FRIED RICE

Okay, Condi. Your turn. First, the lies

http://thinkprogress.org/2007/04/29/rice-un-weapons-inspectors/
In his new book, former CIA Director George Tenet alleges that there was “never a serious debate that I know of within the administration about the imminence of the Iraq threat,” suggesting the administration had made up its mind to go to war from an early stage.

On CNN’s Late Edition, Condoleezza Rice responded, “We all thought that the intelligence case was strong,” adding that even “the U.N weapons inspectors [thought] Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction.” . . . In fact, U.N. weapons inspectors declared weeks before the invasion that Hussein did not possess WMD. The inspectors publicly lambasted consistently false and misleading U.S. intelligence leading up to the war . . .

http://www.juancole.com/2007/04/rice-bush-didnt-want-war-condi-rice-on.html
WOLF BLITZER: Because you remember Paul O'Neill, the first Treasury Secretary, where he wrote in his first book, The Price of Loyalty with Ron Suskind, and what Ron Suskind later wrote in his own book, The One Percent Solution, that the Bush Administration came in with a mindset to deal with what they called unfinished business with Saddam Hussein.

SECRETARY RICE: That is simply not true. . . .

[1999] “He was thinking about invading Iraq in 1999,” said author and journalist Mickey Herskowitz. “It was on his mind. He said to me: ‘One of the keys to being seen as a great leader is to be seen as a commander-in-chief.’ And he said, ‘My father had all this political capital built up when he drove the Iraqis out of Kuwait and he wasted it.’ He said, ‘If I have a chance to invade….if I had that much capital, I’m not going to waste it. I’m going to get everything passed that I want to get passed and I’m going to have a successful presidency.” . . .

[2000] OSAMA SIBLANI: Yes, when he was running for election in May of 2000 when he was a governor. He told me just straight to my face, among 12 or maybe 13 republicans at that time here in Michigan at the hotel. I think it was on May 17, 2000, even before he became the nominee for the Republicans. He told me that he was going to take him out, when we talked about Saddam Hussein in Iraq. . .

[January 2001] PAUL O’NEILL: '"The hour almost up, Bush had assignments for everyone ... Rumsfeld and [Joint Chiefs chair Gen. H. Hugh] Shelton, he said, 'should examine our military options.' That included rebuilding the military coalition from the 1991 Gulf War, examining 'how it might look' to use U.S. ground forces in the north and the south of Iraq ... Ten days in, and it was about Iraq."

http://thinkprogress.org/2007/04/29/rice-afghanistan-attack/
This evening, 60 Minutes will air its discussion with former CIA Director George Tenet. In one exchange, Tenet elaborates on a briefing that he and his former aide Cofer Black delivered to then-National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice in July 2001 warning of an “urgent threat” from al Qaeda. In the 60 Minutes interview, Tenet says this is the message he delivered to Rice two months prior to 9/11:

We need to consider immediate action inside Afghanistan now. We need to move to the offensive.

On CBS’s Face the Nation, a perplexed and stunned Rice said, “The idea of launching preemptive strikes into Afghanistan in July of 2001, this is a new fact.” Rice then said, “I don’t know what we were supposed to preemptively strike in Afghanistan. Perhaps somebody can ask that.” . . .

[Faiz] Note to Rice: The intelligence community was trying to tell you to take the action President Clinton took — that is, make an effort to kill [Bin Laden]

Next, the stonewall

http://thehill.com/leading-the-news/rice-will-not-comply-with-house-subpoena-2007-04-29.html
U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice made it clear Sunday that she does not plan to comply with a subpoena that the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee authorized this week.

Panel Chairman Henry Waxman (D-Calif.) wants Rice to testify on the administration’s false claim that Iraq was seeking to acquire uranium from Niger. The congressman feels that Rice has not been responsive enough to repeated written requests for information on the issue.

However, the Secretary of State, when asked by ABC’s George Stephanopoulos why she would not comply with the subpoena to make her case, said that at issue is a separation of powers issue. . .

“I respect the oversight role of Congress, and I’m perfectly willing to continue to try to answer whatever questions Chairman Waxman may have about this very thoroughly investigated issue,” Rice said on CBS’ “Face the Nation.” . . .

“Since then, I have received two additional letters,” Waxman said Wednesday. “The gist of the letters is that the Secretary either didn’t know about the forged evidence or forgot what she knew. Her staff has also suggested that the Secretary is too busy to answer these questions.”

More: http://www.progressivedailybeacon.com/more.php?page=opinion&id=1526

Count your blessings that she’s such a terrible liar

http://www.firedoglake.com/2007/04/29/so-much-for-that-imminent-threat-talking-point/
No wonder Condi Rice is working so hard to avoid the subpoena from Waxman's committee for her testimony (despite having time to tape three Sunday Talking Head shows this morning). From ABC's This Week:

RICE: The question was…how long were you going to wait, given that it appeared that the situation was getting worse.

GEORGE S.: Well, looking back, do you think that Iraq posed an imminent threat to the United States?

RICE: I think that…uh…an imminent threat? Certainly Iraq posed a threat, and the question was, was it going to get worse over time, or was it going to get better?

[Christy Hardin Smith] So…that would be a no, then? Keeping all those excuses straight is hard work. . . .

Deep thinker

http://politicalwire.com/archives/2007/04/29/quote_of_the_day.html
"Look, not everything went right. This is a very difficult circumstance. There were some things that went right and some things that went wrong. And you know what, we’ll have a chance to look at that in history. And I will have a chance to reflect on that when I have a chance to write my book."

-- Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice, interviewed by CNN

“Totally dysfunctional”

http://abcnews.go.com/ThisWeek/Video/videoLogin?id=3097795
[Fareed Zakaria] What you have to now realize is something we should have realized much earlier, which is that this administration, despite its reputation for competence, is basically, totally dysfunctional. At the level of the warring between Colin Powell and Rumsfeld, the freelancing of Vice President Cheney, the inability of the National Security Council under Rice to perform the core function of the National Security Council, which is to bring these disagreements to the floor, force the President to make a decision, then drive that decision down . . . . [The Tenet book is] a basic story of an extraordinary combination of incompetence and arrogance.

Rice’s successor at NSC also seems to have trouble handling the job

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/30/washington/30hadley.html
Stephen J. Hadley would be the first to tell you he does not have star power. But Mr. Hadley, the bespectacled, gray-haired, exceedingly precise Washington lawyer who is President Bush’s national security adviser, is in the market for someone who does — with the hope of saving Iraq.

Mr. Hadley is interviewing candidates, including military generals, for a new high-profile job that people in Washington are calling the war czar. The official (Mr. Hadley, ever cautious, prefers “implementation and execution manager”) would brief Mr. Bush every morning on Iraq and Afghanistan, then prod cabinet secretaries into carrying out White House orders.

It is the kind of task — a little bit of internal diplomacy and a lot of head-knocking, fortified by direct access to the president — that would ordinarily fall to Mr. Hadley himself. . . .

“What we need,” he said in a recent interview, “is someone with a lot of stature within the government who can make things happen.”

Even so, the idea that the national security adviser is subcontracting responsibility for the nation’s most pressing foreign policy crisis — and must recruit someone of stature to get the attention of the cabinet — is provoking criticism of Mr. Hadley himself, and how he has navigated the delicate internal politics of a White House famous for its feuding.

“Steve Hadley is an intelligent, capable guy, but I don’t think this reflects very well on him,” said David J. Rothkopf, author of “Running the World,” a book about the National Security Council. “I wouldn’t even call it a Hail Mary pass. It’s kind of a desperation move.”

Mr. Rothkopf sees the new position as “a tactic to separate the national security adviser from Iraq” — a way to save Mr. Hadley’s reputation. Ivo Daalder, a former Clinton administration official who is co-writing a book on national security advisers, said the proposal “raises profound questions” about Mr. Hadley’s “ability to put heads together and make sure that the president’s wishes are in fact his commands.” . .

That is one reason the war czar proposal has left some in Washington scratching their heads. At a recent press conference, Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates described it this way: “This is what Steve Hadley would do if Steve Hadley had the time.”

But Mr. Daalder, the Brookings scholar, was mystified. “If Hadley doesn’t have time for this,” he asked, ‘’what does he have time for? . . .”

Meanwhile, rewarded with a promotion to Sect’y of State, Rice has accomplished NOTHING (thanks to Buzzflash for the link)

http://americablog.blogspot.com/2007/04/condis-star-fades-as-us-policy.html
[Sydney Morning Herald] For all the razzle-dazzle of Rice's first year as Secretary of State, it is hard to think of any real and substantial achievements. Her "transformational diplomacy" in the Middle East has achieved virtually nothing. None of the region's leaders, it seems, takes her seriously. Bush's democracy project, which Rice embraced so enthusiastically, is virtually dead and buried.

And there are no good signs that any peace talks of any kind between Israel and the Palestinians are likely in the foreseeable future, despite Rice's frantic shuttle diplomacy in the region last month. Her decline mirrors the disintegration of the Bush Administration. . . .

The damning fact that Tenet’s book confirms: the Bush gang was determined to go after Iraq, well before 9-11, and they only wanted to find an excuse for doing so. Tenet says that there was no serious debate about the wisdom of going to war – it was a foregone conclusion.

But here’s the revealing story, c/o Digby: surrounded by tough guys telling him he had to go to war, who did Bush talk to for help in making the decision? And who DIDN’T he talk to?

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2007/04/consulting-experts-by-digby-via-kevin-i.html

Even by the Bush gang’s own “legal standards,” more than a fifth of those held at Guantanamo shouldn’t be there and ought to be released. Why the unconscionable delay?

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/4/29/171118/276

How’s that Iraqi national unification coming along?

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/29/AR2007042901728.html
A department of the Iraqi prime minister's office is playing a leading role in the arrest and removal of senior Iraqi army and national police officers, some of whom had apparently worked too aggressively to combat violent Shiite militias, according to U.S. military officials in Baghdad.

Since March 1, at least 16 army and national police commanders have been fired, detained or pressured to resign; at least nine of them are Sunnis, according to U.S. military documents shown to The Washington Post. . . .

Stuck

http://www.slate.com/id/2165267/fr/rss/
[Jesse Stanchak] The WP, meanwhile, argues that no matter what the facts on the ground are, political realities at home make it virtually impossible for most Republicans to break ranks with the White House on the war. The WP reports that Republican members are finding the fervor of the pro-war Republican base makes it hard to have anything but unflagging support for the war, no matter what independent voters may think. . . .

More: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/29/AR2007042900948.html

Republicans are facing a train wreck in 2008

http://politicalwire.com/archives/2007/04/29/polls_predict_more_democratic_victories.html
"Private House Democratic polls of the 50 most competitive congressional districts project a gain of 9 to 11 seats in the 2008 elections that would be an unprecedented further surge by the party after its 2006 gain of 30 seats to win control of the House," Robert Novak reports. . . .

http://www.mydd.com/story/2007/4/29/18103/8427
“a toxic climate” . . . a "poisonous" environment. . . [read on]

More: http://www.firedoglake.com/2007/04/29/late-nite-fdl-the-incredible-shrinking-right/

“The Investigated Investigator”

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/29/AR2007042901256.html
When Special Counsel Scott J. Bloch put his obscure federal agency at the center of one of the furthest-reaching political investigations in the nation last week, it surprised many, but for different reasons than one might expect.

Bloch and the Office of Special Counsel aim to learn whether officials from Karl Rove on down used federal time and resources for Republican politicking, or pressured federal employees into doing the same. The team will also pursue allegations that David C. Iglesias was fired as U.S. attorney of New Mexico for his reluctance to undertake politically motivated cases and for absences related to his service as a Navy reservist.

Bloch has spent most of his tenure under investigation himself due to allegations of illegal personnel practices -- and he would be investigating the executive branch at the same time that it is investigating him. . .

http://www.bradblog.com/?p=4477
On HBO's Real Time Friday night Bill Maher was going over the basics of the US Attorney scandal with former New Mexico US Attorney David Iglesias . . .

Iglesias: What they wanted me to do was come up with some bogus prosecutions with no evidence of voter fraud. That's number one. And number two, they wanted me to rush indictments against democrats who were engaging in corrupt activities. I couldn't do that because the case wasn't ready. It's that simple.

We’re starting to see a pattern: backs against the wall, the Bush gang has three approaches to Congressional subpoenas – ignore them, fight them, or respond to them in a nonresponsive manner, editing and selecting what they will or won’t release. What can Congress do about it?

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/4/28/184224/780

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- posted by Nick Burbules @ 6:29 AM

 
THE BEGINNING OF THE END

Signs of progress?

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/29/world/middleeast/29reconstruct.html
In a troubling sign for the American-financed rebuilding program in Iraq, inspectors for a federal oversight agency have found that in a sampling of eight projects that the United States had declared successes, seven were no longer operating as designed because of plumbing and electrical failures, lack of proper maintenance, apparent looting and expensive equipment that lay idle.

The United States has previously admitted, sometimes under pressure from federal inspectors, that some of its reconstruction projects have been abandoned, delayed or poorly constructed. But this is the first time inspectors have found that projects officially declared a success — in some cases, as little as six months before the latest inspections — were no longer working properly. . . .

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/28/washington/28prexy.html
The Bush administration will not try to assess whether the troop increase in Iraq is producing signs of political progress or greater security until September, and many of Mr. Bush’s top advisers now anticipate that any gains by then will be limited, according to senior administration officials.

In interviews over the past week, the officials made clear that the White House is gradually scaling back its expectations for the government of Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki. The timelines they are now discussing suggest that the White House may maintain the increased numbers of American troops in Iraq well into next year.

That prospect would entail a dramatically longer commitment of frontline troops, patrolling the most dangerous neighborhoods of Baghdad . . .

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2007_04_22.php#013883
[David Kurtz] Don't be fooled by the subdued tone and subtle nuance of David Sanger's front page article in this morning's New York Times on the "New Way Forward" in Iraq. It is a milestone in the Bush Administration's public spin of the war, marking the first official acknowledgment that the surge and all the attendant fuss were nothing more than an elaborate stop-gap intended to buy time so that the colossal failure of the President's foreign policy can be pawned off on the next president . . .

How it all began

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/27/AR2007042700550.html
White House and Pentagon officials, and particularly Vice President Cheney, were determined to attack Iraq from the first days of the Bush administration, long before the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, and repeatedly stretched available intelligence to build support for the war, according to a new book by former CIA director George J. Tenet. . .

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/chi-0704271182apr28,1,1064630.story
The CIA warned the Bush White House seven months before the 2003 Iraq invasion that the United States could face a thicket of bad consequences, starting with "anarchy and the territorial breakup" of the country, former CIA Director George Tenet writes in a new book. . . .

More: http://www2.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2007_04/011209.php

Quick! Look over here! No, not there, over HERE!

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/10643.html
[Steve Benen] * The good news: “The Pentagon announced Friday the capture of one of al-Qaida’s most senior and most experienced operatives, an Iraqi who was trying to return to his native country when he was captured.”

* The bad news: the terrorist was actually captured late last year, but the announcement wasn’t made until “the exact moment when Democrats are mounting their strongest challenge to Bush’s foreign policy.”

Max Cleland nails it

http://atrios.blogspot.com/2007_04_22_archive.html#3726451286664387745
BLITZER: All this happening as the battle over Iraq, funding for the war, and a time line for withdrawal, raging here in Washington with Congress and the White House at an impasse right now.

Joining us now, the Vietnam veteran, the former Democratic Senator, Max Cleland. . . .

MAX CLELAND (D), FORMER U.S. SENATOR: Well, it reminds me of Vietnam, quite frankly. The -- the essence of what we're seeing in Iraq is what we saw in Vietnam, that unless you have the political support of the people there, they're not going to support really fighting for their own country.

It's not until we get out will they really take it upon themselves to defend themselves, particularly against al Qaeda. . .

So, we are part of the problem, not part of the solution. That's why, after five years of war, it's painfully obvious that there is no strategy to win. There is no strategy to end this war. And so the war is essentially unwinnable and untenable militarily. And that's why we have to get out. . . .

BLITZER: Here's what the president said today about the Democrats' desires to include a timeline for withdrawal in the war funding bill.

GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: If the Congress wants to test my will as to whether or not I'll accept a timetable for withdrawal, I won't accept one. . . .

CLELAND: Well, this is not a test of the president's will, you know? . . .

BLITZER: Senator Cleland, the current U.S. commander in Iraq, General David Petraeus, has been in Washington all week. He's appealing to everyone for patience, to give him some time, to see if this new strategy can work. . .

CLELAND: Time? This is the fifth year of this war. As a matter of fact, next Tuesday is the anniversary of President Bush standing up on an aircraft carrier, playing dress-up with his flight suit, which he never wore in combat, trying to be the war hero he never was, and saying major combat over, mission accomplished. And later on he said, "Bring 'em on." Well, they came on, surprise, surprise. Have killed over 3,300 young Americans and wounded over 30,000, and over half a million Iraqis have died.

I don't want that kind of patience. It's five years into this thing now. It's time to end it, and it's time to move on and worry about al Qaeda. That's the real threat to this country.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/28/AR2007042801167.html
President Bush recently said that "there's a lot of differences" between the current war in Iraq and the Vietnam War.

As fighting in Iraq enters its fifth year, an increasing number of experts in foreign policy and national strategy are arguing that the biggest difference may be that the Iraq war will inflict greater damage to U.S. interests than Vietnam did.

"In terms of the consequences of failure, the stakes are much bigger than Vietnam," said former defense secretary William S. Cohen. "The geopolitical consequences are . . . potentially global in scope." . . .

After Bush’s veto, what will the Dems do with the Iraq funding bill?

http://www.needlenose.com/node/view/3991

The beginning of the end?

http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2007/04/28/sea_change/index.html

Part of Donald Rumsfeld’s vision was to put more and more intelligence operations under military control: we saw the consequences of this with Doug Feith’s renegade “Office of Special Plans.” Well, Rumsfeld and Feith are gone – but the policy of undermining independent intelligence analysis rolls on

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/4/27/124915/840

The two roiling scandals confronting the Bush gang right now – the pressure on US Attorneys to pursue partisan investigations on the eve of the 2006 elections and replacing those who wouldn’t play ball; and the widespread meetings with government agencies to give them a rundown on Republican electoral prospects (clearly inviting them to use their offices to help the party) – were, when you think about it, mad, desperate acts, trying to use every lever of govt power to avoid defeat. In hindsight, they show how frantic Rove and the others were to prevent a Democratic takeover. They saw the polls and knew that they had to pull out all the stops to hold onto a few more GOP seats in Congress. Assuming they would win, they could keep these maneuvers from ever coming to light. If not, they knew what would ensue (and has): investigations and a level of scrutiny that they’ve never had to deal with before. They rolled the dice, and lost big time

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/10642.html
[Steve Benen] [O]fficials are confronted with questions about an unprecedented initiative from Karl Rove’s office to give blatantly partisan campaign briefings to 15 federal agencies, on government property, shortly before the 2006 elections, despite a federal law prohibiting these kinds of activities. What’s the new excuse? Take a wild guess. . . .

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/10635.html
[Steve Benen] Rove’s office clearly violated the law and got caught. For another, the White House can’t seem to come up with a coherent defense for it. . . .

With this in mind, consider Dana Perino’s response to an easy question on this.

Q: Okay, on the political briefings, there seems — there’s no shortage of political information out there. Why does the White House feel it’s necessary to give these employees these briefings in the first place?

PERINO: I think that’s kind of ridiculous question. I mean, there’s — sorry, I usually don’t say those things, but I do think that that one was. Look, there is nothing wrong with political appointees providing other political appointees with an informational briefing about the political landscape in which they are working….. [T]he reason that you’re here working for the President is that you want to support his policies and his agenda, and so it’s good to get information from time to time. . .

According to Perino, even asking is “ridiculous.” But for the acting press secretary, the desperation was just getting started.

Q: Well, I’m trying to get to the motivation for this, and it’s 20 briefings –

PERINO: The motivation is to provide people information.

Q: But why? Why do they need this information –

PERINO: Why are you asking me these questions? You’re asking information, as well. . .

Please. This is a special kind of stupid.

Meanwhile, over at DOJ . . .

http://www.realcities.com/mld/krwashington//17145453.htm
Senior congressional aides who have seen unedited internal documents say the Bush administration considered firing at least a dozen U.S. attorneys before settling on eight late last year.

The four who escaped dismissal came from states that the White House considered political battlegrounds in the last presidential election: Missouri, Minnesota, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. . .

The latest revelation could provide new fodder to critics who contend that politics, not policy or performance, played the determining role in the firing decisions. . . .

http://scoop.epluribusmedia.org/story/2007/4/27/10272/3887
Quick updates on the dust flying in Minnesota: Late last night, McClatchy's Marisa Taylor and Margaret Talev broke the news that Attorney General Gonzales's then Chief of Staff Kyle Sampson had fingered Heffelfinger for "removal" . . .

According to Minnesota Star Tribune reporters Dan Browning and Brady Averill . . . Heffelinger reacted angrily to the news . .

http://www.boston.com/news/nation/washington/articles/2007/04/28/memo_describes_installing_unconfirmed_prosecutors/
More than a year before the Bush administration has said it first considered firing US attorneys, a top Justice Department official asked lawyers to determine how the administration could temporarily fill vacant US attorney positions with appointees who had not been confirmed by the Senate . . .

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/27/AR2007042702112.html
The White House told a Republican member of Congress last summer about its plans to fire a U.S. attorney in Arkansas and replace him with a former aide to presidential adviser Karl Rove, but it did not tell Democratic lawmakers . . .

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070427/ap_on_go_ca_st_pe/fired_prosecutors;_ylt=AoGrBNNsbCvaYDjTvkUNiLus0NUE
The U.S. attorney in Arkansas warned the Justice Department five months before he and seven federal prosecutors were fired that "there may be some stink about this down the road" — in part because of White House involvement. . . .

Well, they can no longer claim that no laws were broken

http://www.anonymousliberal.com/2007/04/monica-goodling-instructs-doj-officials.html
[Anonymous Liberal] Another Friday, another document dump from the DOJ. I haven't had time to look through very many of the documents, but one of the first ones I came across was this one from Monica "I plead the Fifth" Goodling. Notice the instruction in boldface type . . . Yes, that's an instruction to delete documents. And notice the date: February 12, 2007. That's well after Congress began investigating this matter. . .

http://www.firedoglake.com/2007/04/28/weak-link-in-the-chain-of-evidence/
[Christy Hardin Smith] Suddenly, all those e-mails in the custody of the RNC take on an even more urgent context — because there may well be a number of documents which have been deleted from the DoJ included in the e-mail stream in and out of the White House political shop which were sent back and forth through the RNC servers.

And, in the context of a potential attempt to obstruct an ongoing Congressional investigation and, now, a very real question of criminal obstruction? Well, that claim of executive privilege just lost a whole lot of lustre, didn't it?

Beyond that, emptywheel has a compendium of information which still has not been provided. . . .

Here are my questions, just of the top of my head:

– Was Goodling being an obstructionist moron on her own, or was she directing the destruction of evidence under the control of the Department of Justice under someone else's direction?

– If so, whose?

– Was a similar instruction given at the White House political shop run by Rove?

– Can the White House Counsel's office be exempted from questions either, considering Harriet Miers involvement in this mess?

– How soon will Congress be given discovery of the RNC cache of e-mails? Because, the way I see it, nothing short of full disclosure is appropriate here, both for Congressional oversight and for what should now be a criminal investigation?

– Speaking of criminal investigations, is it time to discuss a special counsel investigation?

– What, exactly, was Goodling trying to hide with the deletion of all those e-mails? For whom was she hiding it?

– Should the House Judiciary Committee go foward with a grant of immunity for Goodling at this point? Can it be sufficiently narrowed to prevent interference with a criminal investigation?

– Isn't it convenient that this particular e-mail was disclosed after the House Judiciary Committee voted for Goodling's immunity? Could it be that this was strategically disclosed in order to construct a potential barrier to her testimony? If so, to whose benefit would this accrue? Who has the most to gain from silencing Goodling publicly?

– On what day and time would Mr. Rove like to testify under oath and publicly about his role in all of this? Ditto for Ms. Miers?

More: http://www.talkleft.com/story/2007/4/28/232250/039

Destroying the “Justice” Dept

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/27/AR2007042702228.html
A federal task force investigating the activities of disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff has in recent weeks been looking into whether one of Abramoff's colleagues improperly traded favors with a Justice Department lawyer, sources familiar with the Abramoff investigation said yesterday.

The lawyer, Robert E. Coughlin II, resigned on April 6 as deputy chief of staff in the Criminal Division, citing personal reasons, a department spokesman said. . . .

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2007_04_22.php#013887
[David Kurtz] To follow up on the post below about the Attorney General Awards, DOJ's highest honor, I couldn't help but notice that one of the recipients of last year's Attorney General Award for Fraud Prevention was Robert E. Coughlin, II. . . .

In September, Coughlin was honored for his work on fraud and white collar crime. By the following April, he was out because of his alleged connections to the one of the largest white collar crime investigations in DOJ's history. Only in the Gonzales Justice Department.

[NB: Quit April 6, announced April 27. Why?]

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/10650.html
And his resignation announcement was held until late on a Friday afternoon. Natch.

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2007_04_22.php#013881
The Kansas City Star's Dave Helling got a quote (sub.req.)from 'resigned' US Attorney Todd Graves.

“I value the years I spent at DOJ (Department of Justice) and the friendships I forged there. But the current environment at the Department can only be described as toxic, and I am very thankful I left…What is going on now in DC is a three-ring circus, and I don’t want to have anything to do with it.”

[Josh Marshall] Remember, today we learned for a fact what we've long suspected: that Graves, the former US Attorney from Kansas City, showed up on the DOJ's firing list not long before he 'resigned' and was replaced by Bradley Schlozman as a non-Senate-confirmed appointment under the USA Patriot Act.

The details get complicated and murky; they can be difficult to follow. But this is the big picture: it now seems clear that before those seven firings on December 7th of last year there was a series of 'soft firings' of US Attorneys through much of 2006.

And Schlozman was a prime architect of the Bush administration's 'vote fraud' scam -- which we'll be discussing more next week.

The wrong story

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/27/AR2007042702190.html
The Justice Department is removing political appointees from the hiring process for rookie lawyers and summer interns, amid allegations that the Bush administration had rigged the programs in favor of candidates with connections to conservative or Republican groups . . .

[NB: The question that needs to be answered is why they were ever part of the process in the first place, and what their role was. Or is this change only for appearance’s sake?]

More: http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/4/28/82659/2691

Coming attractions

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2007_04_22.php#013885
[Law.com] For the moment, Gonzales' days will be spent in much the same way they have been for most of the spring: preparing to defend himself before Congress. With the May 10 hearing before Conyers' committee fast approaching, the attorney general is certain to face new questions from members of Congress armed with information gleaned from testimony by McNulty, Moschella, Comey and possibly Goodling. As if that wasn't enough, Gonzales must also prepare for a May 9 Senate Appropriations Committee hearing, in which he'll be asked detailed questions about his management of the rest of the 110,000-person department.

More to come: http://www.firedoglake.com/2007/04/28/oversight-the-coming-attractions-may/

I hope you’re enjoying this

http://www2.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2007_04/011210.php
[Kevin Drum] Michael Finnegan writes in the LA Times today that the current political landscape for Republicans is so toxic that the party is having trouble finding good candidates to contest even winnable House seats in 2008. . . .

The GOP’s war against the Voting Rights Act began almost immediately after it was passed in 1965. And it continues today

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2007/04/long-term-strategery-by-digby-rick.html

Meanwhile, more trouble for Rice’s State Dept

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/10651.html
[Steve Benen] In 2004, the State Department’s report on global terrorism showed a decline in international attacks, a result which was hailed by administration officials as proof of the efficacy of the president’s strategy. Soon after, we learned that the State Department cooked the books and undercounted — by half — the number of people killed in terrorist attacks.

In 2005, the State Department decided it didn’t want to publish the report on global terrorism anymore.

The good news is, due to an outcry, the document is back. The bad news is . . .

DC Madam

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/27/AR2007042702497.html
Randall L. Tobias, the deputy secretary of state responsible for U.S. foreign aid, abruptly resigned yesterday after he was asked about an upscale escort service allegedly involved in prostitution, U.S. government sources said. . . .

More: http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/10648.html

Meanwhile, Powerline and other reality-challenged conservative blog sites are calling the Bush administration “extraordinarily scandal-free”

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2007_04_22.php#013888

Wasn’t the ONLY way for Wolfowitz to handle the job situation of his girlfriend to recuse himself entirely and turn it over to an independent administrator? Why was he negotiating her status?

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/28/washington/29wolfowitzcnd.html

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/27/AR2007042702556.html
A World Bank committee investigating president Paul D. Wolfowitz has nearly completed a report that it plans to give the institution's governing board, concluding that he breached ethics rules when he engineered a pay raise for his girlfriend, three senior bank officials said Friday.

Friday evening, the committee was debating whether to explicitly recommend that Wolfowitz resign. . . .

The official media, and the bloggers

http://atrios.blogspot.com/2007_04_22_archive.html#8707397242557685653

More: http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2007/04/truths-consequences-by-digby-since.html

Sunday talk show line-ups

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/4/28/231110/760
* Meet the Press: Sen. Joe Biden (D-DE).

* Face the Nation: SoS Condi Rice; Rep. John Murtha (D-PA); Politico's Roger Simon.

* This Week: SoS Condi Rice; Sen. Russ Feingold (D-WI); Sen. Sam Brownback (R-KS); actress Natalie Portman; roundtable of ABC's Martha Raddatz, Newsweek's Fareed Zakaria and George Will.

* Fox News Sunday: Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) and Cindy McCain; remembering ex-MPAA chief Jack Valenti.

* Late Edition: SoS Condi Rice; Rep. Adam Putnam (R-FL); Rep. Jane Harman (D-CA); Iraqi FM Hoshyar Zebari; European Commiss. Pres. Jose Manuel Barroso; a roundtable of Dana Bash, Joe Johns, and Ed Henry

Rush Limbaugh crosses the Imus line

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/horsesmouth/2007/04/rush_limbaugh_p.php

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2007/04/bulletproof-by-digby-i-hear-from-john.html

Bonus item: Maybe they should just permanently rename Fox News as “Faux News”

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/10639.html

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

I don't get anything personally out of this project, except the satisfaction of doing it (I don't run ads, etc). The credit really all goes to the people whose material I copy and redistribute. But if I do have a "mission," it is to get this information into the hands of as many people as I can.***
- posted by Nick Burbules @ 8:40 AM

 
COMPOUNDING THE ERRORS

You can’t even use the term “bait and switch” any more. Having lied to us about the kind of war Iraq was going to be (quick, easy, cheap, and decisive), the Bush gang has been spending years trying to get the American people to accept that the ACTUAL war we have been given is long, difficult, and costly. Moreover, they’ve tried to rewrite history to pretend that this is the kind of war they were always talking about (can you say “Mission Accomplished”?) – and in the latest act of jaw-gaping absurdity, have tried to paint the 2006 elections as a “mandate” for a surge that has turned into an open-ended escalation. While all the main architects of this nightmare have since moved on to greener pastures, the hard core of true believers left behind can only articulate war policy in deep, serious arguments like, “if we leave, the terrorists win” or “we have to fight them there so we don’t have to fight them here.”

The rest of us are left like people sitting helplessly in the back seat of a car being driven by a reckless, stubborn driver, careening forward in the night with the headlights turned off. Stop! We’d like to get out, please!

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070426/ap_on_go_ca_st_pe/us_iraq_military;_ylt=ApnzTTX4iqJa9BtBy4QZY9ys0NUE
The U.S. military commander in Iraq says the war effort may well get harder before it gets easier . . .

Speaking as the Senate was passing legislation to start bringing home U.S. forces in October, Gen. David Petraeus said the war will require "an enormous commitment" by the United States. . . .

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/26/AR2007042602469.html
The Senate approved a $124 billion Iraq war spending bill yesterday that would force troop withdrawals to begin as early as July 1, inviting President Bush's veto even as party leaders and the White House launch talks to resolve their differences.

The 51 to 46 vote was a triumph for Democrats, who just weeks ago worried about the political wisdom of a veto showdown with the commander in chief as troops fight on the battlefield. But Democrats are hesitant no more. And now that withdrawal language has passed both houses of Congress, even Republicans acknowledge that Bush won't get the spending bill that he has demanded, one with no strings attached. . . .

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2007_04_22.php#013859
"We are one signature away from ending the Iraq War."

http://atrios.blogspot.com/2007_04_22_archive.html#6542777714078663377
[Atrios] Well, with almost all Republicans now on record voting in support of permanent war, the only thing which could prevent another big victory for Democrats in '08 is campaign consultants telling their candidates not to run on the war.

[NB: McCain and Graham skipped the vote]

We’re fighting for THIS?

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/4/26/133449/535
[LAT] The Iraqi government has refused to provide the United Nations with civilian casualty figures for its latest report on the hardships facing Iraqis, the U.N. said Wednesday, but numbers from various ministries indicate that more than 5,500 people died in the Baghdad area alone in the first three months of this year. . . [read on]

http://www.firedoglake.com/2007/04/26/everybody-knows-this-is-nowhere-except-the-president/
[WP] U.S. military commanders say a key goal of the ongoing security offensive is to buy time for Iraq's leaders to reach political benchmarks that can unite its fractured coalition government and persuade insurgents to stop fighting. . . .

Ten weeks into the security plan, even as U.S. lawmakers propose timelines for a U.S. troop withdrawal, there has been little or no progress in achieving three key political benchmarks set by the Bush administration. . . "They are all up in the air," said Ahmed Chalabi, a secular Shiite who is chairman of Iraq's Supreme National Commission for De-Baathification. "They are certainly not going to be produced in any timetable that is acceptable within the context of the current political climate in the United States." . . . [read on]

Benchmarks? http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/blog/2007/04/26/BL2007042601119.html

Wait! It gets worse

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2007_04_22.php#013856
[Josh Marshall] This is the key point: right near the beginning of this nightmare it was clear the sole remaining premise for the war was false: that is, the idea that the Iraqis would freely choose a government that would align itself with the US and its goals in the region. As the occupation continued, anti-American sentiment -- both toward the occupation and America's role in the world -- has only grown.

I would submit that virtually everything we've done in Iraq since mid-late 2003 has been an effort to obscure this fact. And our policy has been one of continuing the occupation to create the illusion that this reality was not in fact reality. In short, it was a policy of denial. . . . [read on!]

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/10630.html
[Michael Ware, CNN] “When I was in Diyala province, I interviewed a two-star general on camera for CNN, and he admitted for the first time from anyone in the military that they are now prepared to accept options other than democracy. Now, this is what this war was sold to the American public on. Yet, they are saying now democracy isn’t mandatory, it’s an option, and that they are prepared to see a government that can protect itself, give services to its people, and it doesn’t have to be democratic. . . .” [read on!]

The four-year anniversary of “Mission Accomplished”

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/10629.html

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/4/26/161426/712

Dana’s not long for this job: http://www.prospect.org/weblog/2007/04/post_3551.html

http://www.first-draft.com/2007/04/today_on_holden_10.html

Deep thinkers

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/10631.html
[Steve Benen] Today, Dana Perino repeated the same dumb argument Bush and Krauthammer like so much: “Last November, the American people voted for a change in strategy in Iraq – and the President listened. Tonight, the House of Representatives voted for failure in Iraq – and the President will veto its bill.” I wonder if these guys ever get tired of being wrong.

http://politicalwire.com/archives/2007/04/26/extra_bonus_quote_of_the_day.html
"If the standard of success is no car bombings or suicide bombings, we have just handed those who commit suicide bombings a huge victory."

-- President Bush, in an interview with Charlie Rose, explaining why the Bush administration no longer includes suicide car bombings in Iraqi casualty counts.

