THE WAY OUT

The Republicans are still searching for a way to SEEM to be voting against the war, without actually doing a damn thing to bring it to a conclusion

http://www.firedoglake.com/2007/07/30/the-rubber-stampers-latest-contortion/

The way out

http://www.nybooks.com/articles/20470
[Peter Galbraith] On May 30, the Coalition held a ceremony in the Kurdistan town of Erbil to mark its handover of security in Iraq's three Kurdish provinces from the Coalition to the Iraqi government. General Benjamin Mixon, the US commander for northern Iraq, praised the Iraqi government for overseeing all aspects of the handover. And he drew attention to the "benchmark" now achieved: with the handover, he said, Iraqis now controlled security in seven of Iraq's eighteen provinces.

In fact, nothing was handed over. . . [read on]

Well, it’s a good thing Gen. Petraeus hasn’t been prejudging the conclusions of his September report

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20070730/ts_nm/iraq_petraeus_dc_1;_ylt=AkDtwy.g6p6vmZqOmSvoQBIE1vAI
[Reuters] U.S. generals expect to need a large contingent of troops in Iraq until the middle of 2009, the commander of U.S. forces in Iraq said on Monday.

Such a timeline would hand President George W. Bush's successor the task of bringing U.S. forces home from Iraq, more than six years after Bush dispatched them to topple Saddam Hussein. . .

Asked about media reports that Washington envisioned a substantial American force remaining in Iraq through mid-2009, General David Petraeus told ABC News: "Sustainable security is, in fact, what we hope to achieve.

"It's in our campaign plan. We do think it will take about that amount of time, as you discussed, to establish the conditions for it." . . .

Simple truths, simply stated

http://atrios.blogspot.com/2007_07_29_archive.html#1014851835657843262
[Atrios] [I]t's amazing that the rather obvious fact that for years the entire "Iraq policy" has simply been to postpone leaving until after Bush leaves office has managed not to penetrate the skulls of some of our very smart pundits.

More: http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/11641.html

The kind of people they are

http://atrios.blogspot.com/2007_07_29_archive.html#1790163624032498927
[Atrios] I've been thinking about about certain Bushies - Bush himself, obviously, and Condi Rice - who seem to honestly believe that "will" and "resolve" are the way one gets things done instead of, you know, actually getting stuff done. I've finally decided that they're basically people have always gotten where they were by manipulating others into doing things for them, and so for them getting things done is all about wanting it to happen bad enough.

Farewell to the Iraqi Parliament

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/7/30/14947/9892
[Reuters] "Bush cannot realistically go to Congress and say he has to keep U.S. troops there because the Iraqi government is doing a good job -- because the government is largely absent. It places him in a very difficult predicament," said Gareth Stansfield, an analyst at leading British think-tank Chatham House.

More: http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/11642.html

And they plan to sell arms to these people?

http://www.first-draft.com/2007/07/didnt-get-the-m.html
The U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, Zalmay Khalilzad, on Sunday accused U.S. ally Saudi Arabia of undermining efforts to stabilize Iraq. . .

Geniuses at work

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/07/29/AR2007072900859.html
[Bob Novak] The morass in Iraq and deepening difficulties in Afghanistan have not deterred the Bush administration from taking on a dangerous and questionable new secret operation. High-level U.S. officials are working with their Turkish counterparts on a joint military operation to suppress Kurdish guerrillas and capture their leaders. Through covert activity, their goal is to forestall Turkey from invading Iraq. . .

