when people start taking the 5th there's obviously some serious funny business going on. . . .

More: http://www.samefacts.com/archives/overblown_personnel_matter_/2007/03/doj_white_house_liaison_takes_the_fifth.php

Is her claim an invalid use of the Fifth amendment?

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2007_03_25.php#013272
[Josh Marshall] Interestingly, or perhaps revealingly, at the end of the letter, John Dowd, Goodling's attorney asserts that "we have advised Ms. Goodling (and she has decided) to invoke her Constitutional right not to answer any questions."

This is more than a semantic point. The constitution says nothing about a right not to answer questions. The actual words are that no one "shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself" -- or in the more modern parlance, your right against self-incrimination. This is why you lose your 'right not to answer questions' as soon as you're granted immunity. . . [read on!]

[NB: Which the committee very well might do to compel her to testify: http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/the_daily_dish/2007/03/goodlings_plea.html]

More: http://volokh.com/archives/archive_2007_03_25-2007_03_31.shtml#1174946183

http://www.firedoglake.com/2007/03/27/the-right-to-remain-silent-or-not/

Her “rationale”: http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/002798.php

Paul McNulty, Deputy Attorney General – someone we’ll be getting to know well in the coming weeks

Strike: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/27/washington/27attorneys.html
In his letter, Mr. Dowd said he had learned about a conversation between an unidentified Justice Department official, who is said by officials to be Mr. McNulty, and Senator Charles E. Schumer, Democrat of New York, who has led the Congressional inquiry into the dismissals.

Mr. Dowd said that Mr. Schumer was told privately by the official that the official’s report to the committee about the dismissals “was not entirely candid” because “others, including our client, did not inform him of certain pertinent facts.”

Mr. Dowd appeared to be referring to Mr. McNulty’s statements that before meeting with lawmakers, he attended briefings in which Ms. Goodling and Mr. Sampson did not fully describe what they knew about the White House role in the dismissals.

Counterstrike: http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/3/26/214918/493
[ABC] The firestorm over the fired U.S. attorneys was sparked last month when a top Justice Department official ignored guidance from the White House and rejected advice from senior administration lawyers over his testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee.

The official, Deputy Attorney General Paul McNulty, ignored White House Counsel Harriet Miers and senior lawyers in the Justice Department when he told the committee last month of specific reasons why the administration fired seven U.S. attorneys — and appeared to acknowledge for the first time that politics was behind one dismissal. McNulty's testimony directly conflicted with the approach Miers advised, according to an unreleased internal White House e-mail described to ABC News. According to that e-mail, sources said, Miers said the administration should take the firm position that it would not comment on personnel issues. . . . [read on]

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2007_03_25.php#013271
[Josh Marshall] Look at the logic here. If McNulty just would have stuck to the Miers line forever -- the Miers line being to refuse to say why the unprecedented US Attorney firings had taken place -- then everything would have been fine.

It's true that the claim that the firings were performance related set off a chain reaction of events. Most importantly it pushed some of the US Attorneys to defend their professional reputations.

But this is the classic case of mistaking the symptom for the disease. As McNulty could see, refusing to give any explanation for an unprecedented firing of multiple US Attorneys with active investigations or prosecutions of prominent Republicans simply wasn't tenable. Vague lies about performance problems was the least worst option available. . . .

Kyle Sampson’s testimony on Thursday isn’t going to help Gonzales any

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2007_03_25.php#013270
[US News] Sampson will set off some fireworks by contradicting a key assurance that Gonzales made to Congress and the American public last Tuesday that he was not in the loop during the long deliberations leading up to the firings. . .

No sympathy for Gonzales

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/blog/2007/03/26/BL2007032600680.html
[Dan Froomkin] Why did Attorney General Alberto Gonzales go before the television cameras two weeks ago and deny that he knew anything about last year's firings of U.S. attorneys, when -- as we just learned from yet another Friday-night document dump -- he approved them during an hour-long meeting in November?

Did that meeting not make an impression? Did he choose to lie about it? Was he secretly drawing a distinction between giving his approval and knowing anything about what he had given his approval for?

Or was he just reading whatever was put in front of him?

It's no secret in Washington that Gonzales is not an autonomous player. His entire career has been as an enabler of George Bush. He does what he's told. . . . [read on]

Do they really still think that Gonzales can save himself by offering new EXPLANATIONS of what went on?

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/17801927/
Pete Williams: Mr. Attorney General, what is it that you would like people to know about this controversy?

Attorney General Alberto Gonzales: Let me begin with the attacks on my credibility, which really have pained me and my family. You know, I have grown up — I grew up with nothing but my integrity. And someday, when I leave this office, I am confident that I will leave with my integrity. The United States attorneys that were asked — to resign — were appointed by this president, they serve, like me, at the pleasure of the president.

I asked for their resignation not for improper reasons. I would never have asked for their resignations to interfere with a public corruption case or in any way to interfere with an ongoing investigation. I just wouldn't do that. And if you look carefully at the documentations we've provided to Congress, there's no evidence of that. . . .

More: http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/002882.php

http://www.discourse.net/archives/2007/03/gonzales_tries_the_pure_heart_empty_head_defense.html

Are they dribbling out this information now, in anticipation of a revelation down the road?

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2007/03/who-are-they-kidding-by-digby-gonzales.html
[NBC] Gonzales: The president — the White House has already confirmed that there was a conversation with the president, mentioned it to me in a meeting at the Oval Office — in terms of concerns about — about the commitment — to pursue voter fraud cases in — in three jurisdictions around the country. I don't remember that conversation, but what I'm saying is during the process there may have been other conversations about specifically about the performance of US attorneys. But I wasn't involved in the deliberations as to whether or not a particular United States attorney should or should not be asked to resign.

[Digby] I'm not wrong about the insult to my intelligence when wingnuts persist in saying that it's perfectly normal that the president of the United States took an unusual interest in alleged Democratic voter fraud that certain party members said weren't being aggressively enough pursued by the Republican prosecutors he himself appointed. Why would he put any credence into such complaints? His prosecutors weren't Democrats --- they had no agenda. And the inappropriateness of a president interfering in such things is so obvious that any man with integrity would have dropped that hot potato the instant it was put to him --- it just doesn't get any more wrong than him putting the heat on his Justice department to prosecute members of the opposite party on trumped up electoral fraud. After all, there is no evidence that the president or anyone else took an interest in the issue of electoral integrity in general or were concerned about the numerous issues raised by Democrats during the last two presidential elections, so no one can reasonably claim that this was about policy.

What this white house appears to have done goes to the very heart of our democratic system. It's true that he can fire anyone he wants but being party to a plan to rig elections is impeachable.

As regular readers know, I have a theory that part of how the Bush gang has maintained ferocious loyalty is by promoting people far beyond their competence, which then binds them to the bosses who gave them their Big Chance (Gonzo, Miers, Rice). We saw the same thing with the wet-behind-the-ear incompetents shipped in to run Iraq during post-war reconstruction. The version of it that applies in this case is the army of thirty-somethings running around the Justice Dept., former Young Republicans like their master Karl Rove, handing out negative evaluations of career prosecutors and professionals in the hope that it can open up a slot for their own advancement – hear me, Kyle Sampson?

http://www.needlenose.com/node/view/3907
[AP] Bud Cummins, who was replaced as U.S. attorney in Little Rock, Ark., by a Karl Rove protégé, acknowledged political appointees can be fired for no reason.

"But in this case it looks like that authority was delegated down through (former White House counsel) Harriet Miers, Karl Rove, Judge Gonzales and all the way down to a bunch of 35-year-old kids who got in a room together and tried to decide who was most loyal to the president," Cummins said. . . .

http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0703/26/cnr.04.html
[David Iglesias, on the e-mails that have been released] Well, they are shocking, because they are unprofessional, they are sophomoric, they are snide, they're sarcastic. You want to believe that people running our federal system are professional and dealing are with facts. If you look at the tone and tenor of a lot of these e-mails especially regarding Carol Lam and Ms. Chiara, Margaret Chiara, it's just unprofessional and it's depressing to see a bunch of 30-year-olds with no real prosecution background casting judgment on us. . .

What will happen if WH staffers ignore subpoenas to testify before Congress? Can they continue to get away with this now that the question of criminal conduct has been introduced into the discussion? With Goodling’s refusal to testify, this is starting to look less like protection of the principle of “executive privilege,” and more like a mob trial

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/3/26/132219/156
[BarbinMD] Calling it a non-negotiable offer, today the White House reiterated that Karl Rove and company would only be interviewed by Congress and that there would be no oath taken and no record kept. Oh, and that their offer was extraordinarily generous. . . .

“We are not negotiating. . . .”

What next? http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/3/26/115740/988

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2007_03/011010.php

Looks like those RNC email accounts that Rove and others used to circumvent the WH record system are about to get subpoenaed too

http://blogs.abcnews.com/theblotter/2007/03/white_house_aid.html
White House staff are using non-governmental e-mail addresses to avoid leaving a paper trail of their communications, a senior congressman charged Monday.

In a pair of letters Monday, House Oversight and Investigations Committee Chairman Henry A. Waxman, D.-Calif., asked the Republican National Committee and the Bush-Cheney '04 Campaign to preserve e-mails sent and received by White House officials using domains controlled by the two groups.

Waxman also asked the two to meet with his staff to explain how they handle e-mail accounts for government officials.

"Such e-mails written in the conduct of White House business would appear to be governmental records subject to preservation and eventual public disclosure," Waxman wrote.

The use of e-mail addresses from domains like "gwb43.com" by White House aides surfaced in the news earlier this month when the Justice Department released hundreds of e-mails between political appointees discussing the firing of several U.S. attorneys. E-mails from Scott Jennings, a deputy to White House political adviser Karl Rove, came from an address featuring the gwb43.com domain.

But Waxman also pointed to e-mails his committee received last year in connection to convicted superlobbyist Jack Abramoff, which show White House aides sending and receiving work-related e-mails from domains like "georgewbush.com" and "rnchq.org".

E-mail conversations uncovered by Waxman's investigators suggest that some White House staff and outsiders believed such e-mail, which evaded official ".gov" systems, could be kept private.

"...[I]t is better not to put this stuff in writing in their e-mail system because it might actually limit what they can do to help us," one lobbyist wrote Abramoff, citing advice from a White House aide, "especially since there could be lawsuits, etc." . . .

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2007_03_25.php#013260
[Josh Marshall] According to the National Journal, about 95% of Karl Rove's email traffic has been on these RNC email accounts.

Now, I don't know all the legal and constitutional ins and outs of this debate. But whatever claim the White House may have to protect everyone at the White House from congressional scrutiny by invoking executive privilege, this use of outside private email accounts may turn out to be too clever by half.

Can executive privilege even conceiveably cover emails from the Republican National Committee? By any definition, those aren't emails written or received by anyone in their capacity as a presidential advisor. They're private and have nothing to do with the president in his executive capacity. . . .

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/10320.html
[Steve Benen] I just hope it’s not too late. . . .

More: http://www.warandpiece.com/blogdirs/005879.html

The talking heads inside the Beltway have never really thought this US Attorney business was all that serious. (Now that people are talking about criminal liability and the Fifth Amendment, perhaps that will change.) Glenn Greenwald skewers the smug cynicism of the punditocracy

http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2007/03/26/matthews/index.html
I want to return to the video clip of the jovial and dismissive discussion of the U.S. attorneys scandal on yesterday's Chris Matthews Show (embedded below). In one sense, this clip is completely typical of how our national media thinks and talks about political matters. But there just is something about this particular discussion and the giggling, vapid participants that is extra vivid and instructive on a visceral level. . . .

More: http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/10322.html

http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2007/03/26/follow_up/index.html

Carol Lam, fired US Attorney who was digging deep into the Cunningham/CIA scandal, wasn’t fired for that reason, oh no

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2007_03_25.php#013256
[Josh Marshall] [N]ow we've got yet another excuse for why former San Diego US Attorney Carol Lam was fired.

Rep. Duncan Hunter (R-CA) says the problem was that she wasn't aggressive enough prosecuting lower-level drug cases. . .

Now, Hunter's rationale for Lam's dismissal is of particular interest because he is among that small group of sitting members of Congress who worked closely with Cunningham . . .

More: http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2007_03_25.php#013262

The Duke Cunningham scandal reaches into the White House

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2007_03_25.php#013264

More: http://www.docstrangelove.com/2007/03/26/carol-lam-vs-the-white-house-gravy-train/

I think this is very big: Senate Republicans tell Bush they are no longer going to carry his water on Iraq. If he wants to veto a bill that funds our troops, he can do that – but they aren’t going to filibuster it (plus, there is more than one Republican who is secretly happy to see a 2008 deadline included for troops in Iraq)

http://www.mydd.com/story/2007/3/26/21111/1289

More: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/03/26/AR2007032601923.html

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/3/24/92416/6009

Strained to the limit

http://www.talkleft.com/story/2007/3/27/21953/5405
[Jeralyn Merritt] A shortage of volunteers, according to the Administration, is the cause of up to 1,200 Marine reservists being called to Iraq next year. . . .

The Pat Tillman “friendly fire” investigation – like so many others, it identifies responsibility, but not guilt, for the higher-ups

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/26/washington/27tillmancnd.html

Are we surprised?

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/03/26/AR2007032602073.html
FBI agents repeatedly provided inaccurate information to win secret court approval of surveillance warrants in terrorism and espionage cases, prompting officials to tighten controls on the way the bureau uses that powerful anti-terrorism tool, according to Justice Department and FBI officials.

The errors were pervasive enough that the chief judge of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, Colleen Kollar-Kotelly, wrote the Justice Department in December 2005 to complain. She raised the possibility of requiring counterterrorism agents to swear in her courtroom that the information they were providing was accurate, a procedure that could have slowed such investigations drastically. . . .

Mitt Romney, man of mystery

http://americablog.blogspot.com/2007/03/even-more-romney-flip-flops-on-gays.html

Oh how the mighty have fallen

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/03/26/AR2007032600518.html
Federal prosecutors announced conspiracy and securities and bank fraud charges this morning against Reagan-era budget director David A. Stockman, accusing the former Republican lawmaker of misleading investors about the finances of a troubled Michigan auto parts company.

Stockman, 60, surrendered to authorities early today and appeared before a federal magistrate judge in Manhattan this afternoon. He entered a plea of not guilty to the charges and was released on a $1 million bond.

The grand jury indictment includes allegations that Stockman engaged in securities fraud and made overly optimistic statements to investors about his company's financial prospects. The charges are conspiracy, securities fraud, bank fraud, and obstruction of the SEC investigation. . . .

Paul Krugman on the “Emerging Republican Minority”

http://roziusunbound.blogspot.com/2007/03/paul-krugman-emerging-republican.html

Bonus item: Bob Novak

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/03/25/AR2007032500912.html
With nearly two years remaining in his presidency, George W. Bush is alone. In half a century, I have not seen a president so isolated from his own party in Congress -- not Jimmy Carter, not even Richard Nixon as he faced impeachment. . . .

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

I don't get anything personally out of this project, except the satisfaction of doing it (I don't run ads, etc). The credit really all goes to the people whose material I copy and redistribute. But if I do have a "mission," it is to get this information into the hands of as many people as I can.***
- posted by Nick Burbules @ 7:22 AM

 
IT’S WHAT THEY DO

This is why the US Attorney debate should have been settled a long time ago: EVERYONE KNOWS this is how the Rove administration operates. Policy is always driven by politics, and the levers of government are always wielded with an eye toward partisan advantage. It’s what Rove does, and what he will keep doing until they force him out

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/03/25/AR2007032501048.html
Witnesses have told congressional investigators that the chief of the General Services Administration and a deputy in Karl Rove's political affairs office at the White House joined in a videoconference earlier this year with top GSA political appointees, who discussed ways to help Republican candidates.

With GSA Administrator Lurita Alexis Doan and up to 40 regional administrators on hand, J. Scott Jennings, the White House's deputy director of political affairs, gave a PowerPoint presentation on Jan. 26 of polling data about the 2006 elections.

When Jennings concluded his presentation to the GSA political appointees, Doan allegedly asked them how they could "help 'our candidates' in the next elections” . . .

The committee is investigating whether remarks made during the videoconference violated the Hatch Act, a federal law that restricts executive-branch employees from using their positions for political purposes. . . .

http://www.prospect.org/weblog/2007/03/post_3222.html
[Sam Rosenfeld] Henry Waxman's investigators are looking into several other issues involving GSA chief Doan that fall more along the lines of straightforward cronyism and corruption. The GSA is generally an undercovered agency -- being tasked with procurement and contracting, it's an office that naturally provides very rich opportunities for corruption. Just ask the GSA's former chief of staff, David Safavian, currently facing an 18-month prison sentence for his involvement in the Jack Abramoff scandal.

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-usattys25mar25,0,4756977,full.story
Not long after President Bush was first sworn in, White House political guru Karl Rove and his lieutenants met with officials of nearly every Cabinet agency to brief top officials on the latest polling data and issues that could influence voters and key constituencies.

But the departments of Justice, Defense and State were exempt. Given their missions — to administer federal laws, protect national security and conduct foreign policy — it was considered inappropriate to make such partisan presentations to them.

Nonetheless, suspicions that the White House's partisan political priorities may have made their way into Justice Department decision-making have grown in recent weeks. . . .

"The political decision-making process that led to the dismissal of eight United States attorneys was standard practice in the Civil Rights Division years before these revelations," Joseph D. Rich, recently retired head of the division's voting rights section, said in a sparsely attended House Judiciary Subcommittee hearing last week. . . .

Politics always drives policy for these guys. Remember John DiIulio

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2007_03/011003.php
In eight months, I heard many, many staff discussions, but not three meaningful, substantive policy discussions. There were no actual policy white papers on domestic issues. There were, truth be told, only a couple of people in the West Wing who worried at all about policy substance and analysis....On social policy and related issues, the lack of even basic policy knowledge, and the only casual interest in knowing more, was somewhat breathtaking -- discussions by fairly senior people who meant Medicaid but were talking Medicare; near-instant shifts from discussing any actual policy pros and cons to discussing political communications, media strategy, et cetera. Even quite junior staff would sometimes hear quite senior staff pooh-pooh any need to dig deeper for pertinent information on a given issue. . . .

http://www.ratical.org/ratville/CAH/DiIulio.txt
In DiIulio's words, "there is no precedent in any modern White House for what is going on in this one: complete lack of a policy apparatus. Besides the tax cut, which was cut and dried during the campaign, and the education bill, which was really a Ted Kennedy bill, the administration has not done much, either in absolute terms or in comparison to previous administrations at this stage, on domestic policy. What you've got is everything, and I mean everything, being run by the political arm. It's the reign of the Mayberry Machiavellis. [They] consistently talked and acted as if the height of political sophistication consisted in reducing every issue to its simplest black-and-white terms for public consumption, then steering legislative initiatives or policy proposals as far right as possible."

Keep your eyes on the prize

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2007_03_25.php#013247
[Josh Marshall] For some, it is a matter of outrage that President Bush has renewed his support for Alberto Gonzales even after new evidence has emerged that the Attorney General has repeatedly lied about the US Attorney Purge. Myself, I see it more as a matter of confirmation and almost a welcome one in that it confirms the nature of the debate we're having.

This isn't a case where Alberto Gonzales has fallen short of the president's standards or bungled some process. This is the standard. The Attorney General has done and is doing precisely what is expected of him. . . .

And the president is fine with all of this. Fine with the fact that the Attorney General has not only repeatedly lied to the public but has also been exposed as repeatedly lying to the public. He's fine with at least two US Attorneys being fired for not giving in to pressure to file bogus charges to help Republican candidates.

Of course he's fine with it. Because it comes from him. None of this is about Alberto Gonzales. This is about the president and the White House, which is where this entire plan was hatched. Gonzales was just following orders, executing the president's plans. This is about this president and this White House, which ... let's be honest, everyone on both sides of the aisle already knows.

We’ve had plenty of coverage of the US Attorney firings in Arkansas (Cummins) and California (Lam). Here are four more you might not know as much about

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/17706775/
[Meet the Press] MR. RUSSERT: This morning, exclusive interviews with two of the U.S. attorneys who lost their jobs, David Iglesias of New Mexico and John McKay of Washington state. . . [read on]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/03/24/AR2007032401122.html
John McKay of Washington state, who had decided two years earlier not to bring voter fraud charges that could have undermined a Democratic victory in a closely fought gubernatorial race, said White House counsel Harriet Miers and her deputy, William Kelley, "asked me why Republicans in the state of Washington would be angry with me." . . .

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/washingtondc/la-na-bogden25mar25,1,3923320.story
When Daniel G. Bogden was named by President Bush to be the U.S. attorney for Nevada, it was the culmination of a career dream for a man steeped in public law — he had worked as a judge advocate general for the Air Force, a deputy district attorney in Reno and chief of the U.S. attorney's branch office in Reno.

But his five-year tenure came to what Bogden describes as a "sudden, shocking" end in December, when he took a phone call from Michael A. Battle, director of the executive office of U.S. attorneys, and was told, " 'We want to move the office in another direction,' " Bogden recalls.

One theory is that the new direction might have taken the federal prosecutor's office away from a corruption probe into newly elected Republican Gov. Jim Gibbons' financial dealings with a federal contractor.

It is also possible, as suggested by one internal Justice Department e-mail, that Bogden was canned for not pursuing obscenity cases more vigorously.

Or maybe, as another e-mail released last week suggested, there was no good reason. . . .

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/03/24/AR2007032401122.html
In the aftermath of the surprise firing of U.S. Attorney Margaret M. Chiara, questions outnumber answers. Was she dismissed for political reasons? For poor performance? To make way for someone else? Western Michigan's legal community does not know what to think.

The Justice Department initially announced that the reasons were "performance-related," an explanation at odds with the current consensus in Grand Rapids. The chief federal judge firmly disputed it, as did Chiara, who said she was told her resignation was needed to clear the way for a political favorite.

Some defense lawyers speculate that Chiara, who once trained to be a nun, fell out of favor with the Bush administration over her personal opposition to the death penalty. . .

[NB: Ah, a right-to-lifer!]

More: http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/013245.php

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2007_03_25.php#013246

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2007_03_25.php#013250

Republican support for Gonzales (and his boss) is collapsing

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/17783788/
Republican support for Attorney General Alberto Gonzales eroded Sunday as three key senators sharply questioned his truthfulness . . .

Sen. Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania, the top Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee, said Gonzales would have to step down if he did not tell the truth when he told Congress that he was not involved in discussions about a group of fired U.S. prosecutors at the center of the Washington controversy.

“We have to have an attorney general who is candid, truthful and if we find that he has not been candid and truthful, that’s a very compelling reason for him not to stay on,” Specter said on NBC’s “Meet the Press.” . . .

To Sen. Chuck Hagel, R-Neb., Gonzales “does have a credibility problem. ... We govern with one currency, and that’s trust. And that trust is all important. And when you lose or debase that currency, then you can’t govern. And I think he’s going to have some difficulties.”

Hagel cited changing stories from the Justice Department about the circumstances for firing the eight U.S. attorneys. “I don’t know if he got bad advice or if he was not involved in the day-to-day management. I don’t know what the problem is, but he’s got a problem. You cannot have the nation’s chief law enforcement officer with a cloud hanging over his credibility,” Hagel said.

Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., said Gonzales has been “wounded” by the firings. ‘He has said some things that just don’t add up,” said Graham, who is on the Senate Judiciary Committee. . . .

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/10313.html
[Jonah Goldberg, National Review] Some readers are cross with me for using the word “lied” in reference to Gonzales. Okay, he may simply have been deeply, deeply, confused, out of touch and unprepared to give a press conference which was supposed to put an end to the “scandal” and instead poured gasoline on it at a time when his boss, the President of the United States and Commander-in-Chief, had vastly more important things to deal with. . . . [read on]

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2007_03/011003.php
[Bob Novak] Gonzales never has developed a base of support for himself up here," a House Republican leader told me. But this is less a Gonzales problem than a Bush problem. With nearly two years remaining in his presidency, George W. Bush is alone. In half a century, I have not seen a president so isolated from his own party in Congress -- not Jimmy Carter, not even Richard Nixon as he faced impeachment. . .

The word most often used by Republicans to describe the management of the Justice Department under Gonzales is "incompetent."....The I-word (incompetence) is also used by Republicans in describing the Bush administration generally....A few Republicans blame incessant attacks from the new Democratic majority in Congress for that image. Many more say today's problems in the administration derive from the continuing impact of yesterday's mistakes. The answer that is not entertained by the president's most severe GOP critics, even when not speaking for quotation, is that this is just the governing style of George W. Bush and will not change while he is in the Oval Office. . . .

More: http://www.talkleft.com/story/2007/3/26/32950/0195

Coming attractions

http://www.slate.com/id/2162654/fr/rss/
[Daniel Politi] [T]he WSJ goes inside with a look at how the U.S. attorneys controversy has created a division inside the Justice Department between those that support Gonzales and those that are loyal to Deputy Attorney General Paul McNulty. The paper says some of this "internal tension could come to a head" when Kyle Sampson, the attorney general's former chief of staff, testifies before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Thursday. . . .

Testify!

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070325/ap_on_go_co/fired_prosecutors;_ylt=AnD7CY4d1wUCCSxsSQg2eLCs0NUE
Several Republicans also urged President Bush to allow sworn testimony from his top aides about their role in dismissing the U.S. attorneys — a standoff threatening to result in Capitol Hill subpoenas of White House officials. . .

Hey, look on the bright side

http://www.prospect.org/weblog/2007/03/post_3221.html
[Bob Novak] The saving grace that some Republicans find in the dispute over U.S. attorneys is that, at least temporarily, it draws attention away from debate over an unpopular war. . .

Well, I suppose somebody was going to say it sooner or later

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2007_03_25.php#013244
[Josh Marshall] It is a rather revealing sign of what some Republicans mean by corruption. Rep. Chris Cannon (R-UT) says that Democrats haven't been able to show that any corruption was involved in the US Attorney Purge. But we know that US Attorney David Iglesias was fired because he wouldn't submit to pressure from Republican activists and members of Congress to issue an election-timed indictment to save New Mexico's Republican Rep. Heather Wilson. That, and in general not pursuing bogus 'election fraud' prosecutions against Democrats, as Republican activists wanted. In the old rule of law days, this would be seen as the definition of corrupt use of the justice system to interfere with the integrity of elections and advance narrowly partisan aims. But to Rep. Cannon (R-UT), that's how things are supposed to work. . . .

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/013243.php
[David Kurtz] Rep. Chris Cannon (R-UT) puts it right out there: There is "nothing wrong with firing a U.S. attorney for the reason of politics."

I appreciate the Republicans articulating so clearly their theory of government: when you elect us, we reward our friends and screw our enemies with all the powers you entrust to us. Have people FORGOTTEN Tom DeLay (The Hammer)? Grover Norquist? The K Street Project?

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2007_03_25.php#013251

“The Grand Unified Scandal Theory” – clever, though it doesn’t quite draw ALL the threads together. But Karl Rove IS at the heart of nearly all of them

http://www.firedoglake.com/2007/03/25/the-grand-unified-scandal-theory/

More returning characters

http://www.firedoglake.com/2007/03/25/oh-look-who-turned-up/

It’s a lousy argument – but it’s an argument

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/26/nyregion/26infiltrate.html
Lawyers for the city, responding to a request to unseal records of police surveillance leading up to the 2004 Republican convention in New York, say that the documents should remain secret because the news media will “fixate upon and sensationalize them” . . .

In papers filed in federal court last week, the city’s lawyers also say that the documents could be “misinterpreted” because they were not intended for the public. . . .

[NB: Wow. How bad could they be?]