Cooking the books: http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/10626.html

The “puppy dog” theory:http://americablog.blogspot.com/2007/04/richard-clarke-gets-it-right.html

George Tenet does 60 Minutes, before his book comes out on Monday. Watch the fireworks

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/27/washington/27intel.html
George J. Tenet, the former director of central intelligence, has lashed out against Vice President Dick Cheney and other Bush administration officials in a new book, saying they pushed the country to war in Iraq without ever conducting a “serious debate” about whether Saddam Hussein posed an imminent threat to the United States. . . .

“There was never a serious debate that I know of within the administration about the imminence of the Iraqi threat,” Mr. Tenet writes in a devastating judgment that is likely to be debated for many years. Nor, he adds, “was there ever a significant discussion” about the possibility of containing Iraq without an invasion.

Mr. Tenet admits that he made his famous “slam dunk” remark about the evidence that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction. But he argues that the quote was taken out of context and that it had little impact on President Bush’s decision to go to war. . . .

Mr. Tenet described with sarcasm watching an episode of “Meet the Press” last September in which Mr. Cheney twice referred to Mr. Tenet’s “slam dunk” remark as the basis for the decision to go to war.

“I remember watching and thinking, ‘As if you needed me to say ‘slam dunk’ to convince you to go to war with Iraq,’ ” Mr. Tenet writes. . . .

http://www2.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2007_04/011198.php
George Tenet says he's pissed off at whoever it was who leaked his "slam dunk" comment to Bob Woodward:

The phrase "slam dunk" didn't refer to whether Saddam Hussein actually had WMDs, says Tenet; the CIA thought he did. He says he was talking about what information could be used to make that case when he uttered those words. "We can put a better case together for a public case. That's what I meant," explains Tenet. . . .

He says he doesn't know who leaked it but says there were only a handful of people in the room.

"It's the most despicable thing that ever happened to me," Tenet says. "You don't do this. You don't throw somebody overboard just because it's a deflection. Is that honorable? It's not honorable to me."

[Kevin Drum] Well....color me unconvinced. Given a couple of years to think it over, that's probably the kind of story I'd come up with too, but I think I'd try to make it more believable. Frankly, the table-pounding declaration that something is a "slam dunk" doesn't really sound like the kind of thing you'd say if you were merely agreeing that your PowerPoint presentation could use some sprucing up, does it?

But who knows. Maybe that really is the way Tenet talks. As for his belated discovery that the Bush White House doesn't always behave in honorable ways, all I can say is: I hope Tenet's take on foreign leaders was more insightful than his take on his own boss. The fact that loyalty is a one-way street with Bush the Younger is not exactly the news of the century.

More: http://www.first-draft.com/2007/04/tenet_talks.html

Condi Rice “not inclined” to honor congressional subpoena. Oh yeah?

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070426/ap_on_go_ca_st_pe/congress_subpoenas_rice;_ylt=ArxG_CszupDLsi67KifD8a6s0NUE

What next? http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/4/26/14726/4088

The power of the subpoena

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2007_04_22.php#013858
[Josh Marshall] Are you crazy to think all the recent news on Republican corruption investigations is connected to Al Gonzales and Co. not being able to obstruct them any longer? We think you're on to something. . . . [watch the video!]

More: http://www.firedoglake.com/2007/04/26/ahhh-subpoena-power-or-why-is-henry-mostly-smiling/

As Josh Marshall says, “The entire scheme has been laid out before us. The question now is whether Karl Rove will get away with it. . .”

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2007_04_22.php#013848

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/26/AR2007042602710.html
A House committee chairman asked 27 federal departments and agencies yesterday to turn over information related to White House briefings about elections or political candidates, substantially widening the scope of a congressional investigation into the administration's compliance with the law that restricts partisan political activity by government employees. . . .

More: http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/003103.php

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2007_04_22.php#013853

Another Republican congressman will resign in disgrace soon

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/25/AR2007042502707.html
The top aide to Rep. Rick Renzi (R-Ariz.) called the office of Arizona's U.S. attorney about six weeks before the prosecutor was fired, inquiring about a federal probe into the congressman's role in a land deal that benefited a former business partner and political patron. . . . [NB: boom! Bye-bye!]

The former U.S. attorney, Paul K. Charlton, told House investigators this week that his office alerted the Justice Department's headquarters about the call from Renzi's chief of staff, Brian Murray, because he considered it potentially improper. . . . The incident means that Charlton was the third of eight U.S. attorneys forced to resign last year who had reported to Justice officials that Republican members of Congress or their staffs made inappropriate overtures to their offices about politically sensitive investigations they were supervising. . . .

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2007_04_22.php#013855
[Josh Marshall] Rep. Renzi (R-AZ): Two hundred grand here, two hundred grand there ... who can keep track?

http://phoenix.bizjournals.com/phoenix/stories/2007/04/23/daily47.html
U.S. Rep. Rick Renzi, R-Ariz., could soon step down in the wake of a federal investigation into his involvement in a federal land swap deal and FBI raids of an insurance agency owned by his wife.

His resignation could come as early as Friday . . .

Meanwhile, in Florida . . .

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/4/27/41136/5838

I think it is safe to assume that Alberto Gonzales’s testimony did not put an end to the Democrats’ investigation of the US Attorney firings, the real reasons behind them, and Rove’s role in it all

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uslatest/story/0,,-6590134,00.html
The Justice Department released a list of internal documents Thursday focusing on lawmakers' concerns and media questions about the firings of eight federal prosecutors, but the department resisted congressional demands for copies of the memos. . . .

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/013854.php
Paul McNulty's predecessor, former Deputy Attorney General James Comey will appear before the House Judiciary Committee next Thursday . . .

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2007_04_22.php#013864
[Josh Marshall] As we've suggested many times over recent weeks, the US Attorney Purge story is much bigger than the eight fired US Attorneys you've already heard about. Now we have another case where a US Attorney in a key swing state was likely forced out in 2006 to be replaced by a Gonzales Justice Department flunky under the US Patriot Act. . . . .

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2007_04_22.php#013853
[Josh Marshall] Bush DOJ appointee Schlozman kicked voting rights ass in civil rights "reign of terror" at Main Justice before heading to Missouri to crack down on Dems!

Bush breaks 30%, headed in the wrong direction

http://www.dependablerenegade.com/dependable_renegade/2007/04/file_under_thud.html

I have to tell you, I am really looking forward to running against ANY of the current GOP front-runners. Their political instincts are for crap

http://www.samefacts.com/archives/terrorism_and_its_control_/2007/04/romney_not_worth_catching_bin_laden.php
In the interview, Romney also said the country would be safer by only "a small percentage" and would see "a very insignificant increase in safety" if al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden was caught because another terrorist would rise to power. "It's not worth moving heaven and earth spending billions of dollars just trying to catch one person," Romney said . . . [read on]

Bill Moyers shames the press for not doing their job (if they are even capable of being shamed)

http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2007/04/26/moyers/index.html

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/4/26/14259/0069

Bonus item: How wrong could they be?

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/tom-tomorrow/what-they-said_b_46907.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 @ 7:33 AM

 
COME ON DOWN!

I think we are about to see a shift in beltway conventional wisdom. Karl Rove, the “genius,” has been praised by friend and foe alike as the architect of Bush’s successful campaigns and the consigliere for every major Bush policy decision since then. But what we are starting to see is that his scorched-earth partisanship, his contempt for compromise, and his strategy of using every lever of government to promote a GOP political alignment have brought about a crisis for the Bush Presidency.

Soon, I think, we’ll hear Rove described as a zealot who pushed party loyalty over competence and undermined the professionalism and effectiveness of government agencies by turning them into working branches of the RNC.

One thing for sure: we are going to see Karl Rove, under oath, sitting under the hot lights before Congress, and we’re going to see those RNC emails. Then, all hell will break loose

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/25/AR2007042503046.html
White House officials conducted 20 private briefings on Republican electoral prospects in the last midterm election for senior officials in at least 15 government agencies covered by federal restrictions on partisan political activity, a White House spokesman and other administration officials said yesterday.

The previously undisclosed briefings were part of what now appears to be a regular effort in which the White House sent senior political officials to brief top appointees in government agencies on which seats Republican candidates might win or lose, and how the election outcomes could affect the success of administration policies, the officials said.

The existence of one such briefing, at the headquarters of the General Services Administration in January, came to light last month, and the Office of Special Counsel began an investigation into whether the officials at the briefing felt coerced into steering federal activities to favor those Republican candidates cited as vulnerable.

Such coercion is prohibited under a federal law, known as the Hatch Act, meant to insulate virtually all federal workers from partisan politics. In addition to forbidding workplace pressures meant to influence an election outcome, the law bars the use of federal resources -- including office buildings, phones and computers -- for partisan purposes. . . .

More: http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2007_04_22.php#013847
[Josh Marshall] Who's vulnerable, who's not and how you can use your agency's resources for the team effort -- that seems to have been the basic idea. Pretty much every department got a briefing. And oddly enough NASA too. That must have been an interesting one. . . . Then there's this fun graf on DHS ...

At the Department of Homeland Security, spokesman Russ Knocke at first said "there is no indication that any meeting on election targets, congressional districts or candidate support or assistance took place at the department." He then called back to alter that remark, saying he had no indication that such a meeting was held at department "offices." A department official said employees were briefed on "morale" but did not elaborate.

In short, there's simply no end to how deep the corruption goes. . .

http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/003081.php
When Ty Clevenger, a line attorney in the Civil Rights Division, forwarded a friend's resume to deputy division chief Bradley Schlozman, he was expecting questions about his friend's experience as a lawyer. But what Schlozman wanted to know, according to Clevenger, was whether his friend was a Republican.

Clevenger, a member of the Republican National Lawyers Association, told Schlozman that his friend was conservative. He just wasn't sure how active his friend was politically. The friend never got an interview.

It's the most direct account yet of politicization at the Justice Department. . . .

A slew of subpoenas, including one for Condi Rice

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/25/AR2007042501863.html
On a party-line vote, the committee voted 21-10 to authorize its chairman, Rep. Henry A. Waxman (D-Calif.), to issue a subpoena compelling Rice to testify May 15 on several matters . . .

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/25/AR2007042500897.html
Across Capitol Hill, the Senate Judiciary Committee approved--but did not issue -- a subpoena for Sara Taylor, the White House's political director. Taylor reports to senior adviser Karl Rove and her name has appeared on several e-mails released by the Justice Department in which White House and Justice officials discuss planning for the firings.

The e-mails show that Taylor's office was keenly interested in securing the appointment of former Rove deputy Tim Griffin to be the U.S. attorney for Little Rock. The documents show that Justice aides planned to circumvent senatorial confirmation for Griffin by using a now revoked power to appoint interim prosecutors for indefinite periods-- something Gonzales had previously assured Pryor he was not trying to do.

The House Oversight committee also authorized a subpoena to the Republican National Committee for e-mails written by White House advisers who simultaenously used RNC email accounts. Some of those e-mails have surfaced in the more than 4,000 pages of documents Justice has turned over to congressional committees. . .

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/4/25/21716/5682
[WP] Over the course of only 15 minutes today, three congressional committees will consider subpoenas for half a dozen officials from the White House and the departments of Justice and State. . . .

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-ex-probes25apr26,1,4813189.story
Congressional investigators uncovered the use of the RNC e-mail addresses by White House staffers as they looked into the role of politics in the firing of eight U.S. attorneys. The subpoena gives the RNC two weeks to produce a list of the estimated 50 to 60 White House officials who have held RNC e-mail accounts.

It also asks RNC Chairman Robert M. "Mike" Duncan to appear before the congressional committee. . . .

Monica 2.0. This could be big, folks

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/25/AR2007042500897.html
The House Judiciary Committee today overwhelmingly approved granting limited immunity from prosecution to a former top Justice Department aide in order to obtain her testimony in the investigation of the firings of eight U.S. attorneys. . . .

Gonzales will appear again at a newly scheduled hearing May 10 before the House Judiciary Committee. Before then, the panel's investigators hope that they will have secured what they consider a critical interview with Goodling, who was both a top adviser to Gonzales and Justice's liaison to the White House.

"Ms. Goodling appears to be a key witness for us, as to any possible undue influence or improper interference, and as to any internal discussions as to how forthcoming to be to Congress," Judiciary Chairman John Conyers (D-Mich.) said . . .

The committee also approved a subpoena for Goodling's testimony. Under the deal -- known in legal parlance as "limited-use immunity" -- Goodling could not be prosecuted for anything she truthfully tells Congress. . . .

Goodling was involved in many discussions of the U.S. attorney firings, including preparation for congressional testimony by McNulty and another top Justice official. Congress has received conflicting information from Justice officials about who was responsible for the dismissals, prompting Congressional Democrats' interest in Goodling's conversations with White House aides.

"She was apparently involved in crucial discussions over a two-year period with senior White House aides, and with other senior Justice officials, in which the termination list was developed, refined and finalized," Conyers said.

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/10616.html
Last night on MSNBC, fired U.S. Attorney David Iglesias said former Alberto Gonzales aide Monica Goodling is the key to understanding exactly what transpired in the prosecutor purge. “I think Monica Goodling is holding the keys to the kingdom,” Iglesias said. “I think if they get her to testify under oath with a transcript, and have her describe the process between the information flow between the White House counsel, White House and the Justice Department, I believe the picture becomes a lot clearer.” . . .

http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/003094.php
[Paul Kiel] It is likely to be weeks before the committee actually gets to interview Goodling. That's because the law requires that the Justice Department be allowed an opportunity to provide its views on immunity -- i.e. whether it might interfere with an existing or possible investigation. If the DoJ objects to giving Goodling immunity, then the committee would be forced to consider whether to defer or delay conferring immunity. And regardless of what the DoJ says, the local federal court has to approve giving Goodling immunity.

Leahy and Specter aren’t going to take Gonzales’s “I don’t recall’s” as the end of the story. No, they aren’t

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/4/25/174630/226
"You spent weeks preparing for the April 19th hearing. Yet during your testimony, in response to questions from Senators on both sides of the aisle, you often responded that you could not recall. By some counts you failed to answer more than 100 questions, by other counts more than 70, but the most conservative count had you failing to provide answers well over 60 times. . .

The questions asked by Senators should not have been a surprise. You were alerted in letters to you well in advance of last Thursday’s hearing. By letter sent April 4, you were asked to include in your written testimony a "full and complete account of the development of the plan to replace Untied States Attorneys, and all the specifics of your role in connection with that matter." That account was not included in your written testimony nor in your answers to questions at the hearing. You were also alerted in advance of the hearing, by a letter sent on April 13, that you would be asked about information derived from the staff interviews of your senior aides. You were, nevertheless, unprepared to answer those questions.

We believe the Committee and our investigation would benefit from you searching and refreshing your recollection and your supplementing your testimony by next Friday to provide the answers to the questions you could not recall last Thursday. . ."

More Republicans realize that cutting Gonzales loose is the only way to even hope to prevent a full-scale investigation into WH involvement with US Attorney scandal and the disclosure of RNC emails – which they understand, rightly, would be a killer

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/24/AR2007042402178.html

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070423/ap_on_el_pr/huckabee_ap_interview

Here’s why

http://www.freepress.org/departments/display/19/2007/2562
E-mails being sought from Karl Rove's computers, and recent revelations about critical electronic conflicts of interest, may be the smoking guns of Ohio's stolen 2004 election . . .

http://brewcitybrawler.typepad.com/brew_city_brawler/2007/04/did_the_state_g.html
Did the [Wisconsin] state GOP consult with the White House on an 06 voter suppression effort? . . .

http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/003102.php
[Paul Kiel] Yet another questionable prosecution brought by U.S. Attorney for Milwaukee Steve Biskupic has been reversed by an appeals court.

This time, it was one of the voter fraud prosecutions Biskupic's office pushed . . .

http://www.gregpalast.com/dont-fire-gonzales/#more-1700
[Greg Palast] That was two years back, while I was investigating strange doings in New Mexico and Arizona, where, simultaneously, state legislators, Republicans all, claimed they had evidence of “voter fraud.” Psychiatrists call this kind of mutual delusional behavior folie a deux. I suspected something else: I smelled Karl Rove. . . .

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2007_04_22.php#013830
Yesterday we showed you Karl Rove's speech about the 'hotspots' of 'vote fraud' around the country . . .

It’s all about Rove: http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2007/04/job-description-lighting-rod-by-digby.html

Is that OSC investigation real, or not?

http://politicalwire.com/archives/2007/04/25/investigation_signals_loss_of_power.html
[Evans-Novak] "The new investigation into political activities in the White House, announced Tuesday by the President's appointee in the Office of Special Counsel, is a big deal. On the face, the charge in this investigation is that White House personnel -- particularly one of Karl Rove's deputies -- engaged in political activities on government time and in a government building. A Power Point presentation provided the probable cause. But there is far more to this story than a potentially illegal Power Point. It signifies a loss of fear and respect for the administration, evincing a perception that its power brokers will have no influence in Washington beyond 2008."

"The beginning of this investigation marks an unlikely course of events in a long-running saga in which President Bush has been trying to purge Special Counsel Bloch, his own appointee. Just a year ago, Bloch looked like he was the one sinking, about to be removed from office, maligned among prospective employers, and perhaps even prosecuted. But all of the sudden, it is the White House in hot water, and Bloch may be untouchable."

More: http://www.firedoglake.com/2007/04/25/now-in-3d/

Meanwhile, over on the Abramoff/corrupt GOP congressmen side of the ledger, more developments. Steve Benen is keeping a list

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/10612.html

More: http://atrios.blogspot.com/2007_04_22_archive.html#8921319560796172492
[Atrios] In a burst of activity over the last eight days, FBI agents and federal prosecutors have won a guilty plea from a former congressional aide, implicated two more House of Representatives members and put the scandal surrounding onetime super-lobbyist Jack Abramoff's influence-peddling back into the headlines.

The pace of the inquiry, which now has bagged a veteran congressman, a deputy Cabinet secretary, a White House aide and eight others, appears to be accelerating. . . .

http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/003099.php
[Paul Kiel] The Jack Abramoff investigation has certainly come roaring out of its hibernation.

Next on the list, apparently, is Tom DeLay's former right-hand man, Ed Buckham. . . .

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/4/25/14490/6726
[WSJ] As midterm elections approached last November, federal investigators in Arizona faced unexpected obstacles in getting needed Justice Department approvals to advance a corruption investigation of Republican Rep. Rick Renzi, people close to the case said.

The delays, which postponed key approvals in the case until after the election, raise new questions about whether Attorney General Alberto Gonzales or other officials may have weighed political issues in some investigations. . . .

http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/003091.php
[Paul Kiel] There's another revelation in the piece: that investigators had lobbied Washington for clearance to tap Renzi's phone for months. That clearance was only given in October of last year. And unfortunately for the investigators, word broke of the investigation in late October -- disrupting their wiretap. . . .

The bosses at main Justice seem to have been similarly reluctant to proceed with regard to the Duke Cunningham probe. As TPM reported a couple of weeks ago, U.S. Attorney for San Diego Carol Lam had to wait sometimes for months for clearance on certain moves in her investigation. So is there a pattern here?

How the Democratic war votes are as much targeted against congressional Republicans as they are against Bush. It’s good to see them playing this so smartly

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/politics/la-na-warvote25apr25,1,6734487.story
Convinced that Bush will never listen to their calls to bring troops home, senior Democrats have concluded that they must force Republicans to vote again and again in defense of the unpopular war until enough plead with the president to change course. . . .

Democratic strategists also believe that repeated votes on the war will allow the party to expand its congressional majorities in next year's elections by continuing to link GOP lawmakers with the president and his war policies . . .

Peace, but only on our terms. Why is the US government concerned that Maliki might reach a political accord with al Sadr? And who is running Iraq anyway?

http://americablog.blogspot.com/2007/04/white-house-now-afraid-iraqi-govt-may.html

More bad news: http://www.needlenose.com/node/view/3984

Appalling: how the military fabricated news about Pat Tillman and Jessica Lynch

http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2007/04/25/tillman_lynch/index.html

Even more appalling: http://www.discourse.net/archives/2007/04/the_buck_doesnt_even_stop_by_for_visits.html
[ABC] President Bush hopes someone is held responsible for the U.S. military’s mishandling of information about the death of former football star Pat Tillman in Afghanistan, the White House said Wednesday. . . .

Annals of justice

http://www.talkleft.com/story/2007/4/26/21356/8059
[Jeralyn Merritt] Not content to seek to deprive the Guantanamo detainees of habeas corpus and access to the federal courts to challenge the conditions of their confinement, the Bush Administration is taking it one step further. Now, it wants to limit the detainees' access to their lawyers. . .

You know how the media loves a good meme. Their latest seems to be, “everything Nancy Pelosi does is an outrage”

http://thinkprogress.org/2007/04/25/mccain-petraeus/
Major media outlets and conservatives are pounding Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) for not attending a House briefing today with Gen. David Petraeus, the senior U.S. commander in Iraq. (Never mind that Pelosi spoke personally to Petraeus about Iraq yesterday.)

What hasn’t been mentioned is that another major figure in the Iraq debate is also skipping out of a briefing with Petraeus today: Sen. John McCain . . .

The Pelosi attacks today fit a recurring pattern. Like the contrived controversies over the Syria delegation and her military jet, journalists are again exploiting Pelosi to stir up a partisan-motivated “scandal” and ignoring conservatives who have done the very same thing.

More press irresponsibility

http://americablog.blogspot.com/2007/04/ny-post-publishes-fake-ap-story-in.html

The kind of people they are: Frank Luntz, GOP pollster and strategist, wrote a famous early memo that urged Republicans to deny global warming. He now admits it was a lie, and admits that global warming is real – but he still defends his “great memo”

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/10618.html

Yep, let’s all feel sorry for George

[December 2006] “I must tell you, I’m sleeping a lot better than people would assume,” [the president] said. . . .

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/10615.html
[Yesterday] NBC: Do you know the American people are suffering?

Laura Bush: Oh, I know that very much. And believe me, no one sufferers more than their president and I do when we watch this. And certainly the Commander in Chief, who has asked our military to go into harm’s way. . . .

[Steve Benen] It’s not enough to share in the anguish; she thinks the First Couple suffers more than anyone else. Ezra suggested this morning that her comments have “the potential to become a destructively definitional moment for the administration.” I’m very much inclined to agree.

Indeed, in just a few seconds, Laura Bush encapsulated so many of the White House’s failings. For example, a common refrain for years has been that this White House has no real sense of sacrifice. . . .

“No one” suffers more than the president? He has the “burden of worry”? It’s a slap in the face to those who understand sacrifice far better than the Bushes. . .

http://atrios.blogspot.com/2007_04_22_archive.html#3969404962733233820
[Atrios] Consider, if you will, a parallel universe in which Bill Clinton presided over a deeply unpopular war in Iraq which was increasingly opposed by members of the Republican party. Thousands of US troops had died, and many thousands more had life-altering injuries. And, then, First Lady Hillary Clinton said, on a popular morning show, that over the course of the war no one had suffered more then she and her husband had.

Just imagine for a moment how that would’ve played out on talk radio, Drudge, CNN, Fox, MSNBC, the nightly news, the Sunday shows, the wingnut columnists, the liberal columnists, NPR, etc . . .

More: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/blog/2007/04/25/BL2007042501330.html

What chutzpah

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2007_04_22.php#013832
[Josh Marshall] White House spokesperson Dana Perino just said no one in the White House has ever 'played the patriotism' card in the Iraq debate. We'll have video shortly.

Can you think of any examples? We'll make a contest out of it.

[More] Here's a little White House ridiculousness update. You'll see in the video that Perino claims that yesterday Harry Reid called Dick Cheney a "dog" and used this as an example of the reckless attack rhetoric being used by the Democrats. I must confess that sounded a bit rough to me too. But we looked into it and what Reid said was that Cheney was an "attack dog" for the White House.

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2007_04_22.php#013836
[Josh Marshall] We're looking for examples from TPM Readers that show Perino is pretty much lying through her teeth. If you can think of examples, please send them in.

But that's not how Democrats themselves should be responding. Make no mistake: complaining that the other side is questioning your patriotism telegraphs weakness.

Democrats should just hit right back on how President Bush has been helping Osama bin Laden for almost six years. Sounds harsh. But it's true. . . .

More Perino gems: http://www.first-draft.com/2007/04/today_on_holden_8.html

http://www.first-draft.com/2007/04/today_on_holden_9.html

John McCain (R-AZ) announces for President, as he becomes LESS popular (in Arizona!)

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/25/us/politics/25cnd-Mccain.html
Senator John McCain, the Arizona Republican, began his second bid for the White House today by embracing the war in Iraq but distancing himself from six years of White House rule. . . .

Mr. McCain spoke at what his aides viewed as a pivotal time in a candidacy that has gone through some difficult days. Mr. McCain has spent three years preparing for a campaign in which he had long been viewed as the presumptive frontrunner for his party’s nomination. But the announcement today had the feel of a re-launch, reflecting that Mr. McCain finds himself in the unexpected position of trailing rivals in some of early measures of the strength of a candidacy: particularly in fundraising, which Mr. McCain himself said today had been lackluster, and in early polls.

Mr. McCain delivered his speech in flat tones and in front just a few hundred people who turned up for the outdoor event; he drew only a few rounds of applause. . . .

http://politicalwire.com/archives/2007/04/25/mccains_support_falls_in_arizona.html
In Arizona, a new Cronkite-Eight Poll finds support for Sen. John McCain’s candidacy in the Republican presidential primary race declined from 44% in February to 32% this month. . . .

Rahm Emanuel (D-IL) on the total disaster that has been the Bush presidency - but the Republican assessment is even worse!

http://electioncentral.tpmcafe.com/blog/electioncentral/2007/apr/25/heres_rahms_full_speech
The saddest legacy of the Bush Administration’s six-year trail of cronyism and corruption is that it contributes to the public’s already cynical view of government. This makes it even more difficult for those of us who believe that the purpose of government is to secure a better future for our country and all of its people. Repairing this sorry legacy is the first challenge our next President will face. . . [read on]

http://www2.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2007_04/011192.php
[WP] If you want to hear despair in Washington these days, talk to Republicans...."This is the most incompetent White House I've seen since I came to Washington," said one GOP senator. . . .

When a presidency is as severely damaged as this one, the normal drill is to empower a strong and politically adept White House chief of staff to make the necessary changes....The current White House chief of staff, Josh Bolten, needs to mount a similar salvage mission, argue several prominent Republicans. They question whether he's politically adept enough. But most of all, they question whether Bolten or anyone else can break through Bush's tight, tough shell and tell him the truth. . . .

Bonus item: The “F” word (thanks to Craig M. for the link)

http://www.guardian.co.uk/usa/story/0,,2064157,00.html
From Hitler to Pinochet and beyond, history shows there are certain steps that any would-be dictator must take to destroy constitutional freedoms. And, argues Naomi Wolf, George Bush and his administration seem to be taking them all . . .

Reactions: http://www.slate.com/id/2165086/fr/rss/

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- posted by Nick Burbules @ 5:15 AM

 
MANO A MANO

[NB: Okay, maybe it’s because I’m in Argentina right now]

Dems are going to pass their bill, and dare Bush to veto it – which he is dying to do. Everybody's a tough guy

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/24/washington/24cong.html
Congressional Democrats agreed Monday to ignore President Bush’s veto threat and send him a $124 billion war spending bill that orders the administration to begin pulling troops out of Iraq by Oct. 1. . . .

http://americablog.blogspot.com/2007/04/bush-not-gonna-compromise-on-iraq.html
[Joe Sudbay] The smirking Bush was back today. . .

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/10595.html
[Bush, April 23] “I believe strongly that politicians in Washington shouldn’t be telling generals how to do their job…. And therefore I will strongly reject an artificial timetable withdrawal and/or Washington politicians trying to tell those who wear the uniform how to do their job.”

[Steve Benen] He must have meant other ‘politicians’ . . .

[Bush, January 9] When President Bush goes before the American people tonight to outline his new strategy for Iraq, he will be doing something he has avoided since the invasion of Iraq in March 2003: ordering his top military brass to take action they initially resisted and advised against.

Bush talks frequently of his disdain for micromanaging the war effort and for second-guessing his commanders. “It’s important to trust the judgment of the military when they’re making military plans,” he told The Washington Post in an interview last month. “I’m a strict adherer to the command structure.”

But over the past two months, as the security situation in Iraq has deteriorated and U.S. public support for the war has dropped, Bush has pushed back against his top military advisers and the commanders in Iraq….

[Steve Benen] Bush believes “politicians in Washington” should listen to the generals, just so long as a) he’s not included among the “politicians”; and b) he gets to fire the generals who don’t agree with him. . .

http://www.upi.com/NewsTrack/Top_News/2007/04/23/reid_says_bush_in_denial_over_war/
U.S. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid blasted President Bush's perception of reality concerning the war in Iraq, saying he is in "a state of denial." . . .

A state of denial?

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2007_04_22.php#013807
Bush: 2006 election was mandate for Baghdad 'surge'. . . . [watch it!]

Reid explains the 2006 vote to Bush: http://reidexplains.notlong.com

Cheney does his attack dog, Dems are traitors thing. Harry Reid gets in a nice zinger

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/4/24/231845/627
"I’m not going to get into a name-calling match with somebody who has a 9 percent approval rating," Mr. Reid said.

Bush seems to be backing Gonzales all the way

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/23/AR2007042301765.html
President Bush said his confidence in Alberto R. Gonzales has grown as a result of the attorney general's testimony last week before the Senate Judiciary Committee . . . "The attorney general went up and gave a very candid assessment and answered every question he could possibly answer, in a way that increased my confidence in his ability to do the job," Bush told reporters in the Oval Office yesterday. "Some senators didn't like his explanation, but he answered as honestly as he could." . . .

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/10597.html
So, Gonzales goes to the Hill, he forgets everything of any significance, he infuriates Republicans on the committee, White House aides pan his performance (one said Gonzales went “down in flames“), but the president now has “increased” confidence in the Attorney General’s abilities? Which testimony was he watching?

I also enjoyed the idea that Gonzales answered senators’ questions “as honestly as he could.” As Paul the Spud put it, “What does that mean? Answered as honestly as he could? You answer questions honestly, or you don’t. You don’t make attempts to answer a question honestly. . . .

More: http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2007_04_22.php#013789

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/20/AR2007042002020.html
Another White House ally said Bush and Gonzales are ignoring reality: "They're the only two people on the planet Earth who don't see it."

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/2003677490_webattorneys23.html
[A] White House spokeswoman said, "He's staying." . . .

http://www.boston.com/news/nation/washington/articles/2007/04/24/support_of_gonzales_affirms_power_play/
[Peter Cannellos] [T]he administration's willingness to withstand its own party's disdain for Gonzales probably springs not from loyalty but from self-interest: The last thing the president needs right now is confirmation hearings for a new attorney general.

It's well known that the administration is seeking to maximize its own powers. This effort takes many forms, from asserting the right to bypass laws that Bush himself has signed, to asserting the authority to hold prisoners without trials, to forbidding Congress from seeing information the administration deems sensitive to national security, to asserting its own, highly debatable interpretations of the Geneva Conventions.

There may well be other, similar claims of power that the public does not know about, leading to secret actions that the president believes are justified through his authority as commander in chief. . . .

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/18246425/site/newsweek/
One White House adviser (who asked not to be ID'ed talking about sensitive issues) said the support reflected Bush's own view that a Gonzales resignation would embolden the Dems to go after other targets—like Karl Rove. "This is about Bush saying, 'Screw you'," said the adviser . . .

Or, as Josh Marshall likes to call it . . .

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2004_08_15.php#003295
[April 19, 2004] Let's call it the Republicans' Bitch-Slap theory of electoral politics.

It goes something like this. . .

Toughness is a unitary quality, really -- a personal, characterological quality rather than one rooted in policy or divisible in any real way. So both sides are trying to prove to undecided voters either that they're tougher than the other guy or at least tough enough for the job.

In a post-9/11 environment, obviously, this question of strength, toughness or resolve is particularly salient. That, of course, is why so much of this debate is about war and military service in the first place.

One way -- perhaps the best way -- to demonstrate someone's lack of toughness or strength is to attack them and show they are either unwilling or unable to defend themselves -- thus the rough slang I used above. And that I think is a big part of what is happening here. Someone who can't or won't defend themselves certainly isn't someone you can depend upon to defend you. . . .

Hitting someone and not having them hit back hurts the morale of that person's supporters, buoys the confidence of your own backers (particularly if many tend toward an authoritarian mindset) and tends to make the person who's receiving the hits into an object of contempt (even if also possibly also one of sympathy) in the eyes of the uncommitted. . . .

In other ways, Bush's bully-boy campaign tactics play to his strengths, albeit unstated and unlovely ones. Many of the polls of the president have shown that while people don't necessarily agree with the specific policies he's pursued abroad many also intuitively believe that there's no one who will hit back harder. . . .

So, the Democrats hit back harder

http://www.rollcall.com/issues/1_1/breakingnews/18147-1.html
With Attorney General Alberto Gonzales vowing to remain in his job and President Bush standing by him, Senate Democratic leaders are seriously considering bringing a resolution to the floor expressing no confidence in Gonzales, according to a senior leadership source. . . . The vote would be nonbinding and have no substantive impact, but it would force all Republican Senators into the politically uncomfortable position of saying publicly whether they continue to support Gonzales in the wake of the scandal surrounding the firings of eight U.S. attorneys.

A very low standard

http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/003082.php
[Paul Kiel] When asked how the president could have increased confidence in Gonzales after he'd pled a faulty memory some 64 times during the hearing, [Dana] Perino replied that "many of those questions were repeated over and over.... [he] was asked multiple questions in various different ways on the same topics." So in other words, Gonzales only had to say "I don't remember" so often because the senators asked so very many questions. Shame on them.

And Perino also added some much needed perspective. While Gonzales may have made some people unhappy with all that memory failure, "what would have been dishonorable is if [he] had made it up." . . .

More from Perino: http://www.first-draft.com/2007/04/today_on_holden_7.html

It’s ALL about protecting Rove

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/10590.html

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2007_04_22.php#013817

No, we’re not done yet

http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/003077.php
[Paul Kiel] If there's one good thing that's come out of the U.S. attorneys scandal, it's that it's shining a bright light on the Justice Department. And as a result, it's become clear that the most grossly politicized section of the department is the Civil Rights Division.

The reason is plain. As we've seen, many Republicans, and Karl Rove in particular, are obsessed with "voter fraud" -- the idea that minorities in Democratic strongholds are taking advantage of lax record systems to stuff the ballot. There's evidence that at least two of the fired U.S. attorneys were let go because they did not pursue such prosecutions. But the obsession is nothing new; it's one of the defining preoccupations of the Bush administration. The hysterical claims have led Republicans to push voter I.D. laws in several swing states -- efforts that have been backed by the White House.

It is the job of the Civil Rights Division to watchdog the voting rights of minorities. And due to the Voting Rights Act, several states cannot even enact such laws without first getting clearance from the division. So to make sure that no career staffers get in the way -- with evidence, for instance, that a voter I.D. law would disproportionately impact African Americans -- the Civil Rights Division has been gutted.

But, as McClatchy reported in detail late last week, the strategy goes beyond voter fraud. The division has made an effort to purge voter rolls while minimizing actions or programs that help register poor or minority voters . . . [read on!]

MORE signs that US Attorneys investigating Republicans were prioritized for firing

http://www.warandpiece.com/blogdirs/006002.html
[The Hill] Miers weighed firing Yang, according to Feinstein. Debra Wong Yang, the former US attorney in Los Angeles, was leading the investigation into former House appropriations committee chairman Jerry Lewis. . . .

More: http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/003086.php

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2007_04_22.php#013809
[Josh Marshall] Whatever the story with Yang, we are looking at a series of US Attorney resignations that we'll call 'resignations of concern', departures where the departing USA has either refused to comment on why they left or denied being pushed but in rather unconvincing ways. Minnesota and Western District of Missouri are two other cases we're looking at very closely, among others. . . .