Gordon Brown: not gonna be Bush’s poodle no more?

http://www.americablog.com/2007/07/reading-brown-bush-meeting-tea-leaves.html

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2007_07/011779.php

Alberto Gonzales has NO defenders (except Bush and Cheney, of course)

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/015970.php

http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/003811.php

http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room/2007/07/31/gonzales/index.html

His long trail of lies

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/7/30/65435/4059

http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/003809.php

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/11639.html

You’ll tell the NYT, but you won’t tell us. Did the classified leak on “data-mining” actually make Gonzales’s position WORSE?

http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/003812.php
[John Conyers, House Judiciary chair] [W]e are concerned that this disclosure, stemming from “current and former officials briefed on the program,” may simply be an effort to respond via Administration leak of potentially classified information designed to rehabilitate previous controversial testimony by you. In this regard, we would inquire whether you or anyone in your front office has any knowledge or involvement in these leaks, and if so, who and the nature thereof.

Why data-mining (of the sort they were apparently doing) was illegal

http://www.firedoglake.com/2007/07/30/dear-mr-vice-president/

http://www.firedoglake.com/2007/07/30/update-on-bushs-illegal-spying/

http://thenexthurrah.typepad.com/the_next_hurrah/2007/07/tia-and-tsp.html

http://thenexthurrah.typepad.com/the_next_hurrah/2007/07/data-mining-thr.html

Impeachment resolution coming for AG

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/11645.html

http://thenexthurrah.typepad.com/the_next_hurrah/2007/07/the-kiss-of-dea.html

http://www.mydd.com/story/2007/7/30/192617/796

http://www.openleft.com/showDiary.do?diaryId=493

More: http://thinkprogress.org/2007/07/30/inslee-to-introduce-gonzales-impeachment-tomorrow/

A chance to revamp NCLB

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/07/30/AR2007073001711.html

Ted Stevens’ (R-AK) home raided by the FBI and IRS. Another Republican crook faces trouble

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/2007/07/fbi_irs_search_home_of_sen_ted.php

More: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/07/30/AR2007073001427.html

Poor Fred, we hardly knew ya

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/11643.html
[Steve Benen] Desperate for a white knight to come save the party from electoral ruin, the Republican establishment turned its lonely eyes to Fred Thompson. It was going to be awesome — he’d run a new kind of campaign that could start late because of the phenomenon — online and off — it would inspire.

And how’s that working out for the actor/senator/lobbyist? So far, not very well. . .

Chief Justice John Roberts has a seizure, falls and injures himself – I’m sorry for him, but the questions are inevitable

http://politicalwire.com/archives/2007/07/30/roberts_suffers_seizure.html

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2007/07/eight-is-enough-by-digby-god-forbid.html
[Digby] God forbid anything permanent should happen to the Chief Justice, but keep in mind that there is absolutely nothing written anywhere that says the Supreme Court has to have nine justices. There is ample precedent for the court only having eight and there are many cases that are heard by eight because one of the justices is recused. So there is no way in hell that George W. Bush should ever, EVER get another bite at that apple with Democrats in charge of the congress. Just saying --- no more Bush Supreme Court appointees for any reason. None.

***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 @ 6:36 AM

 
HITTING BOTTOM

http://thinkprogress.org/2007/07/29/no-takes-gonzo/
On Fox News Sunday this morning, former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich (R-GA) refused to defend Attorney General Alberto Gonzales against accusations that he may have perjured himself before Congress. “It’s very damaging…we badly need an attorney general who is above any question,” said Gingrich. . . .

Later in the show, host Chris Wallace revealed that no conservative would willingly defend Gonzales on Fox. “By the way, we invited White House officials and Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee to defend Attorney General Gonzales,” said Wallace. “We had no takers.”

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/015937.php
[Steve Benen] How bad is it? Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah), the only Republican senator who went easy on Gonzales during the latest humiliating hearing, acknowledged on ABC this morning that "of course” Gonzales has a credibility problem. . .

A credibility problem. . .

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/07/29/AR2007072901327.html
When Alberto R. Gonzales was asked during his January 2005 confirmation hearing whether the Bush administration would ever allow wiretapping of U.S. citizens without warrants, he initially dismissed the query as a "hypothetical situation."

But when Sen. Russell Feingold (D-Wis.) pressed him further, Gonzales declared: "It is not the policy or the agenda of this president to authorize actions that would be in contravention of our criminal statutes."