Must-read: Glenn Greenwald offers a seminar on the principle of congressional oversight, and slams a few people along the way who don’t seem to believe in it

http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2007/03/25/oversight/index.html

On the politics of blogging

http://www.mydd.com/story/2007/3/25/211447/257

Bonus item: Bob Schieffer, a decent man

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/03/25/opinion/schieffer/main2606115.shtml
[Face the Nation] At the risk of saying something nice about a high-ranking government official, may I note what's been going on lately at the Pentagon?

When I asked the new Secretary of Defense, Robert Gates, on Face the Nation, how he found out about the awful treatment that some of our wounded veterans were getting, he told me he read it in The Washington Post and was so shocked he called the reporters and thanked them. Then he called in the high-ranking officials responsible and fired them.

It also turns out he has disbanded some of those bogus intelligence-gathering operations created by his predecessor. He has shut down a government spin office.

He has argued behind the scenes to close down Guantanamo prison because its notoriety is undermining American credibility.

And get this: When Congress asked what he wanted to do with former Defense Secretary Rumsfeld's plan to build a $100 million courthouse to hold trials at Guantanamo, he said, "That is ridiculous." And then he canceled the program.

He's also getting rave reviews from Congress because, as one Democratic senator told me, "He doesn't always agree with me, but he actually seems to listen."

Now, here's my question: I wonder if he could find time to run by the Justice Department some afternoon? Congress and the White House are butting heads over who can say what about it, but isn't all that just a waste of time? Don't we already know about all we need to know about this mess?

Either nobody was running the store, or if somebody was, they were putting politics ahead of the law and should be fired. Gates seems to know how to handle that sort of thing. I think I'd send him over there.

***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 @ 6:16 AM

 
NOTHING TO HIDE?

This is not the way innocent people act

http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/002863.php
PLAN FOR REPLACING CERTAIN UNITED STATES ATTORNEYS

STEP 3

Prepare to Withstand Political Upheaval:
U.S. Attorneys desiring to save their jobs (aided by their allies in the politicaI arena as well as the Justice Department community), likely will make efforts to preserve themselves in office. . . .

Who decided?
The Administration made the determination to seek the resignations. (not any specific person at the White House or the Department of Justice). . . .

Is this legal for a government employee, under the Presidential Records Act?

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/3/24/01039/6772
[BloggerJohn] In WaPo, Fromkin quotes a story from the National Journal, in which a source states that Rove "does 'about 95 percent' of his e-mailing using his RNC-based account." . . .

[Alexis Simendinger] White House Deputy Chief of Staff Karl Rove may have forfeited potential claims of executive privilege over the dismissals of eight U.S. attorneys -- if he communicated about the latter outside the White House e-mail system, using his Republican National Committee e-mail account or RNC equipment. . .

Yes, it would be hard to argue that executive privilege applies here, although Simendinger misses the endgame: communicating over RNC servers will be as difficult or much more difficult for Congressional Democrats to subpoena. Republicans will cry "Political witch-hunt!" a stronger bulwark against investigation than the mere legal fact that this type of communication violates the Presidential Records Act. . .

From the TPM reader reviews of Document Dump 2.0

http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/002863.php
8:5-8, outline of an agenda for a White House Judicial Selection Committee meeting, except it's almost entirely redacted. Dated June 21, 2006. Main bullet points are New Business, Old Business and Confirmation Update. There is Griffin's resume attached at the end.

Who was on the committee in the White House? . . .

NB: Googled and found this: http://www.penraker.com/archives/002397.html
[Hugh Hewitt] I spoke to Karl Rove an hour ago. His support for the Miers nomination is not merely enthusiastic, but adamant and even vehement. The judicial philosophy question? She has been a member of the White House's judicial selection committee for three years, not the one I had thought, as the Deputy Chief of Staff sits on the committee, along with the White House Counsel and a handful of other senior aides, including Karl Rove.

More on Monica Goodling. There’s something here

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/3/24/9431/02350
[WP] The Justice Department also said yesterday that Monica Goodling, a senior counselor to Gonzales who worked closely with Sampson on the firings, took an indefinite personal leave from her job on Monday. A Justice official said that she is still employed there but that it is not clear when she will return.

[David Kurtz] Goodling was the DOJ liaison to the White House.

The more of these memos you read, the more clear it is that they KNEW they were doing something shady, something the fired attorneys might resist, and something they would have to strain to justify as “performance related”

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/10308.html
[Steve Benen] These clearly aren’t the comments of officials talking about actual reasons for the firings; these are the comments of spinners trying to rationalize after the fact. Indeed, it’s rather transparent. . . .

It seems to me there’s a subtle undertone to the email — an acknowledgement that the purge was wrong, but optimism that they wouldn’t get caught. . . .

The Bush gang has been getting away with so much for so long, the inevitable arrogance blinded their judgment. They no longer worried about getting caught, because they grew accustomed to accountability-free politics.

On the post facto excuse that three of the attorneys were fired because of lax work on immigration issues

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2007_03/010996.php
[Kevin Drum] Indeed, you could make the immigration connection if you were casting about for a semi-plausible post hoc reason for the firings. But you wouldn't have to do that if you had an actual reason at hand, would you? One that could withstand public scrutiny anyway.

In any case, here's the funny thing about that: elsewhere in the document dump there are dozens of emails related to immigration because congressman Darryl Issa had been screaming bloody murder about it. So DOJ commissioned a report and its conclusion was that two of the three prosecutors mentioned above were doing fine. There were no serious problems related to immigration prosecutions. The third, Carol Lam, did have some problems, but the report concluded blandly that it was probably due to differences in prosecution guidelines (Lam spent more time on felonies than the others) and could be fixed by changing the guidelines. Hardly earth-shattering, gotta-fire-her-ass kind of stuff. Furthermore, the report suggested, if Issa and the Border Patrol aren't satisfied with this, then perhaps Congress and the Bureau of Immigration ought to provide Lam's office with a few more attorneys. . . .

More: http://attorneyfirings.notlong.com

Another email emerges from “the gap”

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2007/03/good-bushie-list-by-digby-supporting.html
[WP] In a Dec. 3, 2006, e-mail released Friday night, Scott Jennings, one of presidential adviser Karl Rove's aides, asked Sampson if he had a list of "all vacant, or about-to-be vacant, US Attorney slots." Jennings' request came on a Sunday, so Sampson offered to send it to him the next day.

Jennings, a political operative, had earlier passed along complaints from Republican Party activists about U.S. Attorney David Iglesias, who was fired from his job in New Mexico. Some Republicans were angry that Iglesias hadn't been more aggressive in investigating Democrats. . . .

[Digby] So, the question is, "who's on Rove's replacement list?"

The Griffin case, all by itself, should be enough to set off warning bells on the US Attorney firings (thanks to David N. for the links)

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/011958.php
[Josh Marshall] Okay, so we already know that the White House has now taken the unprecedented step of firing at least four and likely seven US Attorneys in the middle of their terms of office -- at least some of whom are in the midst of corruption investigations of Bush administration officials and key Republican lawmakers. . . . So we're looking into just who the White House is appointing.

Well, let's start with the estimable J. Timothy Griffin, US Attorney for the Eastern District of Arkansas since December 20th.

If you hadn't heard about Griffin's appointment, don't feel bad, the guy he replaced hadn't either. Griffin's appointment was announced on December 15th before the then-US Attorney Bud Cummins had even been given a chance to resign. Cummins got the call on his cell phone the same day while he was out hiking with his son. . .

So who's Griffin and what experience does he bring to the job?

Well, top of the list seems to be his stint at the White House where he worked for Karl Rove doing opposition research on Democrats. . .

http://www.gregpalast.com/bushs-new-us-attorney-a-criminal/
[Greg Palast] There’s only one thing worse than sacking an honest prosecutor. That’s replacing an honest prosecutor with a criminal.

There was one big hoohah in Washington yesterday as House Judiciary Chairman John Conyers pulled down the pants on George Bush’s firing of US Attorneys to expose a scheme to punish prosecutors who wouldn’t bend to political pressure.

But the Committee missed a big one: Timothy Griffin, Karl Rove’s assistant, the President’s pick as US Attorney for the Eastern District of Arkansas. Griffin, according to BBC Television, was the hidden hand behind a scheme to wipe out the voting rights of 70,000 citizens prior to the 2004 election. . . .

More: http://obsidianwings.blogs.com/obsidian_wings/2007/03/us_attorneys_mo.html

http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200406/green

http://www.martinlewis.com/column.pl?col=33&cat=time

Gonzales calls criticism of the US Attorney firings “reckless and irresponsible”

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/10311.html
“There was nothing improper about the decision here … There’s no evidence whatsoever, and it’s reckless and irresponsible to allege that these decisions were based in any way on improper motives.”

[Steve Benen] Now that’s funny. Up until now, administration officials have grudgingly acknowledged that the questions about the purge scandal were legitimate, but no one should rush to judgment. Yesterday, however, Gonzales insisted that his critics are “reckless and irresponsible” for daring to point out the obvious: that the U.S. Attorneys were fired for purely political reasons.

http://www.needlenose.com/node/view/3906
[Swopa] Okay, everybody, I guess it's time to update your Bushite-to-English language guides.

Specifically, the words "reckless" and "irresponsible" herewith should join "ridiculous" as meaning "entirely accurate.". . .

More: http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2007_03/010997.php

How much longer?

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/25/washington/25attorneys.html
An accumulating body of evidence is at odds with the statements of Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales that he played little role in the deliberations over the dismissal of eight United States attorneys.

Mr. Gonzales has said he did not take part in any discussions of the dismissal effort, and left the planning and execution of the removals up to D. Kyle Sampson, his former chief of staff.

But e-mail messages and other documents released by the Justice Department in recent days suggest that Mr. Gonzales was told of the dismissal plan on at least two occasions, in 2005 when the plan was first devised and again in late 2006 shortly before the firings were carried out.

The conflicts between the documentary record and Mr. Gonzales’s version of events have contributed to an erosion of support for him in Congress, where lawmakers from both parties have called for him to step down. They have also fed suspicions by some Democrats that the ousters, from the start, may have been orchestrated by the White House, and most particularly, by Karl Rove, the White House political adviser. . . .

More on how the provision to allow hiring and firing US Attorneys without oversight got buried in the Patriot Act

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/013234.php
[David Kurtz] A key aspect of the U.S. attorney purge that often seems to get overlooked--by those who argue that the firings were business as usual and no different from the removal of USAs at the beginning of a president's term--is the change to the Patriot Act that was quietly inserted by Sen. Arlen Specter at the behest of the Justice Department. . . .

Only the naive or willfully blind would see the Patriot Act amendment as a distinct and separate action from the purge itself. Indeed, vesting such powers in the attorney general was a predicate to the purge, and was one of the very first indications, at least to everyone here at TPM, that the removal of the eight U.S. attorneys was not some random act or unrelated series of acts but a deliberately conceived and executed plan that required time to develop and numerous participants to implement. . . .

So when William Moschella, who is now the principal deputy attorney general, recently told McClatchy "that he pursued the changes on his own, without the knowledge or coordination of his superiors at the Justice Department or anyone at the White House," the purpose of his comments was to decouple the Patriot Act provision from the purge itself. . . . But wait.

From the document dump last night, we learn, again from McClatchy, that Moschella sent an email to other Justice Department officials way back in November 2005 announcing support for the change to the law. Paul has more.

So contrary to earlier assertions, the attorney general was involved in the firings, and higher-ups in the Justice Department knew about the Patriot Act provision.

No surprise there, really. But keep this in mind. Everything the Justice Department has said that later turned out to be false was almost certainly known by the White House to be false, at the time the false statements were made, to the media, and most importantly, to Congress. . . .

More: http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/002865.php

Some very, very good questions for Sampson and Gonzales when they testify before Congress

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2007_03/010998.php

More to come

http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/002866.php
[Paul Kiel] Yesterday I reported that the Justice Department had written Congress that, against the advice of Alberto Gonzales, the president had shut down an internal department investigation into the administration's wireless wiretapping program. Bush's was an unprecedented and arbitrary (and still unexplained) move.

Democrats in the Senate want to know more. . . . In particular, the senators want to know the stated rationale behind Bush's decision. They also want to see documentation relevant to the stifled investigation. Why?

As they write in the letter: "Given the serious questions that have been raised about the Justice Department's credibility, we continue to believe it is important to review documents supporting the assertions in [the Justice Department's] letter."

In other words: we don't believe anything you say now, so just save your breath and hand over documentation.

I like the way he thinks

http://www.samefacts.com/archives/torture_/2007/03/bonus.php
[Mark Kleiman] Alberto Gonzales's memory lapse seems to guarantee his speedy departure. Once he's gone, Gates and Rice will restart their push to close Guantanamo, which Gonzales and Cheney successfully resisted. . . .

[NB: Seriously, one of the reasons Bush must cling to Gonzales at all costs is that they can never find a replacement who (a) can be confirmed AND (b) will endorse and support the lawless behavior that he has allowed to go on as the chief law enforcement officer of the land. Of course, anyone should have known better when Gonzales was confirmed in the first place: http://www.dailykos.com/story/2005/1/25/15437/3930]

Tony Snow, Constitutional scholar

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/3/24/9431/02350

The CIA and State Dept are still arguing over interrogation methods

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/25/washington/25interrogate.html
A sharp debate within the Bush administration over the future of the Central Intelligence Agency’s detention and interrogation program has left the agency without the authority to use harsh interrogation techniques that the White House said last fall were necessary in questioning terrorism suspects, according to administration and Congressional officials.

The agency for months has been awaiting approval for rules that would give intelligence operatives greater latitude than military interrogators in questioning terrorism suspects. . . .

Although it is unclear whether the C.I.A. has any prisoners in custody, the White House has not repeated its earlier statements that the secret prisons are empty. . . .

A draft of an executive order providing broad guidelines for interrogators was rejected this year by State Department officials, who argued that the language was too expansive and could leave the Bush administration open to challenges, including from American allies, that the White House was legalizing practices that violated a provision of the Geneva Conventions.

The Supreme Court ruled last year that all prisoners in American captivity must be treated in accordance with Common Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions, which prohibits the humiliating and degrading treatment of prisoners. . . .

Police state

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/25/nyregion/25infiltrate.html
For at least a year before the 2004 Republican National Convention, teams of undercover New York City police officers traveled to cities across the country, Canada and Europe to conduct covert observations of people who planned to protest at the convention, according to police records and interviews.

From Albuquerque to Montreal, San Francisco to Miami, undercover New York police officers attended meetings of political groups, posing as sympathizers or fellow activists, the records show.

They made friends, shared meals, swapped e-mail messages and then filed daily reports with the department’s Intelligence Division. Other investigators mined Internet sites and chat rooms.

From these operations, run by the department’s “R.N.C. Intelligence Squad,” the police identified a handful of groups and individuals who expressed interest in creating havoc during the convention, as well as some who used Web sites to urge or predict violence.

But potential troublemakers were hardly the only ones to end up in the files. In hundreds of reports stamped “N.Y.P.D. Secret,” the Intelligence Division chronicled the views and plans of people who had no apparent intention of breaking the law, the records show.

These included members of street theater companies, church groups and antiwar organizations, as well as environmentalists and people opposed to the death penalty, globalization and other government policies. Three New York City elected officials were cited in the reports.

In at least some cases, intelligence on what appeared to be lawful activity was shared with police departments in other cities. A police report on an organization of artists called Bands Against Bush noted that the group was planning concerts on Oct. 11, 2003, in New York, Washington, Seattle, San Francisco and Boston. Between musical sets, the report said, there would be political speeches and videos.

“Activists are showing a well-organized network made up of anti-Bush sentiment; the mixing of music and political rhetoric indicates sophisticated organizing skills with a specific agenda,” said the report, dated Oct. 9, 2003. “Police departments in above listed areas have been contacted regarding this event.” . . .

[NB: Yes, you read that right. “Anti-Bush sentiment” is enough to get you investigated by the police these days.]

Are YOU on the list?

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/03/24/AR2007032400944.html
Each day, thousands of pieces of intelligence information from around the world -- field reports, captured documents, news from foreign allies and sometimes idle gossip -- arrive in a computer-filled office in McLean, where analysts feed them into the nation's central list of terrorists and terrorism suspects.

Called TIDE, for Terrorist Identities Datamart Environment, the list is a storehouse for data about individuals that the intelligence community believes might harm the United States. It is the wellspring for watch lists distributed to airlines, law enforcement, border posts and U.S. consulates, created to close one of the key intelligence gaps revealed after Sept. 11, 2001: the failure of federal agencies to share what they knew about al-Qaeda operatives.

But in addressing one problem, TIDE has spawned others. Ballooning from fewer than 100,000 files in 2003 to about 435,000, the growing database threatens to overwhelm the people who manage it. "The single biggest worry that I have is long-term quality control," said Russ Travers, in charge of TIDE at the National Counterterrorism Center in McLean. . . .

[NB: Well that’s not MY single biggest worry]

Incredible – what it’s like to get a letter from the FBI ordering you to give up information on someone identified as a “national security” risk

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/03/22/AR2007032201882.html

More: http://www.talkleft.com/story/2007/3/24/115241/185

Jane Hamsher, cancer survivor, takes on Rush Limbaugh

http://www.firedoglake.com/2007/03/24/sick-people-make-him-uncomfortable/
Yes, Rush Limbaugh is a pig, and nobody was surprised when he started slinging mud at Elizabeth and John Edwards immediately following their announcement that her cancer had returned. It's what he's paid to do. His job is to make fun of Michael J. Fox's Parkinson's disease – to interject the unspeakable in to the public discourse that gives the lizard brains irrational rationale to keep on thinking what they want to think. And because he does it on behalf of power, he will pay no price. Someone on the left doing the same thing would be pilloried and banished, but Rush is sanctioned to be an out-of-control id, an omnivorous, self-indulgent glutton whose rapacious appetites can not be satiated.

Sunday talk show line-ups

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/03/24/AR2007032401072.html
FOX NEWS SUNDAY: Sens. Trent Lott (R-Miss.) and Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.); Fisher House Foundation Chairman Kenneth Fisher; former federal prosecutor Sharon Y. Eubanks.

THIS WEEK (ABC): Sen. Chuck Hagel (R-Neb.); Eric Winer, Breast Oncology Center director.

NEWSMAKERS (C-SPAN): Rep. James E. Clyburn (D-S.C.).

FACE THE NATION (CBS): Sens. Patrick J. Leahy (D-Vt.) and Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.).; former U.S. attorney Bud Cummins.

MEET THE PRESS (NBC): Sens. Richard J. Durbin (D-Ill.) and Arlen Specter (R-Pa.); former U.S. attorneys David C. Iglesias and John McKay; former senator Bill Bradley (D-N.J.).

LATE EDITION (CNN): Sens. Orrin G. Hatch (R-Utah) and Bill Nelson (D-Fla.); Iraqi Ambassador Samir Sumaidaie; former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations John R. Bolton; former U.S. attorney Joseph E. diGenova; former White House special counsel Lanny J. Davis.

Bonus item: Sean Hannity gets schooled on his own show – something we don’t see happen nearly often enough (thanks to Jason S. for the link)

http://www.crooksandliars.com/2007/03/24/sean-hannity-leads-the-wrong-witness/

***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 @ 7:13 AM

 
ADIOS ALBERTO

http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/washington/AP-Fired-Prosecutors.html
Documents Show Gonzales Approved Firings
[AP] Attorney General Alberto Gonzales approved plans to fire several U.S. attorneys in an hourlong meeting last fall, according to documents released Friday that indicate he was more involved in the dismissals than he has claimed.

Last week, Gonzales said he ''was not involved in any discussions about what was going on'' in the firings of eight prosecutors that has since led to a political firestorm and calls for his ouster. . . .

What Gonzales said: http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/3/23/214216/323
[March 13, 2007] But again, with respect to this whole process, like every CEO, I am ultimately accountable and responsible for what happens within the department. But that is in essence what I knew about the process; was not involved in seeing any memos, was not involved in any discussions about what was going on. That's basically what I knew as the Attorney General. . . .

I just described for Pete the extent of my -- of the knowledge that I had about the process. I never saw documents. We never had a discussion about where things stood. What I knew was that there was ongoing effort that was led by Mr. Sampson, vetted through the Department of Justice, to ascertain where we could make improvements in U.S. attorney performances around the country. . .

More: http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room/2007/03/23/gonzales/index.html

[NB: By the way, this newly released email was dated November 27, 2006 – during the “gap” where they said there were no relevant emails. More emails from the 280-page Stage Two “dump” here: http://www.realcities.com/mld/krwashington/16964237.htm

TPM organizes another reader-led review of the new docs here: http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/002863.php]

Two misleading headlines

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/24/washington/24attorney.html
Gonzales Met With Advisers on Dismissals

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/03/23/AR2007032301396.html
Gonzales Met With Top Aides On Firings

How they’ll try to save Gonzales

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/24/washington/24attorney.html
Tasia Scolinos, a Justice Department spokeswoman, told reporters on Friday evening that Mr. Gonzales’s attendance at the hourlong meeting was not inconsistent with his past remarks.

“He tasked his chief of staff to carry this plan forward,” Ms. Scolinos said. “He did not participate in the selection of the U.S. attorneys to be fired. He did sign off on the final list.” . . .

Another department official said that Mr. Gonzales did not recall the meeting and that his aides had been unable to determine whether he approved the dismissal plan then.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/03/23/AR2007032301396.html
Justice Department officials also announced last night that the department's inspector general and its Office of Professional Responsibility have launched a joint investigation into the firings, including an examination of whether any of the removals were improper and whether any Justice officials misled Congress about them.

Harry Reid

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601070&sid=aHhgpR_deFxI
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said he doesn't expect Attorney General Alberto Gonzales to survive the uproar over the firing of eight U.S. attorneys and predicted he will be gone in a month, “one way or the other.'' . . .

Hmmm. . . .

http://www.warandpiece.com/blogdirs/005860.html
[WP] "The Justice Department also said yesterday that Monica Goodling, a senior counselor to Gonzales who worked closely with Sampson on the firings, took an indefinite personal leave from her job last Monday. A Justice official said she is still employed there but it is not clear when she will return."

http://www.warandpiece.com/blogdirs/005862.html
[Laura Rozen] It's hard to read these and not wonder how the US can have a head of the Justice Department who it is demonstrated so plainly truly misled Congress and intended to mislead Congress, whatever artful excuse and dissembling he comes up with today for why what he said wasn't exactly a lie. It's also hard to read these emails and not be filled with contempt for a lot of these people. What's it all for? Clinging to power. Nothing more principled than that.

And why, on page 3 here, is Kyle Sampson sending emails to J. Scott Jennnings, at SJennings@gwb43.com, RE: USATTY? Here's who Jennings is. Is the White House political office allowed to work on a non government communications system while doing White House business? I would think not.

It ain’t just Gonzales

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/3/23/224141/150
[Emptywheel] People, people, people. Beware the shiny objects!!

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2007_03_18.php#013226
[Josh Marshall] This isn't about the AG's lies. It's not about the attempted cover-up. It's not about executive privilege and investigative process mumbojumbo.

This is about using US Attorneys to damage Democrats and protect Republicans, using the Department of Justice as a partisan cudgel in the war for national political dominance. All the secrecy and lies, the blundering and covering-up stems from this one central fact.

Another explanation for the “gap,” indicating Bush’s key involvement

http://blog.citizensforethics.org/node/750

Evidence (proof?) that the Bush gang wanted more phony “vote fraud” cases from the US Attorneys, and put people in place who would pursue them

http://www.realcities.com/mld/krwashington/16962753.htm

More: http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2007_03_18.php#013228
The e-mails also show that administration officials struggled to find a way to justify the firings and considered citing immigration enforcement simply because three of the fired prosecutors were stationed near the border with Mexico. . . .

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2007_03_18.php#013227
“I think most of them will resign quietly,” said Ms. Scolinos, the department’s chief spokeswoman, in a Nov. 17 e-mail message, a few weeks before the dismissals. “It’s only six U.S. attorneys (there are 94) and they don’t get anything out of making it public they were asked to leave in terms of future job prospects. I don’t see it as being a national story — especially if it phases in over a few months.” . . . [read on]

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2007_03_18.php#013229

http://www.tpmcafe.com/blog/coffeehouse/2007/mar/22/what_was_the_u_s_attorney_purge_meant_to_achieve

http://www.talkleft.com/story/2007/3/23/165110/088

This almost seems quaint. Kyle Sampson writes an email to the Judiciary committee trying to correct their misunderstandings of the US Attorney firings

http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/002857.php
[Sampson] - USAs were encouraged to resign "before their terms expired" -- not true;

- USAs were encouraged to resign "without cause" - no comment (but not true);

- USAs were pushed out so as to interfere with ongoing public corruption cases -- absolutely not true;

- Administration intends to go around the Senate and avoid confirmation of new USAs -- not true/facts conclusively establish as much . . . [read on]

[NB: Of course, every one of these is a lie, as Paul Kiel documents.]

All roads lead to Karl Rove

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/blog/2007/03/23/BL2007032301067.html
[Dan Froomkin] Why are President Bush's Democratic critics so focused on getting White House political guru Karl Rove's testimony regarding the firing of eight U.S. attorneys?

Because based on Rove's history, the whole thing may well have been his idea -- and may be even more complicated than it initially appeared. . . .

Can Rove be trusted to tell the truth? Don’t make us laugh

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/10295.html

http://www.warandpiece.com/blogdirs/005854.html

http://www.salon.com/opinion/conason/2007/03/23/rove/index_np.html

Feds cut a new reduced sentence deal for Jack Abramoff, because of his “cooperation.” Maybe that’s true and maybe it isn’t – but this is what happens once you start seeing all their decisions as politically driven (thanks to Colleen V. for the link)

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,260466,00.html

Former #2 at Interior convicted of lying, obstruction

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/03/23/AR2007032300671.html

More: http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/10302.html

http://www.firedoglake.com/2007/03/23/abramoff-bodies-being-rapidly-buried/

http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/002856.php

Coal to Newcastle: did Bush violate federal spending laws in the 2004 campaign?

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/03/22/AR2007032201861.html

$40 million! http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/10301.html

Tony Snow is getting more and more arrogant and patronizing. How long before the press calls him on this?

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/3/23/153037/095
Q: We spoke with the Senate Judiciary Committee and the House Judiciary Committee. Senate says there is no precedent for having an official of this nature come and speak to the Committee without a transcript. The House also says they can't find any precedent. Why should this case set a precedent?

MR. SNOW: Well, the fact is what they're trying to do is to establish their own set of precedents. What we're trying to do is to set a precedent for adult behavior . . .

http://www.cbsnews.com/blogs/2007/03/22/publiceye/entry2595734.shtml
Tony Snow: What we're hoping is members of the House and Senate will take a close look at the offer we made. . . .

Harry Smith: I think the people in the House and the Senate are pretty aware of what the deal is, and that is basically you've offered a chat…

Tony Snow: No, wait…

Harry Smith: No, no, no, go down to the Hill…

Tony Snow: No, no, wait, Harry. What you've done is you've framed the issue falsely. So let me help you out a little bit . . .

Harry Smith: Tony, even from a cursory look at these e-mails it looks like it reaches much farther than the Justice Department.

Tony Snow: No, it doesn't. What it means -- if you take a look at the e-mails, Harry, it appears there were some communications like "what we're thinking about"…

Harry Smith: Karl Rove wasn't involved, Harriet Miers wasn't involved, come on.

Tony Snow: This is where -- I think what you're trying to do is create a narrative that I'm not so sure the facts are going to justify. This is why what we're trying to do is to get everybody to figure out what's the deal. Let me start again…

Harry Smith: Hang on, hang on…

Tony Snow: Let me explain this point…

Harry Smith: Tony, here's what it looks like. These people who serve at the will of the president, or the pleasure of the president, have been kicked out for undue political influence. . . .

Tony Snow: Harry, you're sounding like a partisan rather than a reporter here. Let me -- please permit me to try to explain what's going on. . . . So I think what you need to do is to stop trying to make a brief or political interference and maybe do what we're asking members of Congress to do, which is figure out what the facts are. . . .