Another one! http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2007_04_22.php#013810

A White House that can’t be trusted on security issues

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/10601.html
[ABC] Security practices at the White House are dangerously inadequate . . . [read on]

More: http://www.firedoglake.com/2007/04/24/pigeons-meet-roost/

Will the Bush gang try to push through changes in law and policy to shield themselves from later prosecution after they leave office? Josh Marshall thinks so

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2007_04_22.php#013806

Okay, which is this: a real investigation of Rove, that could actually cause him trouble, or a controlled “investigation” by a Bush appointee that may slap his wrists, then give them clearance to say afterwards that any suggestion of wrongdoing on NRC emails, etc, “has been looked into already”

http://www.latimes.com/news/politics/la-na-probe24apr24,0,5629429,full.story

http://www.discourse.net/archives/2007/04/office_of_special_counsel_stirs_from_its_torpor.html
[Michael Froomkin] I wonder if the purpose of this move isn’t to insulate Rove and others. Now, they have an excuse not to answer any questions. If Congress calls, they all take the 5th — “Would love to talk but I’m being investigated by the OSC.” Ditto for the White House press office — “we never comment on pending investigations” (afterwards they say, “we already dealt with that,” but I’m getting ahead of myself).

http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/003084.php
Bloch (who is, by the way, a Bush appointee) seems to have combined a host of investigations -- 1) whether U.S. Attorney for New Mexico David Iglesias was wrongly terminated due to his Navy reserve service, and 2) the White House's use of RNC-issued email accounts to conduct government business, and 3) Rove's and his deputy's presentations to federal employees about Republican electoral prospects -- into one big stew pot of wrongdoing.

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/042407U.shtml
[Jason Leopold] A federal investigation into the political activities of Karl Rove, announced late Monday, is being headed by a Bush appointee who is currently the target of an internal White House probe - calling into question the integrity of the administration's efforts to conduct an independent review of Rove's work as White House political adviser. . .

More: http://www.talkleft.com/story/2007/4/24/18442/2850

Interesting: guess who filed the complaint that triggered the OSC investigation?

http://americablog.blogspot.com/2007/04/david-iglesias-filed-complaint-that.html

Going after Lurita

http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/003080.php
General Services Administration chief Lurita Doan shocked the world last month when she gave a performance at a House hearing that was enough to make even Gonzales cringe.

In January, Karl Rove's deputy, Scott Jennings, arrived at the GSA to give a briefing on Republican political prospects. After the presentation, Doan reportedly asked aloud what the GSA could do with its considerable taxpayer-funded assets "to help our candidates." When asked about the briefing at the hearing, Doan pleaded a fuzzy memory.

Ever since the briefing was revealed, Democrats have been vainly trying to get answers from the White House about this and other presentations. So today, 25 senators wrote the White House, demanding answers. You can read the letter here. "The Executive Branch is not an extension of the Republican National Committee," it reads, "nor of any political party. Those who treat it as such must be held accountable." . . .

Haven’t forgotten you, Condi

http://rawstory.com/news/2007/Secretary_Rice_still_dodge_subpoena_shirking_0424.html

I like Rahm

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/24/AR2007042402006.html
A senior Democratic leader, in a speech Wednesday at the Brookings Institution, will tie together a long series of Bush administration scandals, controversies and missteps into what he argues is a campaign to turn the government into an appendage of the Republican Party.

The speech by House Democratic Caucus Chairman Rahm Emanuel (D-Ill.) marks an escalation in the party's rhetorical war with President Bush. For much of last year's campaign season, Democrats called the Bush administration incompetent. Now they are preparing a darker case, accusing the administration of harboring malevolent intent. . .

Paul Wolfowitz sows disaster everywhere that he goes

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/25/washington/25wolfowitz.html
At a meeting between Paul D. Wolfowitz and his top managers at the World Bank last week, Mr. Wolfowitz made an unusual confession. “I understand that I’ve lost a lot of trust, and I want to build that trust back up,” he said, according to people present. . .

But the beleaguered bank president was immediately confronted by one of his top deputies, who asserted that Mr. Wolfowitz was wrong to think that the furor over his leadership sprang only from his handling of the pay and promotion for his companion or from unease over his support of the Iraq war while at the Pentagon.

Graeme Wheeler, the bank’s managing director, said at the meeting that the fight over whether Mr. Wolfowitz should stay on at the bank amounted to the “the biggest crisis in its history.” . . .

Two more Republicans caught in the net of scandal

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2007_04_22.php#013803
The FBI has asked U.S. Rep. Tom Feeney [FL] for information about his dealings with Jack Abramoff . . .

http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/003083.php
Yet another shoe drops in the Jack Abramoff investigation. A former aide to Rep. Don Young (R-AK), Mark Zachares, looks set to plead guilty to corruption charges. . . .

"Scandal harmonic convergence"

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/013821.php
[Josh Marshall] So basically what we have here is a classic scandal harmonic convergence -- new nuggets about the Renzi scandal and the revelation that another of the US Attorney firings may be tied to an investigation of a Republican lawmaker. At a minimum, the DOJ has concealed critical information about the story.

And one other detail to add to the mix. Remember that two weeks after his dismissal, Charlton emailed his superiors at the Department of Justice asking how to handle questions over whether his firing was tied to his investigation of Rep. Renzi (R-AZ). . .

When is a wall not a wall?

http://www2.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2007_04/011185.php
[LAT] U.S. and Iraqi military officials scrambling to deflect criticism of a wall being erected to separate a volatile Sunni Muslim neighborhood from surrounding Shiite areas insisted Monday that the structure is not a wall at all. It's a barrier. . . .

[NB: Do they REALLY think that changing what they call it will make the Iraqis like it any better? And apparently it’s going forward despite PM Maliki’s “order” for it to stop]

A wholly owned subsidiary

http://electioncentral.tpmcafe.com/blog/electioncentral/2007/apr/23/national_gop_multimedia_web_page_is_fox_news_video_clips
[Eric Kleefeld] If there was any doubt left that Fox News is just a media organ of the Republican Party, then take a look at this screen capture of the National Republican Senatorial Committee's multimedia page. You might think the term "multimedia" would imply that it's a collection of stuff from various news organizations, plus in-house content from the NRSC. It turns out, though, that it's nothing but ... a collection of Fox News video clips. Every clip in the NRSC's "multimedia" section is from Fox . . .

Can democracy withstand a citizenry this dumb? Ask the Republicans

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2007/04/last-refuge-of-pantload-by-digby-jonah.html

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/10608.html

CNN stoops to a new low

http://atrios.blogspot.com/2007_04_22_archive.html#7350403208944637302

Rudy Giuliani wants to be President a little TOO much

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/4/24/221842/047
[2007] Rudy Giuliani said if a Democrat is elected president in 2008, America will be at risk for another terrorist attack on the scale of Sept. 11, 2001. . . .

[2004] A November win by Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry would put the United States at risk of another "devastating" terrorist attack, Vice President Dick Cheney told supporters Tuesday. . . .

Bonus item: Shame on him if he accepts it

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/10600.html
[Steve Benen] A Purple Heart is a unique and special honor of the U.S. military. There are a variety of medals to pay tribute to soldiers who put their lives on the line, but the Purple Heart is given exclusively to those who are injured or killed during their service.

It is not supposed to go to those who are uninjured and who avoid military service during a time of war.

[Killeen Daily Herald] History will be made today when Copperas Cove resident Bill Thomas and his wife, Georgia, present President George W. Bush with a Purple Heart at the Oval Office.

Thomas said he and his wife came up with the unprecedented idea to present the president with the Purple Heart over breakfast one morning a few months ago as they discussed the verbal attacks, both foreign and domestic, the commander in chief has withstood during his time in office. . . .

Yep, Bush does accept it: http://www.thecoveherald.com/page3.html
"He said he didn't feel like he had earned it," Thomas said . .

[NB: Fill in your own punch line here]

***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 @ 4:22 AM

 
PBD will be delayed today. I've spent the last 24 hours in jets and airports -- now finally I have Internet access again. Please check back later.
- posted by Nick Burbules @ 11:33 AM

 
WHO’S IN CHARGE HERE?

Hostage crisis

http://select.nytimes.com/2007/04/23/opinion/23krugman.html
[Paul Krugman] There are two ways to describe the confrontation between Congress and the Bush administration over funding for the Iraq surge. You can pretend that it’s a normal political dispute. Or you can see it for what it really is: a hostage situation, in which a beleaguered President Bush, barricaded in the White House, is threatening dire consequences for innocent bystanders — the troops — if his demands aren’t met.

If this were a normal political dispute, Democrats in Congress would clearly hold the upper hand: by a huge margin, Americans say they want a timetable for withdrawal, and by a large margin they also say they trust Congress, not Mr. Bush, to do a better job handling the situation in Iraq.

But this isn’t a normal political dispute. Mr. Bush isn’t really trying to win the argument on the merits. . . .

http://www.matthewyglesias.com/archives/2007/04/good_lede/
[Matt Yglesias] [T]he maddening thing of it is that all signs indicate that this tactic is likely to succeed and Bush will achieve his goal of ensuring that the war is left on the desk of the next president. Perhaps he thinks this'll mean it'll go down in the record books as something his successor "lost" rather than a catastrophic error he made.

Who’s winning this debate?

http://atrios.blogspot.com/2007_04_22_archive.html#8059173317531069937
WILLIAM SCHNEIDER, SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST (voice-over): Americans do not want to fight an unwinnable war. That's why back in 2005, President Bush said --

GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: And we'll accept nothing less than complete victory.

SCHNEIDER: The president speaks about the war a little differently now.

BUSH: It's really important as we -- that we have a sober discussion and understand what will be the consequences of failure. . . .

SCHNEIDER: . . . The public's view -- it's not working. Senator Reid put it bluntly.

SEN. HARRY REID, (D-NV) MAJORITY LEADER: As long as we follow the president's path in Iraq, the war is lost.

SCHNEIDER: Senator McCain objected.

VOICE OF SEN. JOHN MCCAIN, (R-AZ) PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: That's not the view of the men and women who are putting their lives on the line as we speak.

SCHNEIDER: Do Americans believe the U.S. is winning the war in Iraq? Last month they said no by better than two to one. Do Americans believe the U.S. will win? No. Do Americans believe the U.S. can win? The public is split. They're not sure. So Reid said --

REID: But there's still a chance to change course and we must change course.

SCHNEIDER: Which side does the public take in this standoff? It's not even close. Sixty percent of Americans say they side with the Democrats in Congress, thirty-seven percent with the president.

http://thinkprogress.org/2007/04/22/kristol-reid-lott/
Weekly Standard editor William Kristol said that Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid’s (D-NV) remark that the Iraq war is lost is “much more disgraceful” than Sen. Trent Lott’s (R-MS) 2002 claim that the country would be much better off if it had maintained racist segregation policies. . . .

NPR’s Juan Williams stared at Kristol with a look of confusion. “Brit [Hume] says it’s ‘laughable,’ you say it’s a ‘disgrace.’ I think what he said is the truth. I mean, it’s unavoidable,” Williams said. “Most Americans think we should have never gone in there, so he’s speaking in a voice that represents the majority of the American people.”

Tom Friedman cracks a good line

http://www.crooksandliars.com/2007/04/22/friedman-for-war-czar/
FRIEDMAN: You know, when I first heard the surge idea, Wolf, my reaction was — you know what it reminds me of? It reminds me of a couple. They get married. The marriage doesn't quite take and they say "You know what? Let's have a baby." You know, somehow that if you put more pressure on this, somehow that will come together. . . .

BLITZER: [W]hen Harry Reid says the war is lost, you are not there yet. You haven't come to that conclusion yet.

FRIEDMAN: I mean, I certainly think that we're on our very, very, very, very last legs. You know, we certainly haven't won, that's for sure. . . .

Sam Brownback (R-KS) ALMOST lets the cat out of the bag

http://atrios.blogspot.com/2007_04_22_archive.html#68666677112679343
“The date we set a deadline to pull out is the date al Qaeda will declare victory over the United States.”

[Atrios] In other words, we can never leave. . . .

Yes, a withdrawal of US troops may very well lead to a worsened situation in Iraq. But just whose fault is that?

http://www.talkleft.com/story/2007/4/22/225142/696
[Big Tent Democrat] [I]n what way would that be worse than if we keep US troops executing whatever the heck strategy Bush is supposed to be doing now or will be doing 12 months from now? . . .

Of course there is a serious issue of a lack of planning for the inevitable withdraw from Iraq . . . [read on]

Who’s in charge here?

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/21/AR2007042101471_pf.html
The bases -- which so far include 21 combat outposts and 26 joint security stations run together with Iraqi forces -- are a key building block in the effort to increase security for Baghdad residents. Another part of the strategy is to wall off communities along their traditional boundaries to control population access and prevent attacks.

"That's part of the concrete caterpillar," Petraeus said, pointing out a barrier going up in a neighborhood in west Baghdad. "That market was shut completely down when I took command -- now it has 200 shops," he said.

The walls helped divert the multiple car bombs in Baghdad on Wednesday that killed more than 170 people.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/11125849/
A wall U.S. troops are building around a Sunni enclave in Baghdad came under increasing criticism on Saturday, with residents calling it “collective punishment” and a local leader saying construction began without the neighborhood council’s approval.

The U.S. military says the wall in Baghdad is meant to secure the minority Sunni community . . .

But some residents of the neighborhood, which is surrounded by Shiite areas, complained that they had not been consulted in advance about the barrier.

http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2007/04/22/africa/ME-GEN-Iraq-Neighborhood-Barrier.php
[AP] Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki said Sunday that he has ordered a halt to the construction of a barrier that would separate a Sunni enclave from surrounding Shiite areas in Baghdad, saying there are other ways to protect the neighborhood. . . .

In his first public comments on the issue, al-Maliki said he had ordered the construction to stop.

"I oppose the building of the wall and its construction will stop," al-Maliki told reporters . . .

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20070422/ts_nm/iraq_dc_6
[Reuters] Iraq's prime minister said on Sunday he had urged the U.S. military to halt work on a wall separating a Baghdad Sunni enclave from nearby Shi'ite areas after sharp criticism from some residents. . . .

Speaking in Cairo at the start of an Arab tour to drum up support for Iraq, Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, a Shi'ite Islamist, said he objected to the 5-km (3-mile) wall, which residents said would isolate them from other communities and sharpen sectarian tensions.

"I asked yesterday that it be stopped and that alternatives be found to protect the area," Maliki said in his first public comments on the issue. . . .

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/22/AR2007042201419.html
Prime Minister Nouri-al Maliki told news services that he would work to halt construction of a wall around the Sunni district of Adhamiyah, which residents said would aggravate sectarian tensions by segregating them from Shiite neighbors. The U.S. military says the walls are meant to protect people, not further divide them in a city that is increasingly a patchwork of sectarian enclaves. . .

[NB: So, did he ORDER it, or ASK for it, or is he WORKING ON IT? Sounds as if he thought he was ordering it, but got a different answer. Who is making these decisions – and how could they have thought that a wall could be built without any consultation with the residents?]

Don’t think of them as walls. Think of them as “gated communities.” (Uh-huh)

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/22/AR2007042201419.html

Wasn’t this predicted? If you crack down on Baghdad, insurgents either go to ground and wait quietly for the troops to leave (giving the false appearance of a decline in violence), or they leave town and set up shop elsewhere, causing a spike of new violence in some other town

http://www2.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2007_04/011174.php

I’ll be happy to see Alberto Gonzales go, but especially after his last round of testimony, what was crystal clear is that the initiative to fire insufficiently loyal US Attorneys didn’t start with the AG, and didn’t start in the DOJ

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2007/04/up-to-his-eyeballs-by-digby-mcclatchy.html
[McClatchy] Gonzales' testimony Thursday left senators convinced he wasn't behind the plan or its execution and in fact knew far less than a department head should have about the details. Former and current members of Gonzales' staff who've been interviewed by congressional investigators also have said their roles were limited or nonexistent.

Absent another explanation, the signs point to the White House and, at least in some degree, to the president's political adviser, Karl Rove.

David Iglesias, the former New Mexico U.S. attorney and one of the eight fired last year, said investigating the White House's role is the logical next step . . . "If I were Congress, I would say, `If the attorney general doesn't have answers, then who would?' There's enough evidence to indicate that Karl Rove was involved up to his eyeballs."

Iglesias said another clue that the White House may have been the driving force is the relative lack of Justice Department documentation for the firings in the 6,000 pages of documents turned over to Congress.

"If you want to justify getting rid of someone, you should have at least some paper trail," Iglesias said. "There's been a remarkable absence of that. I'm wondering if the paper trail is at the White House." . . . [read on]

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/18246425/site/newsweek/
Publicly, the White House was standing by its A.G. One White House adviser (who asked not to be ID'ed talking about sensitive issues) said the support reflected Bush's own view that a Gonzales resignation would embolden the Dems to go after other targets—like Karl Rove. "This is about Bush saying, 'Screw you'," said the adviser, conceding that a Gonzales resignation might still be inevitable. The trick, said the adviser, would be to find a graceful exit strategy for Bush's old friend. . . .

Arlen Specter (R-PA) ALMOST calls for his resignation

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/22/AR2007042201133.html
Sen. Arlen Specter (Pa.), the ranking Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee, said Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales is hurting the Justice Department and the Bush administration by not resigning. . .

Specter did not call directly for the attorney general to step down, but said Gonzales's testimony "was very, very damaging to his own credibility. It has been damaging to the administration."

More: http://thinkprogress.org/2007/04/22/specter-gonzales/

A name being floated to replace Gonzales: Ted Olson. If he ever is nominated, we’ll be learning a lot more about him – but here’s a start

http://www.pensitoreview.com/2007/04/22/gop-floating-ted-olson-for-ag/
[Jon Ponder] During the 1990s, the GOP ran a stealth disinformation campaign against the Clintons, the prototype for Swiftboating, out of the offices of the American Spectator, a rightwing magazine. Internally, the operation was called the Arkansas Project. Hillary famously referred to it as a “vast rightwing conspiracy.” It was funded by Richard Mellon Scaife and its CEO was Ted Olson,

At the same time, Olson’s wife, Barbara, was one of a cadre of wingnut blondes — the others were Ann Coulter, Kellyann Fitzpatrick and Laura Ingraham — who were given untold hours of face time on cable news to bash the Clintons with rumors and innuendos, much of which was processed through the Arkansas Project. Barbara, the author of a bizarrely nasty screed titled “Hell to Pay: The Unfolding Story of Hillary Rodham Clinton,” died on the plane that hit the Pentagon on Sept. 11, 2001.

In late 2000, Ted Olson argued for the Bush/Cheney campaign in the Bush v. Gore. For this, he was rewarded with the position of solicitor general. . .

The other sign of things to come: The Arkansas Project was absymally managed. Olson’s minions handed out around $1 million in bribes in Arkansas but every story about the Clintons they paid for fell apart under investigation, which eventually led to a complete collapse of Ken Starr’s credibility among the public. It was a classic case of a bunch clueless Yankees being hoodwinked by a bunch of Southern conmen.

I hope Bush nominates Olson. As Digby also points out, in 2001, when Olson’s nomination to solicitor general sailed through, the Judiciary Committee was controlled by Republicans and Democrats were limited in the witnesses they could call. The Arkansas project was barely mentioned, if I recall. Today the Judiciary chairman, Pat Leahy, and other committee Democrats like Chuck Schumer, Ted Kennedy and Russ Feingold may be more ready to get Olson on the record about his role in the Arkansas Project than they were in 2001 when they were in the throes of Clinton fatigue. . . .

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2007/04/running-out-of-choices-by-digby-is-this.html
[Digby] What an excellent idea. De-politicize the Justice Department with one of the guys who ran the Clinton witch hunt. I guess the Republicans think it's still 2001 and Orrin Hatch is still Chairman of the Judiciary Committee. They can't seem to grasp their changed circumstances. . . .

I think it's time for Republicans to realize that their political hitmen are going to have to take a rest and go out into the private sector and make some millions for a while. I'm sure they'll be back. They always come back. But right now, the VRWC needs to take a break. They aren't installing any more dirty trickster, character assassins for the next two years. Nah guh happ'n.

http://www.talkleft.com/story/2007/3/20/31816/5464
[Jeralyn Merritt] Prediction: It won't be Ted Olson. For the same reasons he will never make it to the Supreme Court. . . .

http://archive.salon.com/politics/feature/2001/05/14/independent_counsel/index.html
[Dave Neiwert, May 14, 2001] Theodore Olson's nomination to be the nation's next solicitor general suddenly appears to be in deep trouble, because of concerns by members of Congress that he was less than forthcoming in his testimony before them.

It's not the first time Olson has faced congressional questions about his candor. In the mid-1980s, he became the focus of an independent counsel's investigation for much the same thing: giving misleading testimony to Congress -- some charged it was perjury -- that was intended to cover up his own misbehavior.

Olson's current problems stem from his failure to be forthcoming before the Senate Judiciary Committee, which is deciding whether to forward his nomination to the larger Senate, when he testified before the committee in early April. As Salon has reported, Olson gave evasive answers about his participation in dirt-digging expeditions into the Arkansas pasts of former President Clinton and his wife, Hillary.

But Olson's troubles with Congress shouldn't surprise anyone who has followed his career, because they bear remarkable similarity to the behavior that got him into hot water more than a decade ago, and almost led to perjury charges. . . . [read on]

More: http://archive.salon.com/politics/feature/2001/05/14/archive/

http://archive.salon.com/news/col/cona/2001/04/05/olson/index.html

http://select.nytimes.com/search/restricted/article?res=F7081EFA345E0C7A8DDDAC0894D9404482

No, this issue isn’t over – not by a long shot

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2007_04_22.php#013781
[Anchorage Daily News] The U.S. attorney position in Alaska opened Jan. 23, 2006, when Timothy Burgess left to become a U.S. district judge. His first assistant, Deborah Smith, was named acting U.S. attorney that day. U.S. attorneys are typically nominated by the president and approved by the Senate. Traditionally, Alaska’s two U.S. senators send the names of one or more Alaskans to the White House for consideration. Sen. Murkowski said her clear choice was Smith, a career prosecutor who started out in the federal prosecutor’s office in Anchorage in 1982 and worked in Boston and Washington.

Sen. Stevens wouldn’t reveal his choices.

After submitting Smith’s name, Murkowski said in a telephone interview, her legislative director periodically called the White House during the first part of 2006 to check the status of the nomination.

“We’d get these vague, 'Oh, we’re still working on it, still working on it,’ ” Murkowski said. “So it gets to the point where you’re thinking, 'Wait a minute, this has been a heck of a long time. What is happening?’ And so the response to my inquiry is, 'We still haven’t, there’s some issues,’ and ultimately what we got back was, 'The picks were not acceptable by the White House,’ and yet no explanation as to why they’re not acceptable.”

When she was in Alaska for the August 2006 recess, Murkowski’s Blackberry vibrated with a message. It was her chief aide in Alaska, Mary Hughes, citing a media report that Nelson Cohen had been named interim U.S. attorney.

“You just think, 'It can’t be, wait.’ There was no consulting, no process, no nothing. That’s where I was certainly caught blindsided,” Murkowski said.

Stevens, himself a former federal prosecutor in Alaska, was enraged. “I am just furious at the way the attorney general handled this,” he said at the time.

In an interview at his office in the Federal Building last week, Cohen said he was unaware of all the political forces that resulted in his appointment. But he knew his boss, [Mary Beth] Buchanan, was well-connected, and it was she who told him about the opening in Alaska.

[David Kurtz] Mary Beth Buchanan is the U.S. attorney in Pittsburgh and preceded Michael Battle as head of the Executive Office of U.S. Attorneys. She is on the list of folks that Rep. John Conyers is seeking to interview as part of his committee's ongoing investigation.

So here's a question for Conyers' crew to ask: Why was Cohen's appointment so important to the White House that it bypassed both of Alaska's Republican senators?

More: http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2007_04_22.php#013782

How can any US President live with himself if he has watched infant mortality RISE under his watch? (I don’t know: maybe he can blame it on 9-11)

http://americablog.blogspot.com/2007/04/infant-death-rate-is-on-rise-in-united.html

More: http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/nation/4737044.html

Whatever happened to John Walker Lindh, the “American Taliban”?

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2007_04_22.php#013783

The kind of man he is

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/laurie-david-and-sheryl-crow/karl-rove-gets-thrown-und_b_46501.html
[Laurie David and Sheryl Crow] Last night Thelma and Louise drove the bus off the cliff or at least into the White House Correspondents Dinner. The "highlight" of the evening had to be when we were introduced to Karl Rove. How excited were we to have our first opportunity ever to talk directly to the Bush Administration about global warming.

We asked Mr. Rove if he would consider taking a fresh look at the science of global warming. Much to our dismay, he immediately got combative. And it went downhill from there.

We reminded the senior White House advisor that the US leads the world in global warming pollution and we are doing the least about it. Anger flaring, Mr. Rove immediately regurgitated the official Administration position on global warming which is that the US spends more on researching the causes than any other country. . . .

Like a spoiled child throwing a tantrum, Mr. Rove launched into a series of illogical arguments regarding China not doing enough thus neither should we. . . .

In his attempt to dismiss us, Mr. Rove turned to head toward his table, but as soon as he did so, Sheryl reached out to touch his arm. Karl swung around and spat, "Don't touch me." How hardened and removed from reality must a person be to refuse to be touched by Sheryl Crow? Unphased, Sheryl abruptly responded, "You can't speak to us like that, you work for us." Karl then quipped, "I don't work for you, I work for the American people." To which Sheryl promptly reminded him, "We are the American people." . . .

More: http://www.warandpiece.com/blogdirs/005999.html

Bonus item: The Newtbot

http://www2.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2007_04/011176.php
[Kevin Drum] I think Newt Gingrich has finally died and been replaced by a Newtbot. You know, one of those computer games where you type in a few initial subjects and it spits out some related nonsense prose in the style of a famous author. . . .

More: http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/10587.html
[Steve Benen] In 1999, shortly after the Columbine shootings, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich identified what he saw as the real problem: liberalism.

“I want to say to the elite of this country - the elite news media, the liberal academic elite, the liberal political elite: I accuse you in Littleton…of being afraid to talk about the mess you have made,” Gingrich said, “and being afraid to take responsibility for things you have done, and instead foisting upon the rest of us pathetic banalities because you don’t have the courage to look at the world you have created.”

This morning, Gingrich, in the context of a discussion on the Virginia Tech massacre, was asked whether he stood by his twisted worldview in ‘99 and whether he would apply them to this week’s tragedy.

GINGRICH: Yes, I think the fact is, if you look at the amount of violence we have in games that young people play at 7, 8, 10, 12, 15 years of age, if you look at the dehumanization, if you look at the fact that we refuse to say that we are, in fact, endowed by our creator, that our rights come from God, that if you kill somebody, you’re committing an act of evil.

STEPHANOPOULOS: But what does that have to do with liberalism?

The ensuing explanation was as breathtakingly stupid as Gingrich’s cultural criticism itself.

“Well, who has created a situation ethics, essentially, zone of not being willing to talk about any of these things. Let me carry another example. I strongly supported Imus being dismissed, but I also think the very thing he was dismissed for, which is the use of language which is stunningly degrading of women — the fact, for example, that one of the Halloween costumes this last year was being able to be either a prostitute or a pimp at 10, 11, 12 years of age, buying a costume, and we don’t have any discussion about what’s happened to our culture because while we’re restricting political free speech under McCain-Feingold, we say it’s impossible to restrict vulgar and vicious and anti-human speech. And I would argue that that’s a major component of what’s happened to our culture in the last 40 years.” . . . .

I’ve read over Gingrich’s remarks several times, looking for some kind of coherent train of thought, but I’m afraid it eludes me. He starts off by blaming video games and a lack of appreciation for the Declaration of Independence, suggesting that, together, they contribute to violent killing sprees. This leads to Imus, Halloween costumes, and the problems with campaign-finance reform.

What’s more, Gingrich uttered this nonsense with authority, as if it were obviously true that Halloween costumes obviously contributed to an environment in which a madman felt compelled to gun down 31 innocent people.

Moreover, “we refuse to say … that if you kill somebody, you’re committing an act of evil”? Is there a pro-murder constituency in the United States that I’ve missed? . . .

***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 @ 5:42 AM

 
OUR BOYS

Why doesn’t anyone want to sit with Alberto during lunch period?

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070421/ap_on_go_ca_st_pe/gonzales_prosecutors
Desperate for support among fellow Republicans, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales faced grim prospects Friday after a bruising Senate hearing that produced one outright call for resignation and a fistful of invitations and hints to quit. . . .

http://www.cnn.com/2007/POLITICS/04/20/gonzales/
"He did not distinguish himself in the hearing," said Rep. Adam Putnam, House GOP conference chairman. "There remains a cloud over the department."

"I think that they would be well-served by fresh leadership," said Putnam, who is often a spokesman for House Republicans. He said no one was doing "high fives" after the testimony. . . .

White House insiders told CNN after the testimony that Gonzales hurt himself during his testimony.

The sources, involved in administration discussions about Gonzales, said two senior level White House aides who heard the testimony described Gonzales as "going down in flames," "not doing himself any favors," and "predictable."

"Everyone's putting their best public face on," one source said, "but everyone is discouraged. Everyone is disappointed."

On the other hand, Dahlia Lithwick has a point: maybe the Gonzales testimony told us EXACTLY what the Bush gang thinks of Congress

http://www.slate.com/id/2164751/
Perhaps what we witnessed yesterday was in fact a tour de force, a home run for the president's overarching theory of the unitary executive. . . . [read on!]

If so, perhaps Congress should consider doing something about it

http://www.discourse.net/archives/2007/04/nyt_runs_correction_on_gonzales_impeachment.html
[NYT] A news analysis article yesterday about the testimony of Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales before the Senate Judiciary Committee referred incorrectly to the power of Congress to remove an attorney general from office. Under the Constitution, civil officers of the United States government may be removed upon impeachment by the House of Representatives and trial in the Senate. Congress is not powerless to remove the attorney general.

Our boys

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/22/world/middleeast/22detain.html
“The detainee gave us names from the highest to the lowest,” Captain Fowler told the Iraqi soldiers. “He showed us their safe houses, where they store weapons and I.E.D.’s and where they keep kidnap victims, how they get weapons, where weapons come from, how they place I.E.D.’s, attack us and go away. Because you detained this guy this is the first intelligence linking everything together. Good job. Very good job.”

The Iraqi officers beamed. What the Americans did not know and what the Iraqis had not told them was that before handing over the detainees to the Americans, the Iraqi soldiers had beaten one of them in front of the other two, the Iraqis said. The stripes on the detainee’s back, which appeared to be the product of a whipping with electrical cables, were later shown briefly to a photographer, who was not allowed to take a picture.

To the Iraqi soldiers, the treatment was normal and necessary. They were proud of their technique and proud to have helped the Americans.

“I prepared him for the Americans and let them take his confession,” Capt. Bassim Hassan said through an interpreter. “We know how to make them talk. . . .”

No pictures? http://www.samefacts.com/archives/the_wayward_press_/2007/04/learning_the_lesson_of_abu_ghraib.php

More: http://www.samefacts.com/archives/torture_/2007/04/why_do_you_suppose_.php

The question that never gets asked

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/10585.html
[Steve Benen] Following up on Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid’s conclusion that the war in Iraq is “lost,” National Review’s Mark Levin concluded that the remark was “so disgraceful and brazen that it could have been uttered by Tokyo Rose during World War II or Jane Fonda during the Vietnam War.”. . .

Ross Douthat . . . asks Levin the right question.

Is there any imaginable point in any imaginable conflict where Mark Levin would admit that the United States had lost a war? I don’t mean to be flip, and I say this as someone who generally thinks that the U.S. hasn’t necessarily lost in Iraq; we probably have, but the outcome is still sufficiently in doubt and the stakes sufficiently high that I want to give the “surge,” however ineffectual it may prove (or may already be proving), at least a Tom Friedmanesque six months to work.

But even allowing that Reid shouldn’t have said what he said, it’s still the case that the United States can lose wars, like any world power; that we may well lose this one (in some sense, at least); and that at some point, in this struggle or another, some American politician will say “we’ve lost the war” and be entirely correct. Given this reality, I wish Levin (and many of his fellow “till the last dog dies” Iraq War backers) would clarify whether there’s any situation in which they would greet a U.S. defeat abroad with any response save a rote invocation of the stab-in-the-back narrative. . . .

Kyra Phillips – is this CNN’s answer to Michael Ware, who is often viewed as too critical of administration policies?

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2007_04_15.php#013766
CNN's Kyra Phillips informs us that Reid's "war is lost" comment is "discouraging" to the troops. . . . [read on]

http://www.talkleft.com/story/2007/4/21/1864/87825

Ware: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Ware

http://americablog.blogspot.com/2007/03/mccain-insists-baghdad-is-safe-from.html

Did Bush reveal the location of US troop positions?

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/4/22/7444/10364

How safe?

http://americablog.blogspot.com/2007/03/mccain-insists-baghdad-is-safe-from.html
[John McCain] General Petraeus goes out there almost every day in an unarmed Humvee. I think you oughta catch up. You see, you are giving the old line of three months ago. I understand it. We certainly don't get it through the filter of some of the media.

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2007_04_22.php#013770
[WP] On Friday night at dusk, Petraeus boarded a helicopter to look for scenes of normalcy and progress from above the maelstrom of the capital.

"On a bad day, I actually fly Baghdad just to reassure myself that life still goes on," he said, leaning back and propping his legs on the seat in front of him.

The aircraft banked right and Petraeus caught sight of a patch of relative calm. "He's actually watering the grass!" Petraeus said with a laugh, peering down at a man tending a soccer field, with children playing nearby.

Seconds later, the aircraft pivoted again, exposing boarded-up shops on a deserted, trash-strewn street. A bit farther, along the Tigris River, a hulking pile of twisted steel came into view -- the remains of the Sarafiya bridge, blown up April 12 amid a series of spectacular and deadly suicide bombings.

"That's a setback," Petraeus said, his voice lower. "That breaks your heart."

It looks as if the Democrats really are going to take out binding deadlines for troop withdrawals in Iraq and make them “advisory”

Bad: http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/4/21/12947/7711

Good: http://www.needlenose.com/node/view/3977

What do you think? http://sayno.notlong.com

How much more will it take to fire Wolfowitz?

http://www.thewashingtonnote.com/archives/002071.php

http://www2.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2007_04/011170.php

Three GOP congressmen embroiled in scandal – and at least one more to come

Doolittle: http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/politics/4732225.html
Less than a week after the FBI raided the Northern Virginia home of Rep. John Doolittle, R-Calif., the congressman gave up his coveted seat on the House Appropriations Committee amid concerns that he had used that post to advance the interest of convicted lobbyist Jack Abramoff and other allies. . . .

Since 2005, a Justice Department task force has been looking into payments made by Abramoff and other lobbyists to Doolittle's wife and the spouses of other lawmakers.

Last Friday's raid of the couple's house came on the same day Doolittle's former legislative director, Kevin Ring, abruptly resigned as a lobbyist for Barnes & Thornburg. Ring had been an intermediary in Abramoff's hiring of Julie Doolittle's firm as a fundraiser for a charity the lobbyist had founded.

Doolittle also helped steer millions of dollars in military funding to one of the defense contractors tied to the bribery conviction of former representative Randy "Duke" Cunningham, R-Calif. . . .

Renzi: http://online.wsj.com/article_email/SB117708053389976977-lMyQjAxMDE3NzI3MDAyODAwWj.html
In exchange for supporting the bill, the local congressman, Rick Renzi, a Republican, insisted on something in return: He wanted Resolution to buy, as part of the land swap, a 480-acre alfalfa field near his hometown of Sierra Vista, according to documents and people involved in the deal.

Resolution executives refused. For starters, they thought the land was overpriced, people close to the deal say. More troubling, they discovered it was owned by Mr. Renzi's former business partner, these people say.

Resolution wasn't the only party troubled by the congressman's demands. His chief of staff resigned and began cooperating secretly with the Federal Bureau of Investigation, according to witnesses and others close to the case. The FBI began a preliminary inquiry that was first reported in October, just before Mr. Renzi was elected to a third term. . . .