By then, however, the government had been conducting a secret wiretapping program for more than three years without court oversight, possibly in conflict with federal intelligence laws. . . .

More analysis of the data-mining story – and why it doesn’t help Gonzales one bit

http://www.anonymousliberal.com/2007/07/data-mining.html

http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2007/07/29/data_mining/index.html

http://www.talkleft.com/story/2007/7/29/1946/25511

What WAS the March 2004 dispute really about?

http://balkin.blogspot.com/2007/07/whats-legal-significance-of-data-mining.html
[Marty Lederman] I think there are at least three possibilities . . .

Third -- and this is to my mind the most likely possibility -- the legal problem wasn't the data mining itself, but instead that the uses of the data that were mined violated FISA. The Times story hints at this -- that perhaps it was not so much the data mining itself, but instead what what NSA did with the mined data, that caused the legal uproar: "Some of the officials said the 2004 dispute involved other issues in addition to the data mining, but would not provide details. They would not say whether the differences were over how the databases were searched or how the resulting information was used."

Here's the theory, roughly:

There was some sort of data mining program going on. Probably not of content, almost certainly not content reviewed by humans. That is to say, it involved computers searching through "meta-data" related to calls and e-mails, looking for certain patterns that might suggest connections to Al Qaeda or to suspicious activitiy that might be terrorism-related. . . .

This data-mining indicated that it might be valuable to do more targeted searches of particular communications "pipelines" (John Yoo's phrase), looking for more specific information. But that's where FISA came in. In order to target a particular U.S. person, or to wiretap a particular "facility," FISA requires that the NSA demonstrate to the FISA court probable cause to believe (i) that the target of the electronic surveillance is a foreign power or an agent of a foreign power, and (ii) that each of the facilities or places at which the electronic surveillance is directed is being used, or is about to be used, by a foreign power or an agent of a foreign power. 50 U.S.C. 1805(a)(3).

Perhaps, as John Yoo suggests in his book, FISA would have prohibited following up on the leads revealed by the data mining with more targeted wiretaps of suspicious "channels" or "pipelines," "because we would have no specific al Qaeda suspects, and thus no probable cause."

I think what happened is that the data mining revealed something that the NSA, with DOJ's blessing, followed up on, perhaps using quite long and attenuated "connections" (e.g., phone calls and e-mails three degrees of separation removed) -- what Risen and Lichtblau's original story referred to as "an expanding chain" -- and this follow-up surveillance involved purely domestic communications, as well as communications of persons for whom there was no probable cause to believe they were Al Qaeda agents. . .

http://thenexthurrah.typepad.com/the_next_hurrah/2007/07/data-mining-two.html
[Emptywheel] [W]e can be sure that this is one of the things that was going on, because when Bush "confirmed" a program in December 2005--clearly aiming to confirm just that part of the program of undisputed legality--he stressed that the targets for wiretapping were people with clear ties to Al Qaeda. The problem was that the Administration was using data mining (already of dubious legality for reasons I'll get into a second) as their basis for choosing targets to wiretap. They were therefore tapping people whose communication patterns--rather than their actions--suggested they might have terrorist ties. . .

In other words, they're tapping people who have no ties to Al Qaeda, but who share the same communications profiles as some people in Al Qaeda, and therefore invading their privacy and the privacy of Americans who they communicate with. Reports have suggested they moved people in and out of the program quickly, presumably meaning they'd end the taps on the false positives pretty quickly once they learned they were simply aid workers rather than terrorists. But that's putting the best spin on things: what have they dug up in those periods before they established someone was a false positive? Do they check in on those false positives to make sure they were right? . . .