More: http://www.first-draft.com/2007/03/today_on_holden_12.html

Bush throws a carefully choreographed tantrum, standing in front of military officers and families, accusing the Democrats of undermining funding for the troops RIGHT AFTER THEY’VE PASSED A BILL AUTHORIZING FUNDING FOR THE TROOPS (of course, he says he’ll veto it). The news coverage, as usual, is mostly execrable

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/3/23/1414/14597
[Kos] MSNBC's idiot reporter, "Bush has the upper hand since he has the veto."

Uh, dumbass -- Congress allocates the money. If Congress doesn't pass a bill, Bush doesn't have money for his war.

Who has the upper hand?

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/10300.html
[Steve Benen] [T]he president’s comments, on their face, just don’t make any sense.

The bill “brings us no closer to getting the troops the resources they need”? Well, actually, the opposite is true. By passing a bill that would provide troops with the resources they need, the House brought us much closer.

The Dems are trying to “delay funding for our troops”? Again, the opposite is true. Today’s bill funds the troops. That’s not delay, that’s progress.

Indeed, if the president’s top concerns are providing military resources and troop funding without delay, wouldn’t a veto be the worst possible response? The most time-consuming option possible is forcing Congress to start all over again. . .

Bush accuses the Dems of “political theater” – r-i-i-i-i-i-ght

http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2007/03/20070323-1.html
The purpose of the emergency war spending bill I requested was to provide our troops with vital funding. Instead, Democrats in the House, in an act of political theater, voted to substitute their judgment for that of our military commanders on the ground in Iraq. . . .

http://americablog.blogspot.com/2007/03/miltary-regs-forbid-bush-using-our.html
The DOD regulations make clear that the White House cannot use uniformed military, active duty or veterans, as props in political events. But that's what Bush did today . . .

[NB: Not only were they positioned as props, they were clearly given stage directions too.]

http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room/2007/03/23/bush/index.htm
[Tim Grieve] George W. Bush blasted back at House Democrats today by saying that the Iraq war withdrawal plan they passed today amounted to "an act of political theater" in which they "voted to substitute their judgment for that of our military commanders on the ground in Iraq." It was a nice line and all, but perhaps it wouldn't be a bad idea if the reporters who go about quoting it tonight mention that the president had to oust his own "military commanders on the ground in Iraq" in order to find some who agreed with his plan to send more troops there.

Deal with it

http://www.slate.com/id/2162642/
[Justin Peters] Although the bill that Bush will eventually receive will likely be different than the one the House passed, pretty much everyone agrees that this bill's passage was a major victory for Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., who maintained party unity despite worries she wouldn't be able to do so. "This was a real test of Pelosi's leadership, and she passed it big-time. She's stronger now than ever," said one House Democrat.

http://www.needlenose.com/node/view/3905
[Fubar] Vetoing this bill is his prerogative, but the next bill and the one after that will have even more public support. He doesn't know it, but this bill may be the best offer he's going to get.

The President's father was considered out of touch because he didn't know the price of a gallon of milk. This President is out of touch because he doesn't know the price his war is exacting on the country.

173,000

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/3/23/14252/4124
[Meteor Blades] Unless there's a political tsunami, by the Fourth of July American troop strength in Iraq is going to be the highest it's ever been . . .

They will never admit they were wrong

http://americablog.blogspot.com/2007/03/gop-rep-sam-johnson-r-tx-says-we-could.html
[John Aravosis] GOP Rep. Sam Johnson (R-TX) says we could have won Vietnam if we'd just stayed longer . . .

Take your blood pressure medicine before reading this one

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2007_03/010993.php
[Kevin Drum] Half of all U.S. casualties in Iraq have been caused by unsecured munitions. You know, the ones that were in caches throughout the country that were ignored because we didn't have enough troops to occupy the country and didn't think insurgents would be a problem anyway. . . .

More: http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/10294.html

Laying blame at the feet of the Washington Post editorial page, which helped rationalize the war and continues to do so (Fred Hiatt, come on down)

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/horsesmouth/2007/03/dem_rep_obey_ri.php

Rush Limbaugh, spiritual advisor

http://mediamatters.org/items/200703230015
On the March 23 edition of his nationally syndicated radio show, Rush Limbaugh told listeners that former Sen. John Edwards (D-NC) and his wife Elizabeth are "political people [who] are different than you and I." Referring to the couple's March 22 announcement that Elizabeth Edwards has Stage IV metastatic breast cancer, Limbaugh said: "[M]ost people, when told a family member's been diagnosed with the kind of cancer Elizabeth Edwards has, they turn to God. The Edwards turned to the campaign. Their religion is politics and the quest for the White House." . . .

Bonus item: This little anecdote tells you EVERYTHING you need to know about Arlen Specter (R-PA). Don’t miss it

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/3/23/20390/8141

***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 @ 8:29 AM

 
BUSH’S WATERGATE

When people talk like they have something to hide, and act like they have something to hide, they probably do have something to hide. It’s really quite simple: if the US Attorneys were in fact fired because of legitimate job evaluations, if the Bush gang could document the reasons why the firings occurred, if the decisions weren’t driven by politics and White House (Rove) interference, if this didn’t touch Bush, etc., we wouldn’t be here. They would turn over the evaluations and rationales and the whole thing would be over.

They can’t do this because in fact all those things above are true. The evidence of Congressional and WH pressure to influence the focus of US Attorney investigations is already damning. It is clear that “Bush loyalty” was a major factor in the evaluations of US Attorneys, despite their excellent job performance. It is clear that in some of the cases, at least, replacements were made simply to put “their” guys in these positions.

The “gap” in emails, the refusal to disclose WH involvement in the decision, and the adamant refusal to allow testimony are all evidence that, indeed there is something even bigger being hidden here. Tony Snow’s excuses are so lame, even he seems embarrassed to be offering them. Everyone smells blood in the water, and it ain’t just Gonzales.

They are going to the wall on this because they know that this is the last straw for them. For an administration already on the defensive, another story about abuses of power will finish them off politically until they leave office. If they can’t deflect these accusations, they can still hope to buy time through the courts. The key question is whether media coverage will force them to offer answers, even before the courts or Congress do. (Don’t hold your breaths.)

http://www.mydd.com/story/2007/3/23/12751/9093
[Jonathan Singer] Even if we haven't had the evidence to prove it, we have known for a long time that George W. Bush believed that the power of the federal government should be put to the task of not only instituting a radically conservative agenda but also strengthening the Republican Party. Yet with the river flow of information surrounding the prosecutor purge scandal and improprieties in the Department of Justice under both John Ashcroft and Alberto Gonzales has come the basis for a fairly strong case that President Bush has blatantly and perhaps even illegally misused the tools at his disposal for partisan political reasons.

I need not delve too deeply into the prosecutor purge scandal . . . but I will take a moment to point out to you a few related stories that have emerged in recent days. Yesterday, Lara Jakes Jordan of the Associated Press demolished the administration's assertion that the majority of the United States Attorneys fired in 2006 were let go as a result of their poor performance; in fact, six of the eight were among the top third of USAs in terms of prosecutions and five of the eight were among those with the largest number of convictions. Today, we were also offered further proof that the scandal not only reached those fired for partisan reasons but also into those who were maintained in their present positions because of their fealty to Republicans allied with the Bush administration as The Hill's Mike Soraghan detailed the plum plea agreement given to a staffer to former GOP Sen. Ben "Nighthorse" Campbell who was caught up in a kickback scam and as TPMm's Paul Kiel reported that sloppy work by federal prosecutors has led to a reversal of the conviction of GOP strategist James Tobin for attempting to fix the 2002 New Hampshire Senate election.

Yet the improprieties within the DoJ under the Bush administration have been far from limited to just the prosecutor purge scandal. As Carol D. Leonnig reported yesterday in The Washington Post, there are now serious allegations from within the DoJ that the senior leadership of the agency applied undue political pressure on the lead attorney in the landmark lawsuit against the tobacco industry, which has long been supportive of Republican politics. Considering the time, money and energy put into the case -- not to mention the countless Americans who have died as a result of the deceptive practices of the tobacco industry -- it is unconscionable and nearly unthinkable that an administration would allow politics to stymie DoJ lawyers just as the suit was nearing the point of fruition.

While it is certainly expected that an administration would infuse politics into its decision-making process and even consider partisan ramifications at any turn, the degree to which the Bush administration has relied on partisan politics to make decisions and to which it has partisanized the levers of the federal government is truly unprecedented. . . .

What ARE they afraid of?

http://www.firedoglake.com/2007/03/22/lucky-strike/

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2007_03_18.php#013202

Tony Snow says it flat out: we do not accept the oversight function of Congress

http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/002848.php
[ABC] The executive branch is under no compulsion to testify to Congress, because Congress in fact doesn't have oversight ability. . . .

Uh, Tony, read Federalist 51: http://www.talkleft.com/story/2007/3/22/144541/713

More: http://www.first-draft.com/2007/03/today_on_holden_11.html

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/10288.html
[The Congressional Oversight Manual] The Constitution grants Congress extensive authority to oversee and investigate executive branch activities. The constitutional authority for Congress to conduct oversight stems from such explicit and implicit provisions as . . . [read on]

Snow job

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/10287.html
HARRY SMITH, CBS: I think the people in the House and the Senate are pretty well aware of what the deal is, and that is basically you’ve offered a chat. These guys can go — Karl Rove, Harriet Miers –

SNOW: No … wait, Harry. Harry, first, what you’ve done is you’ve framed the issue falsely. So let me help you out a little bit . . . [read it all]

More: http://rawstory.com/news/2007/Video_Snow_blames_CBS_host_for_0322.html

Mark Kleiman dismantles the administration’s stance on oversight and executive privilege

http://www.samefacts.com/archives/overblown_personnel_matter_/2007/03/oversight.php

Our fair and balanced media. Congress approves subpoenas for Bush aides, after Bush says he will ignore them. CNN’s version? “Democrats defy Bush” (why isn’t it “Bush defies Congress”?)

http://mediamatters.org/items/200703220009

http://www.madison.com/tct/opinion/column/index.php?ntid=125359&ntpid=0
[John Nichols] After bluntly stating that he would fight efforts to have White House staffers testify before the Judiciary Committee, he said of the Senate: "I hope they don't choose confrontation."

The Senate is not choosing confrontation. Bush is. . . [read on]

How to negotiate (and how not to)

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/3/22/11231/2672
[Arlen Specter, R-PA] If we don't like what we get, we can always issue a subpoena and move with a subpoena if we don't like what we get. Why not take what we can get . . .

[Patrick Leahy, D-VT] No, no, what we're told we can get is nothing, nothing, nothing. We're told we can have a closed door meeting, with no transcript, not under oath, limited number of people and the White House would determine what the agenda is. That to me is nothing.

More: http://www.prospect.org/weblog/2007/03/post_3208.html

No transcripts?!??

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/blog/2007/03/22/BL2007032200917.html

Quote of the day

http://www.discourse.net/archives/2007/03/more_on_scandal_oneliners.html
“Even in Guantanamo, when they have secret hearings they keep a transcript.”

Could it be any plainer?

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/03/22/AR2007032202266.html
Two months before Bud Cummins was fired as U.S. attorney in Little Rock, a protege of presidential adviser Karl Rove was maneuvering with the Justice Department to take his place.

Last April, Tim Griffin, a Rove aide and longtime GOP operative, sent the attorney general's chief of staff a flattering letter about himself written by Cummins, the prosecutor he was trying to replace, internal e-mails released this week show. Rove and Harriet Miers, then the White House counsel, were keenly interested in putting him in the position, e-mails reveal. . . .

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/23/washington/23chiara.html
The ousted United States attorney in western Michigan said Thursday that she was told last November that she was being forced out to make way for another lawyer the Bush administration wanted to groom, not because of management problems. . . .

No, Pete, we haven’t forgotten about you

http://www.talkleft.com/story/2007/3/23/74543/2831
Last Night's Hardball with Chris Matthews debated the U.S. Attorney purge, and he had fired New Mexico U.S. Attorney David Iglesias explaining how he was shaken and stunned that a U.S. Senator would call him about whether charges would be filed against some Democratic office holders before last election day. He was fired by AG Gonzalez less than six weeks later.

Before Iglesias came on the air, the three participants with Matthews said that Sen. Domenici should be subpoenaed as well, and one commented that "he has already lawyered up." . . .

Kyle Sampson to testify next Thursday

http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/002847.php

This hasn’t been examined closely enough: how the provision to allow firing and hiring US Attorneys without congressional oversight was put into the Patriot Act in the first place, apparently with no one’s knowledge or approval. Is there a Utah connection? (thanks to David N. for pointing this out, and some links)

http://www.salon.com/opinion/conason/2007/02/09/united_states_attorneys/
[Joe Conason] Leading senators of both parties are disturbed by these incidents because U.S. attorneys -- the powerful officials appointed by the president to prosecute federal crimes and defend federal interests in each of the nation's judicial districts -- are supposed to be as nonpartisan as possible. Democrats mostly appoint Democrats and Republicans mostly appoint Republicans, but the U.S. attorneys are usually chosen with the advice and consent of the senators from their home states, and then confirmed by the full Senate, with a decent respect for skill and experience as well as political connections.

The reason for this appointment process was simple: These prosecutors must police the politicians. They are expected to guard the nation's judicial system against the varieties of political abuse that are typical of authoritarian systems. They are granted a substantial degree of independence from the government in Washington, including the attorney general who functions as their boss.

To ensure that no U.S. attorney could be fired on a whim and replaced with a malleable hack, the relevant statute required that whenever a vacancy occurred in midterm, the replacement would be appointed by federal circuit judges rather than by the president. Getting rid of irksomely honest and nonpartisan prosecutors was difficult if not impossible.

But that wholesome safeguard was breached in December 2005, when the Senate renewed the Patriot Act. At the behest of the Justice Department, an aide to Sen. Arlen Specter slipped a provision into the bill that permitted the White House to place its own appointees in vacant U.S. attorney positions permanently and without Senate confirmation. So silently was this sleight of hand performed that Specter himself now claims, many months later, to have been completely unaware of the amendment's passage. (Of course, it would be nice if the senators actually read the legislation before they voted, particularly when they claim to be the authors.)

The staffer who reportedly performed this bit of dirty work is Michael O'Neill, a law professor at George Mason University and former clerk for Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas. As the Washington Times explained when O'Neill was appointed as the Senate Judiciary Committee's chief counsel, many observers believed that Specter had hired him to reassure conservatives of his loyalty to the Bush White House. Right-wing distrust had almost ousted the Pennsylvania moderate from the Judiciary chairmanship, and appointing O'Neill was apparently the price for keeping that post.

Evidently O'Neill rewarded Specter by sneaking through legislation to deprive him and his fellow senators of one of their most important powers, at the behest of an attorney general intent on aggrandizing executive power. The results of this backstage betrayal -- now playing out in a wave of politicized dismissals and hirings -- were perfectly predictable and utterly poisonous. . . .

http://www.techlawjournal.com/security/20010316.asp
Who is Michael O'Neill?
* Brigham Young University, BA, summa cum laude, 1987.
* Yale Law School, JD, 1990.
* Law Clerk for U.S. Court of Appeals Judge David Sentelle, 1990-91.
* U.S. Department of Justice Honors Program, Criminal Division, Appellate Section, 1991-94.
* U.S. States Attorney's Office for the District of Columbia, Special Assistant U.S. Attorney, 1993-94.
* General Counsel, Senate Judiciary Committee, 1994-96.
* Law Clerk to Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, 1996–97. . .

[David N] What stands out to me in the employment record above is not only that O’Neill was a Law Clerk to Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, and General Counsel for the Senate Judiciary Committee during 2 years of the War on Clinton, but also that he was a Law Clerk for U.S. Court of Appeals Judge David Sentelle. Sentelle, of course, was the Jesse Helms protege who (shortly after lunching with Helms) chose Kenneth W. Starr as the supposedly "Independent" Counsel to go after Bill Clinton. As head of the Special Division, the three-judge panel that named Starr, Sentelle had a history of naming Republicans to investigate Democrats and Republicans (once again) to investigate Republicans. Some time ago, former Newsweek reporter Robert Parry had an interesting article on Sentelle's highly partisan bias in this area: http://consortiumnews.com/2005/090705.html

http://www.slate.com/id/2161260
[Dahlia Lithwick] Specter added that he only looked into how the provision was altered after Feinstein told him about it. As he explained, "I then contacted my very able chief counsel, Michael O'Neill, to find out exactly what had happened. And Mr. O'Neill advised me that the requested change had come from the Department of Justice, that it had been handled by Brett Tolman, who is now the U.S. attorney for Utah . . .

Thus, at least according to Specter, O'Neill had merely been following orders from the Department of Justice when he snuck new language into the Patriot Act that would consolidate executive branch authority. . . .

So, Specter now finds himself in an exceedingly strange position: His staff either lied to him or misled him about what he acknowledges to be a significant legal change. He himself observed at that same hearing: "I did not slip it in and I do not slip things in. That is not my practice. If there is some item which I have any idea is controversial I tell everybody about it."

So, Specter concedes that the item is controversial. He denies knowing about it. That implies it was O'Neill who slipped the new language in, and misled Specter and the Senate. And yet, at least as far as I can tell, nobody in power has said a word about O'Neill's conduct, and not one iota of blame has been laid at his doorstep. . .

And it now seems that either the DOJ snookered O'Neill, O'Neill snookered Specter, or Specter snookered his colleagues. But any way you slice it, the executive seems to have encroached on congressional turf in order to expand executive turf. Whether Specter actually knew that O'Neill was carrying water for Karl Rove and turned a blind eye, or whether he was duped by O'Neill may never be known. But either way, it seems to me that Specter's office has done terrible damage to the very notion of independent and co-equal branches of government in this affair, and has yet to be called to account for it. Given that respect and esteem for co-equal independent branches of government is one of the senator's sacred cows, it's doubly ironic that no one has questioned him on this.

http://select.nytimes.com/search/restricted/article?res=F30E16FF3A550C708DDDAA0894DF404482
D. Kyle Sampson has never worked full time as a federal prosecutor. But for much of the Bush administration he played a considerable role in vetting who served in the Justice Department. And last year he used his post as chief of staff to the attorney general to make a bid for a job as a United States attorney in Utah. . .

When President Bush was first elected, Mr. Sampson joined his transition team, helping screen nominees for judiciary or Justice Department jobs, said Taylor Oldroyd, a longtime friend. Mr. Sampson had learned about the nomination process from 1999 to 2001, when he worked for Senator Orrin G. Hatch, Republican of Utah, while he was chairman of the Judiciary Committee.

Once Mr. Bush was inaugurated, Mr. Sampson joined the White House staff, helping interview many of the candidates who were applying for jobs as United States attorneys. In 2002 Mr. Sampson told the Brigham Young University news service that he admired Mr. Bush because the president recognized that politics and religious beliefs could not be separated.

"He really means it when he says he believes that we shouldn't chase religion from the public square," Mr. Sampson was quoted as saying.

Mr. Sampson also helped fellow Mormons and friends win jobs in the administration, said Mr. Oldroyd, who landed a job at the Agriculture Department in part through Mr. Sampson's efforts.

By 2003, Mr. Sampson had moved to the Justice Department, where he became an adviser to Attorney General John Ashcroft. When Mr. Gonzales replaced Mr. Ashcroft, Mr. Sampson became one of his senior aides, rising in late 2005 to chief of staff. . . .

As his influence rose inside the Justice Department and the White House, Mr. Sampson decided at some point that he wanted to move directly to the post of United States attorney in Utah, his home state, without serving as a full-time prosecutor first. . . .

White House and Justice officials backed Mr. Sampson in his bid to replace Mr. Warner, making that clear to the staff of Senator Hatch. But the senator wanted Mr. Bush to nominate Brett Tolman, a one-time Utah federal prosecutor who had spent the previous three years working on antiterrorism issues for the Judiciary Committee staff.

This put Mr. Sampson in an unusual position. As Mr. Gonzales's chief of staff, he was fielding calls and letters from Mr. Hatch's office, even though he was vying for the job that Mr. Hatch was writing about, two former officials from Mr. Hatch's office said. That made at least some Senate officials uncomfortable.

"It was a little like the fox watching the hen house," said one former Senate staff member, who asked not to be named because he now works in a different job.

Mr. Sampson did not respond to phone calls seeking comment.

Mr. Hatch finally made a personal appeal to Mr. Gonzales to drop his bid to nominate Mr. Sampson. After a four-month delay, President Bush nominated Mr. Sampson's rival for the job last June. . . .

More: http://www.sltrib.com/news/ci_5431030

[NB: So, Brett Tolman, at O’Neill’s request – and who else’s? – sneaks in the provision, and is later rewarded with the US Attorney’s position in Utah. O’Neill, though hired by Specter, seems to be working for someone else. Kyle Sampson, Gonzales aide and architect of the US Attorney firings, wanted that US Attorney position and was angling for it (despite having no background as a prosecutor), until Orrin Hatch and others cut his legs out from under him. The White House (of course) wanted Sampson. Who?]

Rove? http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL0410/S00296.htm
Although Rove is not Mormon, he was nurtured in the Salt Lake City Mormon culture and educated at the University of Utah. . .

The last refuge of scoundrels

http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalradar/2007/03/gonzales_im_not.html
Attorney General Alberto Gonzales. . . is standing firm amid calls for him to step down, telling reporters, "I'm not going to resign. I'm going to stay focused on protecting our kids” . . .

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/10285.html
[Steve Benen] Honestly, could there be a weaker defense? . . . [read on]

The “Save Gonzales” campaign begins (thanks to Buzzflash for the link)

http://blog.citizensforethics.org/node/748

New Def Sec Bob Gates (and Rice) wanted to shut down Guantanamo; Cheney (and Gonzales) refused, and got their way. (Whose name is missing from this list?)

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/23/washington/23gitmo.html

Let’s get it started

http://americablog.blogspot.com/2007/03/friday-morning-open-thread_23.html
[Joe Sudbay] Today is an important day in our history. Today, the U.S. House of Representatives will pass the first binding legislation to set a deadline for withdrawal from the quaqmire in Iraq. The bill isn't perfect, but it's a start. This is what the American people voted for last November. This is the direction most Americans thought we'd take after the bi-partisan Iraq Study Group issued its report in December. There is a national consensus that the U.S. must get out of Iraq. The impediment is George Bush. He started this war without a plan. And, he still doesn't have a clue. Congress has to act because our President won't.

So get it started.

Elizabeth Edwards has a relapse of cancer, John Edwards won’t end campaign

http://www.needlenose.com/node/view/3901

What a miserable excuse for a human being

http://mediamatters.org/items/200703230001
On the March 22 edition of his nationally syndicated radio show, Rush Limbaugh suggested that the presidential campaign of former Sen. John Edwards (D-NC) intentionally "leak[ed]" false information -- that Edwards would "suspend" his campaign because his wife's cancer had recurred -- to Politico reporter Ben Smith in order "to jump-start the campaign." At a press conference earlier the same day, Edwards announced that his wife, Elizabeth, had been told that she has Stage IV metastatic breast cancer, but that the Edwards campaign would continue. Smith incorrectly claimed that Edwards would announce the "suspen[sion]" of his campaign in a March 22 weblog post on Politico.com. Referring to that post, Limbaugh stated that "this business about" Edwards announcing that he will continue his presidential bid "makes me think that the leak that was planted today was purposely wrong to create surprise." . . .

BTW, the Politico is a new source for us here, but they’re losing credibility fast

http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room/2007/03/22/edwards4/index.html
[Tim Grieve] The Politico made news twice this week with scoops on the stories of the day. That would be a real coup for the upstart political news site -- if only the stories had panned out the way The Politico suggested they would.

Earlier this week, The Politco's Mike Allen reported that Republican officials "operating at the behest of the White House," had already begun looking for a successor for Attorney General Alberto Gonzales. . . .

This morning, The Politico fronted a piece in which Ben Smith reported that John Edwards would be suspending his presidential campaign in the wake of news that his wife's cancer has returned. . .

The difficult life of Republicans

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/10286.html
[Steve Benen] Roll Call has a fascinating item today about congressional Republicans and their growing frustration with the other end of Pennsylvania Avenue. Apparently, GOP lawmakers are anxious to advance their own agenda (pushing conservative bills, prodding Dems, presenting new ideas), but something keeps getting in the way — namely, the Bush administration. . . .

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/10289.html
A Republican leadership staffer told Roll Call yesterday, “We are not throwing ourselves on the grenade for them anymore. There’s now an attitude of ‘you created this mess, you’ve got to get yourself out of it.’” . . . [read on!]

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2007_03/010985.php
[Kevin Drum] A (depressed) conservative friend writes to say that George Bush has single-handedly destroyed the Republican Party. But based on the Pew survey that prompted his comment (see below) I'd say that Bush had some help. The Gingrichization of the Republican Party has taken its toll. . . .

More: http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-shift23mar23,0,195804.story

More evidence that this administration has no interest in the people’s right to know (thanks to Laura Rozen for the link)

http://www.fas.org/blog/secrecy/2007/03/crs_clamps_down_on_public_dist.html

Kroger pharmacies refusing to sell legal “morning after” pill

http://americablog.blogspot.com/2007/03/did-kroger-lie-about-morning-after-pill.html

Bonus item: Newt Gingrich (hold on, don’t laugh) bemoans the state of contemporary attack-dog politics

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2007_03/010983.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 @ 7:23 AM

 
MIND THE GAP

[NB: Today is the 1000th edition of PBD. Go read “Why I (Still) Blog”: http://pbd.blogspot.com/2007_03_01_archive.html#3934024293428294561]

Shades of Watergate: there is a two week gap in the emails corresponding to the period of greatest White House involvement in the discussions about firing the US Attorneys.

Do they REALLY think they are going to get away with this?

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/22/washington/22gap.html
The dismissal of eight United States attorneys has elicited a long and ever-growing list of theories by Democrats on Capitol Hill about ulterior motives and suspicious coincidences. Now there is a new one: the document gap.

Democrats on Capitol Hill were privately urging reporters on Wednesday to press the Bush administration to explain why in the thousands of pages of e-mail messages and documents turned over to investigators, there is almost nothing from Nov. 16 to Dec. 7, the day seven of the firings occurred. In contrast, there are hundreds of pages from the weeks after the dismissals. One of the last e-mail messages before this period was sent by D. Kyle Sampson, then chief of staff to Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales, to Harriet E. Miers, then the White House counsel, and includes a request that the White House approve the plan. “We’ll stand by for a green light from you,” said the Nov. 15 e-mail message. . . .

Tony Snow “explains”: http://atrios.blogspot.com/2007_03_18_atrios_archive.html#117449758699119111
“I've been led to believe that there's a good response for it, and I'm going to let you ask [the DOJ] because they're going to have an answer.”

[Atrios] He looked really really uncomfortable.

Here’s the “explanation”: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/22/washington/22gap.html
Brian Roehrkasse, a spokesman for the Justice Department, said, “The department has provided or made available to Congress all the documents responsive to Congress’s requests over the time period in question.” He added, “To the extent there was a lull in communications concerning the U.S. attorney issues, it reflects the fact that we have found no responsive documents from that time period, which included the Thanksgiving holiday.”

More from Tony Snow, this time on Executive Privilege

http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2007/03/20/executive_privilege/index.html
“Evidently, [the President] wants to shield virtually any communications that take place within the White House compound on the theory that all such talk contributes in some way, shape or form to the continuing success and harmony of an administration. Taken to its logical extreme, that position would make it impossible for citizens to hold a chief executive accountable for anything. He would have a constitutional right to cover up.

Chances are that the courts will hurl such a claim out, but it will take time.