Lewis: http://www.citizensforethics.org/node/27749
[CREW] Rep. Lewis, as the top Republican appropriator, is responsible for funding all federal agencies, including the Justice Department, which is conducting a probe into his potentially criminal activities. It is well past time for Rep. Lewis relinquish his seat on the Appropriations Committee pending the outcome of the ongoing investigation.”

Reps. Doolittle, Renzi and Lewis were all named in Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington’s 2006 most corrupt report, Beyond DeLay. More details can be found at http://www.beyonddelay.org.

Miller: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/21/AR2007042100999.html
Rep. Gary G. Miller (R-Calif.), under investigation by the FBI for a series of land deals, is now facing Democratic ads alleging that he lied about a land sale that he declined to pay taxes on.

Henry Waxman (D-CA), a busy man

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/4/21/164122/922
In his continuing quest to do his job and carry out the legitimate oversight functions of Congress, Henry Waxman has written to former White House chief of staff Andrew Card and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice asking them to appear before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee. . . .

More: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/20/AR2007042002009.html

The Dems are feeling very confident and aggressive about winning in 2008 – but let’s see what they do with it

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/21/AR2007042100998.html
Democrats believe they have convinced the outgoing mayor of Kansas City, Mo., Kay Barnes, to challenge Graves in 2008, in one of a handful of early recruiting successes that, national party strategists argue, will allow them to greatly expand the playing field of competitive races that November.

That strategy paid major dividends for Democrats in 2006 as they upset previously safe incumbents in Kansas, California and Arizona, and came mighty close in the GOP strongholds of Idaho and Wyoming. Democrats hope to repeat that game plan in 2008, aided by the continued dismal national political environment for Republicans. . . .

More: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/21/AR2007042100999.html

Theocracy watch

http://www.talkleft.com/story/2007/4/21/13637/5914
[Bush, on Virginia Tech] One of the things I try to assure the families and the students and the faculty of that fine university was that there are a lot of people around our country who are praying for them. It's interesting here in Tipp City, the first thing that happened was a moment of silence, a moment of prayer, to provide -- at least my prayer was, please comfort and strengthen those whose lives were affected by this horrible incident. It really speaks to the strength of this country, doesn't it, that total strangers here in Ohio are willing to hold up people in Virginia in prayer. And I thank you for that. And my message to the folks who still hurt in -- at Virginia Tech is that a lot of people care about you, and a lot of people think about you, a lot of people grieve with you, and a lot of people hope you find sustenance in a power higher than yourself. And a lot of us believe you will."

Last year’s Press Correspondents Dinner featured Stephen Colbert, who made everyone squirm with his edgy political satire. This year they played it safe with Rich Little – and what did they get?

Then: http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/4/22/3343/49393
[Colbert] But the rest of you, what are you thinking, reporting on NSA wiretapping or secret prisons in eastern Europe? Those things are secret for a very important reason: they're super-depressing. And if that's your goal, well, misery accomplished. Over the last five years you people were so good -- over tax cuts, WMD intelligence, the effect of global warming. We Americans didn't want to know, and you had the courtesy not to try to find out. Those were good times, as far as we knew.

But, listen, let's review the rules. Here's how it works: the president makes decisions. He's the decider. The press secretary announces those decisions, and you people of the press type those decisions down. Make, announce, type. Just put 'em through a spell check and go home. Get to know your family again. Make love to your wife. Write that novel you got kicking around in your head. You know, the one about the intrepid Washington reporter with the courage to stand up to the administration. You know - fiction!

Now: http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1003574772
President Bush said, “We’ve got to learn to laugh in this town" . . . He just said thanks for dinner and introduced Rich Little, “a talented and good man.” . . .

Rich Little, with shockingly dyed hair, said at the outset that he is “not political” but rather a “nightclub performer who does a lot of dumb, stupid jokes,” then proved that. . .

With that he pulled out one of his classics, Johnny Carson, with a joke about lawyers being “assholes,” which drew a laugh from the president, despite the off-color language.

Then he did Andy Rooney asking: “If you overdosed on Viagra how would you get the coffin closed?”

Little followed by doing six presidents, including a man he “loved,” Ronald Reagan. He put in false teeth to play Jimmy Carter saying that when he was a peanut farmer “I had the biggest nuts in the county.” . . . .

Little proceeded to do Nixon shaking his head uncontrollably, quipping, "I’m having a jowl movement.”

Speaking to E&P afterward, probably aware that his routine went over rather poorly, he said, "this is not the easiest audience in the world." But he said Bush told him when it was over, "absolutely perfect." . . .

Sunday talk show line-ups

http://www.mediabistro.com/fishbowlDC/television/sunday_show_preview_57502.asp
• Meet the Press: Virginia Tech panel member ex-Virginia Police Super. Gerald Massengill, VA Tech panel member ex-DHS Secretary Tom Ridge, and a roundtable with pres. historian Doris Kearns Goodwin, NBC's David Gregory, Newsweek's Jon Meacham, NBC's Pete Williams.

• Face the Nation: Sen. Patrick Leahy, Jim and Sarah Brady, and criminal profiler Gregg McCray.

• This Week: Newt Gingrich, Sen. Chris Dodd and Jackie Dodd.

• Fox News Sunday: Virginia Lieutenant Governor Bill Bolling, GWU Pres. Stephen Trachtenberg, and Sens. Arlen Specter and Chuck Schumer.

• Late Edition: Sen. Sam Brownback, Virginia Attorney General Bob McDonnell, New York Times' Thomas Friedman, ex-Clinton counsel Lanny Davis, and a roundtable with CNN's Bill Schneider and CNN's Jeanne Meserve.

• The Chris Matthews Show: Howard Fineman of Newsweek; David Brooks, New York Times; Katty Kay, BBC Washington correspondent; and Kelly O'Donnell, NBC News.

• C-SPAN's Newsmakers: Homeland Security Committee Chairman, Rep. Bennie Thompson.

Bonus item: NOT “The Onion”

http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2007/04/21/wmd_conspiracy/index.html
[Glenn Greenwald] Melanie Phillips is a British neoconservative who has devoted herself to warning England that Muslims are taking over and destroying its culture. . . .

But all of that is rendered moderate, restrained, sober and even sane by a new article she wrote for the British magazine, The Spectator (headline: I Found Saddam's WMD Bunkers), which claims that: (a) WMDs really were found in Iraq after the invasion, (b) they were located in vast underground bunkers (c) which contained "nuclear, chemical and biological materials", but (d) the U.S., through negligence, failed to secure those sites and, as a result, (e) the WMDs were stolen by The Terrorists and/or Syrian agents, who now have them and are actively plotting (along with China, Russia and North Korea) to use them against the West, but --

(f) because the Bush administration is so embarrassed by their failure to prevent the theft of all these dastardly weapons, and because Democrats are embarrassed by this discovery because it proves that Saddam really did have WMDs all along, they have all jointly created a vast conspiracy where they conceal the discovery of WMDs in order to cover up for their negligence. . . . [read on!]

http://mediamatters.org/columns/200704180002
[Eric Boehlert] Can conservative bloggers tell the truth? . . . [read on]

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

I don't get anything personally out of this project, except the satisfaction of doing it (I don't run ads, etc). The credit really all goes to the people whose material I copy and redistribute. But if I do have a "mission," it is to get this information into the hands of as many people as I can.***
- posted by Nick Burbules @ 6:49 AM

 
MORAL COWARDS

Bush proclaims his confidence in Gonzales, and people dutifully report it, as if that means anything. In fact it means nothing at all – it’s purely rote. Hell, he was saying Rumsfeld would be in his administration through the remainder of his second term, WHEN HE HAD ALREADY DECIDED TO DUMP HIM AND WAS INTERVIEWING REPLACEMENTS

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2007/04/20/national/w103546D30.DTL&type=politics
The Bush White House called embattled Attorney General Alberto Gonzales "our No. 1 crime fighter" Friday, a day after Gonzales' often halting explanations for the firings of eight federal prosecutors brought additional demands for his resignation. . . .

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/20/AR2007042002020.html

Lukewarm support: http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/003076.php

http://www.first-draft.com/2007/04/today_on_holden_6.html

Meanwhile, he puts his secret minions to work. This is how it works, isn’t it? Bush poses as the steadfast loyal friend, while the horse’s head gets delivered behind the scenes: time to resign, Alberto. Just say that this unfair partisan attack has made it impossible for you to serve your President effectively. You’re proud of your accomplishments, but you feel you can no longer be effective without becoming a distraction to the important agenda your President is undertaking

http://www.cnn.com/2007/POLITICS/04/20/gonzales/index.html
Several administration officials and the House Republican Conference chairman said Friday that Attorney General Alberto Gonzales should step down . . . .

More: http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/4/21/3374/84403

The Decider (Junior edition)

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/4/20/162610/962
LEAHY: You know, Mr. Attorney General, you said in answer to Senator Sessions's question, you don't recall the November 27 meeting where you made the decision.

GONZALES: Senator, I don't think -- I don't know that a decision was made at that meeting.

LEAHY: How can you be sure you made the decision? (LAUGHTER)

GONZALES: Senator, I recall making the decision from this -- I recall making the decision.

LEAHY: When?

GONZALES: Sir, I don't recall when the decision was made.

More snark: http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/4/20/3409/00852
[Byron York] Judging by his testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee Thursday, there are three questions about the U.S. Attorneys mess that Attorney General Alberto Gonzales wants answered: What did I know? When did I know it? And why did I fire those U.S. Attorneys? . . . [read on]

http://www.thenation.com/blogs/thebeat?pid=188327
[John Nichols] For the record, Gonzales hit what many believe to have been a record for "don't recalling" by a Cabinet member appearing before an oversight hearing: 64. And that does not count the dozens of "do-not-remember" and "can't-quite-recollect" variations.

People have rightly trashed the bumbling, error-filled, and “I don’t recall” peppered testimony of Gonzales. But they often miss the point: he CAN’T answer these questions. A truthful answer would look something like this. . .

“I don’t know why some of the names were on the list to be fired because I had nothing to do with identifying them. I can’t give you reasons for some of them because there were no good reasons for some of them. I can give you reasons for some of the others, although those aren’t really the reasons why they were slated to be canned. The “neat idea” of firing a bunch of US Attorneys came from Harriet and Karl over at the White House, and their main criterion was “insufficient loyalty,” which means not getting the message about who we did and didn’t want to see investigated. Several were put on the list simply because of complaints from Republican congressmen and state party officials. In one case, Bush just told me to make it happen.

You can always find some excuse for firing anybody, if firing them is what you want to do.

As for the replacements, we’ve actually been plugging people from Harriet and Karl’s favorites list into these positions for years – no one noticed the pattern until now. We consider US Attorney posts to be patronage positions like anything else – and these are folks who have served their President and their party well in the past. They’re qualified because that’s our primary litmus test for qualification. Besides, this is a good stepping stone to future federal court positions, and we’re grooming the next generation of theocratic judicial activists. Any questions?”

http://www.firedoglake.com/2007/04/20/the-reviews-are-in/

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/042007A.shtml

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/blog/2007/04/20/BL2007042001046.html
[Dan Froomkin] As long as Gonzales remains front and center in the furor over last year's mass firing of U.S. attorneys -- as long as his goofy stonewalling continues to distract attention from all the elements of the purge that point so incriminatingly toward the White House -- he simply enhances his position as the ultimate "loyal Bushie."

Absolutely nothing Gonzales said yesterday cast doubt on the theory that some if not all of the prosecutors were fired because they had somehow inspired the wrath of presidential adviser Karl Rove and his staff of brass-knuckled political operatives.

http://www2.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2007_04/011164.php
[Kevin Drum] Gee, I wonder why the Bush White House feels the need to exercise such tight control over the Justice Department's handling of criminal cases? Hmmm. Any ideas?

More: http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/4/20/13296/2483

If they do dump Gonzales, who comes next? Who would want the job? Who could possibly be confirmed?

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2007/04/running-out-of-choices-by-digby-is-this.html

The trumped-up case filed by “loyal Bushie” Steve Biskupic in Wisconsin: termed by the appeals court “preposterous”

http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/003075.php

http://www.talkleft.com/story/2007/4/20/171552/903

John Cornyn (R-TX) is right that firing Gonzales isn’t going to ease the pressure on the Bush gang to testify and release emails that will show further White House involvement in the firings: the Dems have the scent of blood in the water now. But it’s a pretty funny reason to RETAIN Gonzales. For reasons I mentioned here yesterday, I hope Bush does keep him

http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/003072.php

Cornyn’s role: http://www.firedoglake.com/2007/04/20/can-somebody-ask-the-right-question-please/

Stand by your man: http://www.firedoglake.com/2007/04/20/stand-by-your-man-2/

Bush, high school coward

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/19/AR2007041902356.html
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) told colleagues yesterday that she was incredulous after President Bush pulled her aside at the end of a meeting Wednesday and told her he did not criticize her recent trip to Syria.

After all, Bush and other senior administration officials and top Republicans had slammed the speaker publicly for meeting in Damascus with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. But in a private meeting with Democratic lawmakers yesterday, Pelosi said Bush told her in an unsolicited comment that it was actually the State Department that criticized her. . . .

Why do people call Bush a failure? Look at his successes

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2007/04/brownie-points-by-digby-in-response-to.html
[Digby] In response to Steve Benen's post about Bush's rambling, incoherent answers at that Townhall yesterday, one of his commenters pithily replied:

Bush leveraged a national tragedy into reelection. He’s seeded the federal government with true believers, expanded executive authority while marginalizing Congress and appointing 2 radically conservative SC judges. He’s expanded government surveillance of our phones, e-mails, libraary borrowings, bank accounts and medicine cabinets. He’s stalled efforts to curb global warming, cut protections once provided by the EPA, FDA, and silenced scientists who dare refute the literal word of bible or the backward beliefs of those who claim to know the mind of the almighty. The US can now torture, imprision without providing cause and prosecute without allowing a reasonable defense. He’s built bases in the middle east, and fattened the bank accounts of those whose bank accounts were already obscene. The middle class — the masses — have not been so economically impotent in decades.

For such an idiot, this guy has been awfully successful.

That's worth thinking about. He's only been an epic failure in terms of keeping the nation secure, safeguarding our constitution and making America more prosperous and successful. When you look at it from Bush's perspective, however, he's done a heckuva job.

Putting Bush on the couch (again)

http://www.firedoglake.com/2007/04/20/the-state-of-the-presidency/

The Goofus Files (a double helping)

http://www.first-draft.com/2007/04/your_president__4.html
I am -- you know, I marvel at the fact that on the one hand my dad joined the Navy at 18 to fight a sworn enemy, the Japanese, and on the other hand, his son, some 55 years later, best friend and keeping the peace with the Prime Minister of Japan. . . . [read on]

http://www.first-draft.com/2007/04/your_president__3.html
I realized that there is an enemy of the United States that is active and is lethal. At further study of that enemy, I realized that they share an ideology, that these weren't -- that the -- and when you really think about it, the September the 11th attack was not the first attack. . . . [read on]

Shhh! Don’t say it out loud (even though we all know it’s true)

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070420/ap_on_go_co/us_iraq_139
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said Thursday the war in Iraq is "lost," triggering an angry backlash by Republicans, who said the top Democrat had turned his back on the troops. . . .

More: http://mediamatters.org/items/200704200012

The GOP response: http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/10574.html

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/horsesmouth/2007/04/xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx.php

Others who have said the same thing: http://americablog.blogspot.com/2007/04/media-please-ask-every-republican.html

http://www.talkleft.com/story/2007/4/20/19200/2963

http://GenMcPeak.notlong.com

A good comeback: http://www.needlenose.com/node/view/3975

Better yet: don’t say anything at all

http://www.warandpiece.com/blogdirs/005994.html
[National Journal] Pentagon lawyers abruptly blocked mid-level active-duty military officers from speaking Thursday during a closed-door House Armed Services Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee briefing about their personal experiences working with Iraqi security forces.

The Pentagon's last-minute refusal to allow the officers' presentations surprised panel members and congressional aides, who are in the middle of an investigation into the effort to train and organize Iraqi forces.

Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee Chairman Martin Meehan, D-Mass., called the Pentagon's move "outrageous" and left open the possibility of issuing subpoenas.

[NB: Isn’t it OBVIOUS what they would have said?]

A trickle becomes a steady stream . . .

http://www.latimes.com/news/politics/la-na-warvote20apr20,1,131262.story
In another sign of Republican unease with the president's Iraq policies, a third GOP senator expressed support Thursday for pulling U.S. forces out of Iraq under certain conditions.

Sen. Olympia J. Snowe announced she would sponsor a bill to require American commanders to plan a withdrawal within 120 days of the bill's enactment, unless the Iraqi government meets a series of benchmarks.

"The Iraq government needs to understand that our commitment is not infinite," said Snowe, a moderate from Maine who frequently departs from the party line. . . .

Snowe is not backing a Senate Democratic plan approved last month that would require the president to begin withdrawing troops within 120 days and would set a nonbinding goal of complete withdrawal by March.

But that plan did draw the support of two GOP senators, Chuck Hagel of Nebraska and Gordon H. Smith of Oregon. . .

Did the Defense Sect’y privately give the Iraqis a deadline?

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-gates21apr21,0,2547023.story

The truth starts to come out about Guantanamo

http://www.discourse.net/archives/2007/04/rumsfelds_house_of_lies_and_inhumanity.html

Wolfie’s habits of nepotism go back a long way (and he’s not alone)

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2007_04_15.php#013763

He’s gone: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/21/washington/21wolfowitz.html

Just a reminder that the Bush gang runs the Education Dept like every other govt dept: an ideologically driven excuse to funnel money to Bush loyalists and campaign contributors

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/20/AR2007042002284.html

More: http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2006-09-22-reading-audit_x.htm

http://www.districtadministration.com/pulse/commentpost.aspx?news=no&postid=17185

http://d-edreckoning.blogspot.com/2006/09/reading-first-scandal-update.html

When did Joe Lieberman become such a tool?

http://electioncentral.tpmcafe.com/blog/electioncentral/2007/apr/20/quiz_whos_speaking_lieberman_or_the_white_house

http://www.firedoglake.com/2007/04/20/nice-joe-you-got-there-harry/

Whee! Dogfight amongst the Right

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/10575.html

The kind of people they are

http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2007/04/20/krauthammer/index.html
[Charles Krauthammer, April 20] "Using Grief for Political Gain"

What can be said about the Virginia Tech massacre? Very little. What should be said? Even less. . . .

Perhaps . . . we can agree to observe a decent interval of respectful silence before turning ineffable evil and unfathomable grief into political fodder.

[Charles Krauthammer, April 18] What you can say, just -- not as a psychiatrist, but as somebody who's lived through the a past seven or eight years, is that if you look at that picture, it draws its inspiration from the manifestos, the iconic photographs of the Islamic suicide bombers over the last half decade in Palestine, in Iraq and elsewhere.

That's what they end up leaving behind, either on al Jazeera or Palestinian TV. And he, it seems, as if his inspiration for leaving the message behind in that way, might have been this kind of suicide attack, which, of course, his was. And he did leave the return address return "Ismail Ax." "Ismail Ax." I suspect it has some more to do with Islamic terror and the inspiration than it does with the opening line of Moby Dick. . . . [read on]

Bonus item: Straight-talkin’ John McCain gets roasted for his tasteless “bomb Iran” joke, and his response?

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/4/20/10455/0533
"My response is lighten up and get a life," he said. ... Asked by reporters Thursday if he thought the joke was insensitive he said: "Insensitive to what? The Iranians?"

More: http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/10572.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).

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- posted by Nick Burbules @ 7:03 AM

 
DEAD MAN WALKING

So, how was your day, Alberto?

http://www.talkleft.com/story/2007/4/19/162939/153
Gonzo Going Down In Flames

[Big Tent Democrat] Gonzales provided one of the most pathetic displays I've ever seen. I am embarrassed for him.

http://www.firedoglake.com/2007/04/19/late-nite-fdl-pathetic/
[TRex] I only got to dip into today's testimony by . . . our soon-to-be former Attorney General, but I saw and heard enough to know beyond the shadow of a doubt that not only is this man a liar, but a piss-poor one at that. Whiny, arrogant, dismissive . . .

http://newsblogs.chicagotribune.com/news_theswamp/2007/04/gonzales_gettin.html
Gonzales pummeled by Senate . . .

http://www2.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2007_04/011158.php
[Kevin Drum] I've only been watching his testimony sporadically and with half an eye (or ear), so I don't have any substantive comment. But for a guy who's been preparing for weeks, he sure does seem awfully flummoxed and testy, doesn't he?

http://www.slate.com/id/2164652/fr/rss/
Alberto Gonzales is bloodied by his trip to the Senate

[Dahlia Lithwick] Everyone but the attorney general also seems to recognize that the time for half-formed, one-sentence justifications for the firings of eight U.S. attorneys is long past. If David Iglesias, former U.S. attorney of New Mexico, was really fired for any reason other than party politics, today was the day to disprove that. Gonzales didn't. In fact, he claims that the burden of proof is on the committee to prove he's done something wrong. Even Sen. Lindsay Graham, R-S.C., opines that some of his reasons sounded "made up." But he comes armed with no files, e-mails, lists, or charts to back up his claims that these firings were warranted. . . .

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2007_04_15.php#013736
NRO's Byron York: "It has been a disastrous morning for Attorney General Alberto Gonzales..."

[Josh Marshall] It's really true. Quite apart from the substance of what we've learned since mid-January and Gonzales' past false statements, Gonzales has been surprisingly unable even to keep his made-up stories straight. . .

http://www.slate.com/id/2164740
Is This the End?

The editorial

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/20/opinion/20fri1.html
[NYT] If Attorney General Alberto Gonzales had gone to the Senate yesterday to convince the world that he ought to be fired, it’s hard to imagine how he could have done a better job, short of simply admitting the obvious: that the firing of eight United States attorneys was a partisan purge.

Mr. Gonzales came across as a dull-witted apparatchik incapable of running one of the most important departments in the executive branch.

He had no trouble remembering complaints from his bosses and Republican lawmakers about federal prosecutors who were not playing ball with the Republican Party’s efforts to drum up election fraud charges against Democratic politicians and Democratic voters. But he had no idea whether any of the 93 United States attorneys working for him — let alone the ones he fired — were doing a good job prosecuting real crimes.

He delegated responsibility for purging their ranks to an inexperienced and incompetent assistant who, if that’s possible, was even more of a plodding apparatchik. Mr. Gonzales failed to create the most rudimentary standards for judging the prosecutors’ work, except for political fealty. And when it came time to explain his inept decision making to the public, he gave a false account that was instantly and repeatedly contradicted by sworn testimony.

Even the most loyal Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee found it impossible to throw Mr. Gonzales a lifeline. The best Orrin Hatch of Utah could do was to mutter that “I think that you’ll agree that this was poorly handled” and to suggest that Mr. Gonzales should just be forgiven. Senator Sam Brownback led Mr. Gonzales through the names of the fired attorneys, evidently hoping he would offer cogent reasons for their dismissal.

Some of his answers were merely laughable. Mr. Gonzales said one prosecutor deserved to be fired because he wrote a letter that annoyed the deputy attorney general. Another prosecutor had the gall to ask Mr. Gonzales to reconsider a decision to seek the death penalty. (Mr. Gonzales, of course, is famous for never reconsidering a death penalty case, no matter how powerful the arguments are.)

Mr. Gonzales criticized other fired prosecutors for “poor management,” for losing the confidence of career prosecutors and for “not having total control of the office.” With those criticisms, Mr. Gonzales was really describing his own record: he has been a poor manager who has had no control over his department and has lost the confidence of his professional staff and all Americans.

Mr. Gonzales was even unable to say who compiled the list of federal attorneys slated for firing. The man he appointed to conduct the purge, Kyle Sampson, said he had not created the list. The former head of the office that supervises the federal prosecutors, Michael Battle, said he didn’t do it, as did William Mercer, the acting associate attorney general.

Mr. Gonzales said he did not know why the eight had been on the list when it was given to him, that it had not been accompanied by any written analysis and that he had just assumed it reflected a consensus of the senior leaders of his department. At one point, Mr. Gonzales even claimed that he could not remember how the Justice Department had come to submit an amendment to the Patriot Act that allowed him to fire United States attorneys and replace them without Senate confirmation. The Senate voted to revoke that power after the current scandal broke.

At the end of the day, we were left wondering why the nation’s chief law-enforcement officer would paint himself as a bumbling fool. Perhaps it’s because the alternative is that he is not telling the truth. There is strong evidence that this purge was directed from the White House, and that Karl Rove, Mr. Bush’s top political adviser, and Harriet Miers, the former White House counsel, were deeply involved.

Yesterday, Mr. Gonzales admitted that he had not been surprised by five of the names on the list because he had heard complaints about them — from Republican senators and Mr. Rove.

In another telling moment, Mr. Gonzales was asked when he had lost confidence in David Iglesias, who was fired as federal prosecutor in New Mexico. His answer was an inadvertent slip of truth.

“Mr. Iglesias lost the confidence of Senator Domenici, as I recall, in the fall of 2005,” Mr. Gonzales said. It was Senator Pete Domenici of New Mexico, of course, who made a wildly inappropriate phone call to Mr. Iglesias in 2006, not 2005, to ask whether charges would be filed before the election in a corruption inquiry focused on Democrats. When Mr. Iglesias said he did not think so, Mr. Domenici hung up and complained to the White House. Shortly after, Mr. Iglesias’s name was added to the firing list.

We don’t yet know whether Mr. Gonzales is merely so incompetent that he should be fired immediately, or whether he is covering something up.

But if we believe the testimony that neither he nor any other senior Justice Department official was calling the shots on the purge, then the public needs to know who was. That is why the Judiciary Committee must stick to its insistence that Mr. Rove, Ms. Miers and other White House officials testify in public and under oath and that all documents be turned over to Congress, including e-mail messages by Mr. Rove that the Republican Party has yet to produce.

The news

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/20/washington/20gonzales.html
Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales, trying to salvage his job, endured withering questioning on Thursday from Senate Judiciary Committee members who expressed grave doubts about his truthfulness and judgment in the firing of federal prosecutors. . . .

His performance clearly exasperated the committee members, including Republicans, who were angered as he invoked a faulty memory more than 50 times. Two senators — Tom Coburn, Republican of Oklahoma, and Charles E. Schumer, Democrat of New York — called for him to resign.

At the end of the hearing, Senator Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania, the ranking Republican on the panel, said, “I think we have gone about as far as we can go,” adding, “We have not gotten really answers.” . . .

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/19/washington/19cnd-gonz.html
Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales encountered anger and skepticism from senators today . . .

Senator Lindsey Graham, Republican of South Carolina, said the attorney general had a “tremendous credibility problem.”

Senator Patrick J. Leahy, the Vermont Democrat who heads the Judiciary Committee, said the Justice Department “is experiencing a crisis of leadership perhaps unrivaled during its 137-year history.”

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2007_04_15.php#013726
Sen. Graham to Gonzales: "Most of this [reasons for the firings] is a stretch." . . .

http://thehill.com/leading-the-news/gop-leans-on-gonzales-2007-04-19.html
One of the most conservative members of the Senate told Attorney General Alberto Gonzales yesterday that he should resign. . . .

Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) said . . . “It’s generous to say that there were misstatements,” the senator added. “And I believe you ought to suffer the consequences that others have suffered and I believe to put this behind us, requires your resignation.” . . .

Other Republicans on the panel were extremely critical of Gonzales and aggressive in their questioning — even staunch supporters of the administration.

Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.), who was a U.S. attorney for 12 years, criticized the attorney general saying, “It does appear that your statements given at the Department of Justice at a press conference incorrectly minimized your involvement in this matter. Your ability to lead the Department of Justice is in question. . . .”

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/4/19/15757/9139
[McJoan] Senator Coburn says Gonzales should resign. When you've lost Coburn, when you've lost Grassley, when you've lost Sessions, you're toast. . . .

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/20/us/20capital.html
It did not bode well for Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales when, before he uttered his first word to the Senate Judiciary Committee on Thursday, Senator Jeff Sessions, Republican of Alabama, looked at him as if he were headed to the gallows and offered this advice: “Be alert and direct and honest with this committee. Give it your best shot.”

Things only went downhill from there for the attorney general, as the people he desperately needed to come to his rescue — fellow Republicans — proceeded one by one to throw him overboard.

Not a single Republican, with the possible exception of Senator Orrin G. Hatch of Utah, came to Mr. Gonzales’s defense — not even his old Texas friend Senator John Cornyn. . . .

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2007_04_15.php#013748
[Josh Marshall] I think it's fair to say that Gonzales has lost the confidence of at least half the Republican senators on the committee. He's given people too many causes of termination to choose from. . . . [read on]

http://www.slate.com/id/2164740
[Daniel Politi] Gonzales said he didn't know why two of the U.S. attorneys were fired until after the fact and admitted that he never looked at any of the performance reviews before the prosecutors were dismissed. Senators were visibly angry with Gonzales' changing explanations and his claim that he wasn't closely involved with the process. Slate's Dahlia Lithwick succinctly summarizes Gonzales' position on the firings: "The process was a total, ad-hoc wreck. The decisions were rock solid." The senators seemed to be most frustrated with Gonzales' repeated use of the phrase "I don't recall," words he uttered more than 50 times yesterday. As exasperated as the senators might have been yesterday, all the papers remind readers that only the president has the power to fire the attorney general, and yesterday the White House expressed its support for Gonzales.

Arlen Specter, as usual, talks tough and then wimps out

http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/003048.php
[Paul Kiel] Sen. Arlen Specter (R-PA) . . . pulled no punches in his questioning.

He began by battering Gonzales with questions about how he could make false statements about his involvement in the process if he was properly prepared for the January Senate hearing and his March 13th press conference. Gonzales kept insisting that he'd been prepared . . .

And later in Specter's questioning, he asked how Gonzales could say that he wasn't involved in the process of eliminating certain U.S. attorneys if he'd sat in on a meeting last year when DoJ officials discussed the possible removal of Carol Lam. Gonzales responded by drawing an artful distinction between that meeting, which was in the course of his normal duties as attorney general, and the review process of U.S. attorneys. That conversation, Gonzales said, was "outside of the review process." . . .

http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/003067.php
"I'm not going to call for your resignation," saying that it's "beyond my purview.... For myself, I want to leave it to you and the president." . . .

The low points (where do I begin?)

The big lie: http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2007_04_15.php#013723
[Josh Marshall] Sen. Schumer (D-NY) catches Mr. Gonzales in one of several lies. Gonzales says Carol Lam was well aware of the DOJ's concerns about her immigration policy. Lam says that's false. Kyle Sampson says that's false. The documents say that's false.

First he claims the 'documents' show she was told. Not true. He gives up on that. Now he's saying that members of Congress told her, which is of course a non-sequitur since the question is whether the DOJ told her that they were concerned.

This is a telling moment for Gonzales since not only is he lying but he doesn't even seem to be even marginally prepped with what's in the public record. . .

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2007_04_15.php#013741
[Josh Marshall] Earlier I mentioned the exchange between AG Gonzales and Sen. Schumer (D-NY) in which the senator clearly caught the AG in a ridiculously transparent falsehood -- claiming that the DOJ had told Carol Lam of their concerns with her immigration enforcement policies. That was a telling moment both in terms of the factual record and Gonzales's fitness for any public office. This was a particularly silly fib because we have sworn testimony both from Lam herself and Kyle Sampson that it is simply not true. Indeed, the publicly-released documents also show no evidence that this is true. So even if you come at this hearing from the perspective of wanting Gonzales to brazen it out, to successfully lie his way through the questioning -- even then, you'd have to wonder what he was thinking trying to pull this one off. Remember he's been actively preparing for this testimony for more than a month.

But, as I've said earlier . . . we should not let the impact of the exposure of the AG's falsehoods and attempted coverups to deflect our attention from what these facts mean. A wealth of circumstantial evidence points to the conclusion that Carol Lam was fired because her corruption investigation endangered Republican members of Congress and key administration officials. The DOJ and White House has sought to refute these claims with the suggestion that she was dismissed because of weak immigration enforcement. The fact that no one at the Department ever raised the issue with Lam points strongly to the conclusion that the 'immigration enforcement' line was developed as a cover to fire Lam for other reasons -- namely to disrupt her investigation.

Indeed, the fact that Gonzales felt the need to fib on this point testifies to how central such a fact would be to making his story credible.

This is the central issue in the Lam firing. It's central to the corruption Alberto Gonzales has brought to the Department of Justice.

http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/003055.php
[Paul Kiel] Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) . . . began on the question of whether U.S. Attorney for San Diego Carol Lam had been told that there was a problem with her immigration enforcement numbers. That supposedly was the main reason for her firing.

Gonzales hedged the question, saying that Lam must have known that there was “interest” in and “concern” with her immigration performance. Members of Congress, Gonzales said, had complained about Lam’s performance. Gonzales allowed that she “may not have been told that if there is no change in policy, there will be a change,” but seemed to think that was an unimportant distinction.

Schumer pressed, citing the testimony of both Carol Lam and Kyle Sampson that Lam had never been told that she should change her office’s approach to immigration enforcement. And he took issue with the idea that the department would let members of Congress be representatives of the Justice Department. . . .

Backpedaling later: http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/003064.php
[Paul Kiel] Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) returned to the question of the hour, which is how Alberto Gonzales could sign off on the firings not knowing the reason that the U.S. attorneys were being fired and who specifically had made the decision to add each one to the list. "It would seem to me you'd want to know," Feinstein said.

Gonzales reprised earlier answers, that he'd relied on the judgment of senior leadership in the department, particularly the deputy attorney general. Feinstein countered by saying that when most people hear "senior leadership," they think of men with "grey hair," but that in Gonzales' department these were young, often "very ideological" people.

Gonzales suddenly swerved back to his earlier remarks about Carol Lam, and backpedalled. "I believe based on my review of the documents," he said "that there was an interest in her performance. I don't know if Ms. Lam knew that the Justice Department had those specific concerns."

"I expected that my concerns... would be communicated to Ms. Lam," he said. But, of course, they weren't. Gonzales didn't indicate if he ever actually told anyone to talk to her.

http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/003047.php
[Paul Kiel] Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Pat Leahy (D-VT) was fast out of the gate, jumping right in with questions about the firing of David Iglesias.

Despite Gonzales' foggy recollections, some significant details emerged.

Gonzales could not recall details about his conversation with Karl Rove about voter fraud, although he testified that he did have such a conversation. He said that it covered three jurisdictions -- New Mexico, Milwaukee and Philadelphia. He could not recall when or where or how it had occurred, only that it was in the fall of 2006.

He pinpointed the date of his conversation with President Bush about those same three jurisdictions as happening on October 11.

He also revealed that, when he spoke with Sen. Pete Domenici (R-NM) in the fall of 2005 about David Iglesias, that Domenici said that Iglesias "was in over his head." Domenici was concerned that Iglesias didn't have personnel for public corruption cases. Domenici never requested that Iglesias be removed, Gonzales said -- he just questioned whether Iglesias was capable.

When pressed by Leahy, Gonzales could not say precisely why Iglesias was fired, nor when Iglesias' name appeared on the list.

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2007_04_15.php#013729
[Josh Marshall] In one of the more humorous exchanges of the day, Mr. Gonzales called David Iglesias's failure to report the Wilson and Domenici calls to DOJ a "serious transgression." It is true that violated departmental guidelines. And Iglesias has rightly apologized. But let's not forget that Sen. Domenici appears to have reported the calls directly to Gonzales and the President of the United States. Or didn't he raise that when he contacted both men after Iglesias refused to budge in response to Domenici's threatening call?

http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/003050.php
[Paul Kiel] Under questioning from Sen. Sam Brownback (R-KS), Alberto Gonzales gave a rundown of the supposed performance reasons behind the firing of each prosecutor. In most cases, his answers lined up with prior explanations from Justice Department officials, particularly answers given by William Moschella when he testified last month.