Which is a fancy way of saying that the data-mining violated the requirements for probable cause in FISA, but the data-mining itself probably violated a law Congress had passed in Fall 2003 specifically to prevent data-mining of American citizens. Which would mean that, no matter the outcome of debates over the AUMF-based justification for violating FISA and the Article II-based justification for violating FISA, if Bush was also violating this provision, then he was violating something passed subsequent to the AUMF and subsequent to Bush's initial authorization of the program.

http://www.talkleft.com/story/2007/7/29/15580/2438
[Big Tent Democrat] BTW, this really would make Gonzales' perjury even WORSE. It is not possible that his latest justification or description can provide an innocent explanation for his "error." If Gonzales was trying to intimate that the problem with the program was the data mining as opposed to the FISA surveillance based on the data mining, then he intentionally told falsehoods in order to deliberately mislead the Congress. There is no innocent explanation possible if this is the case. . . .

Who sent Gonzo to the hospital?

http://www.tpmcafe.com/blog/michael_collins/2007/jul/27/impeachment_did_the_president_ask_you_to_go
Schumer: Let me ask you this. Who sent you to the hospital?

Gonzales: Senator what I can say is we had a very important meeting at the White House over one of the most important…

Schumer: I didn’t ask you that.

Gonzales: I’m answering your question senator if I could?

Schumer: Who sent you? Did anyone tell you to go?

Gonzales: It was one of the most important programs for the United States. It had been authorized by the president. I’ll just say that the chief of staff to the President of the United States, the counsel for the President of the United States went to the hospital on behalf of the President of the United States.

Schumer: Did the president ask you to go?

Gonzales: We were there in behalf of the President of the United States.

Schumer: I didn’t ask you that. Did the president ask you to go?

Gonzales: Senator we were there on behalf of the President of the United States

Schumer: Why can’t you answer that question?

Gonzales: That’s the answer I can give you Senator

Schumer: Well can you explain to me why you can’t answer it directly?

Gonzales: Senator, again we were there on an important program for this president on behalf of the President of the United States.

Schumer: Did you talk to the president about it beforehand?

Gonzales: Senator, obviously there were a lot of discussions that happened during that period of time. This involved one of the president’s premier programs.

Schumer: But sir you’re before this committee. You are before this committee. You are supposed to answer questions. You’ve not claimed any privilege. I don’t think there is any here, and I asked you to answer and you refuse to answer it. Why?.

Gonzales: Senator … if I can answer the question I will answer the question.

Schumer: But could you tell me why can’t you answer that question?

Gonzales: Senator because again this relates to activities that existed when I was with in White House and because of that, with respect to your specific question, I will go back, I will go back and see whether or not I can answer the question.

Schumer: Did the Vice President send you?

Gonzales: Senator, we were there on behalf of the president

Schumer: Did you talk to the Vice President about it?

Gonzales: We were there on behalf of the president.

Schumer: You will not answer that question as well. Is that correct?

Gonzales: We were there on behalf . . .

. . . of Cheney!? http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/015946.php

More to come

http://www.warandpiece.com/blogdirs/006461.html
[Newsweek] They also plan to call a potentially crucial witness: Jack L. Goldsmith, the former chief of Justice's Office of Legal Counsel. It was Goldsmith who wrote a key opinion concluding the eavesdropping program was illegal. . . .

The crisis at DOJ

http://www.firedoglake.com/2007/07/29/unacceptable-vacancies-put-us-at-risk/
[NYT] Among the 93 United States attorneys, who serve as the chief federal prosecutors for their regions, there are 24 vacancies. The White House has announced nominations for only six of those offices, which means that several of the jobs may remain unfilled for the rest of the Bush administration. . . [read on]

General David Petraeus: who elected HIM?

http://select.nytimes.com/2007/07/29/opinion/29rich.html
[Frank Rich] [T]he Petraeus phenomenon is not about protecting the troops or American interests but about protecting the president. For all Mr. Bush’s claims of seeking “candid” advice, he wants nothing of the kind. He sent that message before the war, with the shunting aside of Eric Shinseki, the general who dared tell Congress the simple truth that hundreds of thousands of American troops would be needed to secure Iraq. The message was sent again when John Abizaid and George Casey were supplanted after they disagreed with the surge.