One gets the impression that [the Administration] values its survival more than most people want justice and thus will delay without qualm. But as the clock ticks, the public's faith in [the President] will ebb away for a simple reason: Most of us want no part of a president who is cynical enough to use the majesty of his office to evade the one thing he is sworn to uphold -- the rule of law.”

[NB: Oops. Never mind, he was talking about CLINTON, in 1998. Read the rest of Greenwald’s column for more on what the courts decided about Clinton’s Executive Privilege claim]

http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1003560724
Q So Tony, back when President Clinton was citing executive privilege to keep internal deliberations in that White House from being talked about in Congress, you wrote now famously that --

MR. SNOW: I'm glad it was famous. I didn't get that kind of coverage at the time. (Laughter.)

Q It's become more famous --

MR. SNOW: Oh, is it making its way through the left-wing blog?

Q It is.

(Laughter.)

Q No, no. But you spoke -- you wrote quite eloquently about this. You said, "Taken to its logical extreme, that position would make it impossible for citizens to hold the chief executive accountable."

MR. SNOW: Right.

Q "We would have a constitutional right to a cover-up."

MR. SNOW: Right. Now let me --

Q So why were you wrong then and right now?

MR. SNOW: Because you're -- this is a not entirely analogous situation. I just told you what we have in fact offered to make available to members of Congress. What we are doing is we are holding apart confidential communications between advisers and the president, and that is pretty standard practice in White Houses. But again --

Q It wasn't with the Clinton administration.

MR. SNOW: Well, I'm not so sure. And I'll let others do the legal arguing on that.

More: http://newsblogs.chicagotribune.com/news_theswamp/2007/03/snow_swallows_h.html

Caught in their own lies

http://atrios.blogspot.com/2007_03_18_atrios_archive.html#117450073106924882
[Ed Henry, CNN] I think also, another thing to look at, I followed up a question about executive privilege. You heard Tony Snow at the end there saying the president has no recollection of being involved in this decision to fire the US attorneys. So we asked the question then, well why are you citing executive privilege - or at least suggesting you will, and yesterday the president said the principle at stake here is candid advice from his advisers to the president - if the president was not involved in the decision, then how can you cite executive privilege on something he was really not involved in? And Tony Snow basically said, it's a good question and I don't know the answer.

More: http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/10275.html

More from Tony, this time on why it isn’t necessary to put anyone under oath – because who could imagine that Karl Rove would possibly lie?

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/3/21/134545/225
“Well again the question is, do they want the truth and do they think they're not going to be able to get it? And the answer is, of course they're going to get the truth. And they'll get the whole truth.”

Snark: http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2007/03/cure-for-amnesia-by-digby-tony-snow-is.html

Tony’s very, very very bad day

http://www.first-draft.com/2007/03/today_on_holden_10.html
[NB: I can’t even clip it all – just go read through it]

Video: http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/002837.php

There are a couple of emails that slipped through from that 18-day period, obviously selected because they reinforce the claim that the firings were “performance related” – but pretty clearly there are a lot that have been withheld because they DON’T fit with that claim

http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/002838.php

http://thinkprogress.org/2007/03/21/a-second-set-of-emails-from-the-gap/

This is all very simple. Kevin Drum explains

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2007_03/010976.php
[Kevin Drum] I can't tell you how much it pains me to say this, but Larry Kudlow asks precisely the right question about George Bush's Purgegate press conference yesterday:

Unfortunately, President Bush's news conference yesterday failed to answer the absolute key question for the public: Why did he fire the eight U.S. attorneys? . . . It seems to me if you use a press conference event to go over the heads of the mainstream media, and broadcast to the American public, you have to deliver a clear rationale for your actions.

They've now had nearly two months to come up with a simple, clear, understandable explanation for why they chose those eight to fire but not the others. So what is it? And why has it taken such an interminable amount of internal chaos to come up with something?

People aren't stupid. If there were a simple, innocent explanation we would have heard it in January. The fact that the president of the United States held a press conference eight weeks after this issue first hit the media and still didn't have a plausible story to tell suggests pretty strongly that there is no plausible story to tell.

More: http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/10276.html
[Steve Benen] They couldn’t decide whether (and which) prosecutors were actually bad at their jobs. They can’t explain why Justice Department officials lied to Congress. They can’t explain why White House officials can’t testify under oath. They can’t explain what role the president had in the firings. They can’t explain what role the Attorney General had in the firings. They can’t explain the meaning of the phrase “loyal Bushies.” They can’t explain the 18-day document gap. They can’t explain why they can’t explain.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/blog/2007/03/21/BL2007032101203.html
[Dan Froomkin] Among the many lessons of the Scooter Libby trial is this one: That when the White House issues squirrelly statements under fire, the most cynical interpretations may well be the closest to the truth.

So there's really no longer any excuse for letting President Bush get away with carefully parsed denials, hairsplitting and non-answers. . . . [read on!]

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2007_03_18.php#013159
[Josh Marshall] Okay, enough. The president fired US Attorneys to stymie investigations of Republicans and punish US Attorneys who didn't harass Democrats with bogus voter fraud prosecutions. In the former instance, the evidence remains circumstantial. But in the latter the evidence is clear, overwhelming and undeniable.

Indeed, it is so undeniable the president himself does not deny it. . .

It's yet another example of how far this White House has gone in normalizing behavior that we've been raised to associate with third-world countries where democracy has never successfully taken root and the rule of law is unknown. At most points in our history the idea that an Attorney General could stay in office after having overseen such an effort would be unthinkable. . . .

Why does Bush call them “resignations”?

http://www.firedoglake.com/2007/03/21/bending-reality-like-a-pretzel/

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2007_03_18.php#013189

Choreography: http://www.firedoglake.com/2007/03/21/crooks-on-crooks/

Playing hard ball with the US Attorneys (thanks to Buzzflash for the link)

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/032107A.shtml
[Jason Leopold] A Justice Department official threatened to take the "gloves off" and "retaliate" against the eight United States attorneys who were abruptly removed from their posts if they continued to speak publicly about the circumstances behind their dismissals. . . .

The email, a portion of which had been discussed during a Senate judiciary hearing two weeks ago, was written by H.E. "Bud" Cummins on February 20 and sent to US Attorneys Dan Bogden, John McKay, Carol Lam, David Iglesias and Paul Charlton immediately after Cummins had a somewhat heated exchange with Mike Elston, a top aide to Deputy Attorney General Paul McNulty, about comments Cummins had made that were published in the Washington Post on February 18.

According to the Post story, Cummins had taken issue with statements made by Justice Department officials that the reasons behind his termination, and those of his colleagues, was the result of poor job performance. Cummins, the former US attorney in Little Rock, Arkansas, was replaced by an aide to White House Deputy Chief of Staff Karl Rove.

"They're entitled to make these changes for any reason or no reason or even for an idiotic reason," Cummins told the Post. "But if they are trying to suggest that people have inferior performance to hide whatever their true agenda is, that is wrong. They should retract those statements."

Two days later in an email to other fired prosecutors, Cummins wrote that he had spoken with Elston, and Elston told him that if Justice Department officials "feel like any of us intend to continue to offer quotes to the press, or organize behind the scenes Congressional pressure, then they would feel forced to somehow pull their gloves off and offer public criticisms to defend their actions more fully."

"I was tempted to challenge him," Cummins wrote in the email. "And say something movie-like such as 'Are you threatening ME???'" . . .

More from Cummins: http://www.pbs.org/now/news/311-transcript.html
HINOJOSA: Bud, your reaction to news that the discussion about the removal of—the federal prosecutors actually was taking place with Karl Rove and Alberto Gonzales before the White House had actually admitted that this was taking place. What's your reaction?

CUMMINS: From my perspective, it—it's most important because it is just another piece of evidence that the assertions that my seven colleagues were terminated for performance reasons is an absolute lie. And it is embarrassing to me that for whatever reason, the Attorney General of the United States, the Deputy Attorney General, who was a U.S. Attorney with all eight of us, who—and who should know better—and who absolutely does know better—would for whatever reason still be clinging onto this notion and this suggestion that there were somehow performance issues on the table when these decisions were made. Karl Rove is not a person who is in a position to make a call about performance of a United States Attorney. And so if he—the more he was involved in these decisions, is just stronger evidence that the decisions were made for other reasons. . . .[read on!]

Boom!

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2007_03_18.php#013191
[AP] Six of the eight U.S. attorneys fired by the Justice Department ranked in the top third among their peers for the number of prosecutions filed last year, according to an analysis of federal records.

In addition, five of the eight were among the government's top performers in winning convictions.

More: http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/002829.php

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2007_03/010979.php
[Kevin Drum] Yesterday I wrote a post suggesting that some of the fired U.S. Attorneys really did have performance problems while others didn't. How can you tell the difference? Well, the two who did have performance problems were given reviews that contained actual hard evidence of poor office management. The five who didn't were given vague reviews that didn't seem to add up to much. As it happens, these five were the same ones who had been suspected of being either too tough on Republican corruption cases or too weak on Democratic ones, which has led suspicious folks like me to suspect that this was the real reason they were fired.

One of the USAs who seemed to be a genuine management problem was Kevin Ryan of San Francisco. But according to a story in the LA Times today, until the very last minute that wasn't enough to get him on the list . . .

So: documented poor performance wasn't enough to get a Bush loyalist on the list. He was only added at the last minute to prevent possible embarrassment if his performance became public during a mass firing that was supposedly due to performance problems.

Which kinda makes you think that neither poor performance nor policy differences really had anything to do with any of this, doesn't it? We're left with Kevin Ryan, who was fired to avoid his poor performance becoming public; Margaret Chiara, another loyalist who appeared to have genuine management problems; and five more who were fired for unclear reasons -- but who all seem to have shared the fatal defect of prosecuting too many Republicans and not enough Democrats. (Plus one more who was fired to make way for a friend of Karl Rove to take his spot.)

The Fab Five are the ones to keep an eye on. Connect the dots. . . .

After the fact

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-performance21mar21,0,6718386.story
Justice Department memos show performance issues were being detailed after the fact in order to justify the terminations.
Senior Justice Department officials began drafting memos this month listing specific reasons why they had fired eight U.S. attorneys, intending to cite performance problems such as insubordination, leadership failures and other missteps if needed to convince angry congressional Democrats that the terminations were justified. . .

Just another coincidence

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/10273.html
[Arizona Republic] Two weeks after Arizona U.S. Attorney Paul Charlton was ordered to give up his post, he sent an e-mail to a top Justice Department official asking how to handle questions that his ouster was connected to his investigation of Rep. Rick Renzi, R-Ariz. . . [read on!]

Now that we know political pressure was on US Attorneys to tone down some investigations (against Republicans) and pursue others more aggressively (against Democrats), a whole host of investigations are being re-examined. Watch this – we are about to see the issue expand into the politicization of the entire federal legal system (and Rove has nothing to do with it? R-i-i-i-i-ght).

I’m now starting to think that this has potential the Plame leak never had – to identify repeated obstructions of justice, directed out of the White House itself. This is why they are going to the mat to avoid public testimony under oath, or any internal documents about WH involvement. And it explains the “gap” -- a ridiculously obvious ploy (as it was for Nixon) unless there is something you need to hide so desperately that you are willing to take the heat for doing it

NH phone jamming: http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/002839.php

Abramoff: http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/002833.php
As former U.S. Attorney Bud Cummins has written, "Once the public detects partisanship in one important decision, they will follow the natural inclination to question every decision made, whether there is a connection or not."

More: http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2007/03/i-was-born-yesterday-by-digby-i-know.html

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/10270.html
[Steve Benen] * Did the U.S. Attorney’s office in Pennsylvania intentionally target Bob Casey allies to undermine his Senate campaign against Rick Santorum?

* Why was the career U.S. Attorney in Guam removed in 2002 after he started investigating disgraced GOP lobbyist Jack Abramoff?

* Why has Western Pennsylvania’s U.S. attorney, Mary Beth Buchanan, spent a disproportionate amount of her time launching public-corruption investigations against Democrats, while overlooking Republicans?

* In July 2005, the U.S. Attorney in Denver decided not to pursue a matter in which bouncers at a Bush event impersonated Secret Service agents to throw out three law-abiding ticket-holders because of their bumper sticker (the Denver Three controversy). Did politics dictate the decision?

It just gets worse

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/03/21/AR2007032102713.html
The leader of the Justice Department team that prosecuted a landmark lawsuit against tobacco companies said yesterday that Bush administration political appointees repeatedly ordered her to take steps that weakened the government's racketeering case.

Sharon Y. Eubanks said Bush loyalists in Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales's office began micromanaging the team's strategy in the final weeks of the 2005 trial, to the detriment of the government's claim that the industry had conspired to lie to U.S. smokers. . . .

Whoa, Nelly!

http://thinkprogress.org/2007/03/19/carol-lam-white-house/
Referring to the Bush administration’s purge of former San Diego-based U.S. attorney Carol Lam, Sen. Arlen Specter (R-PA) questioned recently on the Senate floor whether she was let go because she was “about to investigate other people who were politically powerful.”

The media reports this morning that among Lam’s politically powerful targets were former CIA official Kyle “Dusty” Foggo and then-House Appropriations Committee Chairman Jerry Lewis (R-CA). But there is evidence to believe that the White House may also have been on Lam’s target list. Here are the connections . . . [read on]

More: http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/metro/20070313-9999-1m13wilkes.html

Cheney involved? http://americablog.blogspot.com/2007/03/more-on-dick-cheneys-connections-to.html

At this stage, getting rid of Gonzales almost seems like a triviality

http://politicalwire.com/archives/2007/03/21/republicans_see_gonzales_gone.html
From the latest Evans-Novak Political Report: "It is impossible to find a Republican on Capitol Hill who believes either that Alberto Gonzales will survive as attorney general or that he should survive. That typifies the poor congressional relations of the Bush Administration that are rooted in arrogance."

"President Bush's gesture of phoning Gonzales to reaffirm his support is just that -- a gesture. His press conference last night to challenge the Democrats was a means of political positioning. As President Bush announced that Gonzales would appear on the Hill to testify, he was in fact throwing him to the wolves. At best, he has a few months left in office. Only a few Republicans on Capitol Hill have called for Gonzales's resignation so far, but the others are doing almost nothing to defend him."

It was Rove all the time: http://www.salon.com/opinion/blumenthal/2007/03/22/attorneys/print.html
[Sidney Blumenthal] Leave aside the unintentional irony of President Bush asserting executive privilege to shield his aides from testifying before the Congress in the summary firings of eight U.S. attorneys because the precedent would prevent him from receiving "good advice." Leave aside also his denunciation of the Congress for the impertinence of requesting such testimony as "partisan" and "demanding show trials," despite calls from Republicans for the dismissal of Attorney General Alberto Gonzales. Ignore as well Bush's adamant defense of Gonzales.

The man Bush has nicknamed "Fredo," the weak and betraying brother of the Corleone family, is, unlike Fredo, a blind loyalist. . . (Is Bush aware that Colin Powell refers to him as "Sonny," after the hothead oldest son?) But saving "Fredo" doesn't explain why Bush is willing to risk a constitutional crisis. Why is Bush going to the mattresses against the Congress? What doesn't he want known? . . .[read on!]

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/columnists/chi-0703210070mar21,1,4717359.column
How many conversations did Karl Rove--the political Rasputin of the Bush White House--have with top Illinois Republicans about U.S. Atty. Patrick Fitzgerald? . . .

Buying his silence?

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2007_03_18.php#013175
[Las Vegas Review-Journal] Two weeks after firing him as chief federal prosecutor in Nevada last December, Justice Department officials were preparing to offer Daniel Bogden a new job as an immigration judge. . . The overture came from a top deputy to Attorney General Alberto Gonzales who confessed on the day of the firing he was having second thoughts about removing Bogden as U.S. attorney in the state. . .

A spokesman for Sen. John Ensign, R-Nev., said this week that Justice officials are in new talks with Bogden about opportunities to "restore his reputation" after his dismissal as part of a widening scandal engulfing the Bush administration.

[NB: Remember that Ensign was threatening to pull his support for Gonzales if they didn’t find a new job for Bogden]

The House approves subpoenas, over the threats from Bush that he will ignore them. This is a political, more than a legal fight – but it’s hard to see how Bush prevails either way

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/22/washington/22attorneys.html
Even as the White House dug in against the demand, Democrats in Congress held out hope for a compromise. Though members of a House judiciary subcommittee approved the subpoenas, they did not issue them, saying they wanted to avoid a showdown over separation of powers. . .

What next? http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/03/21/AR2007032100200_pf.html

More: http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/10269.html
[Steve Benen] A political compromise, at this point, appears unlikely. Congressional Dems want information; the White House is reluctant to share it. The impasse offers little in the way of middle ground, and Bush and his aides appear anxious to bring the matter to court.

How strong is the executive privilege claim in this case? Not very. For one thing, the scandal has nothing to do with “military, diplomatic or national security secrets,” where the Supreme Court says executive privilege is strongest. For another, the Bush administration has already disclosed thousands of pages of documents on the subject, and in some cases, partial disclosure can waive the privilege.

Shades of Watergate

http://www.mydd.com/story/2007/3/22/21312/2126
[Jonathan Singer] [W]e are heading into Watergate territory at this point. . . .

More: http://www.talkleft.com/story/2007/3/22/73134/5941

Our little President (thanks to Atrios for the link)

http://tbogg.blogspot.com/2007/03/little-big-president-gov.html
[TBogg, after Bush’s speech dismissing questions about the US Attorney scandal] One thing that is fascinating about George Bush is how little he has grown in office. No, that's not right. It's not that he hasn't grown, he has gotten smaller; less Presidential, more sad little man watching his paper boat circle the drain. After six years of playing The Decider he should at least have a thin candy shell of gravitas as opposed to coming across like one of those guys on Peoples Court who not only has an unshakable belief that people won't see through his bullshit, but that no one will notice his artful comb-over either.

As bad a president as George W. Bush has been (and lets face it, not only is he the worst ever, he's actively lobbying to be considered worse than at least the next five, possibly six presidents . . . [H]e is a worse person and it shows whenever he is under pressure; he melts down into a greasy little puddle of glares and smirks and incipient panic. But tonight was special. Tonights performance lays to rest any notion other than the fact that he's not a very bright man who has nothing but contempt for a world that refuses to dumb down for him.

Oh damn. Elizabeth Edwards might have cancer, and John may be quitting the Presidential race (of course, the first matters more than the second)

http://americablog.blogspot.com/2007/03/breaking-john-edwards-and-wife-holding.html

Al Gore takes on Republican denial over global warming

http://electioncentral.tpmcafe.com/blog/electioncentral/2007/mar/21/gore

More: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6EjyMP4vpCo

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2007/03/confederacy-of-dunces-by-digby-i-am-not.html

More Republican problems coping with the plain facts

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/3/21/195651/118
[Kos] Matthews grilled DeLay about passages in his book where he apparently ripped into fellow corrupt Texan Dick Armey, eventually asking the Hammer about describing Armey as "drunk with ambition." DeLay denied writing that. "I wrote that he was 'blinded by his ambition.'" Matthews starts flipping though the book and finds the "drunk with ambition" quote and reads it to Bug Man. And DeLay keeps denying it. Finally, Chris hands the book to Tom and tells him to read it himself. DeLay looks down, pauses, and says "I don't have my glasses."

Are the House and Senate Dems finally on the same page about how to deal with an Iraq vote?

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/03/21/AR2007032102005.html
Senate Democrats unveiled an emergency spending bill that would continue funding the conflict in Iraq while requiring U.S. troop withdrawals to begin this summer, a proposal that tracks closely with one the House will vote on tomorrow. . .

More: http://www.mydd.com/story/2007/3/21/204111/105

Behind the scenes: http://behindscene.notlong.com

Bonus item: The Iraq Veterans Memorial (thanks to Peg K for the link)

http://iraqmemorial.org/

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

I don't get anything personally out of this project, except the satisfaction of doing it (I don't run ads, etc). The credit really all goes to the people whose material I copy and redistribute. But if I do have a "mission," it is to get this information into the hands of as many people as I can.***
- posted by Nick Burbules @ 7:46 AM

 
WHY I (STILL) BLOG

Today is the 1000th edition of PBD. The first web posting was on May 8, 2004, just as the Abu Ghraib scandal was breaking wide open. Rush Limbaugh had just made his despicable “frat party” joke: http://pbd.blogspot.com/2004_05_01_archive.html#108461877938199525

The newsletter had existed as an email posting before then, starting on September 12, 2003. In that first email I wrote, “I probably won't do this every day, but I'll copy good critical pieces on Bush's policies when I come across them -- if you don't want to get these, let me know.” Little did I suspect what was to come.

On the day of PBD’s 500th posting, I wrote “Why I Blog”: http://pbd.blogspot.com/2005_10_01_pbd_archive.html#112947384464604372

What has changed since then?

I have continued to refine the format of the blog, from a collection of links to an edited narrative. I have added more comments from my own point of view, trying to put quotes and links into context. As I said in my previous statement, I do not see PBD merely as an “aggregator” site, but as an illustration of the narrative effects of selection and sequencing. This is, for better or worse, my version of events – and as an editor my involvement is far from neutral.

I have limited the number of sites I review each day, as I’ve settled into a bit more skepticism about the judgment of some folks, and I have tried to focus more on fresh information, commentary, and analysis, not just posting rants. I’ve also discovered some new sites that are regular visits for me now.

I’ve watched some of the great bloggers who inspired me – Michael Berube and Billmon, especially – pack up their tools and move on, and I have asked myself countless times whether the time and effort I put into this project is sustainable over the long haul.

But I have also thought a good deal more about what blogging means for social and political activism. On the previous anniversary, I was mostly interested in the blogosphere’s role in disseminating and preserving information under an administration that was actively trying to erase or rewrite history.

Today I’m more interested in the blogosphere’s capacity to form stronger political networks. PBD has been quoted and linked by almost 300 other blogs, and I can’t even begin to estimate how many sites have been linked from here. I have often thought about David Weinberger’s comment that the blogger ethos is based on a spirit of “generosity” – that a blog is only as good as its willingness to send off readers to other blogs: http://webcast.oii.ox.ac.uk/?view=Webcast&ID=20051130_109

I have been amused on almost a daily basis by how the mainstream press at first scorned and ignored the blogosphere; then tried to “meta” it (“Blogging – A New Phenomenon?”); then tried to imitate and co-opt it; then, little by little, started to respect it. Right now, an uneasy alliance seems to be emerging. Citing or quoting bloggers is becoming acceptable; blogs sponsored under formal media organizations are starting to “get it” – that this is an information domain they cannot control, that despite problems it has its own mechanisms of credibility, and that the collective intelligence of the blogosphere draws from resources vastly beyond those of reporters and their sources. Most of all, serious people see the blogosphere, left and right, as an important corrective to the biases and blind spots of the official media – just as it has been a corrective to the political system itself.

Over time, I have tried to focus less on scandal-mongering or daily outrages per se. Instead, I see these now as manifestations of a deeper and more significant problem: that we are living under an administration which has been working to undermine the basic systems of accountability and checks and balances on which this country’s constitutional democracy is based. They fundamentally do not accept these principles, and they have used the fearmongering of 9-11 to frighten people into believing that the government can only keep them safe if they close their eyes and stop asking any questions about it.

From this perspective, the major scandals of this administration – the lies that took the nation into war; approving torture and secret detention; increased domestic surveillance; punishing enemies (like Plame and Wilson) through leaks of classified information, while threatening reporters and others with prison for publishing classified information they don’t want to let out; and, most recently, the attempt to turn the US Attorney system into an extension of the Republican campaign apparatus – need to be seen as part of a pattern, a pattern of expansive executive power that seeks to crush any institutions or practices that oppose it.

In every one of these cases, it was bloggers who recognized what was at stake in these scandals, who looked beyond the spin reporting and stenography that took administration excuses or apologies at face value, and who ultimately shamed the news media into recognizing that, no, these weren’t unfortunate missteps or errors that reflected policy gone awry – that they were quite intentional and would have continued if they hadn’t been found out. They need to be seen not as aberrations but as constitutive of the basic identity and purposes of this administration.

There is no doubt in my mind that these would have gone further, without serious restraint, were it not for the watchdog function of the blogosphere -- not only against government misinformation and cover-up, but against a pliant news system that has largely lost its identification as the Fourth Estate, and is mired instead in the trivialities of info-tainment and he said/she said “objectivity.”

I am proud of PBD as one part of that network of interconnected and mutually supporting progressive blog sites. I would have quit doing it a long time ago if I didn’t feel it mattered.
- posted by Nick Burbules @ 7:43 AM

 
A REASONABLE MAN

Bush stands tough, makes it sound as if he’s doing Congress a favor by letting his staff testify about the US Attorney purge (in private, not under oath, and with no transcript) and WARNING them not to ask for more.

The Dems, feeling their oats, brush off this false bravado with the dismissiveness it deserves. BUSH DOESN’T CONTROL THE AGENDA ANY MORE

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/fired_prosecutors
A defiant President Bush warned Democrats Tuesday to accept his offer to have top aides speak about the firings of federal prosecutors only privately and not under oath, or risk a constitutional showdown from which he would not back down.

Democrats' response was swift and firm: They said they would start authorizing subpoenas as soon as Wednesday for the White House aides. . . .

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2007_03_18.php#013150
[Josh Marshall] Gotta love this. The White House will allow Rove and Miers to testify about the US Attorney Purge. But they can't be under oath. It has to be behind closed doors and no transcript can be kept.

And probably the whole thing has to take place at an undisclosed location and the senators have to wear blindfolds.

Regrettably, only the last sentence is a joke.

“A reasonable man” http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/17709170/
The president was in a reasonable mood. In fact, he couldn't stop pointing out just how reasonable he was being . . . [read on!]

Those unreasonable Dems respond

Pat Leahy (D-VT) http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/002826.php
“I was glad to meet Mr. Fielding and I welcome the fact that these issues have his full attention.

“I don’t accept his offer. It is not constructive and it is not helpful to be telling the Senate how to do our investigation, or to prejudge its outcome.

"Instead of freely and fully providing relevant documents to the investigating committees, they have only selectively sent documents, after erasing large portions that they do not want to see the light of day.”

Harry Reid (D-NV) http://news.yahoo.com/s/usnw/20070320/pl_usnw/reid__rove_should_testify_under_oath
"After telling a bunch of different stories about why they fired the U.S. Attorneys, the Bush administration is not entitled to the benefit of the doubt. Congress and the American people deserve a straight answer. If Karl Rove plans to tell the truth, he has nothing to fear from being under oath like any other witness."

Chuck Schumer (D-NY) http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/3/20/144925/023
They're not giving us the opportunity to get to the bottom of what really happened here. And in that way it's a pretty clever proposal, but it doesn't do the job of figuring out what happened as best we can tell. . . . We obviously will present a counter-offer to them that will be far more complete and far more extensive, but speaking for the Senate side, I spoke to Chairman Leahy earlier. We will move forward with the subpoenas on Thursday because this is not what Chairman Leahy outlined Sunday, which is coming before us, speaking under oath.

You had to know this was coming: attacks start against Schumer

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/10256.html
[NYT] Senator Charles E. Schumer, Democrat of New York, has long been seen as one of the best political performers in Washington, a master of spotting hot issues and wringing the most out of them. Now Republicans are using that reputation to raise questions about Mr. Schumer’s credibility, as he mounts a fierce assault against the White House over the ouster of eight United States attorneys . . .

Obviously all this is just the starting point of a game of chicken that will end up in negotiation. But there are just a couple of little details I wish the news would spend more time on

http://www.samefacts.com/archives/overblown_personnel_matter_/2007/03/leverage.php
[Mark Kleiman] [A] Congressional subpoena isn't a request, it's an order. . . .[read on]

http://thinkprogress.org/2007/03/20/white-house-testify/
[Satyam] [I]n the meantime, the White House and its allies have put up a fight, arguing that presidential advisers have historically not testified in front of Congress . . . But in reality, there is no such precedent. According to the Congressional Research Service, under President Clinton, 31 of his top aides testified on 47 different occasions.