But there was one notable admission. Gonzales said that Bud Cummins was asked to step down just because the department wanted to "put a qualified individual in his place." In other words, there was not a performance reason for his firing. Gonzales said that he'd failed to indicate that in his January testimony before the Senate because he was "confused". . . Apparently Gonzales was still confused in February, though, because he was upset about Deputy Attorney General Paul McNulty's testimony that there had been no performance reasons behind Cummins' firing.

http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/003052.php
[Paul Kiel] Alberto Gonzales, during questioning by Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL) said that he’d never intended to install Tim Griffin as U.S. Attorney for Little Rock using the Patriot Act provision -- a plan that Kyle Sampson had advocated. Doing that was a “dumb idea,” Gonzales said. And he says that when Sen. Mark Pryor (D-AR) told him that he would not support Griffin’s nomination in December, he offered to have Pryor suggest replacements. That’ll be news to Pryor, who’s said that Gonzales appeared to be following Kyle Sampson’s plan to string him along, to run out the clock, when they spoke. Pryor has said publicly, repeatedly, that Gonzales lied to him.

http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/003055.php
[Paul Kiel] Gonzales’ former chief of staff Kyle Sampson testified last month that Gonzales did not reject the idea of circumventing the Senate until after Gonzales spoke with Sen. Mark Pryor (D-AR) about Tim Griffin in mid-December. Sampson said that he’d discussed the idea with Gonzales before, that Gonzales didn’t seem to like the idea (not clear how he got that impression), but that Gonzales didn’t reject it outright.

But in his testimony today, Gonzales has said that he rejected the plan and never considered it. Despite that, Sampson consistently pushed that plan – first in an email in September, and then in a detailed email to the White House in December. Schumer was incredulous at Gonzales’ explanation that he’d rejected the plan all along. If Gonzales really had rejected the idea, than that means that Sampson was advocating the plan behind Gonzales’ back. Who’s running the Justice Department? Schumer wanted to know.

http://www2.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2007_04/011160.php
[Emily Bazelon] I learned two new things, so far. The first is that Gonzales said that the idea of firing some US attorneys was his. His words "I believe it was my plan." That's the first time I remember him saying that.

The second thing, I think, is that the reasons behind David Iglesias' firing look more fishy, not less. Gonzales acknowledged talking to Sen. Pete Domenici and to President Bush about the voter fraud investigation that preceded Iglesias' firing. He claimed there was nothing "improper" about the firing, and made vague references to Iglesias' lack of aggressiveness. But I haven't heard him offer anything of real substance to counter the allegation that the voter fraud investigation was the real rationale. Since this accusation involves both the core of prosecutorial discretion AND the franchise, all of this should matter.

[Kevin Drum] Yes, exactly. With the other prosecutors, Gonzales has at least made a half-hearted effort to suggest legitimate reasons for their firing. With Iglesias, even after weeks of preparation, he still can't come up with anything. Why? Probably because there isn't anything. Iglesias was fired for not being sufficiently tough on Democrats, but Gonzales can't say that. So he's left with nothing.

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/4/19/113724/275
[McJoan] He's got a high hurdle to win this debate, particularly facing Sen. Feinstein, who asked the key questions: whose idea was it to slip the amendment into Patriot Act allowing for these firings, bypassing the Judiciary Committee. No real answer from Gonzales. She then asks who made the decisions about the firings, since he said in the opening statement he did NOT decide, but then said he did decide. Feinstein asks which is it? Gonzales blathers a bit, and she drills in. Is he willing to say he was the one who decided to fire them. He gives a sort of yes, so she drills in and asks if he made the decisions without reviewing performance evaluations, and he finally answers yes.

Watch it: http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/003051.php

http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/003054.php
[Paul Kiel] Under questioning from Sen. Pat Leahy (D-VT) Gonzales said that he couldn’t remember when he made the decision to go through with the firing plan. He recalls making the decision, he says, but can’t recall when. Just another day in the life of an attorney general, apparently.

http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/003053.php
[Paul Kiel] Sen. Russ Feingold (D-WI) had the best line of questioning of the day so far.

Under persistent questioning, Gonzales admitted that he did not know the reasons that the U.S. attorneys were on the list. Gonzales could only say that he relied on the judgment of the department’s senior leadership – he added that he had not been surprised to see five of the names on the list (he didn’t say which two surprised him).

When Feingold pressed about Gonzales’ assertion that the U.S. attorneys had “lost his confidence” in a USA Today op-ed, Gonzales said, “I regret the use of those words.”

And Feingold pressed on Gonzales’ statement that he had “no basis” on which to say to that there had not been improper reasons behind the firings. How could he know that? Gonzales answered “I know the basis on which I made my decision.” . . .

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2007_04_15.php#013725
[Josh Marshall] Sen. Feingold (D-WI) had one of the clearest and most damning exchanges with AG Gonzales earlier this morning. He made a clear and devastating point. The AG says he's not really aware of what input, advice and views went into compiling the list of fired US Attorneys. He fired the US Attorneys based on that list. But he's certain that no improper motives went into the compilation of the list, even though he's not aware of how the list was assembled or why different people's names were put on it. That's a logical contradiction.

http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/003060.php
[Paul Kiel] Sen Chuck Grassley (R-IA) began the afternoon questioning by asking simply why there have been so many inconsistencies in Gonzales’ statements.

Gonzales said that when he gave the March 13th press conference, he hadn’t gone back and looked at the documents or his calendar, and that “in hindsight,” his statements were too broad. He rushed to go public, he said, because he felt “a tremendous need to come out quickly and defend the department.” I “should be more careful,” Gonzales said.

This would seem to vindicate Sen. Specter’s earlier line of questioning (or berating), when Gonzales said that he’d been prepared for that March 13th press conference.

http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/003049.php
[Paul Kiel] There was a revealing moment during the questioning by Sen. Ted Kennedy (D-MA). When pressed on the process of removing the U.S. attorneys and what Gonzales knew about it, Gonzales replied that since the judiciary committees had been interviewing all of Gonzales' aides, that investigators now know more about the firings that Gonzales does.

Kennedy also pressed on whether Gonzales had ever done an evaluation about whether the firings would affect certain ongoing prosecutions. Gonzales replied no, because the assistant U.S. attorneys in the offices are really the ones who handle the cases -- the U.S. attorneys are important, he allowed, but "this institution is built to sustain change." It doesn't matter all that much, who's in charge, apparently.

http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/003056.php
[Paul Kiel] Sen. Lindsay Graham (R-SC) gave Gonzales an unexpected battering.

I believe you “made up reasons” for the firings, Graham said, and that “some of it [the reasons] sounds good, some of it doesn’t.” . . .

http://www.slate.com/id/2164652
[Dahlia Lithwick] One of the finest moments comes when Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, D-R.I., busts out a big, big chart. Which happens after almost everyone has gone home. The chart compares the Clinton protocol for appropriate contacts between the White House and the DoJ on pending criminal cases with the Bush protocol. According to Whitehouse, the Clinton protocol authorized just four folks at the White House to chat with three folks at Justice. The chart had four boxes talking to three boxes. Out comes the Bush protocol, and now 417 different people at the White House have contacts about pending criminal cases with 30-some people at Justice. You can just see zillions of small boxes nattering back and forth. It seems that just about everyone in the White House, including the guys in the mailroom, had a vote on ongoing criminal matters.

Sen. Pat Leahy, D-Vt., calls this "the most astounding thing" he's seen in 32 years. . . .

http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/003063.php
[Paul Kiel] Alberto Gonzales, following the lead of Kyle Sampson, has drawn a well defined line at what would be an "improper" reason to fire a U.S. attorney: the motive of affecting a particular criminal case.

As Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) pointed out, that's a "very low bar." What Gonzales is describing is what would constitute possible criminal obstruction of justice. Gonzales admitted as much, saying that in considering what would be improper, he'd thought, "what is the legal standard?"

Pressing on, Whitehouse tried to get Gonzales to understand that it would also be improper to fire a U.S. attorney for a generally political reason -- that attempting to discourage U.S. attorneys who might follow in Carol Lam's path, for instance, would be improper. Gonzales didn't seem to grasp the idea.

http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/003062.php
Gonzales: I'd Do It Again . . .

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2007_04_15.php#013728
[Josh Marshall] What a sorry, pathetic figure. Now AG Gonzales is claiming that the criticism of his behavior is damaging the DOJ and making it harder for DOJ employees to do their job.

Watch Dick Durbin get mad: http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/003057.php

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2007_04_15.php#013744
[Josh Marshall] Don't miss Alberto Gonzales' heartfelt ode to the importance of protecting minority's right to vote. This from a man who has gutted the department's Civil Rights Division.

There was a lot that's simply laughable in his performance today, but I think this takes the cake.

Rock bottom: http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/003066.php
[Paul Kiel] There was just one of the most telling exchanges of the whole hearing.

Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY), up for another round of questioning, declined, saying that Alberto Gonzales had failed to meet the burden of proof to explain the basis for the U.S. attorney firings, and to show that they weren't improper. It wasn't worth trying another line of questioning.

Gonzales shot back, saying that he'd explained his own actions, and that the burden of proof was actually on those who had alleged that something improper had happened here, i.e. Sen. Schumer and others.

Schumer replied: "Our standard is not a criminal standard -- it's higher than that." Because Gonzales had fired the U.S. attorneys, Schumer said, the burden is on him to give a full and complete explanation for the firings. He hadn't done that, he said.

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2007_04_15.php#013722
[Andrew Golis] Senator Schumer is grilling Alberto Gonzales. . . .Since the beginning, he's been out in front in asking questions and demanding answers of the DoJ. Many conservatives have attributed this to his obviously significant partisan zeal.

But Jim Sleeper traces Schumer's sensitivity to the politicization of the DoJ back to the early 80s when he himself was the target of a dubious investigation by a Republican U.S. Attorney.

Sleeper's is a history of compromising relationships and vindictive power struggles amidst a messy urban politics. It includes Schumer, a young deputy U.S. Attorney named Rudolph Giuliani, a powerful muckraking journalist named Jack Newfield, a young reporter named Joe Conason, and Sleeper himself.

And it's not to be missed: http://sleeper.notlong.com

Wrap up: http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/4/19/165055/904
[Kagro X] What we learned today. . .

Snark central

http://commonsense.ourfuture.org/blogger_roundup_gonzales_hearing
McJoan at DailyKos says Gonzales "decided that claiming incompetence is the way to go". . .

Bark Bark Woof Woof: "If I told my boss 'I don't recall' as many times as Attorney General Alberto Gonzales did this morning in front of the Senate Judiciary Committee, I'd be fired, and rightly so." . . . [read on!]

The line of the day

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/19/AR2007041902571.html
[Dana Milbank] Maybe Gonzales Won't Recall His Painful Day on the Hill . . .

A complete transcript

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/19/AR2007041902035.html

Firedoglake’s live-blogging of the whole thing

http://www.firedoglake.com/2007/04/19/alberto-gonzales-testimony-part-i/

http://www.firedoglake.com/2007/04/19/alberto-gonzales-testimony-part-ii/

http://www.firedoglake.com/2007/04/19/alberto-gonzales-testimony-part-iii/

http://www.firedoglake.com/2007/04/19/alberto-gonzales-testimony-part-iv/

http://www.firedoglake.com/2007/04/19/alberto-gonzales-testimony-part-v/

http://www.firedoglake.com/2007/04/19/alberto-gonzales-testimony-part-vi/

http://www.firedoglake.com/2007/04/19/alberto-gonzales-testimony-part-vii/

http://www.firedoglake.com/2007/04/19/alberto-gonzales-testimony-part-viii/

What does the White House SAY it thinks?

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/4/18/17199/1490
President Bush was pleased with the Attorney General’s testimony today. After hours of testimony in which he answered all of the Senators’ questions and provided thousands of pages of documents, he again showed that nothing improper occurred. . . .

[NB: Uh, pardon me, but didn’t you just say . . . ?]

[Dana Perino] Of course, the President has not seen any of that testimony. As I told you, he's had a busy morning . . .

More: http://www.first-draft.com/2007/04/today_on_holden_5.html

What does the White House REALLY think?

http://atrios.blogspot.com/2007_04_15_atrios_archive.html#117701138051709710
CNN reporting quotes from White House senior aides.

"Going down in flames."

"Not doing himself any favors."

"Watching clubbing a baby seal." (watching testimony)

"Very troubling."

"Don't understand that tactic Gonzales used."

Will Bush stand by him?

http://www.slate.com/id/2164652/pagenum/2/
[Dahlia Lithwick] At the end of the day, what has doomed Alberto Gonzales will keep him hanging on long after it's clear he should go. He serves at the pleasure of the president, and the president's pleasure is his only concern. It's hard to imagine things getting worse for this attorney general. Yet somehow, and until the president shows him the door, he doesn't see the situation as all that bad.

More: http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2007/04/19/gonzales/index.html

http://www.talkleft.com/story/2007/4/20/04322/0763

The main lesson from the day: whatever happens to Gonzales, keep the focus on White House (Rove) involvement – that’s clearly where this whole scheme was hatched. We may learn more from Monica 2.0 and the emails (if we ever get them) – but clearly Sampson and Gonzales were simply willing patsies.

In fact, I hope that Bush DOES stick by him – because his only hope to keep further investigations out of the White House is to make a big splashy sacrifice of his most loyal colleague. No, I don’t think that would work either, but certainly keeping Gonzales in office only reinforces the impression that he was simply doing Bush’s (and Bush’s people’s) bidding

http://www.prospect.org/weblog/2007/04/post_3471.html
[Adele Stan] Right out of the box at today's big hearing, Attorney General Alberto Gonzalez cast himself as the fall guy for decisions made by "the White House," i.e., President George W. Bush and his Deputy Chief of Staff Karl Rove. In the opening volley of questions served by Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Partrick Leahy, Gonzo said that he would never have initiated the removal of of U.S. attorney for political reasons, "nor do I believe that anybody in the department would advocate for such a purpose." (Emphasis added.) The attorney general then admitted that he had "heard concerns" about U.S. attorney David Iglesias of New Mexico from Rove and "the president." . . .

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2007_04_15.php#013742
[Josh Marshall] From the buzz I'm hearing today, if Alberto Gonzales were a stock, we'd be at that point when those automatic trading halts kicked in because so many people are trying to sell. But let's not get distracted by Alberto Gonzales. He's just a cog. In almost every case, what we're talking about here is Gonzales's willingness to take orders from the White House -- most importantly from Karl Rove and President Bush -- on firing US Attorneys for corrupt purposes and using the Justice Department to suppress Democratic turnout in swing states. Mr. Gonzales is a secondary issue. The real players are in the White House.

http://www.matthewyglesias.com/archives/2007/04/schumers_postgame_analysis/
[Matt Yglesias] Talking to reporters after the hearings, Chuck Schumer says: "since nobody can put together a coherent story about how this list was put together . . . the arrow points more and more to the White House." He says when you have all these DOJ officials "playing Abbott and Costello, pointing the finger at somebody else, something is amiss." He predicts the White House won't want Gonzales to stay on, and says he shouldn't stay on. The main point, however, is that Gonzales is neither here not there -- attention must be paid to the White House. . .

http://www.bradblog.com/?p=4429
[Brad Friedman] [C]ertainly far more important . . . is the so far ignored --- yet as I see it, direct --- connection to the White House concerning the firing of Arkansas' U.S. Attorney Bud Cummins. . .

Media reports from May of 2006, describe a corruption investigation by Cummins' office into MO Gov. Matt Blunt's use of the Missouri lawfirm Lathrop & Gage LC to run a chain of satellite state licensing offices. . . . Lathrop & Gage is the powerful firm of Blunt's general counsel, and Bush/Cheney '04's national general counsel Mark F. "Thor" Hearne. . . .

Hearne is a top-level White House operative, a very close friend of Karl Rove's and the co-founder of the currently-back-underground "American Center for Voting Rights" (ACVR) . . .

The first reports of Cummins' investigation into the Blunt/Lathrop Gage scandal were apparently in May of 2006. Cummins was removed from his position just afterwards in June of 2006 --- prior to all the other firings which took place later that year on the same day in December.

He was replaced at that point with Karl Rove's personal aide Timothy Griffin. . . .

More: http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2007/04/19/the_white_house_truth_gap/
[Joan Vennochi] Can the public ever get a straight answer from anyone in the Bush administration? The answer appears to be no, whether the matter is foreign or domestic.

Bush ran for the White House pledging to bring a higher standard of honesty to the Oval Office. But, from war to hurricanes, that hasn't been the case. The firing of the federal prosecutors is just one more example of an administration committed to never owning up to the truth. . . .

As they stand up . . . eh, the hell with that

http://www.realcities.com/mld/krwashington/17104704.htm
Military planners have abandoned the idea that standing up Iraqi troops will enable American soldiers to start coming home soon and now believe that U.S. troops will have to defeat the insurgents and secure control of troubled provinces.

Training Iraqi troops, which had been the cornerstone of the Bush administration's Iraq policy since 2005, has dropped in priority, officials in Baghdad and Washington said. . .

What a catastrophe: http://www.needlenose.com/node/view/3972

Iraq and Vietnam

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070419/ap_on_go_co/us_iraq;_ylt=ArJg6HZSiciZOZ.HKAt.8b.s0NUE
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said Thursday the war in Iraq is "lost," triggering an angry backlash by Republicans who said the top Democrat had turned his back on the troops.

The bleak assessment was the sharpest yet from Reid, who has vowed to send President Bush legislation calling for combat to end next year. Reid said he told Bush on Wednesday that he thought the war could not be won through military force and only through political, economic and diplomatic means. . . .

Reid: http://democrats.senate.gov/newsroom/record.cfm?id=272702

http://www.reuters.com/article/topNews/idUSN1943792720070419?&src=041907_1805_TOPSTORY_gonzales_under_fire
President George W. Bush and fellow Republicans struggled on Thursday with comparisons between the U.S. wars in Iraq and Vietnam as the Senate's top Democrat declared the Iraq lost. . . .

Asked to compare Iraq to Vietnam, a war that still weighs on the American psyche three decades after it ended, Bush told an Ohio audience a premature U.S. withdrawal from Iraq could lead to chaos and death the same way war broke out between Vietnam and the Khmer Rouge of Cambodia after the fall of Saigon in 1975. . . .

Bush: http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2007/04/death-is-terrible-by-digby-just-shoot.html
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Mr. President, how would you respond to the rather mistaken idea that the war in Iraq is becoming a war in Vietnam?

BUSH: Yes, thank you. The, there's a lot of differences. A first, the Iraqi people voted for a modern constitution. And then set up a government under that constitution.

Secondly, that's as opposed to two divided countries. North and south. The, in my judgment, the vast majority of people want to live underneath the constitution they passed. They want to live in peace. And what you're seeing is radical on the fringe, creating chaos and order to either get the people to lose confidence in the government or for us to leave. . . .

And there are some similarities, of course. Death is terrible. There's no similarity, of course, is that Vietnam is the first time that a war was brought onto our TV screens to America on a regular basis. Looking around, looking for baby-boomers, I see a few of us here. A different, for the first time, the violence and horror of war was brought home. That's the way it is today.

Americans rightly so, are concerned about whether or not we can succeed in Iraq. Nobody wants to be there if we can't succeed, especially me. And these violence on our TV screens affects our frame of mind. Probably more so today than what took place in Vietnam.

I want to remind you that after Vietnam, after we'd left, the millions of people lost their life. . .

Watch it: http://atrios.blogspot.com/2007_04_15_atrios_archive.html#117701576506855501

More: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/blog/2007/04/19/BL2007041901053.html

This is not a new analysis, but it is seeming more and more compelling. Remember the line from “A Nation at Risk” – if another country was doing to our education system what we are doing to it ourselves, we would consider it an act of war. Similarly, on this analysis, Bin Laden WANTED to give the Bush gang an excuse to start a pointless, hopeless, endless war. It would give an unparalleled boost to Al Qaeda recruitment and the radicalization of militant Islam. It would isolate us from the international community, rob us of our prestige and influence over the Middle East, and tie up troops and resources that could not be used anywhere else. Our military would be exhausted in ways that will take years to recover. And, oh yes, it would bankrupt us – particularly in terms of long-term costs for the treatment of the physical and mental damage done to thousands of American troops.

No, I don’t think Bin Laden actually had all this planned out in advance – but could he have done any better a job than what we have done to ourselves?

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/4/19/213536/333

Oh, MAN! Another Republican’s home raided by the FBI

http://politicalwire.com/archives/2007/04/19/fbi_raids_renzi_family_business.html
"In a second blow to House Republicans this week, the FBI raided a business tied to the family of Rep. Rick Renzi (R-AZ) Thursday afternoon as part of an ongoing investigation into the three-term lawmaker," Roll Call reports. . .

Wolfie on the ropes

http://www.buzzflash.net/story.php?id=11315
[The Guardian] Paul Wolfowitz's tenure as president of the World Bank may be decided today by the bank's governing board, after he was abandoned by the Bush administration and faced a revolt led by his own deputy. When Mr Wolfowitz asked what he could do to repair faith in his leadership, he was told bluntly to resign by Graeme Wheeler, one of two deputies to the president.

Rush Limbaugh, son of a bitch

http://mediamatters.org/items/200704190008
On the April 19 broadcast of his nationally syndicated radio show, host Rush Limbaugh declared that the perpetrator of the April 16 Virginia Tech shootings "had to be a liberal," adding: "You start railing against the rich, and all this other -- this guy's a liberal. He was turned into a liberal somewhere along the line. So it's a liberal that committed this act." Limbaugh then complained, in a possible reference to Media Matters for America, that "Now the drive-bys will read on a website that I'm attacking liberalism by comparing this guy to them. That's exactly what they do every day, ladies and gentlemen. I'm just pointing out a fact. I am making no extrapolation." . . .

Bonus item: The man who wants to be your President jokes about bombing Iran

http://americablog.blogspot.com/2007/04/mccain-jokes-about-bombing-iran.html

More: http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/10561.html

http://www.thewashingtonnote.com/archives/002070.php

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

I don't get anything personally out of this project, except the satisfaction of doing it (I don't run ads, etc). The credit really all goes to the people whose material I copy and redistribute. But if I do have a "mission," it is to get this information into the hands of as many people as I can.***
- posted by Nick Burbules @ 6:17 AM

 
THE EMPEROR HAS NO CLOTHES

This is an incredibly important development. People have often noted the Rovean strategy that says, just when you are looking most vulnerable, act most confidently and aggressively. Never bend, never waver, never compromise, never express a hint of doubt. But I haven’t seen a good analysis of why that works. It works because in the DC circuit the perception of power IS power. On issue after issue Bush, his handlers, and a hundred commentators present it as a foregone conclusion that eventually, certainly, Bush is going to get his way. So why go through a bunch of unnecessary ugliness when we all know how it will turn out? The press has invariably aided this perception struggle. Spineless Democrats have often shrugged and said, “I don’t like it, but what’s the point of hitting my head against a wall? He’s going to win in the end.” And so, sure enough, he does win in the end.

Bush and Cheney have approached this Iraq funding bill the same way. They want Congress to give them the money, period, with no conditions, and they have repeatedly refused to even acknowledge the possibility that they may need to compromise. In the end, they say, you’re going to have to give us what we want, so do you want to do this the easy way or the hard way?

They act as if they still unilaterally control the levers of government. But something is different now. They can veto and bluster, but they can’t write and pass this bill. Only the Democrats can do that. And the leaders of the Democrats aren’t conceding the inevitability of Bush getting what he wants any more. How magical – just by saying, “No, we won’t give you your way,” they reveal how little influence Bush actually has

http://bushdems.notlong.com
[Greg Sargent] Okay, here's some color from inside the meeting today at the White House between President Bush and Congressional leaders about what to do to resolve the impasse over Iraq.

A source familiar with the meeting -- at which no compromise of any kind was reached, though Speaker Nancy Pelosi said publicly today that it had been "productive" -- shares a few interesting tidbits. First, the source says, Bush bristled and was taken aback when Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid compared the current situation to Vietnam; he also appeared irked by those who said the war couldn't be won.

Second, according to the source, Reid told Bush that he understood that the White House would come after Congressional Dems after the veto of the bill with everything they had; Reid vowed to respond every bit as aggressively.

"Reid talked about a recent conversation he had with a retired general where they talked about the similarities between the current situation and Vietnam," the source relates. "He talked about how the President and Secretary of Defense [during Vietnam] knew that the war was lost but continued to press on at the cost of thousands of additional lives lost."

"The analogy to Vietnam appeared to touch a nerve with the President. He appeared a little sensitive to it," the source continued. "And he clearly didn't like to hear people in the room say that the war couldn't be won militarily."

More: "Reid made it clear to the President that he understood that the President and Vice President after the veto would come after him and Speaker Pelosi with everything they have. Reid said that he and Pelosi would respond just as aggressively. He said he was convinced that they were on the right side of the issue."

Tough stuff. . . .

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/4/18/163453/929
"We believe he must search his soul, his conscience and find out what is the right thing for the American people," Reid said, standing outside the White House. "I believe signing this bill will do that." . . .

But will the Dems make Iraq withdrawal “advisory” in their reconciliation bill?

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/18/AR2007041800253.html

Virginia Tech was a horrible, horrible thing. Yesterday, in Iraq, they had five Virginia Techs

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/4/18/163453/929
[Reuters] Car bombs killed nearly 200 people in Baghdad on Wednesday in the deadliest attacks in the city since U.S. and Iraqi forces launched a security crackdown aimed at halting the country's slide into civil war. . . .

Make that NINE VT’s: http://www.juancole.com/2007/04/bloody-wednesday-guerrillas-violence.html
[Juan Cole] Nearly 300 persons were killed or found dead in Iraq on Wednesday and hundreds were wounded. Al-Hayat writes in Arabic that the smell of blood and gunpowder wafted through Baghdad . . .

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/10546.html
[Lawrence Korb] “The long wait [getting through Iraqi customs] did allow me to speak to some of the contractors about the situation on the ground. When I assured them I was not a member of the press, they were unanimous that the surge was not working. One of them said that members of Muqtada Al-Sadr’s militia have sold their guns and melted back into the population in Sadr City and will buy back their guns at the appropriate time (our own security guard said something similar).” . . .

The most optimistic projection was “maybe temporarily.” But most people speaking off the record believe that the insurgents will shift to other areas and lay low for a while in Baghdad. . . .

Do not believe anyone who tells you that the situation is getting better . . .

A moment of honesty: http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room/2007/04/18/iraq2/index.html
[Dana Perino] "It's going to take -- it's going to take a long time . . .”

Boy, they sure do like building them walls. . .

http://www.first-draft.com/2007/04/us_military_bui.html
[Stars and Stripes] U.S. soldiers with the 82nd Airborne Division in a Baghdad district are “building a three-mile protective wall on the dividing line between a Sunni enclave and the surrounding Shiite neighborhood,” according to a U.S. military press release issued Wednesday. . . .

For all those who voted for Ralph Nader in 2000 because he was the guy they really, really wanted to be President, okay that’s your choice. For all those who told themselves there was “no significant difference” between Bush and Gore – and if this insane war isn’t already enough proof – here is another reminder of why there WAS a significant difference

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=aPpyqGiTGYTo&refer=home
The U.S. Supreme Court upheld a law that makes it a crime to perform “partial birth'' abortions, allowing the first nationwide ban on a procedure as two justices named by President George W. Bush tipped the balance.

The justices, voting 5-4, said the 2003 Partial Birth Abortion Ban Act is constitutional even though it lacks an exception for cases posing a risk to the mother's health. The court also rejected claims that the law is so vaguely worded it would force doctors to forgo a commonly used, constitutionally protected abortion technique for fear of prosecution. . . .

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/10549.html

http://www.prospect.org/weblog/2007/04/post_3463.html

http://sideshow.me.uk/sapr07.htm#04190058
[Avedon Carol] OK, get this straight: The law does not ban late-term abortion, it bans dilation and extraction, the safest method used for late-term abortion. So what the law does is endanger a woman's health and life by forcing her to use a more dangerous method if a late-term abortion is necessary. . . .

Analysis: http://www.tpmcafe.com/blog/coffeehouse/2007/apr/18/todays_scotus_opinion_bad_news_and_better_news
[Ed Kilgore] Today's 5-4 Supreme Court decision validating Congress' ban on so-called partial-birth abortions is obviously a setback for the reproductive rights of women, and a victory for those who want to roll them back. But the highly convoluted majority opinion, as reflected in the remarkably clear concurring and dissenting opinions, may make a broader attack on abortion rights harder in the long run, making the next appointment or two to the Court even more critical.

To make a long story short, the majority opinion (as brilliantly exposed in Justice Ginsburg's dissent) went to inordinate and irrational lengths to reconcile the decision with the Court's precedents, most obviously Stenberg (which struck down state "partial-birth" bans), Casey (which solidified a "health exception" to any permittable abortion restrictions), and Roe itself. Clearly the replacement of O'Conner by Alito made this result possible. But the failure of Alito and Roberts to join the concurring opinion by Thomas and Scalia calling for a reversal of all these precedents means that a further change in the Court will probably be necessary to produce a more fundamental shift in the constitutional law of abortion rights. And that's one of many reasons why Democrats need to win the presidency in 2008.

http://www.scotusblog.com/movabletype/archives/2007/04/court_rules_att.html

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2007/04/winning-with-icky-by-digby-i-hope-that.html

http://www.prospect.org/weblog/2007/04/post_3467.html

http://www.talkleft.com/story/2007/4/18/222041/331

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/4/18/20138/3017
[McJoan] Today, abortion became one of the key issues for the 2008 election, at the local, state, and national level. . . [read on]

Has NARAL failed?

http://www.firedoglake.com/2007/04/18/dont-reward-failure-by-giving-money-to-naral/

http://www.firedoglake.com/2007/04/18/donating-to-naral-is-not-going-to-help-protect-a-womans-right-to-choice/

Another GOP congressman in deep trouble

http://thinkprogress.org/2007/04/18/breaking-fbi-raids-doolittles-home/
[The Hill] The FBI searched the Virginia home of Rep. John Doolittle (R-Calif.) last Friday in its investigation into the ties of the congressman and his wife, Julie, to disgraced former lobbyist Jack Abramoff, according to law enforcement and other Congressional and K Street sources. . .

Doolittle has been under fire for paying his wife’s company, Sierra Dominion, a 15 percent commission on all contributions that the company raised for Doolittle’s campaign committee and leadership PAC. Her only other clients were Abramoff’s former firm, Greenberg Traurig; Abramoff’s former restaurant Signatures; and the Korea-U.S. Exchange Council, which Ed Buckham, a former chief of staff to ex-Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-Texas), created. . . [read on]

More: http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2007_04_15.php#013711

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/4/18/235055/614

http://www.samefacts.com/archives/_/2007/04/the_doolittle_raid.php

Questions for US Attorney Steve Biskupic

http://www.uppitywis.org/mr-biskupic-we-have-a-few-questions
Since all of Georgia Thompson's activities took place in Madison, why is it that the US Attorney for Western Wisconsin, who is based in Madison, didn't investigate and bring charges? Why did Biskupic, the Milwaukee-based prosecutor for the Eastern District, get involved?

Did the US Attorney for the Western District refuse to investigate the Georgia Thompson case?

How did Biskupic have jurisdiction anyway? Because the contract was mailed to Milwaukee? . . .

Did Republicans go to Biskupic because Sinnott was a non-political appointee not subject to political pressure? Did anyone even ask Sinnott to investigate Georgia Thompson? If not, why not? If so, what was his response? . . .

[Bruce Murphy] The decision to prosecute in Milwaukee had to be approved by the U.S. Department of Justice. . . .

Norm Coleman (R-MN), locked in a difficult re-election fight, denies that he had anything to do with appointing the disastrous Rachel Paulose to be US Attorney in Minnesota. Unfortunately HIS OWN WEB SITE says that he did

http://thinkprogress.org/2007/04/18/coleman-paulose-flip/
[Amanda] Now, in the face of increasing criticism, Coleman’s office is claiming that the senator never even nominated Paulose. . .

But a 12/9/06 press release on Coleman’s website states that “Coleman recommended [Paulose] for the post earlier this year.” In today’s Star-Tribune, the senator’s office retracts its earlier statement and admits that Paulose was nominated by Coleman. . .

A look at Paulose’s background indicates that she was handpicked for her personal connections rather than her professional qualifications. . . .

Firing Dan Bogden, US Attorney in Nevada and a 16-year Justice employee, was a carefully considered decision, supposedly based on a performance review, that severely damaged his career. Uh-huh. How long did it take to make this agonizing decision?

http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/003034.php
90 seconds. . . .

Sampson couldn't say who had put Bogden on the list (even though he was the "keeper of the list") or why. He'd never looked at Bogden's performance, and neither did Alberto Gonzales. The only thing he can remember is that there was "a general feeling among senior staffers at the Justice Department that a 'stronger leader' could be put in Nevada." So he was fired. And then the Justice Department told Congress that he'd been fired for "performance" reasons. . . .

[NB: I think we know who put Bogden’s name on the list, don’t we?]

In case there is any doubt left about the wholesale politicization of the Dept of Justice . . .

http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/003039.php

http://www2.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2007_04/011155.php

Gonzales makes his long-awaited appearance today – the beginning of the end for him, I am sure. Mark Kleiman offers an excellent list of questions he needs to answer – but can’t

http://www.prospect.org/web/page.ww?section=root&name=ViewWeb&articleId=12658

The WH prepares for a scorched-earth battle to keep those RNC emails from ever becoming public – and you know why

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/04/17/politics/politico/thecrypt/main2696174.shtml

They hate democracy

http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/nationworld/bal-te.attorneys19apr19,0,94678.story
For six years, the Bush administration, aided by Justice Department political appointees, has pursued an aggressive legal effort to restrict voter turnout in key battleground states in ways that favor Republican political candidates, according to former department lawyers and a review of written records.

The administration intensified its efforts last year as President Bush's popularity and Republican support eroded heading into a midterm battle for control of Congress, which the Democrats won. . . .

Republicans kill prescription drug bill

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/10553.html

http://www.mydd.com/story/2007/4/19/34435/3854

Did you know. . . . the government doesn’t maintain a list of all registered gun owners in this country. But it does maintain a list of everyone who has ever used anti-depressants

http://americablog.blogspot.com/2007/04/why-does-bush-administration-have-list.html

More: http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2007/04/18/surveillance/index.html

The kind of people they REALLY are. The John Derbyshire quote yesterday, about what a great hero HE would have been if he were ever confronted by a gunman (unlike the wimpy students at Virginia Tech) has now been joined by even more sickening macho bluster

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/10552.html
[Mark Steyn] [Virginia Tech students are] not “children.” The students at Virginia Tech were grown women and — if you’ll forgive the expression — men…. [read on]

More: http://mediamatters.org/items/200704180007

http://www.firedoglake.com/2007/04/18/late-nite-fdl-debbie-does-dumb-assery/

P.S. While governor of Texas, Bush backed the gutless rule that students couldn’t carry concealed weapons on campus – the latest burst of genius from right-wingers who think that having kids packing sidearms is a great way to keep universities more safe

http://www.first-draft.com/2007/04/today_on_holden_4.html

Bonus item: who does YOUR favorite celebrity support for President?

http://politicalwire.com/archives/2007/04/17/follow_the_celebrity_money.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 @ 7:14 AM

 
LOOKING UNDER THE ROCK

That Biskupic story in Wisconsin, about a “loyal Bushie” who still has his job because he (apparently) filed trumped-up charges against a state employee during the 2006 governor’s race, is even uglier than we knew

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/16/opinion/16mon4.html
To charge her, Mr. Biskupic had to look past a mountain of evidence of innocence. Ms. Thompson was not a Doyle partisan. She was a civil servant, hired by a Republican governor, with no identifiable interest in politics. She was only one member of a seven-person committee that evaluated the bidders. She was not even aware of the Adelman campaign contributions. She also had a good explanation for her choice: of the 10 travel agencies that competed, Adelman submitted the lowest-cost bid.

While Ms. Thompson did her job conscientiously, that is less clear of Mr. Biskupic. The decision to award the contract — the supposed crime — occurred in Madison, in the jurisdiction of Wisconsin’s other United States attorney. But for reasons that are hard to understand, the Milwaukee-based Mr. Biskupic swept in and took the case.