Two weeks ago, in his continuing quest for “candid” views, Mr. Bush invited a claque consisting exclusively of conservative pundits to the White House and inadvertently revealed the real motive for the Petraeus surrogate presidency. “The most credible person in the fight at this moment is Gen. David Petraeus,” he said, in National Review’s account. . .

[NB: What a thing for Bush to say. Could he have offered a worse indictment of his own LACK of credibility?]

OK, so if the American generals point to declining casualty numbers as a sign that the surge is working, what does it mean when casualty numbers are going up?

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/7/29/165921/178

[NB: Oh, that’s a sign that the surge is working too. Of course.]

Is the Iraqi government TRYING to make us hate them? (They are probably saying the same thing about us.)

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/07/29/opinion/schieffer/main3108184.shtml
[Bob Schieffer] Well, whatever else you can say about Iraq, it has yet to lose its ability to shock.

And it's not just the rising death toll. When it comes to outrageous conduct, the Iraqi government can always seem to find a way to top itself.

The latest shocker comes from the Bush administration's own Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction. Remember all those rebuilding projects in Iraq that are cited as signs of progress? Well, there is more to it, it turns out, than we knew.

Yes, Americans are doing a lot of building – nearly $6 billion worth of power plants and hospitals. The problem is we can't get the Iraqi government to take them off our hands. Of 2,797 projects, the Iraqis have been willing to take over fewer than 500. That means the rest have fallen into the hands of people who many times have no idea how to operate them.

The latest example: A recently completed power plant shut down after unqualified workers put the wrong fuel in $90 million turbines and ruined them.

The Iraqi Parliament is heading off to a month-long vacation next week. If you are wondering how much all this will cost us while they are away, key members of Congress are being told $200,000 a minute.

I'm not sure I'll ever get used to that.

Apparently Karl Rove still has that mojo as far as the Republicans are concerned. Good. I hope they keep listening to him

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/11633.html

Fred Thompson: hasn’t even announced yet, and his campaign is already having trouble

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/28/us/politics/28thompson.html

Bonus item: Yes, he said it. No, this isn’t a joke

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/015938.php
[Glenn Beck] "[Y[ou know, Al Gore's not going to be rounding up Jews and exterminating them. It is the same tactic, however. The goal is different. The goal is globalization. The goal is global carbon tax. The goal is the United Nations running the world. That is the goal. Back in the 1930s, the goal was get rid of all of the Jews and have one global government.

"You got to have an enemy to fight. And when you have an enemy to fight, then you can unite the entire world behind you, and you seize power. That was Hitler's plan. His enemy: the Jew. Al Gore's enemy, the U.N.'s enemy: global warming. . .

"Then you get the scientists -- eugenics. You get the scientists -- global warming. Then you have to discredit the scientists that say, 'That's not right.' And you must silence all dissenting voices. That's what Hitler did."

***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 @ 5:54 AM

 
DATA MINING

The perjury case against Alberto Gonzales (it may sound a bit familiar to you)

http://www.anonymousliberal.com/2007/07/case-against-gonzales.html
[Anonymous Liberal] I've opined previously that I think Alberto Gonzales' technical defense to a perjury charge would be that he was relying on an implicit definitional distinction between the NSA program as it existed in December 2005 (when the president first confirmed its existence) and the program that existed from 2001 to early 2004 (when James Comey and others refused to re-certify it).

In other words, Gonzales is defining the "Terrorist Surveillance Program" as being the scaled-down program that existed at the time the New York Times first reported it in 2005. Because of this definitional gimmick, he can state truthfully that there was no disagreement about the TSP and that the Ashcroft hospital incident involved "other intelligence activities," i.e., a prior incarnation of the program. . . [read on]

More: http://www.firedoglake.com/2007/07/28/the-case-against-gonzales/

http://thenexthurrah.typepad.com/the_next_hurrah/2007/07/presidential-pa.html

The White House tries to change the subject – and opens up a new can of worms in the process

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/29/washington/29nsa.html
A 2004 dispute over the National Security Agency’s secret surveillance program that led top Justice Department officials to threaten resignation involved computer searches through massive electronic databases, according to current and former officials briefed on the program.