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2007_03_18.php#013153
[Josh Marshall] Let's be honest. Presidential advisors testify all the time. They don't have the same responsibilities vis a vis Congress as members of the executive departments. But they can and do testify. There's only one reason why you agree to 'talk' to Congress unsworn, in private and without a transcript: because you want to be able to lie or dodge questions in a way that's too embarrassing to do in public.

More: http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2007/03/turtles-and-bugmen-by-digby-david.html

http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2007/03/20/executive_privilege/index.html

What next?

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2007_03_18.php#013157
A knowledgeable observer on the White House's game: "The key issue isn't oath v. unsworn; it's that as to both the testimony and the documents, they're not willing to provide anything on communications inside the Executive Office of the President -- you know, in the place where the removals were actually decided and made."

http://www.talkleft.com/story/2007/3/20/20352/1405
[Big Tent Democrat] So Congress issues the subpoenas. BushCo officials defy them. What next? Congress seeks to enforce them in United States District Court for the District of Columbia. But if this to be fought in the court, it'll end up in the Supreme Court. Kagro notes it is usually the Department of Justice that usually represents the Congress in cases of enforcing subpoenas. Obviously, it won't here. Independent counsel will be retained or current Congressional lawyers will. What is the state of the law on this issue? And the issue will be executive privilege. I wrote a post on this a few days ago. Short version - it won't be decided by law. It will be the politics of this that decides it. To wit - who ever loses the political battle with the American People will give in the most. Right now, the Dems have a great hand to play. Let's hope they don't screw it up.

More: http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/3/20/192727/375

http://www.samefacts.com/archives/corruption_in_washington_/2007/03/defiance.php

http://www.discourse.net/archives/2007/03/the_cocktail_party_strategy.html

More from Bush’s mini-presser

http://www.mydd.com/story/2007/3/20/174650/939
[Jonathan Singer] * POTUS says the problem is that the explanation, not the decision itself, was the problem.
* POTUS says that he will make Gonzales and his staff available, as well as documents.
* POTUS attempts to deflect calls for his own political staff to testify before Congress by saying that he will allow "interview[s]... to ascertain key facts" and that he will release documents from the White House related to the purge but that he will not allow real questioning. In doing so, POTUS tries to make Congress culpable for confronation between branches of government. "I will oppose any attempts to issue subpoenas."
* POTUS trots out tired and blatantly false suggestion that firings were performance-related, not about partisan politics.
* POTUS states that it is the Democrats who are playing partisan politics, a wholly absurd charge.
* POTUS noticeably dodges first question of whether there was political pressure to fire the US Attorneys.
* POTUS gets blinky when asked why he won't allow his staff to testify under oath when others had in past administrations. States that he will "go to the mat" and perhaps even go to court to block subpoenas of his staff by Congress.
* On the question of whether the firing of USAs investigating Republicans impede those investigations, POTUS completely ducks the question. Asserts power to fire prosecutors at will and that Gonzales has his confidence.

Transcript: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/03/20/AR2007032001158.html

Video: http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2007_03_18.php#013164

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2007_03_18.php#013162
[Josh Marshall] Cable news talking heads are marveling at the his aggressiveness and seeming willingness to fight. But this is vintage Bush. The president has always pushed bluff and bluster and pretensions of holding a strong hand precisely when he's at his weakest. If you expected anything different you wouldn't know the man.

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2007_03/010967.php
[Kevin Drum] Boy, did he seem pissed at that press conference, or what? Although, I'll admit that he seems that way almost all the time these days. . . .

http://americablog.blogspot.com/2007/03/bush-just-gave-testy-press-conference_20.html
[John Aravosis] Someone's getting nervous or he wouldn't be doing a press conference - Bush hates these things - and he wouldn't be so testy, but he is. You see, no one did anything wrong. It's all just Democrats being political. . . . "I'm sorry, frankly, that this bubbled to the surface the way it has." Yeah, I bet you are.

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/10264.html
[Steve Benen] Karl Rove is apparently getting a little touchy about the ongoing affair. Rove accompanied Bush during a visit to a GM plant in Missouri this afternoon, and a reporter asked the advisor what he thought about rumors that former Missouri Sen. Jack Danforth could replace embattled Attorney General Alberto Gonzales. “How about you go over there and do your job,” Rove replied, pointed back to the media pool.

Bush gives a strong, unambiguous endorsement to Alberto Gonzales. Just. . . one. . . .little. . . . problem

http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0703/20/sitroom.03.html
BLITZER: Dana on the Hill. Thanks. And as we mentioned, President Bush is standing by his man, at least in public, the attorney general, Alberto Gonzales. But is the White House showing loyalty or just paying lip service? He's pledged to support other top officials in the past, even as he was easing them out of office. Last May 25 the president said the Treasury secretary, John Snow, had not given any indication he would be leaving his post.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

PRES. BUSH: No, he has not talked to me about resignation. I think he's doing a fine job. After all, our economy is strong. (END VIDEO CLIP)

BLITZER: But days later the White House admitted the president had misled the public confirming that when Mr. Bush spoke, Snow had already indicated that he was leaving and a successor, Henry Paulson, had already accepted the job. Then November 1, Mr. Bush did not beat around the bush, if you will, telling reporters flat out that he wanted the defense secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, to stay on until the end of his presidency, but only days later, Rumsfeld was out.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Last week you told us that Secretary Rumsfeld would be staying on. Why is the timing right now for this and how much does it have to do with the election results?

BUSH: Right. No, you and Hunt and Kyle came in the Oval Office and you asked -- Hunt asked me the question one week before the campaign, and basically it was are you going to do something about Rumsfeld and the vice president? And my answer was, you know, they're going to stay on and the reason why is I didn't want to inject a major decision about this war in the final days of a campaign. So the only way to answer that question and to get you on to another question was to give you that answer. (END VIDEO CLIP)

BLITZER: So is the president waiting for the right moment now to make a move over at the Justice Department? Could Alberto Gonzales already be on his way out? . . .

I think Gonzales is out, sooner rather than later – but I have to say I won’t be stunned if the Bush gang circles the wagons and refuses to concede a thing, no matter how unpopular they become, because the real disclosures on this scandal will be even worse

http://www.prospect.org/weblog/2007/03/post_3170.html
[Robert Farley] [I]n any normal administration, yes, such a furor would probably result in a resignation, but as we've seen time and again, this is not a normal administration. It doesn't play by the same rules. Most specifically, it doesn't seem to respond to shame. Shame depends, more or less, on a broad agreement about right and wrong, and on the idea that transgressing norms of appropriate behavior should have some consequence, even if the consequence doesn't, strictly speaking, come in the form of a legal penalty. President Bush has repeatedly demonstrated that he simply doesn't have a conventional understanding of right and wrong; thus, it's really, really hard to shame him or his administration into doing something. . . .

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/10257.html
[Steve Benen] Dems want Gonzales gone, a growing number of Republican lawmakers either want his resignation or refuse to offer support, and the media is characterizing his ouster as a foregone conclusion.

But Bush, as we all know, is The Decider; he hates being told what to do; he has a breathtaking tolerance for incompetence and corruption; and Gonzales is one of the few remaining Texas buddies the president has left. This morning’s news seems to send a signal to White House allies to stick together.

Bush may very likely consider the facts and conclude, “I don’t care; he’s staying.” And from a purely political perspective, I’m not convinced that would be such a bad thing.

There’s a certain reality that even the closest political observers sometimes forget: Bush doesn’t care about traditional norms. Our political system is supposed to follow certain unwritten political “rules.” When a cabinet secretary screws up, creates a scandal, becomes a distraction, loses the nation’s confidence, and possibly engages in criminal behavior, he or she is supposed to resign. If a resignation isn’t offered, a president is supposed to ask for it.

I frequently forget this myself, but Bush doesn’t concern himself with these “rules.” Rumsfeld’s political obituary was written dozens of times, but Bush didn’t care how tragic Rumsfeld’s tenure was or how many lives it cost. HUD’s Alphonso Jackson admitted publicly that he denied grants to Bush critics. The rules said Jackson had to go; Bush didn’t care. Education Secretary Rod Paige called the National Education Association a “terrorist” organization; gave tax dollars to Armstrong Williams, and had no idea what the No Child Left Behind policy even meant. The rules said Paige had to go; Bush didn’t care.

And now Gonzales has been caught in a massive, possibly criminal, scandal. The rules say Gonzales has to go. As of this morning, Bush, true to form, doesn’t care. . .

It seems to me that the longer Gonzales stays, the longer this scandal percolates. It leads to more conflict, more subpoenas, and just as importantly, more revelations about the Bush gang’s operation.

So, Mr. President, you have a choice. Keep an incompetent Attorney General who’s become a lightening rod for scandal, or find a real AG. Either way, the purge scandal’s wheels keep turning.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/blog/2007/03/20/BL2007032000694.html
[Ed Henry, CNN] "As one top Republican told me last night, a Republican close to the White House, saying basically the handwriting is on the wall for Gonzales. And the bottom line is if this White House has to choose between protecting Karl Rove or protecting Alberto Gonzales in order for this controversy to go away, they'll choose Karl Rove, protecting him. Because the bottom line is they can get another attorney general, they can't get another Karl Rove. He's got his hands in so many things here. He's the lead adviser to the president."

I haven’t done a close review of the newly released US Attorney emails, but a quick run-through of the comments at TPM suggests that they are heavily edited – in one case two weeks of emails (around the time when the White House was deciding on who to fire) are simply missing – other key details are just inked out, whole pages are “redacted”

http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/002809.php

The media catches up: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0307/3227.html
In DOJ documents that were publicly posted by the House Judiciary Committee, there is a gap from mid-November to early December in e-mails and other memos, which was a critical period as the White House and Justice Department reviewed, then approved, which U.S. attorneys would be fired while also developing a political and communications strategy for countering any fallout from the firings. . . .

Other nuggets from the document dump

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2007_03_18.php#013149
Karl Rove's former aide [Tim Griffin] was apparently a party to the scheme to have him installed as the U.S. attorney without Senate confirmation.

http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/002810.php
'I'm a little skittish about Bogden," McNulty wrote in a Dec. 7 e-mail to Sampson. "He has been with DOJ since 1990 and, at age 50, has never had a job outside government."

Still, McNulty concluded: "I'll admit have not looked at his district's performance. Sorry to be raising this again/now; it was just on my mind last night and this morning."

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2007_03_18.php#013148
[Josh Marshall] One month before pleading guilty to felony corruption charges brought by US Attorney Carol Lam, Duke Cunningham signs on to one of those letters complaining about Carol Lam's lax immigration enforcement policies. Apparently Duke thought she was focusing too much on corruption too.

More: http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2007/03/20/doj_recordings/index.html

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2007_03_18.php#013166

Think about it

http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/002814.php
[Paul Kiel] Among the documents last night are some showing that the "performance related" reasons for firing eight prosecutors were the result of an ongoing collaboration at Justice. In other words, the officials appear to have brainstormed [NB: AFTER the fact] on the reasons they had fired the eight.

This document (the date's unclear, but it was clearly done after the firings), for instance, shows a list of the fired prosecutors with a "Leadership Assessment" column laying out the supposed problems with the prosecutors' performance. A Justice Department official made handwritten notes on the document, for instance adding to U.S. Attorney David Iglesias' deficiencies (a scant two bullet points) two items: "under-performing generally" and "lackluster manager." The official also added "use of time management" to San Diego U.S. Attorney Carol Lam's performance woes.

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2007_03/010966.php
[Kevin Drum] DOJ hasn't released any documents from prior to the purge showing how they judged the performance of the folks they were firing. All we have is a summary document from after the purge, where DOJ apparatchiks are tripping over themselves trying to figure out just what those reasons were. But of course, that doesn't make sense. If they had really had firm, irreproachable reasons for firing the "USA-8," they would have just dug up the old memos that spelled out those reasons and transferred them to the summary sheet. Or maybe just released the original memos themselves. Instead they were running around like chickens with their heads cut off. . . .

[It] turns out that the five firings with the weakest official explanations are the same five prosecutors who have been suspected of being either too tough on Republican corruption cases or too weak on Democratic ones. You can't very well put that on your summary sheet, though, which probably explains why the DOJies had trouble coming up with good reasons for firing them. The dots are practically begging to be connected here.

One of the interesting things this affair demonstrates is that Bush and his confidants are still clueless. They genuinely didn't expect this to blow up in their faces. They thought everyone would buy their story that this was a routine housecleaning and then move on. They simply haven't figured out that, given their track record over the past six years, no one is willing to give them the benefit of the doubt anymore. Even their own supporters are barely willing to defend them. But they still don't get that. . . .

And this paragraph was added later to a WP article I quoted yesterday morning, about Patrick Fitzgerald

http://www.firedoglake.com/2007/03/20/sittin-purty-in-the-catbird-seat/
[WP] The March 2005 chart ranking Fitzgerald and other prosecutors was drawn up by Gonzales aide D. Kyle Sampson and sent to then-White House counsel Harriet Miers. The reference to Fitzgerald is in a portion of the memo that Justice has refused to turn over to Congress, officials told The Washington Post, speaking on the condition of anonymity because Fitzgerald's ranking has not been made public.

“Why I Was Fired”

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/21/opinion/21iglesias.html
[David Iglesias]

Spotlight on Heather Wilson (R-NM): http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/3/21/12113/5236

As expected, the Senate takes back the authority to fire and hire US Attorneys without congressional oversight that they (foolishly) granted the Bush gang in the first place

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=aW8o9TK8SUN8&refer=home
94-2

[NB: What, they didn’t think it would ever be abused?]

Why does Dick Cheney hate America?

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/10262.html
[Steve Benen] The notion that the Bush gang is running some kind of Manchurian White House, intentionally undermining the United States on our enemies’ behalf, is not entirely new. In 2004, Doonesbury had an amusing item, explaining that Bush’s presidency had united the Muslim world against the United States, inspired a new generation of future terrorists with an unnecessary war in Iraq, and squandered our moral authority around the world. The strip concluded that bin Laden can only pray that Bush continues on this path.

Shortly thereafter, Paul Krugman wrote a classic, imagining what a president would look like if fundamentalist terrorists chose “as their puppet president a demagogue who poses as the nation’s defender against terrorist evildoers.” Sure enough, America’s enemies would create an agenda that looks a lot like Bush’s agenda.

Today, however, the NYT’s Nicholas Kristof takes the thought experiment one step further, suggesting that Dick Cheney’s allegiances are open to question as well. . . .

The Hillary/1984 video on YouTube. Once again, new uses of technology befuddle our ideas about politics and campaigning. Who made it? Who is responsible? Is another campaign behind it? How do you regulate this?

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/03/20/AR2007032001931.html

Jean Schmidt (R-OH) visits Walter Reed and is “pleasantly surprised”

http://news.enquirer.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070320/NEWS01/303200033
Rep. Jean Schmidt wrote in her weekly column sent out to reporters on Monday that stories about horrible conditions at Walter Reed Army Medical Center were "overblown." . . .

Schmidt wrote that in her tour of all four outpatient housing facilities, she was "pleasantly surprised to find that three of the buildings contained clean living spaces, updated television and computer access, and full access to cooking units or cafeterias." . . .

Al Gore’s forthcoming book: “The Assault on Reason”

http://politicalwire.com/archives/2007/03/20/the_assault_on_reason.html

What percentage of Fox News viewers are Republican? Pick a number. Go ahead, pick a higher one. Nope, a higher one. . . .

http://www.mydd.com/story/2007/3/21/05816/7785

Bonus item: The “iRack” – worth a laugh or two (thanks to Colleen V. for the link)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PuEDwcfJPSk

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

I don't get anything personally out of this project, except the satisfaction of doing it (I don't run ads, etc). The credit really all goes to the people whose material I copy and redistribute. But if I do have a "mission," it is to get this information into the hands of as many people as I can.***
- posted by Nick Burbules @ 6:29 AM

 
BAD DAYS

Bush predicts "bad days ahead.” You bet, George

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/19/washington/19cnd-prexy.html
President Bush marked the fourth anniversary of the start of the Iraq war today by prodding Congress to pass an emergency war-spending bill and by warning the American people that hard days lie ahead.

“Four years after this war began, the fight is difficult, but it can be won,” Mr. Bush said. “It will be won if we have the courage and resolve to see it through.”. . . . But his tone was somber, if not pessimistic . . .

“The new strategy will need more time to take effect,” the president said.” And there will be good days, and there will be bad days ahead.”

As he has many times, Mr. Bush said an American failure in Iraq would create a terrorist launch pad like the one that existed in Afghanistan during the Taliban era. “For the safety of the American people, we cannot allow this to happen,” he said.

Mr. Bush, who did not respond to questions, closed with a tribute to the American military, which he called “the most capable and courageous fighting force in the world.”

“And whatever our differences in Washington, our troops and their families deserve the appreciation and the support of our entire nation,” he said. . . .

“Patience is not a strategy,” [John] Kerry said. . . .

Four years! http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/3/19/112850/207

Top ten Iraq mistakes:http://www.juancole.com/2007/03/bushs-top-ten-mistakes-in-iraq-during.html

Critiques: http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/3/19/14257/9410

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/blog/2007/03/19/BL2007031900966.html

Quotes of the day

http://politicalinsider.com/2007/03/quotes_of_the_day.html
"There will be good days and there will be difficult days" -- George W. Bush, in 2004.

"There will be good days and there will be bad days" -- George W. Bush, in 2005.

"There will be good days, and there will be bad days ahead" -- George W. Bush, today.

Bad days in Iraq

http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/iraq/2007-03-18-poll-cover_N.htm
Jobs gone and schools closed. Marriages delayed and children mourned. Markets bombed and clean water in short supply. Speaking freely now a dangerous act.

And hope lost.

Four years after the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, Iraqis describe daily lives that have been torn apart by spiraling violence and a faltering economy. The bursts of optimism reported in a 2004 public-opinion survey taken a year after the invasion and another in 2005 before landmark legislative elections have nearly vanished. . .

http://www.slate.com/id/2162220
[Daniel Politi] An ABC News survey in 2005 found that 57 percent of Iraqis say they want a democracy, that number has now gone down to 43 percent. Meanwhile, 94 percent of Sunnis, and 51 percent of Shiites said that attacking U.S. troops is an acceptable political act. . . .

More: http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/10251.html

Taking stock

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/03/18/AR2007031801534.html
Four years after the invasion of Iraq, the high and growing demand for U.S. troops there and in Afghanistan has left ground forces in the United States short of the training, personnel and equipment that would be vital to fight a major ground conflict elsewhere, senior U.S. military and government officials acknowledge.

More troubling, the officials say, is that it will take years for the Army and Marine Corps to recover from what some officials privately have called a "death spiral," in which the ever more rapid pace of war-zone rotations has consumed 40 percent of their total gear, wearied troops and left no time to train to fight anything other than the insurgencies now at hand.

The risk to the nation is serious and deepening, senior officers warn, because the U.S. military now lacks a large strategic reserve of ground troops ready to respond quickly and decisively to potential foreign crises . . .

Not what you would call a ringing endorsement

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070319/ap_on_go_co/fired_prosecutors_27
Attorney General Alberto Gonzales' hold on his job grew more uncertain Monday . . .

Asked if Gonzales had contained the political damage from the firing of eight federal prosecutors, White House spokesman Tony Snow said, "I don't know." . . . "No one's prophetic enough to know what the next 21 months hold," Snow said. "We hope he stays."

http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room/2007/03/19/gonzales/index.html

Meanwhile: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0307/3202.html
[Mike Allen] Republican officials operating at the behest of the White House have begun seeking a possible successor to Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, whose support among GOP lawmakers on Capitol Hill has collapsed, according to party sources familiar with the discussions.

Among the names floated Monday by administration officials are Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff and White House anti-terrorism coordinator Frances Townsend. Former Deputy Attorney General Larry Thompson is a White House prospect. So is former solicitor general Theodore B. Olson, but sources were unsure whether he would want the job.

Republican sources also disclosed that it is now a virtual certainty that Deputy Attorney General Paul J. McNulty, whose incomplete and inaccurate congressional testimony about the prosecutors helped precipitate the crisis, will also resign shortly. . .

http://www.realcities.com/mld/krwashington/16935983.htm
The White House began floating the names of possible replacements for Attorney General Alberto Gonzales Monday as the Justice Department released more internal documents related to the firings of eight U.S. attorneys last year.

One prominent Republican, who earlier had predicted that Gonzales would survive the controversy, said he expected both Gonzales and Deputy Attorney General Paul McNulty to resign soon. Another well-connected Republican said that White House officials have launched an aggressive search for Gonzales' replacement, though Bush hadn't decided whether to ask for his resignation. . . .

“Crunch time”: http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1600585,00.html

Bad days at the DOJ

http://www.usnews.com/usnews/blogs/news_blog/070319/paralysis_sets_in_as_doj_faces.htm
"You have no idea," said one Justice official, "how bad it is here."

The fear that virtually any piece of communication will have to be turned over has paralyzed department officials' ability to communicate effectively and respond in unison to the crisis, as has the fact that senior Justice officials themselves say they still don't know the entire story about what happened that led to the crisis . .

The paralysis will affect the calculations that Gonzales must make this week as to whether he should stay or go. If Gonzales doesn't resign, there's little doubt that he will get few of his initiatives through for the rest of his tenure and that his people will spend months churning out documents at the behest of angry Democrats who will be investigating virtually anything that moves. But this could also give Gonzales an exit strategy, officials say. He could say that while neither he nor his subordinates did anything wrong, he has decided to resign for the greater good of the department and for justice at large. . .

But if [Bush] decides to let him go, then who can fill Gonzales's place? For one thing, who would want the job? And who could Bush find that could get Senate confirmation, since Democrats now run the show? It would have to be a seasoned insider, a consummate veteran or an elder statesman who has bipartisan respect and acceptance and a squeaky-clean record.

"The trouble," says one former official, "is that no one comes to mind."

http://www.talkleft.com/story/2007/3/20/31816/5464
[Jeralyn Merritt] It won't be Ted Olson. . . [read on]

The case against Gonzales

http://www.crooksandliars.com/2007/03/18/sen-schumer-we-do-have-evidence-gonzales-lied-under-oath/
GONZALES: I would never, ever make a change in a United States attorney position for political reasons or if it would, in any way, jeopardize an ongoing serious investigation. I just would not do it. . . . [read on]

http://www.talkleft.com/story/2007/3/20/12741/2684
[Jeralyn Merritt] Conservative publication American Spectator has a new twist on PurgeGate: Alberto Gonzales is being done in by his own employees at the Justice Department. . .

More: http://www.spectator.org/dsp_article.asp?art_id=11165

There are crimes here

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/10242.html

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2007_03/010956.php
[Kevin Drum] David Iglesias: Didn't bring indictments against some local Democrats prior to the 2006 election. John McKay: Failed to invent voter fraud cases that might have prevented a Democrat from winning the 2004 governor's race in Washington. Carol Lam: Doing too good a job prosecuting trainloads of Republicans in the wake of the Duke Cunningham scandal. Daniel Bogden and Paul Charlton: In the midst of investigations targeting current or former Republican members of Congress when they were fired. And this all comes against a background that suggests the Bush Justice Department has initiated fantastically more investigations of Democrats than Republicans over the past five years.

Does the Bush gang really think they can resist subpoenas for Rove and others?

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/10248.html

Arlen Specter, still playing games: http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2007/03/election-what-election-by-digby.html

The slippery “rating system” that was supposedly used to identify incompetent US Attorneys, and which was supposedly the basis of the firings (uh-huh)

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2007_03_18.php#013131
[Josh Marshall] Snow appears to be referring to a March 2005 spreadsheet of US Attorneys in which the 93 US Attorneys were rated according to effectiveness and political loyalty. It is true that Lam's name was stricken out on that list. She was one of three of seven of the firees similarly noted on that March list.

But the list doesn't mention immigration policy as the reason that Lam is listed. And it's actually highly questionable what that list means.

The ratings for all 93 US Attorneys except for seven of the eight firees were redacted from the list. So it's impossible to know what the scratch-through over Lam's name really means without knowing how many others were similarly rated. A January 2005 email suggests that between 15% and 20% of the USAs were slated to be fired. For all we know, half the US Attorneys had their names stricken on the list.

What's more, to date, former Arkansas US Attorney Bud Cummins is the only one of the eight fired US Attorneys for whom poor performance has never been alleged as a reason for dismissal. And yet Cummins' name is scratched out as well. . . .

David Iglesias: http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/002795.php
It's becoming one of the central rules of the U.S. attorney purge scandal: whatever "performance related" complaint the administration claims as the justification for a U.S. attorney's firing, it's actually an area of performance for which that U.S. attorney was lauded. . . .

Daniel Bogden: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/03/19/AR2007031901726.html
[T]he Justice Department is engaged in discussions aimed at giving a new job to one of the seven U.S. attorneys dismissed without explanation on Dec. 7, according to a Capitol Hill Republican.

Under fierce pressure from a Senate Republican, Justice Department officials are considering a new position for Daniel Bogden, the ousted U.S. attorney from Nevada who, agency officials explained to Congress, was dismissed in an effort to get "new energy" into the job.

An aide to Sen. John Ensign said finding a new job for the fired prosecutor would be a key step in restoring his reputation, which the Nevada Republican has set as a benchmark for whether he will continue to support Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales remaining in office. . . .

[NB: Yes, just in case you didn’t already believe this was thoroughly political – the supposedly incompetent Bogden is being offered a post at DOJ – why? Because Ensign has threatened to pull his support for Gonzales if they don’t find him a job. But here’s the best of them all . . . .]

Patrick Fitzgerald: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/03/19/AR2007031902036.html
U.S. Attorney Patrick J. Fitzgerald was ranked among prosecutors who had "not distinguished themselves" on a Justice Department chart sent to the White House in March 2005, when he was in the midst of leading the CIA leak investigation that resulted in the perjury conviction of a vice presidential aide, administration officials said yesterday.

The ranking placed Fitzgerald below "strong U.S. Attorneys . . . who exhibited loyalty" to the administration . . .

Two prosecutors who received the same ranking as Fitzgerald were later fired, documents show. . . .

At the time, Fitzgerald was leading the independent probe into the leak of the identity of a CIA operative, which led this month to the perjury conviction of former vice presidential aide I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby. Fitzgerald, the U.S. attorney in Chicago, had also recently brought a corruption indictment in Illinois against former Republican governor George H. Ryan. . . .

Mary Jo White, who supervised Fitzgerald when she served as the U.S. attorney in Manhattan and who has criticized the firings, said ranking him as a middling prosecutor "lacks total credibility across the board."

"He is probably the best prosecutor in the nation -- certainly one of them," said White, who worked in the Clinton and Bush administrations. "It casts total doubt on the whole process. It's kind of the icing on the cake." . . .

Fitzgerald . . . won the Attorney General's Award for Distinguished Service in 2002 under Ashcroft.

Justice spokeswoman Tasia Scolinos said yesterday that "Pat Fitzgerald has a distinguished record as one of the most experienced and well-respected prosecutors at the Justice Department. His track record speaks for itself." . . .

Two prosecutors who were listed in the top category on Sampson's chart were also fired: David C. Iglesias in New Mexico and Kevin V. Ryan in San Francisco.

3000 pages more of emails – scanned and posted as they come in

http://judiciary.house.gov/

Hmmm. . . . http://thinkprogress.org/2007/03/19/justice-department-documents-released/
[ABC] The thousands of pages of e-mails suggest the White House was involved in the plan from the beginning.

The e-mails detail conversations about attorneys targeted for dismissal. There are no e-mails from Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, who reportedly does not use e-mail, though the Justice Department says messages show some indication that Gonzales’ former chief of staff, D. Kyle Sampson, kept the attorney general apprised. . . .