While he was investigating, in the fall of 2005, Mr. Biskupic informed the media. Justice Department guidelines say federal prosecutors can publicly discuss investigations before an indictment only under extraordinary circumstances. This case hardly met that test.

The prosecution proceeded on a schedule that worked out perfectly for the Republican candidate for governor. Mr. Biskupic announced Ms. Thompson’s indictment in January 2006. She went to trial that summer, and was sentenced in late September, weeks before the election. Mr. Biskupic insisted in July, as he vowed to continue the investigation, that “the review is not going to be tied to the political calendar.”

But the Thompson case was “the No. 1 issue” in the governor’s race, says the Wisconsin Democratic Party chairman, Joe Wineke. In a barrage of commercials, Mr. Doyle’s opponents created an organizational chart that linked Ms. Thompson — misleadingly called a “Doyle aide” — to the governor. Ms. Thompson appeared in an unflattering picture, stamped “guilty,” and in another ad, her name was put on a graphic of jail-cell doors slamming shut. . . .

Another one (thanks to Buzzflash for the link)

http://www.inthesetimes.com/article/3144/the_talented_mr_griffin/
The only thing worse than sacking an honest prosecutor is replacing one with a “criminal.” In this case, Timothy Griffin, who during the 2000 Bush-Cheney campaign worked as deputy research director for the Republican National Committee (RNC) conducting “oppo” (opposition) research. On Dec. 15, Bush named Griffin as the U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Arkansas, replacing fired prosecutor Bud Cummins.

I don’t use the term “criminal” lightly. In August 2004, while he was research director for the RNC, he sent a series of confidential e-mails to Republican Party chieftains. But instead of using the party honchos’ e-mail addresses at GeorgeWBush.com, he sent these notes to GeorgeWBush.org. That domain belongs to a brilliant jokester, John Wooden, who, suspecting he had something important in hand, forwarded them to BBC Television Newsnight, where I worked at the time.

Griffin’s dozens of e-mails contained what he called “caging lists”—simple Excel spreadsheets with the names and addresses of voters.

Sounds innocent enough. But once the addresses were plotted on maps—70,000 names in Florida alone—it became clear that virtually every name was in a minority-majority voting precinct. And most of the lists were made up of itinerant, vulnerable voters: students, the homeless and, notably, soldiers sent overseas.

It was, according to Leon County, Fla., Elections Supervisor Ion Sancho, a “challenge” list—tens of thousands of voters who the Republicans intended to block from casting ballots. This was a variant of the scheme in 2000 when then-Florida Secretary of State Katherine Harris removed thousands of black citizens from voter rolls on the claim they were “felons”—when their only crime was Voting While Black, or, in other words, likely to vote Democratic. In the 2004 campaign, Griffin had a new trick: challenging voters on the grounds that they did not live at their registration address.

To “prove” these voters were committing fraud, the RNC sent first-class or registered letters to these voters, most of them black, to their address of registration, no forwarding allowed. Letters that came back as “undeliverable” were used as evidence to block the voter obtaining a ballot—or block an absentee voter from having their ballot counted. . . .

But it is quite illegal to target voters for challenge where race is a factor in the targeting. “That’s a crime,” Robert Kennedy Jr., an attorney expert in election law, told In These Times, “a violation of the Voting Rights Act of 1965.” And this crime was directed by the man who is now a U.S. attorney.

On Feb. 16, Griffin stated, in a rare moment of candor, that he does not want to face a confirmation grilling by a Democratic Congress. . . . Under a provision snuck at the last minute into the reauthorization of the PATRIOT Act, Griffin can stay to the end of Bush’s term—through the 2008 election—which is clearly why Griffin was “important to Karl,” according to one e-mail released by the Justice Department. . . .

More: http://www.consortiumnews.com/2007/041707a.html

I think we know the answer to this question

http://www.politico.com/blogs/thecrypt/0407/The_Crypt_April_17_2007.html
Have top political appointees at the Justice Department politicized the hiring of new career employees there? That's what a number of longtime Justice Department employees want to know . . . . Calling themselves "A Group of Concerned Department of Justice Employees," they have penned an anonymous letter to the House and Senate Judiciary committees asking them to look into "the politicization of the non-political ranks of Justice employees, offices which are consistently and methodically being eroded by partisan politics."

The controversy is related to the Attorney General's Honors Program, which is how recent law school graduates get hired by DOJ, as well as through the Summer Law Intern Program. . . . The Attorney General's Honors Program is the "only way that the Department hires entry-level attorneys," according to the website for DOJ's Office of Attorney Recruitment and Management. . . .

Under normal circumstances, the various divisions at Justice review applications from potential hires, set interviews and send the list to the Office of Attorney Recruitment and Management, which gives the green light to proceed.

But recently, a number of divisions' requests to interview certain applicants were turned down, and the career employees started to wonder why. They were told that the interview approval now must be made by the office of Deputy Attorney General Paul McNulty, and "when the list of potential interviewees was returned this year, it was cut dramatically."

These career employees got a meeting with Michael Elston, McNulty's chief of staff and a central figure in the prosecutor purge. This meeting took place on Dec. 5, and it didn't go well. According to the career employees' letter, obtained by The Crypt, Elston "was offensive to the point of (being) insulting."

Elston has since taken a personal leave from the Justice Department.

"Claiming that the entire group had not 'done their jobs' in reviewing applicants, (Elston) said that he had a 'screening panel' to go over the list and research these candidates on the Internet; he refused to give the names of those on his 'panel,'" the career employees wrote. "Mr. (Elston) said that people were struck from the list for three reasons: grades, spelling errors on applications and inappropriate information about them on the Internet."

So, in their own words, the career employees did some checking of their own. They reportedly detected a "common denominator" for "most of those" struck from the interview list: They had "interned for a Hill Democrat, clerked for a Democratic judge, worked for a 'liberal cause' or otherwise appeared to have 'liberal' leanings. Summa cum laude graduates at both Yale and Harvard were rejected for interviews." . . .

The House Judiciary committee is preparing to give Monica 2.0 immunity. This will compel her to testify -- and testify truthfully. Here’s the thing: if they’re doing this, they have probably already heard from her lawyer what she will testify – and it’s worth it to them to take this step. So what does she have to say? Because she was the liaison between the DOJ and the WH, probably a lot

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070417/ap_on_go_ca_st_pe/fired_prosecutors

The “proffer” http://www.firedoglake.com/2007/04/17/will-goodling-receive-immunity/

By the way, the plan to put partisans and loyalists into ostensibly independent and nonpartisan legal posts didn’t just extend to the US Attorneys – they were doing it with the Civil Rights division too

http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/002989.php
Here's an inside account of what it's like inside from Toby Moore, a redistricting expert with the division's voting section until the spring of 2006. Like many of his colleagues, he left due to the hostile atmosphere in the section, where he says there was a pattern of selective intimidation towards career staff. . . .

According to Moore, his supervisor and the political appointees in the section consistently criticized his work because it didn't jibe with their pre-drawn conclusions. That was bad enough, he said, but the real trouble came after he and three colleagues recommended opposing a Georgia voter I.D. law pushed by Republicans. . . .

Other evidence pointed even more strongly to nefarious motives behind the legislation. According to the Recommendation Memorandum, George state Rep. Sue Burmeister, the sponsor of the bill, told section staff that "if there are fewer black voters because of this bill, it will only be because there is less opportunity for fraud," and that "when black voters in her black precincts are not paid to vote, they do not go to the polls."

For that and a host of other reasons, Moore and three of his colleagues recommended against clearing the bill. A single member on their review team, a young Republican lawyer, supported clearance. Yet Moore's team was nevertheless overruled and the bill was cleared. In a telling sequel to these events at the Justice Department, a federal appeals court judge later barred implementation of the law, comparing it to a Jim Crow-era poll tax. . . .

Meanwhile, former Gonzales chief of staff Kyle Sampson seems to be making a full-time career of driving a stake through every single one of Gonzales’s lies and excuses

http://www.talkleft.com/story/2007/4/17/102759/075
[Big Tent Democrat] Gonzales had a conversation with Sampson in EARLY March in which he told Sampson that he discussed "performance" issues of three USAs with the President and then on March 13, he told the public that he had had no discussions about the firings with ANYONE, much less the President. "Early March" would be sometime between March 1 and March 13 one presumes. Did Gonzales "forget" again, by March 13, that he had discussed the matter with the President in October?

And of course what a remarkable thing to have said in the first place. How could he NOT have had discussions with the President about the firings? Heck, that is the most damning statement about his competence. That he thought that was a reasonable thing to say.

More: http://www.firedoglake.com/2007/04/17/honesty/

I think they should check govt offices for a carbon monoxide leak – a LOT of people seem to be having problems with their memories right now

http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/003028.php
[Paul Kiel] I tell you, it's hard work remembering what Alberto Gonzales remembers and doesn't remember. . . .

Another leak in a sinking boat

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/013678.php
Rep. Conyers (D-MI) wants to talk to USAs Steven Biskupic (Milwaukee), Rachel Paulose (Minneapolis), Larry Gomez (acting USA in New Mexico, Iglesias's replacement), Mary Beth Buchanan (Western District of Pennsylvania) and others. . .

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2007_04_15.php#013694
[WTAE, Pittsburgh] The Justice Department consulted with U.S. Attorney Mary Beth Buchanan in Pittsburgh when it was drawing up a list of prosecutors to be fired, a former top aide to the attorney general told investigators, and now a House committee wants to interview her.

Attorney General Alberto Gonzales' former chief of staff, Kyle Sampson, told Senate investigators Sunday that Buchanan was one of the senior officials he consulted about which U.S. attorneys should be asked to resign, according to a Senate Judiciary Committee aide who read a transcript of the interview. The aide requested anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue.

At this point, I think nearly everyone understands more or less exactly what was going on – but the overlay of shifting Gonzales and Bush gang excuses and spin has become so convoluted and incoherent that it’s almost impossible to keep track of it all

http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/003030.php

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/10540.html

What will happen when Gonzales testifies?

http://blogs.abcnews.com/theblotter/2007/04/is_attorney_gen.html
"It's suicidal," said Stanley Brand, one of the top ethics defense lawyers in Washington, D.C. . . . [read on]

Clever. By releasing his testimony in advance, the committee has trapped him – because if he changes his story now, in light of revelations that came out AFTER he and his lawyers wrote it, he really will be screwed

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/10532.html

Big fight ahead: Congress has subpoenaed the RNC emails – the ones that, by law, should not have been used for official Executive Branch business. But now the WH wants to “review” them before passing them on to Congress (if in fact they agree to release them at all)

http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/003033.php
The House Judiciary Committee, chaired by Rep. John Conyers (D-MI), wants to get its hands on those RNC-issued email accounts used by Karl Rove and other White House personnel. Congressional investigators want to know about Rove's and his deputy's involvement in the U.S. attorney firings. But the White House insists that it review the emails first, before handing anything over to Democrats. Last week, Conyers warned the RNC not to do that, saying that it would be "an unjustified delay" and "potentially... an obstruction of our investigation."

And today, in a letter to the RNC, the White House made their position clear: you have to give them to us first. There "exists a clear and indisputable Executive Branch interest" in the emails on the RNC-issued accounts, wrote Emmet Flood, Special Counsel to the President.

More: http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2007/04/ltat-cest-goper-by-digby-i-figured-they.html

Another shoe to drop: Pete Domenici (R-NM), who made the calls that eventually got David Iglesias fired, is hauled before the Ethics Committee

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/4/17/224224/113

http://www.politico.com/blogs/thecrypt/0407/Senate_Ethics_Confirms_Domenici_Probe_Over_US_Attorney_Firing.html

OK, from now on, this should be quoted EVERY time Cheney or Bush accuses the Dems of undermining the war effort by questioning their policies

http://www2.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2007_04/011146.php
[WP] [Defense Secretary Robert Gates] on a Middle East tour, called for a range of efforts from inside and outside Iraq to speed up the formation of a broad-based government of Iraq's majority Shiite, Sunni and Kurdish factions. . . .

“The debate in Congress . . . has been helpful in demonstrating to the Iraqis that American patience is limited," Gates told Pentagon reporters traveling with him in Jordan. "The strong feelings expressed in the Congress about the timetable probably has had a positive impact ... in terms of communicating to the Iraqis that this is not an open-ended commitment." . . .

How’s that surge coming along?

http://www.juancole.com/2007/04/85-killed-or-found-dead-in-baghdad.html
[Juan Cole] In the past 6 months, US troops have been killed in Iraq at the highest rate since the war began. . .

For the first time in polling on the Iraq War, a majority of Americans (51%) say that they expect the United States to "lose" in Iraq. Worse, 66 percent say that the war was not worth it! . . .

Public support for Bush’s war continues to drop – and his attempt to bully the Congress (which is more popular than he is) into funding his war with no strings attached is – not – working

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/horsesmouth/2007/04/xxx.php

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/10534.html

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2007/04/tainted-love-by-digby-steve-benen-notes.html

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/blog/2007/04/17/BL2007041700913.html
[Dan Froomkin] President Bush's public campaign to push back against Congressional demands for withdrawal from Iraq is becoming highly reminiscent of his failed effort two years ago to win support for a radical overhaul of Social Security.

The meticulously choreographed settings, the carefully controlled audiences, the mind-numbing repetition of hoary talking points (with a particular emphasis on stoking fears) -- it's like deja vu.

And so is the result: A public that is apparently more turned off to Bush's ideas the more he talks about them.

As it was last time, Bush's Bubble may be the central problem. Bush seems to think that through sheer force of will -- and repetition -- he will convince people that his cause is just -- in spite of all the evidence to the contrary. And why does he think that? Quite possibly, because virtually everyone he talks to -- and virtually everyone he sees -- is already in his camp. . . .

Meanwhile, despite a coordinated effort by the right-wing trash machine (aided and abetted by a pliant media) to ruin Nancy Pelosi for her trip to the Middle East, she’s more popular than ever

http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2007/04/17/media_geniuses/index.html

Looks like Wolfie was steering lucrative jobs to his paramour even before his post at the World Bank, while he was still at Defense

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/17/washington/17wolfowitz.html

Please, please veto this

http://www.boston.com/news/nation/washington/articles/2007/04/17/white_house_threatens_veto_of_drug_price_bill/

The kind of people they are

http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=YzllOTU0MDUzY2NhZDE2YmViYmRiNmE5ZjM1OWQxYTU
[John Derbyshire, NRO] Where was the spirit of self-defense here? Setting aside the ludicrous campus ban on licensed conceals, why didn't anyone rush the guy? It's not like this was Rambo, hosing the place down with automatic weapons. He had two handguns for goodness' sake—one of them reportedly a .22.

At the very least, count the shots and jump him reloading or changing hands. Better yet, just jump him. Handguns aren't very accurate, even at close range. I shoot mine all the time at the range, and I still can't hit squat. I doubt this guy was any better than I am. And even if hit, a .22 needs to find something important to do real damage—your chances aren't bad.

Yes, yes, I know it's easy to say these things: but didn't the heroes of Flight 93 teach us anything? As the cliche goes—and like most cliches. It's true—none of us knows what he'd do in a dire situation like that. I hope, however, that if I thought I was going to die anyway, I'd at least take a run at the guy.

[NB: Imagine all the poor kids already questioning themselves and feeling guilty that they didn't do more to stop it. Nice to have someone writing from the luxury of a safe distance what a Great Hero HE would have been under the circumstances.]

Theocracy watch: You knew it would happen. In the rush to exploit the Virginia Tech massacre to promote every cause under the sun, the latest – and weirdest – finger-pointing of blame is toward “godless evolutionists”

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2007/04/guess-what-caused-virginia-tech-by.html

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/10537.html

Suzanne Malveaux (CNN), queen of unctuousness, comments on Bush’s visit to Virginia Tech

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/10539.html
“You may recall that what was called the ‘bull-horn moment’ when the president shortly after 9/11 stood on that pile of rubble and called out and really united the country at that moment, firefighters and others who recognized that that was a very significant moment for the country,” Malveaux said. “This is again one of those moments.” . . . . [read on]

[NB: One problem – she offered this assessment BEFORE Bush even went there and spoke. The media is so desperate to see Bush mount a comeback in popularity that they are pump-priming public opinion even when there’s nothing to base it on.]

More: http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2007/04/moment-by-digby-suzanne-malveaux-of-cnn.html

“Did you know they were married?” You can play at home

http://www2.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2007_04/011147.php

Bonus item: How Rove’s emails got deleted

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/4/17/204344/588

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

I don't get anything personally out of this project, except the satisfaction of doing it (I don't run ads, etc). The credit really all goes to the people whose material I copy and redistribute. But if I do have a "mission," it is to get this information into the hands of as many people as I can.***
- posted by Nick Burbules @ 7:05 AM

 
ARMED AND DANGEROUS

33 dead on the Virginia Tech campus. A horrible tragedy. A few reactions

http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room/2007/04/16/guns/index.html
Asked today whether the incident might cause the president to rethink his views on gun control, White House spokeswoman Dana Perino expressed horror over the shootings but then said: "As far as policy, the president believes that there is a right for people to bear arms, but that all laws must be followed. And certainly, bringing a gun into a school dormitory and shooting numbers . . . obviously, that would be against the law and something that someone should be held accountable for. "

http://instapundit.com/archives2/004221.php
[Glenn Reynolds, “Instapundit”] These things do seem to take place in locations where it's not legal for people with carry permits to carry guns, though, and I believe that's the case where the Virginia Tech campus is concerned. I certainly wish that someone had been in a position to shoot this guy at the outset.

More insanity: http://mediamatters.org/items/200704170001

Bush to Blacksburg – what to expect

http://www.firedoglake.com/2007/04/16/late-late-nite-fdl-firedoglake-predicts/

Because of the killings, the Gonzales appearance is put off until Thursday

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/4/16/193647/599
[Pat Leahy] "We have consulted with the Attorney General and all understand it is appropriate to postpone Attorney General Gonzales's appearance before the Judiciary Committee until Thursday, in light of the tragic events that occurred Monday at Virginia Polytechnic Institute. . . .”

He’ll need the extra time to prepare

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601103&sid=a4hHw3lvWi6I&refer=us
Attorney General Alberto Gonzales's former chief of staff has offered fresh contradictions of accounts by the Justice Department's top two officials about last year's firings of eight U.S. attorneys, a Democratic lawmaker said.

The Gonzales aide, D. Kyle Sampson, was interviewed yesterday by Senate Judiciary Committee lawyers as the panel prepares to hear from Gonzales later this week. Senator Charles Schumer, the New York Democrat heading the committee's probe into the firings, discussed Sampson's latest account in a news conference today. Sampson's new testimony conflicts with accounts by Gonzales and Deputy Attorney General Paul McNulty, Schumer said.

For example, Gonzales told NBC News in a March 26 interview that he couldn't recall discussing U.S. attorneys with President George W. Bush. Just three weeks earlier, Sampson said, the attorney general had recounted to him a conversation with the president about David C. Iglesias . . .

Sampson also disputed Gonzales's statements that he didn't participate in discussions about firing U.S. attorneys. Sampson, 37, resigned last month as Gonzales said he had delegated responsibility for removing the prosecutors to his chief aide. . . .

Schumer said Sampson and William Mercer, another Justice Department official interviewed by Senate investigators, contradicted Gonzales's denial of any involvement in discussions about dismissing Carol Lam, the former U.S. attorney in San Diego. . . Both Mercer, now acting associate attorney general at the Justice Department, and Sampson recall Gonzales attending a meeting last June in the attorney general's conference room to discuss Lam, Schumer said. Lawmakers in both parties had said Lam was lax in cracking down on smuggling of illegal aliens. . .

In a June 1 e-mail to Mercer, Sampson wrote that Gonzales “has given additional thought'' to Lam and “now believes we should adopt a plan'' that included telling her “about the urgent need to improve immigration enforcement.''

If Lam “balks'' or “otherwise does not perform in a measurable way'' the agency would “remove her,'' Sampson wrote. . .

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2007_04_15.php#013679
[Josh Marshall] Consider the scene. May 2006. Lam has already sent one congressman to prison. News has just broken that her investigation now threatens to bring down the House Appropriations Committee Chairman. And she'd just brought her probe to the heart of the Bush CIA.

While this is going on top Justice Department officials are having an entirely separate conversation about how to deal with Lam's record on immigration enforcement. Talk it out with her? Give her one last chance? Keep her on a short leash?

All these possibilities. But no one ever gets around to telling Lam anything about it.

Does that sound right to you?

What were these discussions really about?

Kyle Sampson went up to the Senate again over the weekend. And according to Sen. Schumer (D-NY), Sampson said that "on June 6, senior Justice officials including Sampson; the department's No. 3 official, William Mercer; Gonzales's former counselor Jeffrey Taylor, now the now U.S. attorney in Washington, D.C., and others discussed the potential ouster of Lam." But DOJ spokesman Brian Roehrkasse says the meeting wasn't about Lam's ouster at all. It was about "congressional complaints about inadequate immigration enforcement in Lam's district."

The fact that the immigration issue was never raised with Lam by the Department of Justice points strongly to the conclusion that it was not the reason for her firing but the pretext for it.

http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/print?id=3046651
Attorney General Alberto Gonzales' assertion that he was not involved in identifying the eight U.S. attorneys who were asked to resign last year is at odds with a recently released internal Department of Justice e-mail, ABC News has learned.

That e-mail said that Gonzales supported firing one federal prosecutor six months before she was asked to leave. . . .

http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/003019.php
[Paul Kiel] Let's take a look at one of the key lines of questioning that Alberto Gonzales is sure to face during his hearing tomorrow -- a line of questioning made all the more damaging by the revelation in today's papers of a senior Justice Department official's testimony.

Michael Battle, until recently the director of the Executive Office for United States Attorneys which is the liaison between the U.S. attorneys and main Justice, told congressional investigators earlier this month that he was not aware of any "performance issues" for "several" of the prosecutors. The first he heard of any problems was when the order came down to fire them.

Let's look at how this reflects on Gonzales. . . . [read on]

More questions for Gonzales

http://www.americanprogressaction.org/progressreport/#3

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/013672.php

http://www.talkleft.com/story/2007/4/16/161053/478

I’ll bet the WH wishes they had someone better to deal with the press right now

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2007_04_15.php#013660
Reporter: Dana, the Albuquerque Journal reported that Senator Domenici made a personal deal with the White House. Does the president recall talking about Iglesias, does the president recall specifically talking to Domenici, does...

Dana Perino: I'd refer you to what the president said in Mexico when he was asked this specific question, and he said that he had, that it was something, I don't have his exact words, but he said something along the lines of that he had been hearing complaints, and we've told you the general different areas, around the country, and that he remembers the issue of voter fraud being brought up at a meeting with senators. But we have never said --

Reporter: He doesn't remember specifically Domenici?

Dana Perino: Not that I -- I don't believe so.

http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/003022.php
Q Does the President not remember having a phone conversation with Senator Domenici about U.S. attorney Iglesias? Or is he clear that one did not take place?

MS. PERINO: I've never asked him that question. I do know that his vague recollection was that he had heard complaints. And then I'll refer you to his statement -- or his answer to a question that he got in Mexico, in which he was asked that question, and he said that he recalls being at a meeting on the Hill in which this issue was brought up -- a meeting of senators on the Hill in which it was brought up. But I've never heard anything about a phone call.

Q So he's never actually answered the question.

MS. PERINO: He answered the question. And I don't know anything about a phone call; I've never heard that -- except for questions from you all.

Q You mean the phone call --

MS. PERINO: I don't know that the President ever received a phone call. I don't have any record of that, or any recollection of it, and I've been dealing with this issue for many weeks. . . .

Q Right. Just to be clear about this, then, Senator Domenici and the President, has there ever been a direct conversation between the two?

MS. PERINO: I don't know. I don't believe so, necessarily, about this particular issue, but remember, when -- the President sees members of Congress all of the time, and as I think I said last week, whenever a senator has the President's ear, whether the issue -- whether the topic of the meeting is the Iraq war supplemental, if they have a chance to talk about other issues, they will. And so I'm not going to rule it out, but I just can't say that Senator Domenici and the President ever had a one-on-one conversation about it.

More: http://www.first-draft.com/2007/04/today_on_holden_3.html

Gonzo’s impossible task

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/4/16/20355/2081
[ABC] The attorney general has a difficult needle to thread: He must correct his earlier comments that he had limited knowledge and involvement in the firing process, without making it look as if he had intentionally misled the public. He must give a plausible explanation for both the firings and the muddled response from his department, without appearing incompetent to lead. And he has to do it all under oath. . .

A primer on Gonzales’s tactics of evasion

http://www.firedoglake.com/2007/04/16/hey-look-over-there/

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/blog/2007/04/16/BL2007041600773.html

Ouch

http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1610738,00.html
In what could prove an embarrassing new setback for embattled Attorney General Alberto Gonzales on the eve of his testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee, a group of influential conservatives and longtime Bush supporters has written a letter to the White House to call for his resignation. . . .

No, the Dems aren’t going to give up after they get Gonzales

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2007_04_15.php#013678
Rep. Conyers (D-MI) wants to talk to USAs Steven Biskupic (Milwaukee), Rachel Paulose (Minneapolis), Larry Gomez (acting USA in New Mexico, Iglesias's replacement), Mary Beth Buchanan (Western District of Pennsylvania) and others.

Feeling the heat?

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2007_04_15.php#013659
[WSJ] The Justice Department's Public Integrity Section is investigating connections between disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff and the White House, a probe that may be affected by missing White House emails.

Lawyers involved in the case said that beginning more than a year ago, federal prosecutors and Federal Bureau of Investigation agents interviewed Mr. Abramoff and other cooperating witnesses at length about numerous contacts between Mr. Abramoff and White House officials, including presidential adviser Karl Rove.

One focus of the Justice inquiry has been whether Mr. Abramoff obtained official favors in exchange for giving Bush administration officials expensive meals and tickets to sporting events and concerts. The White House has denied this.

Well, you knew it was a matter of time before the surge advocates started proclaiming its “success” (you can always cite SOME signs of progress in a country as large and complex as Iraq)

http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2007/04/16/iraq/index.html
[Glenn Greenwald] Thus, the Kagan/Kristol/Krauthammer war propagandists continue to say whatever they have to say in order to find a way to stay in Iraq forever. Our Serious Beltway pundits continue to embrace that reasoning because staying is the only way to avoid the reality of how wrong they were. And the disconnect between what Americans want and think, and what our government (and the "small but powerful" faction that controls it) does, continues to grow without any end in sight. . . .

More: http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2007/04/vic-to-ree-by-digby-glenn-greenwald.html

The Big Lie

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2007_04_15.php#013664
[Josh Marshall] I've written this post several times already. But as long as the president keeps fibbing, I'll keep writing it. The president says the Congress is substituting its judgment for that of the uniformed military. Not true. The uniformed military was against the surge. By most measures, it still is. The president disagreed so he fired the senior military leadership on the ground in Iraq and replaced them with people -- and there aren't that many of them -- who agreed with him.

Are we witnessing the collapse of Iraq’s coalition government?

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/4/16/16230/0083
[NYT] Legislators working for Mr. Sadr said that Mr. Sadr was withdrawing his ministers from the 38-member cabinet because the Iraqi government had refused to set a timetable for pulling American troops out of the country. . . .

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/4/16/11053/8823
[ABC] Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki welcomed radical cleric Moqtada al-Sadr's decision to pull out of government on Monday, saying it freed up seats at the cabinet table for "efficient ministers". . . .

[NB: Ah, so it’s GOOD news. I see]

More: http://www.matthewyglesias.com/archives/2007/04/sadrists_say_goodbye/

In Iraq, private US mercenaries are not subject to laws – not Iraq’s, and not our own

http://www.prospect.org/weblog/2007/04/post_3445.html

http://www.prospect.org/weblog/2007/04/post_3447.html

The Dems aren’t backing down in their fight with Bush

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/4/16/141117/620
[McJoan] Harry Reid responds to Bush with a masterful press conference featuring retired Army generals Robert Gard and John Johns. When asked if Congress would make an offer to try to find compromise with Bush on the supplemental, Reid answered: "The offer is that the President sign our bill."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/16/AR2007041601099.html
Congress and the White House will move this week toward a final showdown over a contested war funding bill, with most Americans trusting Democrats over President Bush to set Iraq policy . . .

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/16/AR2007041600730.html
President Bush today continued to urge Democrats to promptly pass a $100 billion war funding bill that does not set a timetable for troop withdrawals from Iraq, warning that the safety of the American homeland is at stake.

"One of the lessons of September the 11th is what happens overseas matters to the security of the United States of America, and we must not forget that lesson," Bush told a gathering of military families at the White House. "The consequences of failure would be death and destruction in the Middle East and here in America. To protect our citizens at home, we must defeat the terrorists." . . .

http://electioncentral.tpmcafe.com/blog/electioncentral/2007/apr/16/bush_baselessly_asserts_that_troops_want_to_stay_in_iraq
[Greg Sargent] Here's one of Bush's key quotes: "Families gathered here understand that our troops want to finish the job."

But is there a single scrap of evidence that this is true? Is there a single scrap of evidence that says that a majority of the troops want to stay in Iraq until the job is "finished," whatever that means? The only poll that I've seen that comes close to a real and comprehensive effort to measure troops' attitudes on such questions was the annual Army Times poll, which was released last December. . . It suggests that the troops are ambiguous on this question, finding that only half thought the U.S. can succeed -- meaning that only half thought the job could be finished, let alone that they want to finish it. The other half, meanwhile, didn't think the "job" could be finished or didn't have an opinion on whether it could.

Meanwhile, the poll also found pessimism among the troops about Bush's leadership. . .

More: http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/10529.html

The peculiar politics of Democratic war policies

http://select.nytimes.com/2007/04/16/opinion/16krugman.html
[Paul Krugman] [A] funny thing has happened on the Democratic side: the party’s base seems to be more in touch with the mood of the country than many of the party’s leaders. And the result is peculiar: on key issues, reluctant Democratic politicians are being dragged by their base into taking highly popular positions.

More: http://www.talkleft.com/story/2007/4/16/123139/640

A sharp editorial on the “Denver Three” case

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/10525.html
[Rocky Mountain News] At a private fund-raising dinner or a campaign event for invitees only, sure [dissenters can be excluded]. The meeting in Denver, however, was open to the public and bankrolled by taxpayers.

Security officers indeed have a duty to protect attendees from rowdy protesters who might pose some physical danger. But the government has no right to silence or eject potential critics at a public forum.

Rewind to March 2005. The alleged protesters arrived at the Wings Over the Rockies museum in a car that had a bumper-sticker reading “no more blood for oil.” That drew the attention of the operatives, who cornered the three attendees inside and escorted them from the building.

Had someone in the administration simply apologized and said something like, “We really need to keep an eye on our more enthusiastic volunteers,” the president could have taken his lumps and the matter would have long ago been forgotten. Instead, the administration comes across looking like a bully.

[Steve Benen] And just for good measure, let’s also not forget that this story may even be part of the U.S. Attorney controversy. Two years ago, Colorado lawmakers appealed for a federal investigation of the incident, and the U.S. Attorney’s office in Denver declined, even when evidence emerged that the bouncers impersonated Secret Service agents, which is a crime.

One wonders if perhaps politics was a motivating factor for the U.S. Attorney’s office to blow off the lawmakers’ concerns? Just saying….

Too dumb to be President

http://www.matthewyglesias.com/archives/2007/04/tommy_thompson/
"I'm in the private sector and for the first time in my life I'm earning money," Republican hopeful and former Wisconsin governor Tommy Thompson said Monday. "You know that's sort of part of the Jewish tradition." . . .

[NB: Read on. It actually gets WORSE]

Theocracy watch: Why would Pat Robertson’s Regent University, which has been bragging that it produced 150 members of Bush’s highly capable administration, suddenly remove that statistic from their web site?

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/10527.html

More: http://www.tpmcafe.com/blog/electioncentral/2007/apr/16/rudy_speaking_at_pat_robertsons_regent_u_tomorrow
[Eric Kleefeld] Rudy Giuliani is set to give a speech tomorrow at Pat Robertson's Regent University. It'll be yet another test of his ability to glide past the social conservatives who dominate GOP primaries — or at least to get them to overlook his support for abortion, gun control, gay rights and cross-dressing.

If you watch the Daily Show, they’ve done more and more to make the set look like a “real” news broadcast. While they advertise themselves as a “fake news” show, it’s clear that they actually take the task of informing their audience (while amusing and entertaining them) quite seriously. Meanwhile, it appears that watching Fox News actually makes you dumber

http://thinkprogress.org/2007/04/16/daily-show-fox-knowledge/
A new study by the Pew Research Study shows that viewers of the Daily Show and the Colbert Report have the highest knowledge of national and international affairs, while Fox News viewers rank nearly dead last . . .

More: http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/10523.html

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/4/16/10267/8563

Bonus item: The perfect metaphor for US war policy

http://www.needlenose.com/node/view/3961
[Fubar] For the past week, I've been thinking about what to do with this copy of Baghdad Weekly . . . The Weekly is the official newsletter of the MWR (Morale, Welfare, and Recreation) program run by Halliburton's KBR division inside Baghdad's Green Zone (they're hiring, btw.)

Trouble is, I can't get past a page 1 story on a recent rowing relay race called the Tigris 6K. I don't know about you, but when I hear about a rowing race on the Tigris, I think of boats, water, and a river in Iraq. The actual race, however, involved rowing machines on asphalt, surrounded by concrete blast walls and guardposts. Ironically, the Tigris river itself is literally on the other side of the protective walls.

In short: no boats, no water. . . . .

[NB: . . . . and going nowhere]

***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 @ 6:20 AM

 
A CONSPICUOUS SILENCE

Josh is right, this is HUGE. How can it not be front page material?

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2007_04_15.php#013646
[Albuquerque Journal] Former U.S. Attorney David Iglesias was fired after Sen. Pete Domenici, who had been unhappy with Iglesias for some time, made a personal appeal to the White House, the Journal has learned. . . .

In the spring of 2006, Domenici told Gonzales he wanted Iglesias out.

Gonzales refused. He told Domenici he would fire Iglesias only on orders from the president.

At some point after the election last Nov. 6, Domenici called Bush's senior political adviser, Karl Rove, and told him he wanted Iglesias out and asked Rove to take his request directly to the president.

Domenici and Bush subsequently had a telephone conversation about the issue.

The conversation between Bush and Domenici occurred sometime after the election but before the firings of Iglesias and six other U.S. attorneys were announced on Dec. 7.

Iglesias' name first showed up on a Nov. 15 list of federal prosecutors who would be asked to resign. It was not on a similar list prepared in October.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=7718583
The Justice Department has disclosed that Domenici called U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales four times over the past year and a half to raise questions about Iglesias. . .

http://www.abqjournal.com/news/special/554986nm04-15-07.htm
New Mexicans who complained directly to the Justice Department about Iglesias said they learned he was held in high regard by Gonzales and his staff.

[NB: Well, we certainly have a new line of questioning for Alberto on Tuesday, don’t we? DID Domenici call him to demand Iglesias’s ouster? DID Gonzales say, “only if I hear it from Bush”? And DID Gonzales hear, either directly or indirectly, that Bush had given the order to dump Iglesias? Was Iglesias held “in high regard” before the order came down from on high? I can’t wait to hear his answers.

Most of all, this narrative confirms EXACTLY how people have suspected things worked – gripes from congressional or local party officials, filtered through Rove and the WH, then back through Sampson, to get selected US Attorneys out. Gonzales may not have given day-to-day supervision, but he clearly knew what was going on and okayed it. Iglesias’s case is especially salient because he was NEVER on any list based on job performance problems.

And Bush was actively involved. . . .]

More: http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/003017.php
[Paul Kiel] According to earlier statements from the White House and Kyle Sampson's testimony, Bush and Rove had already complained to Gonzales about Iglesias when Domenici called in November. Those complaints had to do with Iglesias' insufficiently aggressive pursuit of (Democratic) voter fraud, and they were made -- by President Bush and Karl Rove -- in mid-October.