It is not known precisely why searching the databases, or data mining, raised such a furious legal debate. But such databases contain records of the phone calls and e-mail messages of millions of Americans, and their examination by the government would raise privacy issues.

The N.S.A.’s data mining has previously been reported. But the disclosure that concerns about it figured in the March 2004 debate helps to clarify the clash this week between Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales and senators who accused him of misleading Congress and called for a perjury investigation. . . .

Mr. Gonzales insisted before the Senate this week that the 2004 dispute did not involve the Terrorist Surveillance Program “confirmed” by President Bush, who has acknowledged eavesdropping without warrants but has never acknowledged the data mining.

If the dispute chiefly involved data mining, rather than eavesdropping, Mr. Gonzales’ defenders may maintain that his narrowly crafted answers, while legalistic, were technically correct.

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2007_07/011767.php
[Kevin Drum] Give me a break. Are these guys serious?

http://www.talkleft.com/story/2007/7/28/19948/9598
[Big Tent Democrat] The Bush Administration has leaked the following story to the NYTimes as an explanation for Attorney General Gonzales' seemingly incorrect testimony . . .

Personally, I am at a loss at how this exonerates Alberto Gonzales. He flatly stated there was no dispute over the TSP. Later, he stated it was about the program President Bush confirmed. Data mining is a search without a warrant. The data mining is part of the same program. The speculation, indeed JUSTIFICATION, from many conservative legal scholars was that President Bush was discussing data mining. In fact, this NYTimes reporting is flat wrong, since in his discussion of the TSP, President Bush expressly referenced "the program" described in news reports, news reports that expressly discussed a data mining program . . . [read on]

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/015932.php
[Josh Marshall] I don't doubt that this is true as far as it goes. But this must only scratch the surface because, frankly, at least as presented, this just doesn't account for the depth of the controversy or the fact that so many law-and-order DOJ types were willing to resign over what was happening. Something's missing.

Of course, 'data mining' can mean virtually anything. What kind of data and whose you're looking at makes all the difference in the world. Suggestively, the Times article includes this cryptic passage: "Some of the officials said the 2004 dispute involved other issues in addition to the data mining, but would not provide details. They would not say whether the differences were over how the databases were searched or how the resulting information was used."

To put this into perspective, remember that the White House been willing to go to the public and make a positive argument for certain surveillance procedures (notably evasion of the FISA Court strictures) which appear to be illegal on their face. This must be much more serious and apparently something all but the most ravenous Bush authoritarians would never accept. It is supposedly no longer even happening and hasn't been for a few years. So disclosing it could not jeopardize a program. The only reason that suggests itself is that the political and legal consequences of disclosure are too grave to allow.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/07/28/AR2007072801401.html
The report also provides further evidence that the NSA surveillance operation was far more extensive than has been acknowledged by the Bush administration, which has consistently sought to describe the program in narrow terms and to emphasize that the effort was legal. . .

http://atrios.blogspot.com/2007_07_22_archive.html#876120383740261409
[Atrios] Look, all the parsing of statements is a waste of time. They were eavesdropping on whoever they wanted to without any warrants or oversight. Whether or not "whoever they wanted to" included, say, the John Kerry campaign or Markos Moulitsas is still an open question. They obviously claimed the power to do so, it just isn't clear if they did it.

http://thenexthurrah.typepad.com/the_next_hurrah/2007/07/data-mining.html
[Emptywheel] I've been arguing for two years that the secret that Bush was hiding about the illegal domestic wiretap program is that they were using crappy data mining programs to pick their targets for wiretaps. . . [read on]

http://www.talkleft.com/story/2007/7/29/1946/25511
[Jeralyn Merritt] John Ashcroft was a proponent of data-mining. . . Ashcroft was never opposed to data-mining. He was concerned with how it was to be accomplished. The only way I can see to reconcile the White House's latest explanation of Gonzales' testimony is if Ashcroft thought the way in which the NSA was going about the data mining failed to pass legal muster. . .