An exercise in distributed investigative journalism. Interesting. This is like the Watergate Nixon tapes, but with an Internet

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/3/20/350/24886

More: http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2007_03_18.php#013143

Analysis starts to trickle in – a flood over the next few days

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/20/washington/20documents.html
Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales was “extremely upset” that his deputy told Congress last month that a federal prosecutor had been fired for no reason, according to e-mail released Monday by the Justice Department.

Mr. Gonzales believed that the prosecutor, H. E. Cummins III, the United States attorney for Arkansas, was dismissed for performance reasons, the e-mail suggested. But his deputy, Paul J. McNulty, testified that Mr. Cummins had been replaced to create a vacancy for J. Timothy Griffin, a political ally of the White House political adviser Karl Rove. . . .

http://www.usnews.com/usnews/blogs/news_blog/070319/exclusive_why_doj_is_sweating.htm
That E-mail is what is causing the most concern at the Justice Department . . . [read on]

http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room/2007/03/19/bushrole/index.html
[Tim Grieve] Did George W. Bush personally approve the plan for firing seven U.S. attorneys in December? Documents released by the Justice Department Monday night provide circumstantial evidence that he may have. . . .

http://www.slate.com/id/2162220/
[Daniel Politi] The WSJ emphasizes an e-mail that was sent two days before the firings and shows Deputy Attorney General Paul McNulty expressed concern about dismissing Daniel Bogden of Nevada because of his long service in government posts. "I'll admit have not looked at his district's performance, McNulty wrote. One e-mail exchange with Margaret Chiara of Michigan also illustrates how at least one of the attorneys expressed concern about her future career and financial security after the mass firings.

http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room/2007/03/19/cummins/index.html
[Tim Greive] On Feb. 1, 2007, Michael Elston, the chief of staff for Deputy Attorney General Paul McNulty, sent an e-mail message to McNulty, Kyle Sampson and other top Justice Department officials informing them that Bud Cummins -- the Arkansas U.S. attorney ousted to make way for Friend of Rove Tim Griffin -- had been asked to testify before the Senate Judiciary Committee. Elston asked for the "thoughts" of those on his e-mail list.

Sampson, who was then Alberto Gonzales' chief of staff, responded with an e-mail message in which he said that he didn't think Cummins should testify.

Sampson asked how Cummins would answer a series of questions he apparently found a little complicated:

"Did you resign voluntarily?"

"Were you told why you were being asked to resign?"

"Who told you?"

"What did they say?"

"Did you ever talk to Tim Griffin about his becoming U.S. Attorney?"

"What did Griffin say?"

"Did Griffin ever talk about being AG appointed and avoiding Senate confirmation?"

"Were you asked to resign because you were underperforming?"

"If not, then why? Etc., etc."

Elston said he agreed with Sampson's analysis. Cummins didn't testify at the hearing.

[NB: Well, he will now . . .]

http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room/2007/03/19/documents/index.html
[Tim Grieve] The White House played a role in determining what at least one Justice Department witness would tell Congress.

Documents released by the Justice Department Monday night include e-mail communications regarding a meeting Deputy White House Counsel William Kelley called for March 5, 2007, the day before Principal Deputy Attorney General William Moschella was to testify before the House Judiciary Committee on the U.S. Attorney scandal. The purpose of the meeting: "To go over the Administration's position on all aspects of the US Atty issue and why the US Attys were asked to resign."

Kelley said the meeting would involve, among others, Justice Department officials Kyle Sampson, Paul McNulty and Moschella as well as "some folks here" -- "here" meaning, presumably, the White House or at least the White House counsel's office. In a follow-up e-mail, Sampson said that the White House would want to cover "how we are going to respond substantively to each of the U.S. Attorney's allegations that they were dismissed for improper reasons."

The documents show that, later in the evening on March 5, Sampson forward to Kelley-- which is to say, the Justice Department forwarded to the White House counsel's office -- a draft of the opening statement Moschella would deliver the next morning. In response, Christopher Oprison, a lawyer in the White House counsel's office, said he was "gathering comments," then sent back a "redlined version with suggested edits" . . .

More: http://www.latimes.com/news/politics/la-na-usattys20mar20,0,3082655.story

Whatever else is going to happen, Congress will certainly take back the special powers to fire and hire US Attorneys that were sneaked into the Patriot Act (thanks to Buzzflash for the link)

http://bobgeiger.blogspot.com/2007/03/senate-debate-on-us-attorney.html

Bad days for Tony Snow too

http://www.first-draft.com/2007/03/today_on_holden_8.html

http://thinkprogress.org/2007/03/19/snow-henry-zip-it/
During this morning’s press gaggle, Tony Snow told reporters that Bush will use the speech to attack the House plan for Iraq as a “recipe for defeat” that would “provide a victory for the enemy.”

CNN’s Ed Henry told Snow that since he was attacking the House plan, he should explain the Bush administration’s “recipe for success.” According to Henry, Snow “tried to turn it around on me,” asking Henry what his recipe for success was. When Henry objected to Snow’s question, Snow told him to “zip it.” . . .

No surprise, but here are the numbers: Bush has made the tax system much more regressive (thanks to Steve Benen for the link)

http://www.cbpp.org/3-19-07tax.htm

Tracing Joe Lieberman’s Republican support

http://www.mydd.com/story/2007/3/19/125312/831

More: http://www.courant.com/news/politics/hc-joemoney0319.artmar19,0,1424810.story

As anyone following things knows, Mitt Romney has been trashed by the religious right for his Mormonism, his “liberal” positions in Massachusetts, etc. Well, not according to the latest revisionism

http://mediamatters.org/items/200703190002
On the March 15 edition of CNN's The Situation Room, nationally syndicated radio host Hugh Hewitt denounced as "a myth" host Wolf Blitzer's suggestion that former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney's (R) Mormon faith will be a "problem with the conservative right." Hewitt asserted: "Most of the public attacks on Romney for his faith in the last three months have come from the left," and added, "He's also been attacked for being a flip-flopper from the left. That's not a conservative critique of him, either." . . .

McCain makes new enemies on the right

http://electioncentral.tpmcafe.com/blog/electioncentral/2007/mar/19/mccain_club_for_growth_cost_gop_the_senate

http://electioncentral.tpmcafe.com/blog/electioncentral/2007/mar/19/club_for_growth_slams_mccain_hes_afraid_of_getting_booed

Theocracy watch: WH promotes “faith based” envoy, then denies doing so. Do homophobes and Holocaust deniers speak for this administration?

http://americablog.blogspot.com/2007/03/did-white-house-officially-embrace.html

http://americablog.blogspot.com/2007/03/update-white-house-is-lying-religious.html

http://americablog.blogspot.com/2007/03/religious-right-leader-says-he-has.html

Fox News, getting just what it deserves

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-oew-brownstein16mar16,0,6326229.story

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

I don't get anything personally out of this project, except the satisfaction of doing it (I don't run ads, etc). The credit really all goes to the people whose material I copy and redistribute. But if I do have a "mission," it is to get this information into the hands of as many people as I can.***
- posted by Nick Burbules @ 6:19 AM

 
NOT THE “COMEBACK KID”

The media keeps wanting to report a “Bush bounce” – unfortunately, his poll numbers don’t support that

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/17650496/site/newsweek/
[30% approval, and dropping]

It’s a complete mess in the White House right now

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/17664172/site/newsweek/
At highly charged moments, attorney General Alberto Gonzales can seem placid, passive—at times, just plain out of it. In the summer of 2002, high-level Bush administration officials met to debate secretly a delicate issue: how aggressively could the CIA interrogate terror suspects? While the lawyers from Justice, Defense and the vice president's office hotly debated definitions of torture (at times discussing specific interrogation techniques), Gonzales, who was then the White House counsel, sat by and said virtually nothing. The attorney general's behavior was typical, say administration officials who have worked with him. His defenders say he likes to keep his counsel. Others wonder if he's ill prepared, insecure or simply has nothing to say.

Last week Gonzales's bland, what-me-worry? smile seemed to fade. He appeared slightly forlorn as he answered hostile questions from reporters at a hastily called press conference. He was asked about the role of the White House in firing a group of U.S. attorneys. "As we can all imagine," he began, "in an organization of 110,000 people, I am not aware of every bit of information that passes through the halls of the Department of Justice ..." He was aware, he said, that there was "a request from the White House as to the possibility of replacing all the U.S. attorneys. That was immediately rejected by me." The impression was that Gonzales was merely responding to the ill-considered scheme of his successor as White House counsel (Harriet Miers); that he, personally, had not been in the loop for a series of controversial decisions that have set off a congressional brouhaha over the dismissal of one U.S. attorney in the summer of 2006 and seven more in December.

Two days after that presser, however, the White House turned over newly discovered e-mails showing that Gonzales, while he was still on the job at the White House in January 2005, had "briefly" discussed the idea of firing U.S. attorneys. (A Justice Department spokeswoman said Gonzales had "no recollection" of that.) The e-mails showed that Kyle Sampson, then a top aide to Attorney General John Ashcroft and later Gonzales's chief of staff, talked about the possible purge of "15-20 percent" of the U.S. attorney corps deemed not to be "loyal Bushies." The e-mails also showed that Bush's chief political adviser, Karl Rove, had "stopped by" to ask a White House lawyer "how we planned to proceed regarding US Attorneys, whether we are going to allow all to stay, request resignations from all and accept only some of them, or selectively replace them, etc." Sampson warned that firing all the U.S. attorneys could cause political problems. "That said," Sampson wrote, "if Karl thinks there would be political will to do it, then so do I." . . . [read on]

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2007_03_18.php#013126
[More from Newsweek] Recently, a trio of senators—Senate Judiciary Chairman Patrick Leahy; Arlen Specter, the senior Republican on the committee, and Democrat Charles Schumer—sat down with Gonzales . . Gonzales was initially combative and defensive. "Why do I have to prove anything to you?" he demanded at one point, according to a source who was in the room but does not wish to be identified revealing a private conversation. He insisted that only poor performers had been fired. "Everyone was in the bottom tier," he said. "Everyone?" asked Schumer. What about David Iglesias of New Mexico? (The department's internal evaluations had given Iglesias glowing marks.) Gonzales hesitated. "I believe so," he said, but he seemed uncertain. As the meeting was breaking up, Gonzales suddenly switched tacks and seemed to want to be cooperative. "How can we make this better?" he asked. "What can we do?" According to this source, the attorney general seemed to some in the room to be genuinely befuddled. . . [read on]

http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/front/la-na-assess18mar18,1,7762310.story
As more Republicans called last week on Alberto R. Gonzales to resign, President Bush's aides began to look beyond the attorney general and focus on preventing the controversy over the firing of federal prosecutors from spreading — and endangering Karl Rove, the president's top political advisor.

"This is not going to go away," warned Joseph E. DiGenova, a former U.S. attorney in the Reagan administration. "I'm sure the president is going to let it go as long as he can … but there's only so much bleeding he can take."

The fracas over the fired prosecutors reflects a larger underlying problem for Bush: His political standing as president, already battered by the war in Iraq and domestic missteps like the handling of Hurricane Katrina, has only continued to erode since his party lost control of Congress in November. . . . [read on]

And it’s about to get worse. Josh Marshall, who has been all over the US Attorney case, has said from the start that the Carol Lam firing is the most explosive of them all. Today we start to learn why he’s right

http://www.realcities.com/mld/krwashington/news/nation/16931334.htm
Fired San Diego U.S. attorney Carol Lam notified the Justice Department that she intended to execute search warrants on a high-ranking CIA official as part of a corruption probe the day before a Justice Department official sent an e-mail that said Lam needed to be fired, U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein said Sunday.

Feinstein, D-Calif., said the timing of the e-mail suggested that Lam's dismissal may have been connected to the corruption probe.

Justice Department spokesman Brian Roehrkasse denied in an e-mail that there was any link.

"We have stated numerous times that no U.S. attorney was removed to retaliate against or inappropriately interfere with any public corruption investigation or prosecution," he wrote. "This remains the case and there is no evidence that indicates otherwise."

But the revelation is sure to heighten demands in Congress for a full investigation into whether something other than job performance was behind the Justice Department's dismissals late last year of eight U.S. attorneys, including Lam. . . .

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/03/18/AR2007031801263.html
Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) said in a television appearance yesterday that Lam "sent a notice to the Justice Department saying that there would be two search warrants" in a criminal investigation of defense contractor Brent R. Wilkes and Kyle "Dusty" Foggo, who had just quit as the CIA's top administrator amid questions about his ties to disgraced former GOP congressman Randy "Duke" Cunningham.

The next day, May 11, D. Kyle Sampson, then chief of staff to Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales, sent an e-mail message to William Kelley in the White House counsel's office saying that Lam should be removed as quickly as possible, according to documents turned over to Congress last week.

"Please call me at your convenience to discuss the following," Sampson wrote, referring to "[t]he real problem we have right now with Carol Lam . .”

The David Iglesias case (where Republican congresspeople Pete Domenici and Heather Wilson clearly intervened to get him fired) is also interesting, because there is NO record of any “performance related” issues at all. On the contrary . . .

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/03/18/AR2007031801077.html
One of the U.S. attorneys fired by the Bush administration after Republican complaints that he neglected to prosecute voter fraud had been heralded for his expertise in that area by the Justice Department, which twice selected him to train other federal prosecutors to pursue election crimes. . . .

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2007_03/010949.php
[Kevin Drum] Patrick Leahy says he's "sick and tired of getting half-truths on this" and wants to issue a slew of subpoenas next week. Good for him.

No, the White House REALLY doesn’t want to make an enemy of Kyle Sampson right now

http://thinkprogress.org/2007/03/16/gonzales-sampson/
Attorney General Alberto Gonzales planned to install his former aide Kyle Sampson as a lawyer in the Justice Department’s environment division even after Sampson’s “resignation,” NPR reported today.

Media outlets have reported this week that Sampson, Gonzales’ ex-chief of staff, resigned over the U.S. Attorney scandal on Monday. But as ThinkProgress noted, Gonzales on Tuesday made vague remarks during his press conference indicating that Sampson was still on the department payroll. . . .

No, they really don’t http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2007_03_18.php#013125
[David Kurtz] Looks like the Senate Judiciary Committee has a deal worked out for Kyle Sampson to testify voluntarily, which could be interesting in light of Sampson's claims Friday that others in the Justice Department were aware of the White House's role in the U.S. Attorney purge even before top DOJ officials testified to the contrary before Congress.

More: http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/002792.php

Who is Kyle Sampson? http://www.talkleft.com/story/2007/3/18/111740/107

“Vote fraud”?

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/3/18/10547/1637

More to come. . .

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/18/washington/18cnd-attorneys.html
The Democratic senator leading the inquiry into the dismissal of federal prosecutors said today that he wanted Karl Rove and other top aides to President Bush to testify publicly and under oath, setting up a confrontation between Congress and the White House, which has said it is unlikely to agree to such a demand.

Senator Patrick J. Leahy, the Democratic chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, said his committee would vote Thursday on whether to issue subpoenas for Mr. Rove, as well as Harriet E. Miers, the former White House counsel, and William Kelley, the deputy White House counsel, in the inquiry, which centers on whether the White House allowed politics to interfere with law enforcement. . . .

http://www.warandpiece.com/blogdirs/005823.html
[Laura Rozen] Sen. Dianne Feinstein on C-span today: As near as she can tell, it was Justice Department official William Moschella on the administration side who was responsible for slipping the provision into the Patriot Act in 2006 that apparently went unnoticed by many Senators, that enabled interim US attorneys to be appointed and serve without confirmation. What was the motive for that provision and how does that explanation fit with what Moschella and his colleagues have been testifying to before Congress? Was it their intention from the beginning to use the Patriot Act provision to make US attorney appointments that did not require confirmation not for national security emergencies but for political purposes such as promoting former Rove deputy Tim Griffin, as the Department soon of course moved to use it? Would be interesting to see the email traffic on that. It's also not hard to imagine how the FBI might have absorbed the wider apparent DOJ culture of permissiveness that it was okay to falsely claim "exigent" national security circumstances to demand information from companies on Americans on an emergency basis for matters that turned out of course not to be. Why would they have thought it was not okay? The DOJ was demanding a whole Patriot Act provision claiming hypothetical national security needs that it immediately applied for political ends. The signal from the White House and senior DOJ leadership seemed to be that claiming national security reasons for the purpose of convenience or to avoid bureaucratic procedures or Congressional oversight was fine. As Gonzales' former chief of staff Kyle Sampson wrote in an email, "I think we should gum this to death. ... If [the Senators] ultimately say ‘no never’ (and the longer we can forestall that the better), then we can tell them we’ll look for other candidates, ask them for recommendations, interview their candidates, and otherwise run out the clock. All this should be done in ‘good faith’ of course.” Is it a stretch to wonder if the FBI misused national security letters and exigent letters on the same terms? "Good faith" mistakes?

Who watches the watchers? Glenn Greenwald, that’s who

http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2007/03/18/nsl/index.html

Fox News, never one to get bogged down in the facts, accuses Valerie Plame of perjury

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2007/03/slick-brit-by-digby-in-ongoing-fox-is.html

The Washington Post editorial page, committed to the war at all costs

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/3/18/75849/9658

http://www.talkleft.com/story/2007/3/18/12418/8483

http://sideshow.me.uk/smar07.htm#03181550

Bush’s (and Rice’s) failures of diplomacy

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-terror18mar18,0,6419494,full.story

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/features/2007/0704.rozen.html

Either these people are truly dangerous, and it’s an outrage that they’re being released, or they’re basically innocent, and it’s an outrage that they were swept up and held in confinement for so long with no charges and no legal protections. Which is it?

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/03/17/AR2007031701378.html
In official documents, Detainee No. 266 was an accused al-Qaeda member who refused to speak to his captors, much less admit or deny terrorism links. His Saudi countryman, Detainee No. 264, was a relief worker and self-described admirer of Americans who was handed over to U.S. forces by Pakistani policemen seeking to collect a bounty.

On June 24, both men were released from the U.S. prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, to the custody of Saudi Arabia. Which promptly freed them.

The two are among scores of Guantanamo detainees who have been quietly repatriated in the past three years amid growing pressure from their home countries and international human rights advocates. Now, a new analysis by lawyers who have represented detainees says U.S. decisions undermine the government's own claims about the threat posed by many of the prison camp's residents, some of whom are approaching their fifth year of detention without formal charges or trials.

The analysis, based on government case files for Saudi detainees sent home over the past three years, shows inmates being systematically freed from custody within weeks of their return. It also raises questions on how detainees are selected for release: While some of the repatriated Saudis were accused of lesser offenses -- such as working for charitable organizations with alleged ties to al-Qaeda -- others were released in spite of standing accusations that they belonged to al-Qaeda or the Taliban, or even fought against U.S. or coalition forces in Afghanistan, records show.

The case files also offer insight into the nature of U.S. evidence against the detainees. For example, in half the cases studied, the detainees were turned over to U.S. forces by Pakistani police or troops in return for financial rewards. Many others were accused of terrorism connections in part because their Arab nicknames matched those found in a computer database of al-Qaeda members, documents show. . . .

Why Khalid Sheikh Mohammed is probably lying

http://www.thewashingtonnote.com/archives/002003.php
[Yosri Fouda] I have no doubt that he would have liked to have been responsible for all the claims on the transcript, but was he? . . .

What you might have missed on the Sunday talk shows

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/03/18/AR2007031801367.html

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2007/03/unctuous-gop-box-turtle-of-day-by-digby.html

Bonus item: How blogs are changing political news coverage

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/10241.html
[Steve Benen] The Plame scandal has always struck me as the first turning point. Between July 14, 2003 and September 26, 2003 — the 10 weeks between the original publication of Bob Novak’s now-infamous column to the day MSNBC first reported that the CIA has asked the Justice Department for a formal criminal investigation, blogs were the only sources of information about the controversy. In that time, the NYT ran just one news item on the story (on page A8). The WaPo ran five paragraphs on the story at the end of an unrelated article, which was published on A20. Over those same 10 weeks, progressive bloggers immediately realized the story’s significance and offered near-blanket coverage. . . .

When the story finally hit the front pages after the DoJ investigation started, Slate’s Jack Shafer wrote that reporters were caught flat-footed. An above-the-fold piece in the Post, Shafer said, sent “the rest of the press corps to the blogosphere…to catch up” on the details. . . .

It was the start of a trend. Most notably, when it comes to the prosecutor purge scandal, it was Josh Marshall who connected the dots. . . . Time’s Jay Carney acknowledged this week that he and his colleagues simply didn’t appreciate what the blogs thought was obvious. . . .

FireDogLake’s coverage of the Libby trial was must-read content for reporters covering the case. TPM has the purge scandal what it is today. It’s getting increasingly difficult to dismiss the blogosphere’s “dirty hippies” as wrong and irrelevant. . . .

More: http://www.talkleft.com/story/2007/3/18/12226/3566

***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 @ 5:05 AM

 
MIXED LOYALTIES

Bush never has accepted the right of the legislative branch to have a voice in the conduct of his war – so, let’s remember that it’s HIS war

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070317/ap_on_go_pr_wh/us_iraq;_ylt=AkPelRUvfBD0pC13Op64acXMWM0F
Democrats who are moving ahead with anti-war legislation are using troops as leverage to win domestic political battles, President Bush said Saturday. Democrats pledged to keep pushing until there is a change of course in Iraq. . . . Bush said some lawmakers see a chance "to micromanage our military commanders, force a precipitous withdrawal from Iraq and spend billions on domestic projects that have nothing to do with the war on terror."

The US Attorney scandal. Right now it looks like this: all fingers point to WH involvement in initiating the purge, and three names keep coming up: Rove, Gonzales, and Meirs. No one has served longer in the innermost of Bush’s inner circles. How hard will it be for him to cut any of them loose?

http://thinkprogress.org/2007/03/16/pugnacious-bush-gonzales/
[CBS] Republicans close to the White House tell CBS News chief White House correspondent Jim Axelrod that President Bush is in “his usual posture: pugnacious, that no one is going to tell him who to fire.” But sources also said Gonzales’ firing is just a matter of time.

The White House is bracing for a weekend of criticism and more calls for Gonzales to go. One source tells CBS News he’s never seen the administration in such deep denial, and Republicans are growing increasingly restless for the president to take action. . .

Gonzales: hard-core Bush loyalist http://www.talkleft.com/story/2007/3/17/235720/755

More of the “it wasn’t a conspiracy to obstruct justice, it was just bad communication” excuse. Is ANYONE buying that?

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2007_03_11.php#013120
"Kyle [Sampson] did not resign because he had misled anyone at the Justice Department or withheld information concerning the replacement of the U.S. Attorneys. He resigned because, as Chief of Staff, he felt he had let the Attorney General down in failing to appreciate the need for and organize a more effective response to the unfounded accusations that the replacements were improper." . . .

[NB: You can see the defense pattern starting to emerge. . . and, no, I don’t think it will work]

More: http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/002789.php

Will Sampson threaten to bring others down with him? (He can do it)

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2007_03_11.php#013108

Sampson: he was against resigning, before he was for it

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2007_03_11.php#013118

Coming attractions, next week

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/10237.html

Alberto Gonzales – don’t laugh, please – gives the fired US Attorneys a “pep talk”

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2007_03_11.php#013121

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2007_03_11.php#013111b

Starting to dig into the politically motivated cases US Attorneys did pursue (the ones “loyal to Bush” who DIDN’T get fired)

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/us_and_americas/article1496239.ece
[Andrew Sullivan] Since Bush came to power, the number of local politicians investigated or indicted by US attorneys shows a disturbing pattern. A new study reported last Friday in The New York Times showed that out of 375 such cases, 10 were against independents, 67 were against Republicans and 298 were against Democrats. Under Bush and Rove, the whole concept of a fair justice system has taken a Nixonian turn.

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/3/17/162828/967

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/18/weekinreview/18liptak.html

Fred Barnes, who was once taken seriously as a Washington reporter and observer, has settled into the role of Bush sycophant – here he explains that the only mistake Bush has made in the US Attorney scandal is being too nice

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/10240.html
Schumer may be a partisan hack, but as the Democratic point-man on the firings, he is carrying the day. He guided Democrats as they transformed the perfectly legal and quite normal removal of federal prosecutors into a raging scandal. They’ve done this for raw political reasons: to mortify and cripple the president. And Bush, with his timidity in the face of Democratic accusations, has let them. He hasn’t fought back. He’s become an enabler. . . .

Bush needs to fight back, rhetorically and otherwise, without hesitation and without fear that his critics will end up even more opposed to his policies. The way Washington works in 2007, with Democrats in control of Congress, makes this necessary. Being nice and conciliatory, as Bush has been, is counterproductive. It’s never reciprocated. Rather, it encourages his Democratic foes to be even more belligerent and discourages his Republican allies. . . . [read on!]

[NB: As Steve Benen asks, let’s just sit back and savor this, shall we? Apart from Barnes’ complete refusal to acknowledge that the Bush gang has done anything wrong, what’s delicious about this is his worry that the Democrats are being big mean bullies, pushing around poor old George. I’m sure if I spent a few minutes doing it, I could find a thousand instances of Barnes praising the savvy Bush machine, when they had the polls and a Republican congress on their side, for dominating the political landscape and rolling over the Dems at will – but now, of course, it’s the Dems who are being too aggressive and belligerent.]

Executive Order 12958: how the Bush gang violated their own regulations in the Plame affair

http://www.firedoglake.com/2007/03/17/insta-de-classification-and-other-bedtime-stories/
[Looseheadprop] 12958 created an Information Security Oversight Office which had as its job both making sure that the rules for classifying and de-classifying secret information were followed, but also for keeping the records that would let people know what was and was not classified at any given time. . .

[A] person can commit a big ugly federal crime with up to A LIFE SENTENCE for “caus[ing classified information] to be communicated, delivered or transmitted the same to any person not entitled to receive it…” this is a very serious matter. Consequently, under the authority of our friend 12958, the Information Security Oversight Office was created.

The current Director of ISOO is one William Leonard. . . Mr. Leonard set up a system for all the people who have authority under 12958 to report to ISOO what they had classified or what they had de-classified so that there would be one central definitive list. . .

Well in 2001 and 2002, everybody in the government was reporting every time they classified something or de-classified something. So far, so good. However beginning in 2003 (perhaps coinciding with that energy task force thingy?) the Office of the Vice-president decided it wasn’t going to comply any more. Mind you, the Office of the President still had to comply, but not OVP . . .

[D]uring the Summation in the Libby trial Wells said that only 3 people in the world knew that Cheney and/or Bush had Insta-De-Classified the NIE at the time Libby went to leak it to Judy Miller and Libby went jumping through all kinds of hoops to try to show that he wanted to be sure he had authority to leak it.

Two problems with that:

1) Libby had already leaked it to Woodward and Sanger (hat tip to Marcy for reminding me of that on the phone last night) before the Insta-De-Classification for Judy’s benefit

2) I don’t think anyone can find contemporaneous proof of the Insta-De-Classification anywhere or we would have seen Wells introduce it at trial.

Now, we know OVP doesn’t do the required reporting to ISOO, but there was no indication that the Office of the president wasn’t doing it.

So, here is an interesting possibility: What if Insta-De-Classification is a myth? What if it never happened? What if Libby leaked the NIE to Woodward, Sanger and Miller just like that? [What] if there is a conspiracy between Bush and Cheney to lie after the fact and falsely claim that an Insta-De-Classification happened when so such thing ever occurred. . .