So we have two different streams of complaints from the White House -- the first in October about voter fraud and then another in November, stemming from Domenici's concern at Iglesias' failure to move certain cases. Of course, both of them at their base were about Iglesias' failure to prosecute enough Democrats.

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2007_04_15.php#013648
[Josh Marshall] No one disputes that Domenici's call to Iglesias was at best inappropriate. But there's been a lack of direct evidence that Iglesias's refusal to bow to political pressure led directly to his firing. Now we have that evidence. And it's not Kyle Sampson or even Alberto Gonzales whom Domenici went to to get sign off for Iglesias's ouster. It was right to the president. And the available evidence now points strongly to the conclusion that the final decision to fire David Iglesias came from the President of the United States.

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2007_04_15.php#013651
[David Kurtz] This is curious. The day's big story--the Albuquerque Journal article that places President Bush at the center of the firing of New Mexico U.S. Attorney David Iglesias--did not contain any reaction from the White House or the Department of Justice. . . That's not necessarily a criticism of Gallagher's work, but it did leave me with questions and the expectation that there would be some serious blowback from the Administration in response to the article. But here we are on Sunday evening, and I'm still not seeing any public reaction from the Administration. . . You might say the silence is deafening.

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2007_04_15.php#013652
[Josh Marshall] If there were any way for the White House to deny that such a call had occurred, they'd do it. But it's mid-Sunday evening and there hasn't been a peep. So I think we can be pretty certain that that call did take place as claimed. (The article also reports calls to Gonzales and Rove -- so the same inference from silence applies to them too.)

This may also help explain why Karl Rove's deputy Scott Jennings assumed his White House colleagues knew so much about the Iglesias backstory when he sent them this panicked email as the news of Domenici's call was breaking. . .

Bush’s lies

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2007_04_15.php#013654
[Bush, March 14] I said, have you heard complaints about AGs, I have -- I mean, U.S. attorneys, excuse me -- and he said, I have. But I never brought up a specific case nor gave him specific instructions. . . .

[Dana Perino, March 13] "At no time did any White House officials, including the president, direct the Department of Justice to take specific action against any individual U.S. attorney." . . [read on!]

A late-night response from the Bush gang

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2007_04_15.php#013656
Justice Department spokesman Brian Roehrkasse said the president did not tell Gonzales to fire Iglesias. He also said that Gonzales did not recall discussing with Domenici whether or not to replace Iglesias.

[NB: They spoke FOUR TIMES!]

A White House spokesman, Trey Bohn, pointed to comments made by President Bush and his adviser Dan Bartlett last month when asked about the conversation with Domenici.

Bush said that in speaking to Gonzales about U.S. attorneys, "I never brought up a specific case nor gave him specific instructions." Bartlett said that "there was no directive given, as far as telling him to fire anybody or anything like that."

Domenici spokesman Chris Gallegos said Domenici would have no comment.

[From a TPM reader] You can drive a Halliburton convoy through that White House denial. . . [read on!]

[NB: This morning, still no coverage of this story in the mainstream press]

Two good analyses of Gonzales’s Washington Post mea no culpa – it’s all about protecting Rove now

http://thenexthurrah.typepad.com/the_next_hurrah/2007/04/i_guess_hes_sti.html

http://balkin.blogspot.com/2007/04/misplaced-focus-on-gonzales.html

Why Rove has to worry

http://www.talkleft.com/story/2007/4/13/10416/6505

Here is a preview of Gonzales’s opening statement for Congress (and some analysis of what it DOESN’T say)

http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/003018.php
[Paul Kiel] First, Gonzales says again that (as far as he knows, at least) none of the U.S. attorneys were fired for "improper" reasons -- which would be "in order to impede or speed along particular criminal investigations for illegitimate reasons." But he says that "it is clear to me that I should have done more personally to ensure that the review process was more rigorous." That's an admission that's sure to open him up to some battering from senators on the panel.

Second, he again says that he "misspoke" at a press conference on March 13th when he said "I was not involved in any discussions about what was going on.” That statement, he says, "was too broad." He regrets the confusion, he says. . . .

http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room/2007/04/15/gonzales_testimony/index.html
[Michael Scherer] [D]on't expect Gonzales' appearance to settle all the outstanding questions about U.S. Attorney-Gate. Gonzales is clearly planning to spend a lot of time Tuesday dwelling on everything that he does not think he remembers, or is sure he doesn't know, or maybe only knew in some way, for which there was a vague memory he might have had, but now no longer possess, or whatever. The phrase "I do not recall" shows up three times in the prepared remarks, a preemptive strike before any senator has even asked a question. . . .

"I have not spoken with nor reviewed the confidential transcripts of any of the Department of Justice employees interviewed by congressional staff," Gonzales plans to say. "I state this because, as a result, I may be somewhat limited when it comes to providing you with all of the facts that you may desire."

The memory lapses could possibly include Gonzales' own role in the scandal. At one point in the testimony, he discusses the deliberations that were conducted about the firings. "To my knowledge, I did not make decisions about who should or should not be asked to resign," he plans to say.

Maybe somebody else has better knowledge. As it stands, the Attorney General does not seem to know exactly what he has or has not done.

More on Gonzales’s testimony. Will they get answers on Rove’s involvement? Will they use Gonzales to get some background on Monica 2.0’s involvement (since she’s not talking)?

http://www.startribune.com/587/story/1121306.html

Here’s an interesting aspect of Gonzo’s testimony – nearly everyone ASSUMES that he’ll be spinning a yarn of lies, half-truths, and “I don’t recalls.” But it’s all about the aesthetics of it: Does he do so “effectively”? Does the narrative, even if it is false, “hang together” convincingly? Does he avoid a knock-out blow from the questioning?

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2007_04_15.php#013655

Well-said

http://www.matthewyglesias.com/archives/2007/04/gonzalez/
[Matt Yglesias] I don't really know what to say about Alberto Gonzalez's op-ed and testimony preview. He seems to sense that he can't just stand pat, so he's kinda sorta apologizing for . . . well . . . well . . . well it's not totally clear what he's apologizing for. To be sorry, you need to be admitting to having done something wrong. . . . [read on]

On the eve of his testimony, another blow to the DOJ cover story

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2007_04_15.php#013653
[WP] The former Justice Department official who carried out the firings of eight U.S. attorneys last year told Congress that several of the prosecutors had no performance problems and that a memo on the firings was distributed at a Nov. 27 meeting attended by Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales, a Democratic senator said yesterday.

The statements to House and Senate investigators by Michael A. Battle, former director of the Executive Office for U.S. Attorneys, represent another potential challenge to the credibility of Gonzales, who has said that he never saw any documents about the firings and that he had "lost confidence" in the prosecutors because of performance problems. . . .

Something’s not right about the Biskupic story in Wisconsin. He was still on the list to be fired AFTER he had convicted the Democratic staffer. So why was he pulled off the list?

http://www.firedoglake.com/2007/04/14/smoking-gun-needed/

http://www.jsonline.com/story/index.aspx?id=591137

http://www.talkleft.com/story/2007/4/16/15556/0268

Arlen Specter is trying to broker a deal on testimony by WH aides

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/15/washington/15cnd-attorney.html

Will the Bush gang really agree to an independent forensics expert to track down the missing emails?

http://www.talkleft.com/story/2007/4/15/145353/539

Former head of CENTCOM, retired Gen. Anthony Zinni, gives a glimpse of how different things might have been in the Middle East if someone driven by an understanding of the region, and not wishful ideology, had been setting policy there. Long, but worth it

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/18094428/
[Meet the Press] MR. RUSSERT: Your new version of “The Battle for Peace,” new edition, is out, and let me read from the afterword, which you write: “Nearly four years after our country invaded and occupied Iraq, Americans are facing the painful truth that our nation has failed to achieve the Bush administration’s ambitious goals for that tragic land.

“We promised the Iraqi people freedom, democracy, security and a new and far better life.

“Yet, here we are, long and difficult years into that conflict,” ... “we still have not created the state we promised them. On the contrary, our costly and valiant efforts have produced an outcome our government did not predict or intend—a failed state spinning out of control into anarchy and civil war.” What happened?

GEN. ZINNI: Well, I think, first of all, tremendous underestimating of what you would face in here. Those of us that know this region, have been involved in the planning, knew that this was a fragile society, that if you did not intervene in a way to gain control of the borders, the population, you could cause all sorts of internal issues to erupt into the kind of violence we saw.

MR. RUSSERT: You write also the following, general: “We promised to build a new Iraqi state in all” aspects “and the Iraqi people are still waiting for us to deliver on our promise.

“Why?

“We now know the answers to that question: Poor intelligence, lack of planning, faulty political motivation, incompetent or inexperienced people placed in key positions, flawed assumptions, lack of understanding of the Iraqi culture, arrogance, spin, and the list goes on and on.” That’s quite a list.

GEN. ZINNI: It is. And unfortunately, it’s true. I mean it—we, we did not prepare ourselves for this intervention. We threw away decades worth of planning and understanding of the situation. We discounted those that warned that the assumptions were too optimistic, and we had the results we have now.

MR. RUSSERT: I want to take you back to August of 2002. You were being given an award by the Veterans of Foreign War, and there you are. Vice President Cheney’s addressing the group. You have just been decorated. And this is what the vice president said on that day. Let’s listen:

(Videotape, August 26, 2002)

VICE PRES. DICK CHENEY: Simply stated, there is no doubt that Saddam Hussein now has weapons of mass destruction. There is no doubt that he is amassing them to use against our friends, against our allies and against us.

(End videotape)

MR. RUSSERT: The next year, The Washington Post, Tom Ricks wrote this story: “Cheney’s certitude the bewildered [retired General Tony] Zinni. ... ‘In my time at Centcom, I watched the intelligence, and never—not once—did it say, “He has WMD.”’

“Though retired for nearly two years, Zinni says, he remained current on the intelligence through his consulting with the CIA and the military. ‘I did consulting work for the agency, right up to the beginning of the war. I never saw anything. I’d say to analysts, “Where’s the threat?”’ Their response, he recalls, was, ‘Silence.’

“Zinni’s concern deepened as Cheney pressed on. ... Zinni’s conclusion as he slowly walked off the stage that day was that the Bush administration was determined to go to war. A moment later, he had another, equally chilling thought: ‘These guys don’t understand what’” they’re “‘getting into.’” Why do you think that they wanted to go to war?

GEN. ZINNI: Well, I think, obviously after 9/11, they saw a need to change our approaches in the Middle East, to do something dramatic. Unfortunately, I think this was the wrong place at the wrong time. And, and the philosophy or the theory behind this change that this liberation would cause a rising up and a, a, a drive for democracy in the Middle East, it, it didn’t square with the way the culture or the way the thinking and the, and the situation was that we had seen in my time. I think the WMD problem, we’d always had a suspicion of WMD programs, but never any hard evidence. And, as time went on, it seemed less and less likely there was an existing program. I mean the vice president’s term was he was “amassing” weapons of mass destruction. Clearly, there was no evidence of even an existing program, let, let alone amassing of weapons of mass destruction.

MR. RUSSERT: As you know, there’s a widely publicized search for a war czar. One of the people who turned the job down was retired General, General John Sheehan, and let me read this to you: “‘The very fundamental issues is, they don’t know where the hell they’re going,’ said retired” Gen—“Marine General John ‘Jack’ Sheehan, a former top NATO commander...

“Sheehan said he called around to get a better feel for the administration landscape. ‘There’s the” resitue—“residue of the Cheney view--‘We’re going to win, al-Qaeda’s there’—that justifies anything we did,’ he said. ‘And then there’s the pragmatist view—how the hell do we get out of Dodge and survive? Unfortunately, the people with the former view are still in the positions of most influence.’” What does that tell you?

GEN. ZINNI: Well, I know Jack Sheehan very well, and he’s a extremely competent and capable former commander of the Atlantic command. And I think he’s expressing a view that, that many of us feel. We are in a situation now where we have to rethink our strategy on how we handle this. We have caused in the center of the Middle East a place where the—we could have a sanctuary for extremist groups, where Shia and Sunni strife can spill over, where we could have an Iranian or Persian/Arab conflict, and we have to find a way to contain this now. We can’t walk away from it. We cannot continue on the same course.

What has disappointed me is there hasn’t been this debate on the strategy, on the policy, a regional strategy on policy, let alone an Iraq policy. We’re, we’re debating the tactics. The, the surge is a tactic. In what context is the surge? You can make an argument for a surge if you were going to withdraw, to cover the withdrawal, for example, or to contain, to reposition forces or to re-engage in a different way or a stronger way. And why we got caught up in the tactical debate, in my mind, is an indication that we don’t understand what we want to do. What should our Middle East policy be? What should our policy be in terms of Iraq and, and the war against the extremists out there or the conflict against extremists? We seem to be strategically adrift, in my view. . . .

We’re going to be in this part of the world. We aren’t going to leave. Now, we can readjust our strategy for Iraq. We can extricate our troops from the sectarian violence. But we’re going to have to contain the problems that could spill over and the—and cause this critical part of the world to spin out of control.

We need to rethink that kind of strategy, that kind of positioning. But more importantly, we need to rethink our relationships in that region. We have to build a collective security arrangement, a coalition arrangement to replace the one we destroyed by going into Iraq now. The, the Gulf coalition was fragile, it supported our containment of Iran and Iraq before. Most of the leaders in this region that I talk to are asking me, “What’s the new arrangement?” They are at least thinking past Iraq. They’re thinking in strategic terms, and no one’s engaging them on that level of, of discussion. There should be more in the way of burden sharing, more in the way of cooperative defense, more in the way of security assistance programs that help build the kind of region that can take care of itself with our help and with our involvement. There’s no way out of that.

MR. RUSSERT: In a briefing paper you’ve written for the World Security Institute and also in “The Battle for Peace,” you write about realities. You say our “first reality is we should acknowledge is that” there’s “no brilliant short-term strategic option or stroke of genius waiting to be unveiled.

“The second reality is that we cannot simply pull out, as much we may want to. The consequences of a destabilized and chaotic Iraq, sitting in the center of a critical region of the world, could have catastrophic implications.

“The third reality is that there is no short-term solution. It will take years to stabilize Iraq. How many? I believe at least five to seven.

And “the fourth reality is that the” problems “cannot be solved by simply addressing the security issues.”

We’re in the middle of a presidential campaign and people are saying, “Stay in Iraq, support the surge,” or “Set a date certain for withdrawal.” Is either view, in your mind, tenable?

GEN. ZINNI: No. First of all, I think that any attempt to fix Iraq, if you will, to commit to a larger involvement or intervention probably went away when we didn’t adopt the, the Baker-Hamilton recommendations. I thought that would be a start. Certainly didn’t go far enough. I think, now, the American people are becoming disillusioned. I think it’s, it’s clear, though, that we cannot leave the region, we shouldn’t naively think we’re pulling out, that this is Somalia or Vietnam. And I think the debate should be, amongst the candidates is, is how do we redesign the strategy for this region, protect our interests, create the kind of coalition involvement that would help support this and share the burden. We need that kind of imagination out there. And it isn’t just about Iraq. It’s about how we engage or what do we do about Iran and Syria, our involvement in the Middle East peace process, the rebuilding of relationships with former allies that has been stressed and strained, and, and how we deal with, a cooperative way, to counter the extremism that’s on the rise. The current bombings in, in Algeria and Morocco should, should be of great concern to us and, and to that part of the world. . .

We need to think through things like our security assistance programs out there. We want to build allies with the capability that can join us on any battlefield. We need to rethink how we operate in the international and regional community. We have, we have a, a United Nations that, in many ways, is broken. There’s been just criticism of the United Nations. But the United Nations offers international legitimacy in what we might do. We need to reconstruct the kind of involvement that allowed us to do the intervention in the interim years between the first Gulf war and this Gulf war. All these things and all these pieces are what goes into making up a foreign policy and a regional policy for this critical part of the world.

MR. RUSSERT: Many have suggested that the Army is near broken because of the constant redeployments. Can we sustain the number of troops we have in Iraq for years to come?

GEN. ZINNI: No. You know, what’s, what’s shocking about all this, if you look at past wars, in, in three to four years into a war, we’ve had remarkable transformations of our military. Just think about World War II, where we were when Pearl Harbor was attacked, what our military looked like. I mean, all our equipment was inferior to our enemy, the size of our forces, our organization, our tactics. Three and a half years later, we were a superpower. We dominated in all those areas. Even in Vietnam, at the tactical level, we made adjustments and adaptations, and, and we increased the size of the force to meet the commitment.

Although we’ve mouthed the words about this being a long war and a long struggle, the very forces that it places the greatest demand upon, our ground forces, our, our soldiers and Marines, we’ve seen no increase, no change, no adaptability on the battlefield. We’re still confused about the enemy. We’re, we’re, we’re stifled by the IED attacks and, and the problems we face. And, and these adjustments, over four years, have not been made. We have to ask ourselves why. What happened to transformation? Why was the design not right? What have we done to adjust? Our military, especially our Army and Marine Corps, are not going to be able to continue this kind of rotation. Traditionally you need three units for every one you have deployed. That’s the ideal, in terms of training, reconstructing the unit, the kind of quality time, the quality of life and family time necessary to rebuild the unit before it goes out. We’re down to almost one-to-one. . . .

What might have been

http://www.commondreams.org/news2003/0930-12.htm
[AP, July 27, 2003] “General Anthony Zinni, a retired Marine general who was Bush's Middle East mediator, angered the White House when he told a foreign policy forum in October that Bush had far more pressing foreign policy priorities than Iraq and suggested there could be a prolonged, difficult aftermath to a war. He was not reappointed as Mideast envoy.”

Why retired Gen. John Sheehan refused the position as “war czar”

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/15/AR2007041500564.html
What I found in discussions with current and former members of this administration is that there is no agreed-upon strategic view of the Iraq problem or the region. In my view, there are essentially three strategies in play simultaneously. . . [read on]

The question that needs to be asked

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/04/14/ftn/main2683924.shtml
When suggested by CBS Evening News chief Washington correspondent Bob Schieffer that a majority of Americans want a timetable for American troop withdrawals from Iraq, as has been voted on in Congress, Cheney said, "Well, there is also a majority that I think would prefer to have us win. . . .

Recent events in Iraq, including a Thursday suicide bomber attack on the Iraqi Parliament building, have not dimmed Cheney's hopes for victory, he said.

"I don't want to underestimate the difficulty of the task, Bob, but just because it's hard doesn’t mean we shouldn't do it."

"There is no question it's a very difficult assignment, but we've got a new commander in the field, we’ve got a good strategy in place, and I think we will soon see positive results," he said.

He said leaving Iraq now would signal U.S. withdrawal from a global war on terror . . .

[NB: Here is the simple question that must be asked to Cheney and Bush whenever they talk this way -- “Is your position, therefore, that victory in Iraq is so essential that however many years it takes, however many lives, however many billions of dollars, we must stay and persist in the war no matter what?” If they think so (and they apparently do) get them to say so explicitly.

Then, leading to the next item, you can ask Republicans flatly whether they agree with that policy or not. Watch the fun that would ensue.]

Congressional Republicans are scared to death of Bush’s war, and what it might do to them in 2008

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/16610773/site/newsweek/
Bush expected at least a handful of Republican senators—critics like Chuck Hagel and George Voinovich—to run from a troop increase. But the White House was surprised when even pro-war senators, including Sam Brownback and Lisa Murkowski, came out against the plan. Other prominent senators, including Lott and John Warner, the senior Republican on the Armed Services Committee, have been quiet. They aren't bashing the idea, but they aren't promoting it either. Warner and Richard Lugar, the ranking Republican on the Foreign Relations Committee, are contemplating a resolution to draw bipartisan support for the recommendations of the Iraq Study Group report.

Senior administration officials, who declined to speak on the record about private deliberations, say the president knows he has to show real improvements in Iraq within two or three months or risk losing even more GOP support. . .

A former senior Bush aide who is still close to the White House says if things don't improve, a delegation of Republican senators could one day show up in the Oval Office to tell Bush that the party is no longer with him and the war must end—much like Sen. William Fulbright's forcefully urging Lyndon Johnson to bring the Vietnam War to a close. (Last week Warner told NEWSWEEK he "wouldn't hesitate" to tell Bush if he came to believe Bush's policy was failing.) Bush's challenge isn't just to take control of Baghdad, but to win back control of his party. "Before this, the president's credibility was hanging by a thread," says the former aide. "After this, I don't know. It may be lost."

The “McCain Meltdown”

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/4/15/112850/171

Fun ahead: George Tenet’s tell-all will, apparently, tell all

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/15/AR2007041500653.html

Wolfie on the ropes

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/16/washington/16bank.html
Paul D. Wolfowitz’s struggle to remain as president of the World Bank was dealt a setback on Sunday when a group of two dozen of the world’s finance ministers and leaders of other international organizations delivered an unusually public rebuke of his leadership, expressing “great concern” about the institution’s future and the need to preserve its credibility and the morale of its staff. . .

Wow. Stop the presses. Bush concedes that, yes, Congress is a co-equal branch of government. . . well, sort of

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/15/AR2007041500654.html

Funny. Bush wants to reach an agreement on immigration and realizes that he needs the Democrats to pass one. Guess who he’s NOT going to use to try to build bipartisan support?

http://www.suntimes.com/news/novak/341058,CST-EDT-novak15.article

I don’t normally spend time here bashing Richard Cohen of the Washington Post – a favorite target of other lefty blogs – but I have to say that this entry perfectly epitomizes the intellectual dishonesty, the smug sense of superiority, and the willful ignorance it takes to make excuses for Bush gang behavior that everyone else can see stinks to high heaven

http://www.firedoglake.com/2007/04/10/8367/
[Jane Hamsher] Richard Cohen, however, has developed a unique brand of pedestrian, uninspired witlessness that doesn't seem to have any consciousness of what he says from one day to the next. Facts seem to annoy him and he doesn't feel any particular need to brush up on whatever subject he is writing about. . . [read on!]

More: http://obsidianwings.blogs.com/obsidian_wings/2006/11/richard_cohen_f.html

Bonus item: Hmmmm. . . . Cheney says he hasn’t spoken to his good friend and loyal lieutenant Scooter Libby after his conviction (taken to protect Cheney’s rear). OK, it’s probably a lie – but IF it’s true, what does it say about their relationship today?

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/04/14/ftn/main2683924.shtml
Cheney called the verdict a "great tragedy" but said he had not talked to Libby since he was found guilty on March 6. "I haven't had occasion to do that," he said.

[NB: Is that COLD, or what?]

More Cheney “loyalty”: http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2007_04_15.php#013650

***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 @ 6:18 AM

 
POLITICIZING JUSTICE

Karl Rove apparently destroyed email evidence affecting THREE separate investigations, but for the Washington Post it’s just all about politics

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/14/AR2007041400705.html
For Democrats, the missing Rove e-mails is one more chance to pound away at their favorite target, the architect of Bush's 2000 and 2004 presidential victories and all-around White House political fixer. . . .

The White House chalks it up to just another outbreak of Democratic Rove rage. . . .

Rove knew better

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-documents14apr14,1,6499925.story
Karl Rove and other White House employees were cautioned in employee manuals, memos and briefings to carefully save any e-mails that might discuss official matters even if those messages came from private e-mail accounts, the White House disclosed Friday. . .

Rove is just a natural born liar, isn’t he?

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/4/13/181412/319
[NPR] According to someone who's had conversations with White House officials, the plan to fire all 93 U.S. attorneys originated with political adviser Karl Rove . . .

[AP] The White House maintains that Rove remembers first hearing about the idea to replace all 93 prosecutors from Harriet Miers, a top White House aide designated at the time to follow Gonzales as the president's counsel. "He has not said who the idea originated with,'' White House spokeswoman Dana Perino said Thursday evening.

But earlier Thursday, Rove told journalism students in Alabama that the decision to fire each prosecutor "was made at the Department of Justice on the basis of policy and personnel.'' . . .

NYT: Rove must testify under oath

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/15/opinion/15sun1.html

Will he?

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/4/13/181412/319
[NPR] In a letter Thursday, White House Counsel Fred Fielding told Congress he won't budge from his original offer — to let Congress interview White House staffers privately, with no oath or transcript.

Sources tell NPR that Fielding actually wants to negotiate with Congress about how the interviews will take place. But Fielding has not been able to persuade President Bush to go along. . . .

Fielding’s dilemma: http://www.firedoglake.com/2007/04/14/oh-to-know-what-freds-thinking/

http://www.discourse.net/archives/2007/04/fred_fielding_tries_to_save_his_reputation.html

Clearly, one wants to be very careful about who is assigned to go poking around WH and RNC servers to try to recover the missing emails now. Well, at least the Senate will have a voice in identifying who it will be

http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/us/AP-White-House-E-mail.html

But the WH still hasn’t said if they will turn the emails over, if recovered

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/10518.html

Alberto Gonzales is in for a hell of a rough time

http://www.talkleft.com/story/2007/4/14/141735/291

Especially if THIS is his line of defense

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/14/AR2007041401010.html
[AG] My decision some months ago to privately seek the resignations of a small number of U.S. attorneys has erupted into a public firestorm. . .

While I accept responsibility for my role in commissioning this management review process, I want to make some fundamental points abundantly clear.

I know that I did not -- and would not -- ask for the resignation of any U.S. attorney for an improper reason. Furthermore, I have no basis to believe that anyone involved in this process sought the removal of a U.S. attorney for an improper reason. . . .

While I have never sought to deceive Congress or the American people, I also know that I created confusion with some of my recent statements about my role in this matter. To be clear: I directed my then-deputy chief of staff, Kyle Sampson, to initiate this process; fully knew that it was occurring; and approved the final recommendations. Sampson periodically updated me on the review. As I recall, his updates were brief, relatively few in number and focused primarily on the review process.

During those conversations, to my knowledge, I did not make decisions about who should or should not be asked to resign. . .

What politicizing US Attorneys gets you

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2007_04_08.php#013643
[McClatchy] Philip Heymann, a Harvard law professor and former deputy attorney general under Reno, said the Justice Department has always been vulnerable to allegations of playing politics with prosecutions.

"But these allegations are vastly greater and more credible," Heymann said. "Really good attorney generals go out of their way to keep appearances straight as well as realities. I think something serious has been going on, and I think it's terribly important that it come out.

"If politicians were going to the White House and saying they didn't want this or that case brought, and the White House was letting the U.S. attorneys know by firing them, it would be terribly immoral and destructive."

http://www.warandpiece.com/blogdirs/005964.html
Attorney General Alberto Gonzalez appointed Jeffrey Taylor to be the US Attorney for the District of Columbia in late September 2006 under the now-infamous provision of the Patriot Act allowing the Attorney General to appoint interim US Attorneys. . .

At that point, it was evident that the Democrats would retake control of the House of Representatives and that Henry Waxman (D-CA) would be the next chairman of House [Oversight and Government Reform] Committee, with its vast oversight jurisdiction . . .

It seems apparent that Taylor was placed in to his position to specifically frustrate any Congressional oversight effort.

So how is it that the US Attorney for the District of Columbia spot so conveniently became open at such a critical time? . . .

Ken Wainstein was the US Attorney for the Districty of Columbia prior to Jeffrey Taylor. . . .

He was in office only six months before being kicked upstairs to become the first Assistant Attorney General for the new National Security Division at the Justice Department.

More: http://www.seeingtheforest.com/archives/2007/04/another_politic_1.htm

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/10515.html
[Steve Benen] When trying to rationalize the decisions to fire these prosecutors, the Bush gang got so lazy they barely changed talking points from U.S. Attorney to U.S. Attorney, hoping that one excuse could serve all. . .

About Carol S. Lam of San Diego, the memo said: “Regardless of what was done by the office in this area, she failed to tackle this responsibility as aggressively and as vigorously as we expected and needed her to do.” The same sentence was used for David C. Iglesias of New Mexico, except that “her” was replaced with “him.”

These talking points, apparently written by Monica Goodling, frequently veered into the idiotic. . .

Steve Biskupic (Wisconsin) speaks

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2007_04_08.php#013635
It is my understanding that my name appears on a list, which was a ranking of United States Attorneys. My name appeared in a category questioning my performance and loyalty to the President. That same list characterized esteemed Chicago United States Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald as "mediocre." . . .

Rachel Paulose (Minnesota) speaks

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2007_04_15.php#013644
[David Kurtz] Paulose didn't have the support of [Norm] Coleman, who as the state's sole Republican senator would usually play a pivotal role in selecting his state's U.S. attorney.

There's more to this. There has to be. Paulose has laid down quite a marker though: She was as surprised as anyone when she was appointed interim U.S. attorney. Keep that marker in mind as this story unfolds.

More voter suppression – this time from Missouri

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2007_04_08.php#013642
[T]he heart of the case is that the Bush administration sued the state for not being sufficiently aggressive in purging voter rolls. . .

This is a classic battleground in the voter suppression game. Voter roll purges strikes names of people who've died or moved. But they also knock off the lists of a lot of occasional voters. This is what the Bush administration calls voting right enforcement. . . [read on]

Bush’s devastating impact on the Justice Department

http://www.law.com/servlet/ContentServer?pagename=OpenMarket/Xcelerate/View&c=LawArticle&cid=1176455062969
Since the day he arrived at the Department of Justice in February 2005, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales has "shattered" the department's tradition of independence and politicized its operation more than any other attorney general in more than 30 years.

So says Daniel Metcalfe, a senior attorney at the department who retired in January, before the current controversy over the firing of U.S. Attorneys erupted. He views the episode as an "awful embarrassment" that has only worsened already-low morale at the department, especially among career attorneys. . . . [read it all – it’s appalling]

So then I started to look up all the government agencies damaged by Bush’s policies and appointments . . .

The Armed Forces: http://www.rferl.org/featuresarticle/2005/05/40c081d9-49ba-4ea3-afb4-8b6410baff6a.html

The National Guard: http://select.nytimes.com/search/restricted/article?res=F50D16FC3D550C748EDDAB0894DE404482

The State Department: http://www.nti.org/d_newswire/issues/2005/8/3/3637A0F7-3541-4AEA-A714-8E8CAD074B0C.html

The CIA: http://www.taylormarsh.com/archives_view.php?id=2332

The EPA: http://www.commondreams.org/headlines01/1223-01.htm

http://www.bushgreenwatch.org/mt_archives/000258.php

[NB: This could go on and on. The least you can ask of a President is to leave the government in better shape than he received it. By that standard, Bush will prove to be an all-time worst]

Reading the Bush gang’s proposed changes to FISA more closely

http://www.warandpiece.com/blogdirs/005962.html
[WP] The proposed revisions to FISA would also allow the government to keep information obtained "unintentionally," unrelated to the purpose of the surveillance, if it "contains significant foreign intelligence." Currently such information is destroyed unless it indicates threat of death or serious bodily harm.

And they provide for compelling telecommunications companies and e-mail providers to cooperate with investigations while protecting them from being sued by their subscribers. The legal protection would be applied retroactively to those companies that cooperated with the government after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

Bye-bye, Fourth Amendment: http://www.talkleft.com/story/2007/4/14/142652/739

The Dems predict that they’ll pick up more and more GOP support to pull troops from Iraq as the 2008 elections approach

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070414/ap_on_go_co/us_iraq;_ylt=Av98sLy_qUbvnak8IuUzUfzMWM0F

Suggestions – though not much more than that at this stage – that Cheney’s people were behind the attempt to smear Nancy Pelosi for her effort to mediate between Israel and Syria. One clue: they did the same thing to Condi Rice a year ago

http://thinkprogress.org/2007/04/14/evidence-pelosi-white-house/

Dick beats Condi (again)

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/13/AR2007041301282.html
After intense internal debate, the Bush administration has decided to hold on to five Iranian Revolutionary Guard intelligence agents captured in Iraq, overruling a State Department recommendation to release them, according to U.S. officials. . . .

The five, seized in a Jan. 11 raid by U.S. forces in the Kurdish city of Irbil, are at the center of increasing tensions between Washington and Tehran. The decision is certain to further irritate Tehran . . .

Differences over the five Iranians reflect an emerging divide on how to deal with Iran. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice went into the meeting Tuesday advising that the men be freed because they are no longer useful, but after a review of options she went along with the consensus, U.S. officials say. Vice President Cheney's office made the firmest case for keeping them. . . .

How Cheney loves a friendly interviewer

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/4/14/103514/392
I'm wondering, Mr. Vice President, whether some politicians are -- they prefer to make political points rather than winning the war. . .

Nancy Pelosi thought nothing of going to Syria's Assad with an alternative Democratic foreign policy, and, yet, balked, as we know, at meeting with our President -- as did Reid -- about funding the troops. How dangerous is this to the success of our important mission? . . .

I don't quite understand. What is this running off to meet with these tyrannical thugs? And yet they don't want to go and sit down with the President and work out a way forward to win the war? . . .

Who is, in the Congress, would be the biggest stumbling block, in your mind, when it comes to success in Iraq? . . .

We deeply appreciate your steadfastness in emphasizing the importance of this war on terrorism to our public. . . .

Mr. Vice President, I'm so glad we had a chance to talk to you. You act out of principle, not polls, and I know that a lot of Americans appreciate that. Thanks for coming to Chicago. . . .

Cheney will be on Bob Schieffer (CBS) this morning – it could be interesting. Here are some helpful questions from the DNC

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/4/10/04822/9383
* In light of the bombing of the Iraqi parliament inside the green zone, do you still believe things are going "remarkably well" in Iraq?
* When will we leave Iraq?
* A new poll says a majority of Americans think the Attorney General should be fired. Do you think Attorney General Gonzales should be fired?
* How far into the Bush White House does this scandal go and has anyone on your staff been involved?

It’s a well-established theme here, but the Bush gang really doesn’t believe in democracy – to them, it’s an inconvenient nuisance at best

http://www.talkleft.com/story/2007/4/15/0499/16175
[NYT] Lawyers for two men charged with illegally ejecting two people from a speech by President Bush in 2005 are arguing that the president’s staff can lawfully remove anyone who expresses points of view different from his. . . [read on!]

How John McCain is trying to set up a precedent for eventually distancing himself from the war, if it continues to go badly

http://www.talkleft.com/story/2007/4/14/16520/8494

http://atrios.blogspot.com/2007_04_08_atrios_archive.html#117659980706185952

No Plan B – this is what passes for serious foreign policy discourse today

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/4/14/182255/848
[John McCain] I have no Plan B. If I saw that doomsday scenario evolving, then I would try to come up with one. But I cannot give you a good alternative because if I had a good alternative, maybe we could consider it now.

No Plan B of the other variety either

http://atrios.blogspot.com/2007_04_08_atrios_archive.html#117659400292697581
The Family Research Council and Concerned Women for America are suing the FDA over the agency's approval of Plan B emergency contraception for over-the-counter sale. Their complaint? The FDA's decision was politically motivated. . .

Theocracy watch

http://www.samefacts.com/archives/religion_and_politics_/2007/04/religious_bigotry_at_nih.php
[Mark Kleiman] Being an anti-Catholic and anti-Semitic bigot won't get you fired from the chaplaincy at the NIH research hospitals. But complaining that your supervisor is an anti-Catholic and anti-Semitic bigot will. . . .

Anti-theocracy watch

http://www.samefacts.com/archives/immigration_/2007/04/good_news_for_atheists_and_democrats_bad_news_for_nativists.php
[Mark Kleiman] Latinos in the U.S., including Latino immigrants, are secularizing as they assimilate, and are now as likely to report "no religion" as Americans with other ethnic backgrounds. That's eating into the political power of the Catholic church. . . .

It’s hard to stomach lecturing from folks about the “incivility” of the blogosphere – when people like this are on the television and radio airwaves every day

http://www.firedoglake.com/2007/04/14/know-the-code/

Sunday talk show line-ups

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/4/10/04822/9383
* Meet the Press: Gen. Anthony Zinni (ret); roundtable of NYT's David Brooks, WSJ's John Harwood, PBS' Gwen Ifill, and WaPo's Eugene Robinson.

* Face the Nation: VP Dick Cheney (R).

* This Week: Gov. Bill Richardson (D-NM); Sen. Arlen Specter (R-PA); roundtable of Dem strategist Donna Brazile, ex-Pentagon spokesperson Tori Clarke (R), George Will, and ex-Labor Sec. Robert Reich; comedian (and White House Correspondents' Association 2007 dinner entertainer) Rich Little.

* Fox News Sunday: Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC); Sen. Carl Levin (D-MI); Rev. Al Sharpton; Nat'l Security Archive dir. Tom Blanton.

* Late Edition: Walter Mondale (D), Sen. Jon Kyl (R-AZ); Sen. James Webb (D-VA); Nat'l Urban League Pres. Marc Morial; pundit Amy Holmes (R); Children's Defense Fund Pres. Marian Wright Edelman; AEI's Richard Perle; Iraqi gov't spokesperson Ali Dabbagh; roundtable of John Roberts, Andrea Koppel, and Jeffrey Toobin.

Bonus item: How bad is it when Condi Rice has to be a moral example for Joe Lieberman?

http://www.cnn.com/2007/POLITICS/04/14/rice-imus.ap/index.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 @ 7:06 AM

 
ROVE’S TURN?

It looks as if the missing e-mail story could reopen Plame and Abramoff questions surrounding Karl Rove – and the possibility of obstruction of justice charges, on top of illegally destroying presidential records

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/blog/2007/04/13/BL2007041301125.html
[Dan Froomkin] The saga of the missing White House e-mails took a turn from the deeply suspicious to the deeply, darkly suspicious yesterday . . .

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/12/AR2007041202408.html
GOP officials took issue with Rep. Henry Waxman's account of the briefing and said they still hope to find the e-mail as they conduct forensic work on their computer equipment. But they acknowledged that they took action to prevent Rove -- and Rove alone among the two dozen or so White House officials with RNC accounts -- from deleting his e-mails from the RNC server. Waxman (D-Calif.) said he was told the RNC made that move in 2005.

In a letter to Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales, Waxman said the RNC lawyer, Rob Kelner, also raised the possibility that Rove had personally deleted the missing e-mails, all dating back to before 2005. . . .

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/10508.html
[Steve Benen] Today, Rove’s lawyer added to the story by arguing that Rove didn’t intentionally delete his emails from the RNC server.

Karl Rove’s lawyer on Friday dismissed the notion that President Bush’s chief political adviser intentionally deleted his own e-mails from a Republican-sponsored server, saying Rove believed the communications were being preserved in accordance with the law. . . “His understanding starting very, very early in the administration was that those e-mails were being archived,” Rove’s attorney, Robert Luskin, said.

And why on earth would he believe that?

Indeed, Rove’s understanding, “starting very, very early in the administration,” should have been the exact opposite. Why? Because he was given a copy of the White House policy, which tells staffers to comply with the law (the Presidential Records Act).

“Federal law requires the preservation of electronic communications sent or received by White House staff,” says the handbook that all staffers are given and expected to read and comply with.

“As a result, personnel working on behalf of the EOP [Executive Office of the President] are expected to only use government-provided e-mail services for all official communication.” . . .

And if that wasn’t clear enough, the handbook notes — as was the case in the Clinton administration — that “commercial or free e-mail sites and chat rooms are blocked from the EOP network to help staff members ensure compliance and to prevent the circumvention of the records management requirements.”

At what point, exactly, did Rove see this and think, “I can keep using a private email account outside the White House for official business and it’ll work out fine”? . . .

The RNC doesn’t know where Rove’s emails are; the White House doesn’t know; and Rove’s lawyer doesn’t know (though he’s certain his client didn’t intentionally delete anything). And Rove’s argument is that he was sure the private emails he wasn’t supposed to be sending were being archived, even when they weren’t, and even after his emails were given special treatment due to an ongoing White House criminal investigation.

Got all that? Nothing suspicious here at all; move along, move along.

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2007/04/blackberry-machiavelli-by-digby-oh.html
[Digby] There's no word on why that apparent lunatic from the RNC claimed that they had to take special precautions to keep Rove from deleting his messages. . . . It's all very odd.

http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/003011.php
[AP] "There's never been any suggestion that Fitzgerald had anything less than a complete record," Luskin said.

[NB: Oh, really?]

http://www.nysun.com/article/26937?page_no=1
[February 2, 2006] "We advise you that we have learned that not all e-mail of the Office of Vice President and the Executive Office of the President for certain time periods in 2003 was preserved through the normal archiving process on the White House computer system," Mr. Fitzgerald wrote in the January 23 letter, which was filed in federal court on Tuesday.

http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/politics/20060224-1554-cialeak.html
[February 24, 2006] The defense was told that the White House had recently located and turned over about 250 pages of e-mails from the vice president's office. Fitzgerald, in a letter last month to the defense, had cautioned Libby's lawyers that some e-mails might be missing because the White House's archiving system had failed.

Clever reporting

http://thenexthurrah.typepad.com/the_next_hurrah/2007/04/the_case_of_pat.html
[Marcy Wheeler] Going on weeks now, I've been inundated with questions about whether Fitzgerald knew about the GWB43.com server. If so, what can he teach Waxman, Conyers, and Leahy about its use? If not, does that mean Fitzgerald has received enough new information that the CIA Leak case will re-enter an active phase? . . . [read on!]

More: http://thenexthurrah.typepad.com/the_next_hurrah/2007/04/roves_hadley_em.html

A primer on email and servers

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/18097374/site/newsweek/

This is an excellent question: if Gonzales had nothing to do with the US Attorney firings, wasn’t kept in the loop, and saw no documents related to it, why is it taking FIVE HOUR sessions daily to prepare his testimony for Congress?

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2007/04/fifth-rate-by-digby-can-someone-please.html
[Digby] I can hardly believe that this isn't either a national joke or a scandal. The Attorney General of the United States should not have rehearse for five hours a day to truthfully answer questions from the US congress. It's ludicrous. Just how stupid is this guy, anyway?

Saw no documents? http://www.firedoglake.com/2007/04/13/buh-bye-abu-gonzales/

Kyle Sampson, former Gonzales chief of staff, has a little problem too

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/13/washington/13cnd-Attorneys.html
A Justice Department e-mail released today shows that the former chief of staff to Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales proposed replacement candidates for seven United States attorneys nearly a year before those prosecutors were fired, in contrast to testimony last month in which the aide said that no successors were considered before the firings.

The e-mail written by D. Kyle Sampson, who resigned last month as the top aide to Mr. Gonzales, provides the first evidence that the Justice Department wanted to appoint its own candidates, despite the insistence of Justice Department officials in recent weeks that the eight prosecutors, with one exception, were removed in December 2006 for performance reasons, without regard to who might succeed them. . . .

Is that your final answer? http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/003015.php

http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/003008.php

The original plan to fire ALL the US Attorneys, as cover for getting rid of the few they were really after, reportedly originated with Karl Rove

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2007_04_08.php#013627

CREW to Fitzgerald: reopen the investigation of Rove!

http://www.firedoglake.com/2007/04/13/late-nite-fdl-mmmm-smells-like-job-security/

More: http://www.motherjones.com/mojoblog/archives/2007/04/4151_rove_and_co_bro.html

More evidence that the Keystone Kops were scrambling to manufacture excuses for why they were actually firing the US Attorneys

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2007_04_08.php#013625

The real reasons: http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/003009.php
[Paul Kiel] Under the reasons for firing David Iglesias, Goodling writes: "Domenici says he doesn't move cases."

That would be Sen. Pete Domenici (R-NM). Now, as has been demonstrated, there was a particular variety of case that Domenici wanted Iglesias to move faster on -- corruption investigations into Democrats. Domenici called Iglesias shortly before the election last November to ask if Iglesias was going to bring an indictment on such a case sometime soon.

Domenici has made a similar misleading claim publicly -- that he'd complained about Iglesias because he had been unable to "move more quickly on cases." But as overall statistics for Iglesias' office have shown, that's a bogus allegation. It's apparent that Domenici was really talking about a few very important cases in particular.

One wonders just how Domenici expressed this frustration to Goodling and others... and whether he was more specific in terms of which cases just weren't moving fast enough.

More: http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2007_04_08.php#013628

Make that Keystone Krooks: how they tried to manipulate the press coverage (nothing to hide?)

http://blogs.usatoday.com/ondeadline/2007/04/ags_spokeswoman.html
Tasia Scolinos, the attorney general's spokeswoman, provided some insight into the Justice Department's public-relations activities in a March 5 message about the furor surrounding the removal of the prosecutors. Below is an excerpt from the documents that the committee released, with emphasis added to the part where Scolinos says she wants to "muddy the coverage":

In preparation for tomorrow's hearing where six of the dismissed US Attorneys will be testifying, we have drafted some talking points that we were going to insert into Will Moschella's testimony (the DOJ witness) that get out the message that although we stand by the decision to remove these folks the process by which they were informed was not optimal. Right now the coverage will be dominated by how qualified these folks were and their theories for their dismissals. We are trying to muddy the coverage up a bit by trying to put the focus on the process in which they were told - I suspect we are going to get to the point where DOJ has to say this anyway. . .

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2007_04_08.php#013631
J. Scott Jennings, Special Assistant to the President and Deputy Director, Office of Political Affairs to Karl Rove, Kyle Sampson, Fred Fielding, et al., February 28th, 2007: "[Sen. Domenici's Chief of Staff Steve] Bell said Domenici's idea is not to respond [to Iglesias's accusations], and hopefully make this a one day story. They have already been contacted by McClatchy ... They have not confirmed to the reporter they were one of the Members." . . [read on]

http://www.warandpiece.com/blogdirs/005963.html
[LAT] According to the e-mails, the White House sought to recruit Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.) to help defend against charges that Griffin was unqualified to become U.S. attorney in Arkansas.

"WH political reached out to Sen. Sessions and requested that he ask helpful questions to make clear that Tim Griffin is qualified to serve," wrote former Justice Department official Monica M. Goodling, who resigned last week after refusing to appear before Congress. "They requested that someone in our [Office of Legislative Affairs] call the senator's staff and make sure that we take advantage of the offer."

Loyalty tests

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070414/ap_on_go_ca_st_pe/fired_prosecutors;_ylt=AnB26.rlUCjdIjxOMMyDyYqs0NUE
The Justice Department weighed political activism and membership in a conservative law group in evaluating the nation's federal prosecutors, documents released in the probe of fired U.S. attorneys show. . .

http://www.talkleft.com/story/2007/4/14/2254/22491
[CNN] "I value their independence, their professionalism, what they do in the community, and these decisions were not based on political reasons," Gonzales said.

More: http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/4/14/65311/9350

TPM has been tracking the US Attorney case in Wisconsin, where Steve Biskupic was in hot water for not filing enough “voter fraud” cases – but apparently saved his job by trumping up charges against a Democratic governor's staffer instead. Today, more evidence that this is just what happened. . .

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2007_04_08.php#013630

Executive privilege: the coming battleground

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/10499.html

Millions of emails missing: they’re admitting this to lay the groundwork later that they can’t possibly be expected to find and hand over ALL of them

http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/003010.php

http://www.first-draft.com/2007/04/the_white_house.html

See a pattern here?

http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0704/13/sitroom.01.html
[JACK CAFFERTY, CNN CORRESPONDENT] Wolf, the Bush administration's terrible luck with finding documents is the title of a salon.com article written by Glenn Greenwald. He's a former litigator, author of the book, "How Would A Patriot Act?"

In light of the revelation that the White House may have lost thousands of e-mails sent out on the Republican National Committee e- mail account, some of which are thought to pertain to the firing of the eight federal prosecutors, Greenwald has ticked back through some other examples that tend to suggest a pattern.

So here we go, starting with this week.

"Some official e-mails have potentially been lost."

Then, "In Justice Department documents, there's a gap from mid- November to early December in e-mails and other memos."

And this: "What happened to a crucial video recording of al Qaeda operative Jose Padilla being interrogated in a U.S. military brig that has mysteriously disappeared?"

Or this: "The Pentagon sought to explain why some 2,000 pages were missing from a Congressional copy of a classified report detailing the alleged acts of abuse by soldiers against Iraqi inmates at Abu Ghraib Prison."

And then this: "Documents that should have been written to explain gaps in President Bush's Texas Air National Guard service are missing from the military records released about his service in 1972 and '73."

And there's this: "FEMA's Michael Brown's comments about the president surfaced in a transcript of an August 29th, 2005 video conference call produced by Bush administration officials today after they initially told Congress that no such document existed."

And, finally, this: "Concerning the trial of "Scooter" Libby, prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald had cautioned Libby's lawyers that some e-mails might be missing because the White House's archiving system had failed." So here's the question -- when it comes to missing documents and e-mails and the Bush White House, do you see some sort of pattern here? . . .

Kind of like a compost heap, Wolf -- the more stuff you pile on it, the greater the odor that emanates from it.

More: http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2007/04/12/lost_documents/index.html
[Glenn Greenwald] The White House's continuous and repeated failure to preserve e-mail communications in accordance with the law has been publicly discussed for some time now, and has arisen in multiple contexts. . .

Good question (thanks to Steve Benen for the link)

http://hotlineblog.nationaljournal.com/archives/2007/04/inbox_outbox_41.html
How many journalists sent e-mails to White House officials' name@gwb43.com accounts? How many journalists currently covering the e-mail story did this?

This is just evil, pure evil

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/10507.html
[Steve Benen] The disconnect was awkward and difficult to explain. On Tuesday, Bush said extending tours of duty for U.S. troops in Iraq is “unacceptable.” On Wednesday, Bush’s Defense Department announced that extending tours of duty is now administration policy.

Yesterday, I urged someone in the White House press corps to ask presidential spokesperson Dana Perino if Bush was clueless on Tuesday. As is turns out, today, someone did.

Q So why did he tell the American Legion that people would be staying in Iraq longer because of the Democrats, when his own Pentagon, 24 hours later, was going to keep people there longer?

PERINO: Well, one, I don’t know if the President knew about the — the meeting — remember, yesterday morning is when Secretary Gates came and talked to the President. […]

Q And so the President didn’t know about his own policy until Wednesday?

PERINO: I’m not aware that the President knew that there was going to be — that Secretary Gates had come to any decisions.

Yes, it’s the ever-popular “Don’t blame me, I just work here” defense. The Commander in Chief, in a time of war, is so concerned about the troops’ tours of duty that he has no idea that his Defense Secretary is extending deployments from 12 to 15 months. Better yet, that’s not a partisan attack from a White House critic — that’s the White House’s own defense to explain why the right hand doesn’t know why the further-to-the-right is hand is doing.

There is, however, another possible explanation, which the Bush gang may be reluctant to admit.

Nico explains:

What explains the strange timing? As Atrios noted, when the Pentagon announced its new policy on Wednesday, Defense Secretary Gates said he was angry that the news had been leaked to the press. That has sparked suspicion that the deployment extension was actually supposed to be announced after Bush had vetoed Congress’ Iraq legislation “so that he could try to claim it was their fault.” In that scenario, Bush’s remarks on Tuesday were just meant to prime the pump . . .

http://atrios.blogspot.com/2007_04_08_atrios_archive.html#117650532773391654
[Bush] The bottom line is this: Congress's failure to fund our troops will mean that some of our military families could wait longer for their loved ones to return from the front lines. Others could see their loved ones headed back to war sooner than anticipated. This is unacceptable. It's unacceptable to me, it's unacceptable to our veterans, it's unacceptable to our military families, and it's unacceptable to many in this country.

[NB: What no one has considered is the possibility that the leaker did this precisely IN ORDER to prevent this especially vicious and cynical piece of hypocrisy]

Blah, blah, blah

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/13/AR2007041301519.html
Vice President Cheney accused congressional Democrats today of reviving the "far-left platform" of George McGovern from the 1970s, an agenda that he said would raise taxes, declare surrender in an overseas war and leave the United States exposed to new dangers. . .

Cheney called the Democrats' war-spending legislation "irresponsible" and said it suggests they do not understand the threat facing the United States.

He also minimized the party's victory in last year's midterm elections, which gave the Democrats control of both houses of Congress for the first time since 1995. "It was, in retrospect, a narrow victory," Cheney said . . .

And this is the GOOD news

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/13/AR2007041301081.html
A suicide bombing in Baghdad's heavily fortified Green Zone and an attack on a landmark bridge yesterday showed that there is still "a long way to go" in securing the Iraqi capital, a senior U.S. general in Iraq said today, but he also pointed to "steady progress" overall in tamping down the city's rampant violence.

Army Lt. Gen. Raymond T. Odierno, commander of Multi-National Corps - Iraq, also told Pentagon reporters in a video news conference that the military is not yet sure whether it will need to maintain higher troop levels -- resulting from a current "surge" of reinforcements -- into 2008. . .

How the Bush gang is still trying to work the refs (the press) on Iraq coverage

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/10505.html
[Think Progress] Last week, Bush administration officials invited senior congressional reporters to the White House and pressured them to increase their coverage of how Iraq war critics are “divided” over legislative strategy, multiple sources have confirmed . . . [read on]

Let’s see, Bush will veto the troop funding bill because it has conditions he doesn’t like. He’ll veto the stem cell research bill to save embryos rather than saving lives the research would help. And now he’ll veto an intelligence bill because it includes accountability to Congress and the law. Quite a legacy this man is building up

http://www.guardian.co.uk/worldlatest/story/0,,-6554697,00.html

Just say NO!!!!!

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/13/AR2007041301932.html
The Bush administration yesterday asked Congress to make more non-citizens subject to intelligence surveillance and to authorize the interception of foreign communications routed through the United States. . . .

More: http://www.warandpiece.com/blogdirs/005962.html

Paul Wolfowitz’s “crusade against corruption” (except his own, of course)

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/4/13/13928/9578

More: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/14/washington/14assess.html

John McCain appeals to Jim Webb to avoid the rhetoric of the Vietnam era -- then goes ahead and does it himself

http://vietnamrhetoric.notlong.com

What the HELL has happened to Joe Lieberman? Now he has his people defending Don Imus

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2007/04/real-bind-by-digby-i-can-hardly-believe.html

Why Fox News is so upset that the Dems boycotted their debate

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2007/04/score-one-for-other-team-by-digby-ej.html

More to come? http://americablog.blogspot.com/2007/04/should-dems-boycott-fox.html

Bonus item: Drudge (how aptly named)

http://mediamatters.org/items/200704130012

***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 @ 8:33 AM

 
HIGH CRIMES

As predicted here and by many other blogs, the mysterious RNC emails turn up missing – specifically Karl Rove’s emails. My, my.

This is very big. It’s Nixon’s Watergate tapes all over again.

I just don’t see how this doesn’t become a massive problem – assuming, as always, that the news media doesn’t get distracted or confused by techie talk about server systems, etc. If the emails can be recovered – and it certainly appears that they can be – Congress will get them, and get them all. The WH can’t hold anything back now. If the emails were permanently deleted, by Rove or others, then we have a crime. Even using the RNC email accounts in the first place, in order to evade record preservation, looks to be a crime.

It’s very simple: if the missing emails are official business covered by “executive privilege,” as the WH is claiming, then they broke the law by deleting them, in violation of the Presidential Records Act. If they were using public resources and were working on public time doing partisan political work, they were violating the Hatch Act. They are screwed either way

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/13/washington/13emails.html
The White House said Thursday that missing e-mail messages sent on Republican Party accounts may include some relating to the firing of eight United States attorneys. . . .

The disclosure . . . exposed the dual electronic lives led by Mr. Rove and 21 other White House officials who maintain separate e-mail accounts for government business and work on political campaigns — and raised serious questions, in the eyes of Democrats, about whether political accounts were used to conduct official work without leaving a paper trail.

The clash also seemed to push the White House and Democrats closer to a serious confrontation over executive privilege, with the White House counsel, Fred F. Fielding, asserting that the administration has control over countless other e-mail messages that the Republican National Committee has archived. . . .

Representative Henry A. Waxman, the California Democrat who is chairman of a House committee looking into the use of political e-mail accounts, wrote a letter to the attorney general on Thursday saying he had “particular concerns about Karl Rove” after a briefing his aides received from Rob Kelner, a lawyer for the Republican National Committee.

Mr. Rove uses several e-mail accounts, including one with the Republican National Committee, one with the White House and a private domain account that is registered to the political consulting company he once owned. Mr. Waxman said Mr. Kelner reported that in 2005, the national committee adopted a new policy, specifically aimed at Mr. Rove, which “removed Mr. Rove’s ability to personally delete his e-mails from the R.N.C. server.”

Mr. Waxman also said he now had “serious concerns about the White House’s compliance with the Presidential Records Act,” a 1978 law that requires administrations to keep records of deliberations, decisions and policies. The congressman asked for an inventory of all communications by White House officials on nongovernment e-mail accounts.

President Bush has directed the White House counsel’s office to try to recover any missing e-mail messages, but Scott Stanzel, the deputy White House press secretary, said it was unclear how much may have been lost. As to whether the missing e-mail related to the prosecutors’ dismissals, Mr. Stanzel said, “It can’t be ruled out.”

Democrats were skeptical that any e-mail messages are truly missing.

“We’re learning that off-book communications are being used by these people in the White House by using Republican political e-mail addresses and they say they have not been preserved,” Senator Patrick J. Leahy, Democrat of Vermont and chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, said in an impassioned speech on the Senate floor. “I don’t believe that! You can’t erase e-mails, not today.”

Richard M. Smith, an Internet security and privacy consultant in Boston, said Mr. Leahy’s surmise that the missing e-mail messages are preserved somewhere could be right. But he said there was no way to know without a thorough examination of all the computers the messages passed through. . . .

http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/002998.php
According to Mr. Kelner [lawyer for the RNC] although the hold started in August 2004, the RNC does not have any e-mails prior to 2005 for Mr. Rove. Mr. Kelner did not give any explanation for the e-mails missing from Mr. Rove's account, but he did acknowledge that one possible explanation is that Mr. Rove personally deleted his e-mails from the RNC server.

Mr. Kelner also explained that starting in 2005, the RNC began to treat Mr. Rove's emails in a special fashion. At some point in 2005, the RNC commenced an automatic archive policy for Mr. Rove, but not for any other White House officials. According to Mr. Kelner, this archive policy removed Mr. Rove's ability to personally delete his e-mails from the RNC server. Mr. Kelner did not provide many details about why this special policy was adopted for Mr. Rove. But he did indicate that one factor was the presence of investigative or discovery requests or other legal concerns. It was unclear from Mr. Kelner's briefing whether the special archiving policy for Mr. Rove was consistently in effect after 2005. . .

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2007_04_08.php#013597
[Josh Marshall] I am very confident, very confident that that reporter is correct and that orders from Pat Fitzgerald were the reason for the change in White House policy in 2004. So the change in policy was tied to yet another criminal investigation of the White House. And the White House and the key employees in question -- namely Karl Rove and people working for him at the White House political office -- were specifically on notice not to destroy the emails they sent through the RNC servers. And yet they took affirmative steps to continuing destroying them, even after all of this had happened.

More than “fishy”

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2007/04/ltat-cest-goper-by-digby-i-figured-they.html
[Digby] I know the press doesn't think its job is to "raise questions" that some Democrat hasn't put out in a press release, but this is ridiculous. This doesn't look bad just in the eyes of those dastardly partisan Dems. Anyone with a functioning brain, including even writers and editors at the NY Times, can surely see that something looks fishy about Karl Rove systematically deleting all his emails and the RNC later making a special policy to prevent him from doing it.

http://www.firedoglake.com/2007/04/12/you-just-cant-find-decent-minions-any-more/
[Christy Hardin Smith] Oh, frabtacular day. And may I just say for the record that if Mr. Rove knew that his e-mails were to be preserved due to a pending criminal investigation and deleted them anyway in an effort to keep them from being viewed in discovery under a valid request from, say, a certain tall special prosecutor whose name might be Fitzgerald…well, that could be construed in a whole lot of places as obstruction of justice.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/blog/2007/04/12/BL2007041200941.html
[Dan Froomkin] Countless e-mails to and from many key White House staffers have been deleted -- lost to history and placed out of reach of congressional subpoenas -- due to a brazen violation of internal White House policy that was allowed to continue for more than six years, the White House acknowledged yesterday.

The leading culprit appears to be President Bush's enormously influential political adviser Karl Rove, who reportedly used his Republican National Committee-provided Blackberry and e-mail accounts for most of his electronic communication.

Until 2004, all e-mail on RNC accounts was routinely deleted after 30 days. Since 2004, White House staffers using those accounts have been able to save their e-mail indefinitely -- but have also been able to delete whatever they felt like deleting. By comparison, the White House e-mail system preserves absolutely everything forever, in accordance with the Presidential Records Act. . . .

White House spokesman Scott Stanzel spread the blame all around. "White House policy did not give clear enough guidance," he said. "The oversight of that wasn't aggressive enough." And individual White House staffers "did not do a good enough job of following existing preservation policy -- or seeking guidance."

Said Stanzel: "I guess the bottom line is that our policy at the White House was not clear enough for employees."

But when I asked Stanzel to read out loud the White House e-mail policy, it seemed clear enough to me: "Federal law requires the preservation of electronic communications sent or received by White House staff," says the handbook that all staffers are given and expected to read and comply with.

"As a result, personnel working on behalf of the EOP [Executive Office of the President] are expected to only use government-provided e-mail services for all official communication."

The handbook further explains: "The official EOP e-mail system is designed to automatically comply with records management requirements."

And if that wasn't clear enough, the handbook notes -- as was the case in the Clinton administration -- that "commercial or free e-mail sites and chat rooms are blocked from the EOP network to help staff members ensure compliance and to prevent the circumvention of the records management requirements." . . .

More from Stanzel: http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/002993.php

http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/002992.php

http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room/2007/04/12/gray/index.html
[Tim Grieve] The problem with Stanzel's argument: The Presidential Records Act specifically acknowledges the existence of communications that are part official and part political -- and it requires that they be preserved.

From 44 U.S.C. Section 2201: "The term 'presidential records' means documentary materials ... created or received by the president, his immediate staff, or a unit or individual of the Executive Office of the President whose function is to advise and assist the president, 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. Such term ... includes any documentary materials relating to the political activities of the president or members of his staff, but only if such activities relate to or have a direct effect upon the carrying out of constitutional, statutory, or other official or ceremonial duties of the president."

And from 44 U.S.C. Section 2202: "The United States shall reserve and retain complete ownership, possession, and control of presidential records; and such records shall be administered in accordance with the provisions of this chapter."

The not-so-hard-to-understand import of it all: Even if an e-mail message involves "the political activities of the president or members of his staff," it belongs to the United States -- and therefore must be preserved -- so long as it relates to the official duties of the president.

Bigger than Watergate?

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/4/12/111245/936

There is NO WAY they are going to be able to resist subpoenas for documents and testimony after this – whatever benefit of the doubt they may have been able to preserve, it is all gone now

http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/002994.php

http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/003002.php

Executive privilege? Don’t make me laugh

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/4/12/215638/519

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/013586.php

Poor Dana

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070412/ap_on_go_co/fired_prosecutors;_ylt=AmkTBNPcxJohtB5l32E0pD7MWM0F
"I understand his point, but he's wrong," spokeswoman Dana Perino said of Leahy.

"We're being very honest and forthcoming," she added. "I hope that he would understand the spirit in which we have come forward and tried to explain how we screwed up our policy and how we're working to fix it." . .

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/10496.html
QUESTION: On March 27th, at this podium, you said that there were only a handful of White House aides who had used political RNC accounts. Now you’re saying 22; that doesn’t sound like a handful.

PERINO: Well, I didn’t know how many there were. . .

QUESTION: But then the L.A. Times, today, quotes Scott (inaudible) as saying that there were about 50 aides.

PERINO: I think the 22 is current — current White House employees.

PERINO: We’re looking — if you have 50 over the course of the administration.

QUESTION: At that March 27th briefing as well, you said that Fred Fielding, the White House counsel, was in touch with the RNC general counsel to make sure that there was archiving taking place. And when pressed on it, you said that these were not archived just since Henry Waxman had asked you about it on the Hill, that they had been archived for a very long time. So how would…

PERINO: And I think that’s going back to those a few weeks ago. This is how we have developed a better understanding of how the RNC archived or did not archive certain e-mails. As I said, folks like Karl Rove, e-mails using this equipment, go back to being archived to 2004.

The extent of how many people had these accounts, I didn’t have it readily at my fingertips. I understood it to be a handful of people. I knew that it would be at least some, if not all, of the people that worked in the Office of Political Affairs. […]

QUESTION: But what you’ve said has shifted even over the last couple of weeks.

PERINO: Give me an example of that.

QUESTION: Fifty, 22, handful.

PERINO: And I explained that. I think — you have to admit that when I said a handful I was asked based on something that I didn’t know.

FIVE MILLION emails missing, according to CREW

http://www.citizensforethics.org/node/27603

OF COURSE the emails are recoverable

http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/002996.php

http://www.talkleft.com/story/2007/4/12/73713/5692

They can subpoena the servers themselves, if necessary

http://americablog.blogspot.com/2007/04/its-time-to-subpoena-rncs-computers.html

They’ve got something – Kyle Sampson is being brought back for more testimony

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/013586.php

Immunity for Monica 2.0? (then she’ll have to testify, and testify truthfully)

http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/003003.php

Where there’s smoke. . . . new information coming out about the Wisconsin US Attorney’s office

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2007_04_08.php#013606

http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/003000.php

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2007_04_08.php#013611

The history of phony “vote fraud” claims

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2007/04/professionalized-corruption-by-digby.html

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2007/04/laying-foundation-by-digby-tpm-points.html

The Bush gang’s way: when you get caught, apologize – but only AFTER your misconduct has been discovered

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/12/AR2007041201188.html
World Bank President Paul D. Wolfowitz publicly apologized yesterday for the "mistake" of personally orchestrating a high-paying job and guaranteed promotions for a bank employee with whom he is romantically involved, as new details of his role in the arrangement emerged and staff members angrily demanded his resignation.

Wolfowitz attempted to address about 200 staffers gathered in the bank's central atrium but left after some began hissing, booing, and chanting "Resign. . . . Resign." . .

[NB: Hey, Wolfie – when you do something wrong that you know is wrong, and hope to get away with it, it’s not a “mistake”]

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/4/12/165751/280
[Judicial Watch] In a written memorandum Wolfowitz specifically ordered Riza’s promotion to a senior position with a lucrative salary of $193,000 free of tax. It also mapped out future promotions and subsequent annual pay increases.

http://www.matthewyglesias.com/archives/2007/04/im_sorry/
[Matt Yglesias] Paul Wolfowitz says he's sorry, which is a good first step. A good second step would be resigning. He's not six years old and the World Bank isn't kindergarden playtime. I'm sure he is sorry. Still, "should you engage in corruption on behalf of your girlfriend while leading an international anti-corruption campaign?" isn't one of the world's more difficult questions. There are plenty of other people out there who could do the job and it would send a good message to get rid of him.

http://www.thewashingtonnote.com/archives/002058.php
[Steven Clemons] Paul Wolfowitz's tenure at the World Bank may end in the next day or two. Rumors are spreading like wild fire at the Bank that he plans to resign tomorrow. . .

More: http://www.ft.com/cms/s/18b3bad0-e914-11db-a162-000b5df10621.html

http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/industry_sectors/banking_and_finance/article1647370.ece

Alberto Gonzales is still prepping for his testimony – here’s a bet that he will “apologize” for his “mistakes” too

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/12/AR2007041202408_pf.html
Gonzales, meanwhile, has been preparing for a pivotal appearance on Tuesday before the committee, including mock testimony sessions lasting up to five hours a day, officials said. . .

Don Imus’s “apology” didn’t save his job either

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/04/13/national/main2679537.shtml

P.S. – it’s not just Imus

http://mediamatters.org/items/200704120010

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2007/04/they-were-warned-by-digby-as-media.html

http://thinkprogress.org/2007/04/12/franken-fire-beck

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/13/opinion/13fierstein.html

How pathetic is it that they can’t even prevent suicide bombings INSIDE the Iraqi Parliament, INSIDE the Green Zone?

http://www.juancole.com/2007/04/breaking-news-iraqi-parliament.html

Rahm Emanuel to his fellow Dems: stand strong on Iraq

http://standstrong.notlong.com

Bonus item: Our media today

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/horsesmouth/2007/04/fred_hiatt_resp.php
[Greg Sargent] Fred Hiatt, the editorial page editor of The Washington Post, has just responded to my email to him about Liz Cheney's Post Op-ed today slamming House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. He explained why he thinks it's okay that the paper didn't identify her as the Veep's daughter in the description of her at the bottom of the piece. . . .

Here's why this is highly questionable, in my view. Ms. Cheney's attack on Pelosi is eerily similar to the one launched on Pelosi recently by her father. So this Op ed looks like a clear effort to help him politically, by reiterating the attack, in however limited a way it does this in actual practice. What's more, this line of attack has a larger context: It is arguably designed to weaken Pelosi at a time when the House Dems she leads are locked in a critical political battle over Iraq with her dad's administration. And the WaPo editorial page has been one of the leading backers of the Bush-Cheney Iraq war.

Finally, this is not the first, but the second, piece by Ms. Cheney in the WaPo attacking one of her dad's leading political opponents in terms similar to those used by Veep Cheney himself (she wasn't fully identified at the end of the first one, either). . .

Hiatt has now answered, which I sincerely appreciate. Hiatt emailed:

We published Liz Cheney's piece based on her qualifications as a former high-ranking State Dept. official with oversight of Near Eastern Affairs. I don't believe qualified professional women need to be identified by their husbands or fathers, even when well-known. . .

***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 @ 6:34 AM

 
LOST

White House says some of its off-the-books emails are “missing.” What a surprise

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/013579.php
[AP] The White House said Wednesday it had mishandled Republican Party-sponsored e-mail accounts used by nearly two dozen presidential aides, resulting in the loss of an undetermined number of e-mails concerning official White House business. . . .

More: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/12/washington/12emails.html

[NB: Wouldn’t these be recoverable from the RNC servers?]

Can you say “Abramoff”?

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/12/washington/12emails.html
If e-mail messages have been lost, Mr. Stanzel said, they are most likely those sent before 2004. . .

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/11/AR2007041102167.html
In another e-mail exchange revealed during the investigation of disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff, a White House official was described as warning 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 responded in an e-mail that the message in question "was not supposed to go into the WH system."

Ho ho ho

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2007_04_08.php#013580
[Josh Marshall] I feel really bad about the server problems the White House/RNC seems (no, not a typo -- they appear to be a single entity) to be having on the email front. Believe me, I run a small business that is heavily dependent on cranky servers and other gizmos. So I know how hard this can be. But I think this might be a case where that NSA 'terrorist surveillance program' may really come in handy. I'm told the NSA has some very capable data recovery tools they've developed. And even if those guys are too busy hunting al Qaida, doesn't the FBI have some pretty good forensic computer geeks? What happens when, say, a company like Enron (okay, perhaps not a great example) says some emails were 'mishandled' and now are gone forever. I guess that's just the end of it, right? Normally, it's not kosher for a government agency to offer direct assitance to a private entity or political organization. But, hey, we're pretty far down that road I guess. So let's have the FBI go down and take a look at these servers and see if these emails have really disappeared forever.

More: http://www.samefacts.com/archives/overblown_personnel_matter_/2007/04/the_dog_ate_my_email.php

If you recall from yesterday, Steve Biskupic, US Attorney in Wisconsin, refused to investigate trumped-up “voter fraud” cases, but DID investigate a Democratic staffer during the election (a conviction that was instantly thrown out on appeal after the election). Did the latter case save him from being added to the fired list? Sit! Stay! Heel! Roll over!

http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/002988.php

Fraud: http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2007_04_08.php#013581

http://www.matthewyglesias.com/archives/2007/04/the_fraud_fraud/

Dems agree to meet with Bush on Iraq, don’t agree to limit what can be discussed

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/4/11/205956/219
[Pelosi and Reid] "We will be at the White House on Wednesday to talk with the President. We will listen to his position, but in return we will insist that he listen to concerns of the American people that his policies in Iraq have failed and we need to ch