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/10238.html
[Henry Waxman, D-CA, to the White House] James Knodell, Director of the Office of Security at the White House, testified at the hearing about White House procedures for safeguarding classified information. During his testimony, Mr. Knodell made some remarkable statements about how his office handled the disclosure of Ms. Wilson’s covert status. Specifically, Mr. Knodell testified:

* The Office of Security for the White House never conducted any investigation of the disclosure of Ms. Wilson’s identity;

* Under the applicable executive order and regulations, your senior political advisor, Karl Rove, and other senior White House officials were required to report what they knew about the disclosure of Ms. Wilson’s identity, but they did not make any such report to the White House Office of Security; and

* There has been no suspension of security clearances or any other administrative sanction for Mr. Rove and other White House officials involved in the disclosure.

According to Mr. Knodell, the explanation for the lack of action by the White House Security Office was a White House decision not to conduct a security investigation while a criminal investigation was pending. Mr. Knodell could not explain, however, why the White House did not initiate an investigation after the security breach. It took months before a criminal investigation was initiated, yet according to Mr. Knodell, there was no White House investigation initiated during this period.

Mr. Knodell also testified that it would be inappropriate to allow an individual who was a security risk to retain his or her security clearance while a criminal investigation is pending. As members of the Committee pointed out, a criminal investigation can last years, and it would jeopardize national security not to investigate the officials implicated in the leak and suspend their security clearances if there were reason to suspect their involvement. Mr. Knodell did not dispute this point.

The testimony of Mr. Knodell appears to describe White House decisions that were inconsistent with the directives of Executive Order 12958, which you signed in March 2003. Under this executive order, the White House is required to “take appropriate and prompt corrective action” whenever there is a release of classified information. Yet Mr. Knodell could describe no such actions after the disclosure of Ms. Wilson’s identity.

Taken as a whole, the testimony at today’s hearing described breach after breach of national security requirements at the White House. The first breach was the disclosure of Ms. Wilson’s identity. Other breaches included the failure of Mr. Rove and other officials to report their disclosures as required by law, the failure of the White House to initiate the prompt investigation required by the executive order, and the failure of the White House to suspend the security clearances of the implicated officials.

To assist the Committee in its investigation into these issues, I request that you provide the Committee with a complete account of the steps that the White House took following the disclosure of Ms. Wilson’s identity (1) to investigate how the leak occurred; (2) to review the security clearances of the White House officials implicated in the leak; (3) to impose administrative or disciplinary sanctions on the officials involved in the leak; and (4) to review and revise existing White House security procedures to prevent future breaches of national security.

Just in case there is anyone left who believes the Bush gang can be trusted with extra national security surveillance powers

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/03/17/AR2007031701451.html
FBI counterterrorism officials continued to use flawed procedures to obtain thousands of U.S. telephone records during a two-year period when bureau lawyers and managers were expressing escalating concerns about the practice, according to senior FBI and Justice Department officials and documents.

FBI lawyers raised the concerns beginning in late October 2004 but did not closely scrutinize the practice until last year, FBI officials acknowledged. They also did not understand the scope of the problem until the Justice Department launched an investigation, FBI officials said. . . .

More “deficiencies and irregularities” in military procurement

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20070317/pl_afp/usdefensegovernment_070317173628;_ylt=AgWJEHCICJihzajx_jG8nNas0NUE

Halliburton criticized for move to Dubai

http://halliburtondubai.notlong.com
Halliburton Co.'s decision to relocate its chief executive and corporate headquarters to Dubai has scratched one of Congress' most sensitive sore spots -- suspicion that U.S. corporations are restructuring their operations to shirk domestic taxes.

Adding to a rush of Democrat calls for hearings, the House is pushing forward a bill whose accompanying report will ask the White House to address no-bid government contracts for contractors who relocate overseas, an apparent reference to plans by the defense contractor and oilfield services company. . .

Walter Reed: worse and worse

http://thinkprogress.org/2007/03/17/beyond-building-18/

If DC were a conservative white area, would we even be having this conversation?

http://americablog.blogspot.com/2007/03/bush-trying-to-kill-dc-voting.html
[WP] The White House declared its opposition yesterday to a bill that would give the District its first full seat in the House of Representatives, saying it is unconstitutional, and a key Senate supporter said such concerns could kill the measure.

"The Constitution specifies that only 'the people of the several states' elect representatives to the House," said White House spokesman Alex Conant. "And D.C. is not a state."

He declined to say whether President Bush would veto the bill, but the White House appeared to be sending a message to Congress just as momentum for the measure was building. It cleared two House committees this week, and the Democratic leadership has vowed to pass it on the House floor next week. . . .

Sunday talk show line-ups

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/03/17/AR2007031701377.html
FOX NEWS SUNDAY: Sens. John F. Kerry (D-Mass.) and Arlen Specter (R-Pa.); Alyssa Mastromonaco, Obama for America scheduling director; former U.S. attorneys H.E. "Bud" Cummins III and David C. Iglesias.

THIS WEEK (ABC): Sens. Patrick J. Leahy (D-Vt.) and John Cornyn (R-Tex.); national security adviser Stephen J. Hadley; actor Sam Waterson.

NEWSMAKERS (C-SPAN): Rep. Ellen O. Tauscher (D-Calif.).

FACE THE NATION (CBS): Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.); Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates.

MEET THE PRESS (NBC): Sen. Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.); Rep. Joe Sestak (D-Pa.); Richard Perle of the American Enterprise Institute; former congressmen Tom Andrews (D-Maine) and Tom DeLay (R-Tex.).

LATE EDITION (CNN): Hadley; Rep. John P. Murtha (D-Pa.); Retired Army Gen. George Joulwan; Retired Army Col. Pat Lang; former national security adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski.

Bonus item: Helen Thomas gets back her front row seat in the WH press briefing room (DOUBLEPLUSGOOD: Fox News gets bumped to accommodate her)

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/eat-the-press/2007/03/17/helen-thomas-gets-her-fro_e_43651.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 @ 7:23 AM

 
A NEW DAY

The plan to fire US Attorneys started in the White House – now I guess it’s just a matter of who they are going to throw under the bus first

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/16/washington/15cnd-attorneys.html
The White House backed away today from its earlier assertions that the former White House counsel, Harriet E. Miers, was alone in hatching the idea to fire United States attorneys early in 2005.

Instead, President Bush’s chief spokesman said today that, Karl Rove, the chief political adviser to Mr. Bush, had early conversations with Ms. Miers. “I think the thing that we can say with assurance is that Karl remembers her raising it to him and his saying he didn’t think it was a good idea,” said Tony Snow, the president’s spokesman.

“It has been described as her idea but ... I don’t want to try to vouch for origination,” Mr. Snow said, according to The Associated Press. “At this juncture, people have hazy memories.”

The shift in stance articulated by Mr. Snow came a day after it was revealed in e-mail messages that Mr. Rove inquired about firing United States attorneys in January 2005. The request prompted a Justice Department aide to respond that Alberto R. Gonzales, soon to be confirmed as attorney general, favored replacing a group of “underperforming” prosecutors.

The e-mail messages, part of a larger collection that the Justice Department is preparing to turn over to Congressional investigators, indicate that Mr. Rove and Mr. Gonzales, then the White House counsel, had considered replacing prosecutors earlier than either has previously acknowledged, and Mr. Snow’s replies to reporters’ questions today reinforced that impression. . . .

Well, Gonzales will be gone soon anyhow, maybe they’ll just try to pin it all on him

http://thinkprogress.org/2007/03/15/schumer-gonzales-

Do they REALLY think this will help?

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2007_03_11.php#013105
[David Kurtz] In an effort to save his job, Alberto Gonzales apologized to all U.S. attorneys in a conference call today . . . The apology was not for the firings, but for how they were handled, according to McClatchy. and apparently included an apology for "inaccurate public statements about poor job performance."

This is big. If/when Gonzales resigns, they are going to have to nominate a replacement and get that person confirmed. Who can they get, first of all, who would take on such a compromised position? Could any straight candidate deny the need to investigate Gonzales’s broad pattern of conduct? And in the confirmation hearings, imagine the questions they would have to answer on government secrecy, separation of powers, approving torture, etc. THAT will be fun to watch

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2007_03_11.php#013091

http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2007/03/16/nsl_signing_statement/index.html
[Glenn Greenwald] Earlier this week, I wrote about the clear connection between (a) revelations that the FBI has been violating the law with respect to its use of National Security Letters (NSLs) and, specifically, its failure to maintain the requisite records to enable Congress to exercise oversight of NSLs, and (b) President Bush's declaration in the form of a signing statement that he need not comply with those very NSL reporting and auditing requirements. Beyond the signing statement, recent statements made by Alberto Gonzales make this connection as clear as can be. . . .

http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2007/03/16/opr/index.html
[Glenn Greenwald] Last July, it was revealed that the Office of Professional Responsibility in the Justice Department -- the office "responsible for investigating allegations of misconduct involving Department attorneys" -- repeatedly attempted to investigate whether DOJ lawyers acted improperly concerning their role in the President's warrantless eavesdropping program, but finally stopped their investigation because the President refused to give them the security clearances they needed to conduct the investigation.

Yesterday, Murray Waas reported in National Journal that it was Alberto Gonzales who advised the President to deny those clearances even after Gonzales "learned that his own conduct would likely be a focus of the investigation." The investigation which they blocked "would have examined Gonzales's role in authorizing the eavesdropping program while he was White House counsel, as well as his subsequent oversight of the program as attorney general."

The attempt to obstruct OPR's investigation by refusing its investigators security clearances has always been extremely suspicious and impossible to defend, and this story never really received the attention it merited. . . .

Rove’s involvement

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/blog/2007/03/16/BL2007031601087.html
[Dan Froomkin] As far as the White House public-relations machine is concerned, here is all you need to know about the firing of eight U.S. attorneys last year: The Justice Department made some mistakes in how it communicated that those prosecutors were let go for appropriate reasons. And, oh yes, there is no evidence that White House political guru Karl Rove ever advocated the firing of all 93 U.S. attorneys previously appointed by President Bush.

But from the very beginning of this scandal, the central question has been and remains: Was there a plot hatched in the White House to purge prosecutors who were seen as demonstrating insufficient partisanship in their criminal investigations?

Everything else is deception or distraction.

The latest development in the case is an e-mail chain showing that Rove and Alberto Gonzales (then White House counsel, soon to become attorney general) were both mulling the idea of replacing U.S. attorneys as early as the first month of Bush's second term.

According to the e-mails, Rove stopped by the White House counsel's office in early January 2005 to find out whether it was Gonzales's plan to keep or replace all or some of the U.S. attorneys that Bush had appointed in his first term.

And it just so happened that Kyle Sampson, soon to become the attorney general's chief of staff, had discussed that very issue with Gonzales a few weeks earlier. "As an operational matter," Sampson wrote in a e-mail, "we would like to replace 15-20 percent of the current U.S. Attorneys -- the underperforming ones. . . . The vast majority of U.S. Attorneys, 80-85 percent I would guess, are doing a great job, are loyal Bushies, etc., etc."

The response from White House spokesmen to this latest disclosure is that there is no conflict with their earlier story, which was that Rove opposed the firing of all 93 attorneys -- an idea they earlier credited to Harriet Miers, who succeeded Gonzales as White House counsel.

But as I first wrote in Tuesday's column, the proposed housecleaning of all 93 U.S. attorneys is a red herring. Not only would firing all of them have been a political and logistical nightmare, but it would have been foolish from Rove's point of view. After all, the vast majority were apparently behaving exactly as he wanted -- as "loyal Bushies."

The key question, that the White House continues to duck: Did Rove approve of -- or perhps even conceive of -- the idea of firing select attorneys? And if so, on what grounds? The latest e-mails certainly indicate that he was involved very early on.

Right now, Washington is engaged in feverish speculation about whether Gonzales is in his last days, or even moments, as attorney general. But as I wrote in my Wednesday column, Gonzales is a diversion. . . [read on]

More: http://www.latimes.com/news/politics/la-na-usattys16mar16,1,6549217.story

http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/002779.php

http://www.americanprogress.org/cartoons/2007/03/031607_gonzales_scandal.html

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/10230.html
Asked if Bush himself might have suggested the firings, Snow said, “Anything’s possible . . .”

More bamboozlement from Tony Snow

http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/002784.php
QUESTION: Tony, you addressed this yesterday, the question about loyalty and how much that factors in ... into the role U.S. attorneys play. You know, these emails are coming out, and this other one about their Bushies, et cetera. What is the role of loyalty in how U.S. attorneys perform?

SNOW: Again, if you want to take a look ... let's first go back to that particular memo, because in the sentence before it says, "This is an operational matter. We'd like to replace 15 to 20 percent of the current U.S. attorneys, the underperforming ones." No mention of political loyalty; it's performance. So I think ...

QUESTION: But the next line says ...

QUESTION: Excuse me ...

SNOW: Then it says, "This is a rough guess. We might want to consider doing performance evaluations after Judge comes on board. The vast majority of U.S. attorneys, 80-85 percent, I would guess, are doing a great job, loyal Bushies," et cetera. I mean, I don't see in there that there is political loyalty tests. It's a characterization.

QUESTION: Oh, come on. That seems to define a good job as political loyalty ... the loyal Bushies.

SNOW: No, I don't think so. It talked about underperforming, and then it talks about the history of these things. If you take a look ... what you're trying to do is cherry-pick your phrase. But the fact is ...

QUESTION: You've never done that, have you?

SNOW: What I'm trying to do is accentuate the key phrases.

QUESTION: And we appreciate it. . .

http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/002786.php
Q: Tony, you had said that politics and loyalty didn't play a part in this.

Snow: Yes, and let me... you know, there's been a lot of conversation about loyalty. So let me -- I don't want to -- we'll just begin with a caveat: I do not know precisely what Kyle Sampson had in mind when he used the term.

But let me tell you how the term applies in this White House, which is that certainly we all serve at the pleasure of the president. We're loyal to the president in that sense. But the president's charge to each one of us is to do our jobs -- to do our jobs, to perform the public trust.

That also means to follow the principles and the priorities of the administration. . . .

More: http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/10231.html

http://www.first-draft.com/2007/03/today_on_holden_7.html

If the reason for firing the US Attorneys was to get better qualified people in the positions, why was a Rove protégé put into the Arkansas post and, in Washington state. . .

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2007_03_11.php#013100
Now one of the three men the White House is considering as his replacement is former Congressman Rick White (R-WA). The only problem, as TPM Reader JK points out, is that White is currently not authorized to practice law in the state. His law license was suspended in 2003 after he forgot to pay his bar fees. . . .

The Dems are going to get their documents, and their testimony. Oh, yes they will. It’s a new day in DC

http://www.talkleft.com/story/2007/3/14/175822/340
PAT LEAHY (D-VA): I've never met Mr. Fielding. Frankly, I don't care whether he says he's going to allow people or not. We'll subpoena the people we want. If they want to defy the subpoena, then you get into a stonewall situation I suspect they don't want to have.

BLITZER: Will you subpoena Karl Rove?

LEAHY: Yes. He can appear voluntarily if he wants. If he doesn't, I will subpoena him. The attorney general said, Well, there are some staff people or lower level people -- I'm not sure whether I want to allow them to testify or not. I said, Frankly, Mr. Attorney General, it's not your decision. It's mine and the committee's.

http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/002788.php
[JOHN CONYERS, D-MI] "The White House Counsel's office advised us this afternoon that the White House would not be providing documents to the Committee, or providing the White House's position with respect to the Committee securing the testimony of White House officials today. This is contrary to earlier expectations that the Committee would receive these answers and documents today and is, therefore, very disappointing. The Counsel's office has assured me that they will continue to work in good faith to get answers to those questions by early next week.

Despite those assurances and my continued hope that the White House will resolve these questions in a cooperative fashion, the Committee must take steps to ensure that we are not being stonewalled or slow walked on this matter. I will schedule a vote to issue subpoenas next week for the documents and officials we need to talk to.

http://www.samefacts.com/archives/overblown_personnel_matter_/2007/03/playing_chicken_with_the_wrong_folks.php
[Mark Kleiman] Somebody needs to tell the Bush & Co. that when they mess with the Congress now they're messing with bulldogs, not lapdogs. . . .

[Linda Sanchez, D-CA] The White House is playing a dangerous game of chicken. The House Judiciary Committee has been operating in good faith to get to the bottom of this growing scandal, and Chairman Conyers has shown particular restraint in working towards voluntary cooperation.

Today, however, the White House has chosen to ignore the deadline for information on its role in firing federal prosecutors, after publicly stating a commitment to finding the truth. This commitment - like the Bush Administration's ever-changing version of what actually happened - seems to have a very short shelf-life.

We will not stop our investigation until we know who ordered the purge of federal prosecutors, why they did it, and who is trying to cover it up. The White House can't ignore this investigation.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/17/washington/17assess.html
“The first rule of damage control is get to the bottom of it, figure out what the worst is, conduct an internal investigation, collect all the evidence and then dump it out in one fell swoop,” said David R. Gergen, who has advised presidents of both parties. “Instead, they have made the mistake in this prosecutor story of apparently not knowing themselves what they had.”

Indeed, the administration’s changing explanations for the dismissals seem to be at the heart of the current clash, which both Republicans and Democrats say could cost Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales his job.

On Friday, with the release of more e-mail messages, there was yet another shift, as Tony Snow, the White House spokesman, backed away from the administration’s assertion that Harriet E. Miers, the former White House counsel, had proposed dismissing all 93 United States attorneys. Dan Bartlett, counselor to Mr. Bush, said earlier this week that Ms. Miers had “floated an idea” to do just that, but by Friday, Mr. Snow said he was no longer certain.

“This is as far as we can go,” Mr. Snow said. “We know that Karl had a recollection of Harriet’s having raised it. And his recollection is that he dismissed it as not a good idea. That’s what we know.”

That was not the first recalibration in light of new facts. On Jan. 18, Mr. Gonzales told the Senate Judiciary Committee that his department based employment decisions on “the performance of individuals.” Then performance evaluations for six of eight dismissed prosecutors came to light, showing they had been rated “well regarded,” “capable” or “very competent.”

On Feb. 6, a top Justice Department official, Paul J. McNulty, testified that politics had not been involved in the dismissals, and said that one prosecutor, H. E. Cummins III, a United States attorney in Arkansas, was asked to leave to create “a fresh start with a new person.” The new person, as it turned out, was J. Timothy Griffin, a Republican operative who once worked as a deputy to Mr. Rove.

Last week, another senior Justice Department official, William E. Moschella, testified that the White House was consulted on the dismissals only “eventually, because these are political appointees.” But a stream of e-mail messages released earlier this week showed that Mr. Rove and Ms. Miers were involved in the plan from the outset.

Exasperated Democrats said that it was no wonder they wanted Mr. Rove, Ms. Miers and others to testify and that they would subpoena them if they did not come voluntarily. On Friday, they added a new name to their witness list: Scott Jennings, a deputy to Mr. Rove.

“Every day it’s almost like a drip, drip of a faucet,” said Senator Patrick J. Leahy, Democrat of Vermont, the chairman of the Judiciary Committee. “Something else comes out, and we get these hurry up calls from the White House: ‘Oh, by the way, there’s something else we wanted to tell you.’ My response is, Feel free to tell us anything you want, but you’ll be telling us under oath.”

White House officials say that is unlikely. But given the uproar on Capitol Hill, some Republicans say the administration will have little choice but to let Mr. Rove talk in some fashion, preferably in private.

[NB: In private? Huh-uh. The White House doesn’t control the political rhythm of this any more, even if they think they do]

Oh yeah, Bush was determined to get to the bottom of the Plame leak. And he got his team right on it. Uh-huh

http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1003559300
Dr. James Knodell, director of the Office of Security at the White House, told a congressional committee today that he was aware of no internal investigation or report into the leak of covert CIA agent Valerie Plame. . . .

Knodell testified that those who had participated in the leaking of classified information were required to own up to this and he was not aware that anyone, including Karl Rove, had done that.

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/3/17/0641/83535
[Scott McClellan, October 2003] There is a process that the administration has in place to address the leak of classified information. Make no mistake about it, the President has always held the view that the leaking of classified information is a very serious matter. And the process was followed. . .

More: http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/10232.html

Valerie Plame finally speaks

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/3/16/111828/917
My name and identity were carelessly and recklessly abused by senior government officials in both the White House and the State Department. All of them understood that I worked for the CIA, and having signed oaths to protect national security secrets, they should have been diligent in protecting me and every CIA officer. The CIA took great lengths to protect all of its employees, provided at significant taxpayer expense, painstakingly devised creative covers for its most sensitive staffers. The harm that is done when a CIA cover is blown is grave, but I can't provide details beyond that in this public hearing. But the concept is obvious. Not only have breaches of national security endangered CIA officers, it has jeopardized, even destroyed entire networks of foreign agents, who in turn risk their own lives and those of their families to provide the United States with needed intelligence. Lives are literally at stake. Every single one of my former CIA collegues, my fellow covert officers, to analysts to technical operations officers, even the secretaries, understand the vulnerabilities of our officers and recognize that the travesty of what happened to me could happen to them.

We in the CIA always know that we might be exposed and threatened by foreign enemies. It was a terrible irony that administration officials were the ones who destroyed my cover. Furthermore, testimony in the criminal trial of Vice President Cheney's former Chief of Staff, who has now been convicted of serious crimes, indicates that my exposure arose from purely political motives. . . [read on]

Analysis: http://www.firedoglake.com/2007/03/16/well-that-was-interesting/

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/013087.php

Video: http://oversight.house.gov/story.asp?ID=1205

Plame DIDN’T recommend her husband for the trip to Niger

http://www.prospect.org/weblog/2007/03/post_3142.html

Fox News, always on top of the facts

http://mediamatters.org/items/200703160013
On the March 16 edition of Fox News Live, host E.D. Hill asserted that "it sounded like" former CIA operative Valerie Plame's testimony to the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform was "completely skirting the issue of whether she still fell under those rules of being considered covert" . . .

[NB: Let’s go to the tape]

YARMUTH: I'd like to start by asking you about July 14, 2003, the day that Robert Novak wrote the column in the Chicago Sun-Times identifying you as "an Agency operative on weapons of mass destruction," quote. . . . My understanding is that on that date, you were covert. Is that correct? On July 13?

PLAME: I was a covert officer. Correct. . . .

YARMUTH: As you said -- and my understanding is that your work was classified for purposes of many of the regulations and laws we're talking about. Your work was classified on that day, July 13.

PLAME: That's correct.

YARMUTH: Did the July 14 column destroyed your covert position and your classified status?

PLAME: Yes, it did. . . .

Tom Davis (R-VA): It was the CIA’s fault http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/3/16/122645/030

Victoria Toensing, tool

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2007/03/red-flags-by-digby-in-plame-hearings.html
Van Hollen: Do you think White House officials have any obligation at all --- put aside the technical legal obligation --- as stewards of our national security --- when they find out that someone works for the Central Intelligence Agency, do you think they have any obligation to the citizens of this country to find out before telling the press about it, whether that disclosure would compromise sensitive information? . . .

Toensing: I think the press secretary should always tell what's accurate so . . .

Van Hollen: I'm sorry?

Toensing: A press secretary should always tell what's accurate, I have no problem with that.

Van Hollen: But before somebody goes around saying this person's works for the CIA, in a kind of cavalier manner, and an obviously intentional manner, to try and spread this information . . . Before they disclose the identity of somebody who works in the nuclear non-proliferation area of the CIA, don't you think they have some obligation to demonstrate the good judgment to find out if that would disclose sensitive information?

Toensing: Uhm..well..could be, but I don't particularly think that, uh, a red flag would go off because those of us who work in government all the time know people who work at the CIA. . . [read on!]

Why this matters

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2007/03/keep-off-hippies-by-digby-ron.html
[Digby] The crime was lying and misleading the United States of America into war, something that the congress damned well should be investigating. Valerie Plame's outing is a window into that crime and the Democrats are wise to explore her story to show just how far the administration was willing to go to cover their tracks. What a prosecutor cannot do --- prosecute a political crime --- the congress surely can.

There is a huge need for the Democrats to develop the record on this administration's many crimes. It's important for our future and it's important for history. What they have done should never, ever be repeated. You had the highest reaches of the white house casually revealing what was clearly "need to know" classified information (which they had no "need to know" in the first place) to reporters, for purely political purposes. The same people who did this later turned around and said that reporters for the Washington Post and NY Times should be investigated by the Justice Department for revealing classified information that was not released purely to punish a political enemy, but rather in true whistleblower fashion, to tell the nation what its government was illegally doing.

We now know that in the case of the NSA spying stories, the Attorney General personally intervened to stop an internal investigation of the program when it came too close to him, but allowed those who were investigating that alleged treason of the NY Times to carry on.

This is all part of a very large mosaic of government secrecy, political backstabbing and abuse of power. Those of us who were screaming about this until we are hoarse were dismissed out of hand when we argued that no administration should be allowed to seize such unchecked power and the assumption among the establishment was that it was just more of our "unhinged" hysteria.

It wasn't. This stuff happened and it's likely only the tip of the iceberg. If the press can get past their loathing of the dirty hippies for five minutes they will see that not only have we been right, we have been flogging some amazingly good stories for the past six years that had they bothered to report them would have been journalistic coups. We really aren't that nuts --- and the Bush administration really is that bad.

McCain steps on it

http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/03/16/mccain-stumbles-on-hiv-prevention/
[Adam Nagourney] The unthinkable has happened. Senator John McCain met a question, while sitting with reporters on his bus as it rumbled through Iowa today, that he couldn’t – or perhaps wouldn’t – answer.

Did he support the distribution of taxpayer-subsidized condoms in Africa to fight the transmission of H.I.V.?

What followed was a long series of awkward pauses, glances up to the ceiling and the image of one of Mr. McCain’s aides, standing off to the back, urgently motioning his press secretary to come to Mr. McCain’s side. . . .

A transcript of the encounter follows. (Weaver is John Weaver, his senior adviser, and Brian is Mr. Jones, his press secretary):

Reporter: “Should U.S. taxpayer money go to places like Africa to fund contraception to prevent AIDS?”

Mr. McCain: “Well I think it’s a combination. The guy I really respect on this is Dr. Coburn. He believes – and I was just reading the thing he wrote – that you should do what you can to encourage abstinence where there is going to be sexual activity. Where that doesn’t succeed, than he thinks that we should employ contraceptives as well. But I agree with him that the first priority is on abstinence. I look to people like Dr. Coburn. I’m not very wise on it.” . . . I don’t know if I would use taxpayers’ money for it.”

Q: “What about grants for sex education in the United States? Should they include instructions about using contraceptives? Or should it be Bush’s policy, which is just abstinence?”

Mr. McCain: (Long pause) “Ahhh. I think I support the president’s policy.”

Q: “So no contraception, no counseling on contraception. Just abstinence. Do you think contraceptives help stop the spread of HIV?”

Mr. McCain: (Long pause) “You’ve stumped me.”

Q: “I mean, I think you’d probably agree it probably does help stop it?”

Mr. McCain: (Laughs) “Are we on the Straight Talk express? I’m not informed enough on it. Let me find out. You know, I’m sure I’ve taken a position on it on the past. I have to find out what my position was. Brian, would you find out what my position is on contraception – I’m sure I’m opposed to government spending on it, I’m sure I support the president’s policies on it.”

Q: “But you would agree that condoms do stop the spread of sexually transmitted diseases. Would you say: ‘No, we’re not going to distribute them,’ knowing that?”

Mr. McCain: (Twelve-second pause) “Get me Coburn’s thing, ask Weaver to get me Coburn’s paper that he just gave me in the last couple of days. I’ve never gotten into these issues before.” . . .

More! http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070316/ap_on_el_pr/on_the2008_trail;_ylt=Apo7vw3q.mhVD5dW1sMQ1Jus0NUE
Republican presidential contender John McCain on Friday used the term "tar baby," considered by some a racial epithet, and later said he regretted it. . . .

The Bush gang’s growing use of private mercenaries

http://www.thenation.com/doc/20070402/scahill

No surprise, really

http://www.usnews.com/usnews/opinion/erbeblog/archive/070314/military_support_for_gop_is_in.htm#more
[Bonnie Erbe] The Los Angeles Times reported in January that the Military Times's annual poll of active-duty service members found support among them for the Republican Party is dropping significantly. So significantly, in fact, that the 30-year trend of "Republicanization" of the military has reversed and is in a free fall. . .

Good

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/03/16/AR2007031602033.html
Two senators who observed last week's closed military proceedings against al-Qaeda leader Khalid Sheik Mohammed called for an investigation into allegations that the accused planner of the Sept. 11 attacks was physically abused while in CIA custody. . . .

Glenn Beck’s Coulter moment

http://www.prospect.org/weblog/2007/03/post_3145.html
“I don't want to sound like the old ball-and-chain guy, but Hillary Clinton cannot be elected president because -- am I wrong in feeling, am I the only one in America that feels this way? -- that there's something about her vocal range. There's something about her voice that just drives me -- it's not what she says, it's how she says it. She is like the stereotypical -- excuse the expression, but this is the way to -- she's the stereotypical bitch, you know what I mean? She's that stereotypical, nagging, [unintelligible], you know what I mean?”

http://mediamatters.org/items/200703160014
Glenn Beck said: "I never said that Hillary Clinton -- excuse the language -- I never said that Hillary Clinton was a bitch. I said she sounded like one."

More from Beck: http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2007/03/good-assassinationbad-assassination-by.html
"You know Khalid Shaikh Mohammed has confessed to 9-11 and trying to kill President Carter. Why would you try to kill President Carter? He's on your side, for the love of Pete."

http://www.prospect.org/weblog/2007/03/post_3146.html
Headline News president Ken Jautz . . .

"Glenn's style is self-deprecating, cordial; he says he'd like to be able to disagree with guests and part as friends. It's conversational, not confrontational."

Why the Dems should boycott Fox News

http://www.matthewyglesias.com/archives/2007/03/foxnews/
[Matt Yglesias] Ron Brownstein notes of Fox News "the network has a large audience, at least some of whom may be open to Democratic arguments." That's clearly true. And, indeed, progressives have every reason to want the opportunity to present their arguments in a persuasive manner to the Fox News audience. The problem, though, is that this can't be done because Fox News is run by the people who run Fox News.

As I well recall from my appearances on the Hugh Hewitt showing, appearing on hack-controlled media outlets is not an effective method of persuading the audience. The rules are rigged. A debate organized and run by a Republican Party propaganda outlet is not, in practice, going to provide the opportunity for Democrats to persuade Fox-loving conservatives anymore than appearing on Hannity and Colmes contributes to the creation of a balanced and vigorous public sphere. Television is especially tricky for providing the illusion of unmediated reality while, in fact, allowing a thousand different kinds of mediation. Thinking that you can beat television professionals whose job is to make you look bad on a television network that they control is just hubris. Nobody's that smart. Nobody's that clever. Nobody beats the producers.

Bonus item: The kind of people they are (Fox News edition)

http://nitpicker.blogspot.com/2007/03/dance-foxholes-dance.html
[Nitpicker] On more than one occasion, I worked with Fox News producers and reporters. Once, in Herat, I saw one of the Foxholes approached by a couple of soldiers. One of the soldiers said he was glad they could finally talk to a "conservative" reporter. The reporter laughed and said, "Someone's got to balance out the liberals." But, later, I ran into that same reporter in Bagram. He wanted an interview with some soldiers and, when I grabbed one at random to ask if he wanted to talk to Fox News, the soldier--an Army captain--said he didn't, because, as a Democrat, he wasn't a fan of the network's politics. The reporter, shaken up, said that was ridiculous. The network had no politics, but only told the truth. "Whatever," said the captain and walked off. The reporter, after a few beats narrowed his eyes at the soldier's back and quietly hissed, motherf-cker. . . .

***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 @ 7:06 AM

 
A DAY OF BLOCKBUSTERS

Wow.

Just to sum up where we are. The US Attorney scandal has three parts. One part was pressure on the attorneys from members of Congress and the White House to pursue more partisan investigative policies, getting tougher on Democrats or pursuing trumped-up “vote fraud” cases, and tamping down investigations of Republicans. That’s a crime right there. The second part was the genesis of plans to punish those attorneys not found “loyal” enough, and to replace them with cronies – that, while not necessarily illegal in itself, looks pretty bad in conjunction with Part One. The third part was false testimony to congress, by Gonzales and others, about the circumstances of their firing. So far the main focus has been on Part Three, and Gonzales’s possible perjury. Well, get ready to hear a LOT more about Parts One and Two.


It was Rove

http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/story?id=2954988&page=1
New unreleased emails from top administration officials show the idea of firing all 93 U.S. attorneys was raised by Karl Rove in early January 2005, indicating Rove was more involved in the plan than previously acknowledged by the White House. The e-mails also show Alberto Gonzales discussed the idea of firing the attorneys en masse while he was still White House counsel—weeks before he was confirmed as attorney general.

The e-mails directly contradict White House assertions that the notion originated with recently departed White House counsel Harriet Miers and was her idea alone. . . .

The email: http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/002778.php

More: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070316/ap_on_go_pr_wh/rove_prosecutors;_ylt=Al_ltYAwULDTq9Q4q4YAriWs0NUE

[NB: And why exactly is Karl Rove, or Harriet Miers for that matter, setting policy on firing US Attorneys? Not political, eh? And we’re supposed to believe they proposed this without discussing it with Bush?]

OF COURSE it was Rove: http://www.salon.com/opinion/blumenthal/2007/03/15/rove_attorneys/index.html
[A must-read]

Gonzales, teetering on the brink. . .

http://www.first-draft.com/2007/03/devastating.html

. . . and now this!

http://news.nationaljournal.com/articles/0315nj1.htm
[Murray Waas] Shortly before Attorney General Alberto Gonzales advised President Bush last year on whether to shut down a Justice Department inquiry regarding the administration's warrantless domestic eavesdropping program, Gonzales learned that his own conduct would likely be a focus of the investigation, according to government records and interviews.

Bush personally intervened to sideline the Justice Department probe in April 2006 by taking the unusual step of denying investigators the security clearances necessary for their work.

It is unclear whether the president knew at the time of his decision that the Justice inquiry -- to be conducted by the department's internal ethics watchdog, the Office of Professional Responsibility -- would almost certainly examine the conduct of his attorney general.

Sources familiar with the halted inquiry said that if the probe had been allowed to continue, it would have examined Gonzales's role in authorizing the eavesdropping program while he was White House counsel, as well as his subsequent oversight of the program as attorney general.

Both the White House and Gonzales declined comment on two issues -- whether Gonzales informed Bush that his own conduct was about to be scrutinized, and whether he urged the president to close down the investigation, which had been requested by Democratic members of Congress.

Current and former Justice Department officials, as well as experts in legal ethics, question the propriety of Gonzales's continuing to advise Bush about the investigation after learning that it might examine his own actions. The attorney general, they say, was remiss if he did not disclose that information to the president. But if Gonzales did inform Bush about the possibility and the president responded by stymieing the probe, that would raise even more-serious questions as to whether Bush acted to protect Gonzales, they said. . .

More: http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/10220.html

Another Republican member of congress (number three actually, though this says number two), calls for Gonzales to resign

http://blogs.usatoday.com/ondeadline/2007/03/second_republic.html
"For the Justice Department to be effective before the U.S. Senate, it would be helpful" if Gonzales resigned, Sen. Gordon Smith, R-Ore., told Kiely.

Meanwhile, GOP Sen. Norm Coleman of Minnesota said he is "deeply concerned about how this whole process has been handled." Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pa., said he was "withholding judgment" on Gonzales' tenure, but characterized the attorney general's explanations for the firings as "unacceptable" and "mystifying."

Wednesday, Sen. John Sununu, R-N.H., told Kiely that "if I were the president, I would fire the attorney general." . . .

Resignation – or worse? http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/3/15/175818/940

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/3/15/81735/1733

Number four

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/03/15/politics/main2572891.shtml
Pressure mounted on the White House Thursday to fire Attorney General Alberto Gonzales for the abrupt dismissal of U.S. attorneys. More Republicans called for his ouster, and one Republican strategist close to the White House told CBS News that Gonzales is "finished."

Congressman Dana Rohrbacher became the latest Republican to say Gonzales should go . . .

Well, isn’t this the sort of thing that got him fired in the first place?

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/3/15/81735/1733
The former U.S. Attorney for Seattle John McKay, speaking on Seattle's KUOW earlier today, called for an investigation of the Justice Department's handling of the firings.

McKay said that at very least, there should be an investigation by the DoJ's Inspector General, but if that was opposed, a special prosecutor should be appointed. . .

[NB: Obviously not “loyal” enough]

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2007_03_11.php#013082
[TB] Does anyone know what [Patrick Fitzgerald’s] "rating" was on the loyalty scale sent to Miers by Sampson? Imagine the #$*%storm if they wanted to fire him . . .

Fraud!

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/16/opinion/16fri1.html
[NYT] In its fumbling attempts to explain the purge of United States attorneys, the Bush administration has argued that the fired prosecutors were not aggressive enough about addressing voter fraud. It is a phony argument; there is no evidence that any of them ignored real instances of voter fraud. But more than that, it is a window on what may be a major reason for some of the firings.

In partisan Republican circles, the pursuit of voter fraud is code for suppressing the votes of minorities and poor people. . .

John McKay, one of the fired attorneys, says he was pressured by Republicans to bring voter fraud charges after the 2004 Washington governor’s race, which a Democrat, Christine Gregoire, won after two recounts. . . Before David Iglesias of New Mexico was fired, prominent New Mexico Republicans reportedly complained repeatedly to Karl Rove about Mr. Iglesias’s failure to indict Democrats for voter fraud. . .

There is no evidence of rampant voter fraud in this country. Rather, Republicans under Mr. Bush have used such allegations as an excuse to suppress the votes of Democratic-leaning groups. They have intimidated Native American voter registration campaigners in South Dakota with baseless charges of fraud. They have pushed through harsh voter ID bills in states like Georgia and Missouri, both blocked by the courts, that were designed to make it hard for people who lack drivers’ licenses — who are disproportionately poor, elderly or members of minorities — to vote. Florida passed a law placing such onerous conditions on voter registration drives, which register many members of minorities and poor people, that the League of Women Voters of Florida suspended its registration work in the state.

The claims of vote fraud used to promote these measures usually fall apart on close inspection, as Mr. McKay saw. Missouri Republicans have long charged that St. Louis voters, by which they mean black voters, registered as living on vacant lots. But when The St. Louis Post-Dispatch checked, it found that thousands of people lived in buildings on lots that the city had erroneously classified as vacant.

The United States attorney purge appears to have been prompted by an array of improper political motives. Carol Lam, the San Diego attorney, seems to have been fired to stop her from continuing an investigation that put Republican officials and campaign contributors at risk. These charges, like the accusation that Mr. McKay and other United States attorneys were insufficiently aggressive about voter fraud, are a way of saying, without actually saying, that they would not use their offices to help Republicans win elections. It does not justify their firing; it makes their firing a graver offense.

A handy timeline of the “purge”

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/usa-timeline.php

Tony Snow, really squirming now

http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/002770.php
Q: The attorney general said mistakes were made in the Patriot Act, mistakes were made in the prosecutors, so how many mistakes...

SNOW: There are a lot of things going on at the Department of Justice, and the president has confidence in his attorney general....

Q: Anybody calling Senator Sununu? What's your direct response to him?

SNOW: We're disappointed. . .

Q: Tony, in the email traffic, loyalty came down as a criteria for employment as a US attorney. Does the president believe that loyalty to him and his administration is an important criteria?

SNOW: No, the criteria -- and I don't want to be a fact witness. I think you have to go back and take a look at the emails. I'm not sure that the characterization is accurate, but you're going to have to ask the person who wrote the email --- and that would be Kyle Sampson -- what he meant by it. . . .

http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/002773.php
Q The President said, "I've heard those allegations about political decision-making; it's just not true." How can he say that when he hasn't seen all the emails, emails continue to come out, and of those that have already come out, some of them clearly seem to show that at some level, at least, there was political decision-making?

MR. SNOW: I'm not -- how would you define "political decision-making"?

Q Well, decision-making that involves politics.

Q How would you define it, Tony?

MR. SNOW: Well, it's a loaded term. I mean, I think what the President -- what the President is saying is that there is no -- that in evaluating U.S. attorneys, this is based on performance. And the important thing to do -- and furthermore, the Department of Justice made recommendations that the President has accepted. Also keep in mind, the President has the authority to remove people and put other folks in the job. That is at his discretion. That's presidential power.

Q But is he saying that he was so in the loop, then, that he definitely knew there was nothing political, or was he, in fact, removed, as you indicated this morning?

MR. SNOW: No, I think -- again, what the President has -- the Department of Justice has made recommendations, they've been approved. And it's pretty clear that these things are based on performance and not on sort of attempts to do political retaliation, if you will. . . .

Q Do you think the White House made any mistakes in this whole matter of the discussions over the firings? And particular, I'm wondering if Attorney General Gonzales was making statements to members of Congress, beginning in January, that later proved to be not exactly in line with the facts, weren't people in the White House aware of that?

MR. SNOW: I'm not going to get into extensive sort of fact witnessing . . .

Lots more: http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/10219.html

Why do people with nothing to hide maintain off-the books email accounts?

http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/002771.php
A number of readers have pointed out that Karl Rove's deputy at the White House, Scott Jennings, used an outside domain, gwb43.com, for his emails. The domain, it turns out, is owned by the Republican National Committee.

Now Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington has sent a letter to House government reform committee Chairman Henry Waxman (D-CA) requesting an investigation of whether the White House has been violating the Presidential Records Act -- in an attempt to keep certain correspondence away from prying eyes.

Jennings use of the RNC's email "raises serious questions about whether the White House was trying to deliberately evade its responsibilities under the PRA, which directs the president to take all necessary steps to maintain presidential records to provide a full accounting of all activities during his tenure," says CREW.

And there's evidence that Jennings' use of an outside domain was a pattern in Rove's office. CREW points out that Karl Rove's former assistant Susan Ralston also frequently used outside domains to communicate to her old boss, Jack Abramoff. . . .

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/blog/2007/03/15/BL2007031501053.html
[Dan Froomkin] This raises all sorts of questions. I put four of them to a White House spokesman yesterday, but haven't gotten a response.

The questions:

1) Does White House policy allow White House staffers to use non-White House e-mail addresses for official White House business? Does it prohibit it? What is the policy?

2) Would these e-mails be treated any differently from official White House e-mails when it comes to archiving or subpoena purposes?

3) Does it create either impropriety or the appearance of impropriety that gwb43.com is a domain owned by the Republican National Committee?

4) Do other White House staffers regularly use non-White House e-mail accounts for White House business, and if so, why?

Since then, several readers have e-mailed me with their own questions and comments. So I've added four more, passed those along as well, and still no response:

5) Does non-White House e-mail fulfill security requirements for White House communications?

6) If other non-White House e-mail accounts are used, who are the providers for all of the other accounts? (Any others besides the RNC?)

7) Does White House policy allow White House staffers to use non-White House e-mail addresses from their computers, even for non-official business? I'm told that during the Clinton administration, access to external e-mail, including Web mail, was shut off from White House (eop.gov) computers. Was there a conscious change of policy by the Bush administration?

8) Have there been any recent changes in policy relating to e-mail practices, or are changes in policy contemplated?

It's my understanding that the Presidential Records Act covers staff e-mails -- no matter what domain they come from -- as long as they are generated "in the course of conducting activities which relate to or have an effect upon the carrying out of the constitutional, statutory, or other official or ceremonial duties of the President."

Swopa draws connections to the Plame cover-up

http://www.needlenose.com/node/view/3884
[Patrick Fitzgerald] . . . we advise you that we have learned that not all email of the Office of Vice President and the Executive Office of President for certain time periods in 2003 was preserved through the normal archiving process on the White House computer system.

A parade of subpoenas – and more to come. Break out the popcorn. . .

http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/002768.php

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/10217.html

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/3/15/201837/219

Here’s the thing: the Bush gang just realized what the rest of their term in office is going to look like. . . .

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/10221.html

I was wondering about this too. Just imagine

http://www.slate.com/id/2161910/fr/rss/
[Dahlia Lithwick] Nearly lost in all the hootin' and hollerin' about U.S. Attorney-gate is a delicious truth: Two of the worst offenders in this whole mess were at the top of President Bush's list to fill the U.S. Supreme Court vacancies last year. That's right, friends, had Bush had his way in the fall of 2005, we'd be looking today at a court fearlessly led by a Chief Justice Alberto Gonzales and starring an Associate Justice Harriet Miers.

Stop and savor the possibilities. . . .

Hell yeah, they should investigate this

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/10218.html
Mark Benjamin reported in Salon this week about developments at Ft. Benning, Ga., where he found the military “deploying troops [to Iraq] with serious injuries and other medical problems, including GIs who doctors have said are medically unfit for battle. Some are too injured to wear their body armor, according to medical records.” It had all the makings of yet another breathtaking scandal. Indeed, it combined some of the worst elements of the administration’s military policy — neglecting injured troops and sending unprepared soldiers into Iraq.

Regrettably, the story was largely ignored by the traditional media. Fortunately, it did not escape the attention of House Democrats. House Armed Services Committee Chairman Ike Skelton and Military Personnel Subcommittee Chairman Vic Snyder have asked the Government Accountability Office (GAO) to undertake an immediate review of allegations that wounded and injured soldiers are being sent to Iraq. . .

Surgier! Gen. Petraeus is about to ask for EVEN MORE troops

http://www.boston.com/news/nation/washington/articles/2007/03/15/general_wants_additional_troops/

The Senate fails again

http://www.slate.com/id/2162019
[Daniel Politi] The New York Times leads. . . . with the Senate voting 50-48 against a resolution that would have set a date for U.S. combat troops to begin withdrawing from Iraq. . . Many Republicans were quick to point out their vote shouldn't be seen as an endorsement of the war. . . .

Fox News, suddenly struggling for credibility

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/3/15/185038/229
[Kos] The whiners at Fox are apoplectic over the craaaaazy notion that they might be a "biased" . . .

More: http://www.variety.com/article/VR1117961187.html?categoryid=14&cs=1

http://www.mydd.com/story/2007/3/15/134624/376

What the HELL is Kucinich thinking? http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/3/15/113017/654
But what I am going to say is that FOX is a legitimate news agency that has the ability to reach out to millions of Americans . . .

Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama take a retry on their comments, quoted here yesterday, on whether homosexuality is “immoral”

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/3/15/19224/6900

http://americablog.blogspot.com/2007/03/obama-homosexuality-is-not-immoral.html

Meet Valerie Plame

http://oversight.house.gov/story.asp?id=1205

George “Macaca” Allen wants to restart his political career?

http://thinkprogress.org/2007/03/15/macaca-to-rise-again/

Theocracy watch

http://www.prospect.org/weblog/2007/03/post_3121.html
[J. Goodrich] One of the funniest things I ever saw on television was the Republican Congressman Lynn Westmoreland's inability to name all Ten Commandments on the Stephen Colbert show; funny, because Westmoreland was on the show for the very reason that he advocated wider knowledge of those commandments. . . .

Bonus item: The worsts

http://www.discourse.net/archives/2007/03/worsts.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 @ 6:15 AM

 
NO MISTAKE

Bush says he is upset about “mistakes” in the US Attorney firings

http://www.cnn.com/2007/POLITICS/03/14/fired.attorneys/index.html
President Bush said Wednesday he is "not happy" about mistakes surrounding the decision to fire eight U.S. attorneys, but his faith in his attorney general is unwavering.

"I do have confidence in AG Al Gonzales," Bush said during a joint news conference with President Felipe Calderon in Merida, Mexico. "I talked to him this morning, and we talked about his need to go up to Capitol Hill and make it very clear to members in both political parties why the Justice Department made the decision it made." . . .

[NB: This is just another way of deflecting the issue. The problem with the firings wasn’t that it was a “mistake” – getting rid of them for political reasons was the PLAN. Bush and Gonzales are trying to pretend that the problem is just a mistake in how the firings were explained and justified, which can be remedied by further explanation. What they need to be held accountable for is political pressure on the attorneys to tilt their investigations for partisan political purposes – and the FACT that they were then fired for not doing so. That wasn’t a “mistake.” It’s like saying Bush is upset by “mistakes” in the handling of the Iraq war – not that the decision to go to war itself was wrong and based on lies.]

http://www.americanprogressaction.org/progressreport/2007/03/justice.html
Yesterday, the administration provided Congress with emails between White House aides and Attorney General Alberto Gonzales's chief of staff Kyle Sampson, who resigned earlier this week. The documents "show an orchestrated effort to fire several U.S. attorneys, counter to Mr. Gonzales's previous assertions that the firings weren't instigated by the White House." . . .

"It’s flatly un-American for the law to be used as a political weapon," the Washington Post's Dan Froomkin writes. "It erodes public confidence in the justice system, and offends the American commitment to fairness." The firing of these eight U.S. attorneys "looks like a political purge, pure and simple, and President Bush and his White House are in the thick of it."

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2007_03_11.php#013059
[Josh Marshall] This article by Dan Eggen in tomorrow's Post lays out in gentle but clear and persuasive terms why Attorney General Gonzales and his Deputy, Mr. McNulty, will soon be ending their tenure at the Department of Justice. Simply put, they lied to Congress. As Eggen correctly notes, prosecutions for lying to Congress are uncommon. And the standards of proof might well be too great to sustain one. But by common sense standards it's clear that neither man testified truthfully when they answered senators' questions earlier this year.

More: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/03/14/AR2007031400519.html
In testimony on Jan. 18, Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales assured the Senate Judiciary Committee that the Justice Department had no intention of avoiding Senate input on the hiring of U.S. attorneys.

Just a month earlier, D. Kyle Sampson, who was then Gonzales's chief of staff, laid out a plan to do just that. . . .

When members of your own party start calling for your firing, that’s a tipping point

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/10201.html
[WP] Many administration defenders had harsh words for the Justice Department. Rep. F. James Sensenbrenner (R-Wis.) called the department “dysfunctional,” while Sen. John Cornyn (R-Tex.) said “the appearances are troubling” and criticized Gonzales’s handling of the issue.

“Everybody who’s appointed by the White House understands that they serve at the pleasure of the president,” said Sen. John Ensign (R-Nev.), whose home-state prosecutor was among those fired. He added that “a good leader does not just dismiss somebody for no good reason, especially if you haven’t done your job in the first place. And I don’t feel that the U.S. attorney general’s office did their job in the first place.”

Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) last week led the defense of the administration and criticized Lam. But yesterday he said on PBS’s “NewsHour With Jim Lehrer” that “if someone led us astray, they should resign, and I don’t care how high it is, anyone involved with this coverup of giving us the truth needs to step down…. I am including anybody who would mislead, deliberately mislead the Congress…. If it’s the attorney general who had a hand in it, then he has to step down.”

Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) said the handling of the U.S. Attorneys shows an “idiocy on the part of the administration.”

Sen. John Sununu (R-N.H.) said, “I certainly don’t have a lot of confidence in [Gonzales’] leadership.”

Sen. Gordon Smith (R-Ore.) said he was “not yet” calling for a resignation but added, “I think I share the feelings of many Republican senators that this is a profoundly disappointing event.”

Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.) said, “I don’t think I’ve been given a clear explanation. I’ve taken all their public statements and what they said at the hearings at face value … and I’m pretty unhappy about that.” . . .

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070314/ap_on_go_ca_st_pe/gonzales_prosecutors_15
Sen. John Sununu of New Hampshire on Wednesday became the first Republican in Congress to call for Attorney General Alberto Gonzales' dismissal, hours after President Bush expressed confidence in his embattled Cabinet officer. . . .

http://www.warandpiece.com/blogdirs/005807.html
Second Republican lawmaker calls for ouster of Gonzales. . .

U.S. Rep. Darrell Issa said Wednesday he was "outraged" that executive branch officials recently gave a congressional hearing misleading and inaccurate testimony based on information that both the Department of Justice and the White House knew to be untrue. . . He said that if Attorney General Alberto Gonzales had any role in false information being given to Congress, "he should not be able to continue in his job.” . . .

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/14/washington/14attorneys.html
[T]wo Republicans, who spoke anonymously so they could share private conversations with senior White House officials, said top aides to Mr. Bush, including Fred F. Fielding, the new White House counsel, were concerned that the controversy had so damaged Mr. Gonzales’s credibility that he would be unable to advance the White House agenda on national security matters, including terrorism prosecutions.

“I really think there’s a serious estrangement between the White House and Alberto now,” one of the Republicans said. . . .

Mr. Rove and Joshua B. Bolten, the chief of staff, were said to be increasingly concerned that the controversy could damage Mr. Bush.

“They’re taking it seriously,” said the other of the two Republicans who spoke about the White House’s relationship with Mr. Gonzales. “I think Rove and Bolten believe there is the potential for erosion of the president’s credibility on this issue.”

More: http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/3/14/174618/070

http://www.talkleft.com/story/2007/3/14/22403/4676
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., predicted Wednesday that Gonzales would soon be out. . . . "I think he is gone. I don't think he'll last long," Reid said in an interview with Nevada reporters. Asked how long, Reid responded: "Days."

Don’t stop with Gonzales!

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/blog/2007/03/14/BL2007031401330.html
[Dan Froomkin] Attorney General Alberto Gonzales is taking fire -- but he may also be creating a diversion.

Whether by accident or by design, his public statements are distracting journalists from elements of the prosecutor-purge scandal that lead directly to the heart of the White House.

Gonzales's inattentive management of the Justice Department and the repeated deception of Congress by senior Justice officials are certainly important issues.

But the central question before us is whether the unprecedented mid-term purge of eight U.S. attorneys was the result of their having failed to use their offices to pillory Democrats as much as the White House wanted them to.

Negligence and deceit are one thing; a policy of requiring law-enforcement officials to abuse the justice system for partisan ends is quite another. . . [read on]

http://www.mydd.com/story/2007/3/15/13944/3734
[Jonathan Singer] At the beginning of the week when Karl Rove was first implicated in the prosecutor purge scandal, making him the second of George W. Bush's closest and longest serving advisors to be caught up in the story after Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, I posited that the President would soon be faced with the decision to sacrifice one of his friends to save the other. By Monday night and early Tuesday morning, it was already becoming clear that the Justice Department (DoJ) was being set up to take the fall for this scandal, with Gonzales' chief of staff Kyle Sampson being forced to resign and Gonzales himself holding a press conference to try to salvage his job -- but also to divert the media's attention in his direction. In Wednesday morning's papers, Republicans close to the Bush administration were already leaking information about the newly growing divide between the President and his Attorney General. By this afternoon, the first Republican Senator had openly called for Gonzales to be fired.

Now, courtesy of a number of different newspaper reports that will hit stands Thursday morning, we can see that the White House is ramping up its effort to distance itself from Gonzales and shift blame in his direction . . .

http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/002760.php
[Paul Kiel] Alberto Gonzales' chief of staff Kyle Sampson was supposedly fired because he's not a good communicator -- namely, he failed to tell others at the Justice Department that he had been consulting the White House for nearly two years about the firing of U.S. attorneys before it happened. Because Sampson didn't spread the word, the story goes, Justice Department officials gave false information to Congress. But it's apparent that Sampson wasn't the only one with knowledge of his contacts with the White House. . .

[T]here's somebody else who knew: Monica Goodling, the Justice Department's liaison to the White House.

The emails show Goodling going back and forth with Sampson and Rove's deputy Scott Jennings about how to install Griffin without kicking up too much fuss. In an August 18th email (which has Jennings cc'ed), Goodling writes that they have a "senator prob" with Griffin's possible nomination -- meaning that one of Arkansas' senators had raised an objection to Griffin's nomination. That's followed by a paragraph brainstorming how to get Griffin in anyway.

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