If top level Justice Department officials were willing to quit over the NSA's proposed data mining plan, it wasn't because they opposed data mining. It could only be because the kind of data they were going to mine or the way in which they were going to use it or store it were completely illegal under Title III, the Fourth Amendment, FISA and privacy or other laws. . .

http://www.needlenose.com/node/view/4205
[Swopa] But wait... would they really be cynical enough to think they could tell only the least-damaging part of the story and get the media to swallow it? . . . . Good thing they were dealing with the top staff of the nation's paper of record, and not people with a talent for skepticism and truth-seeking. . .

[NB: I read this differently. They see that this is a real problem for them. Gonzales is hanging on by the merest of threads, and they HOPE that this data mining vs wiretapping distinction will get him off the hook. They have no choice, and this may buy them some time. But now that they’ve admitted the data mining occurred, it’s just a matter of time before someone talks now about the nature of the objections – over illegality that was bad enough that senior people and data mining ADVOCATES were going to quit. I can’t wait]

Oooh, bad on you, New York Times

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/29/washington/29nsa.html
The first known assertion by administration officials that there had been no serious disagreement within the government about the legality of the N.S.A. program came in talks with New York Times editors in 2004. In an effort to persuade the editors not to disclose the eavesdropping program, senior officials repeatedly cited the lack of dissent as evidence of the program’s lawfulness.

[NB: That was, Emptywheel reminds us, OCTOBER of 2004, and the story would have seriously damaged Bush’s re-election prospects. The NYT decided not to run it. But we are only learning about this lie now.]

Not mincing any words

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/29/opinion/29sun1.html
[NYT] Americans have been waiting months for Mr. Bush to fire Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, who long ago proved that he was incompetent and more recently has proved that he can’t tell the truth. Mr. Bush refused to fire him after it was clear Mr. Gonzales lied about his role in the political purge of nine federal prosecutors. And he is still refusing to do so — even after testimony by the F.B.I. director, Robert Mueller, that suggests that Mr. Gonzales either lied to Congress about Mr. Bush’s warrantless wiretapping operation or at the very least twisted the truth so badly that it amounts to the same thing. . .

As far as we can tell, there are three possible explanations for Mr. Gonzales’s talk about a dispute over other — unspecified — intelligence activities. One, he lied to Congress. Two, he used a bureaucratic dodge to mislead lawmakers and the public: the spying program was modified after Mr. Ashcroft refused to endorse it, which made it “different” from the one Mr. Bush has acknowledged. The third is that there was more wiretapping than has been disclosed, perhaps even purely domestic wiretapping, and Mr. Gonzales is helping Mr. Bush cover it up.

Democratic lawmakers are asking for a special prosecutor to look into Mr. Gonzales’s words and deeds. Solicitor General Paul Clement has a last chance to show that the Justice Department is still minimally functional by fulfilling that request.

If that does not happen, Congress should impeach Mr. Gonzales.

More: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/28/washington/28gonzales.html

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/015933.php

Bush wants new FISA rules – and has such a charming way of asking for them

http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2007/07/28/bush-alters-radio-address-for-democrats/
“Every day that Congress puts off these reforms increases the danger to our nation”

[NB: Yes, he did drop that line after howls of protest from the Dems (he needs their votes, after all). But this still reveals his basic instincts and attitudes.]

http://www.talkleft.com/story/2007/7/28/205217/008
[Big Tent Democrat] Did you get that? Bush will protect the privacy interests of people inside the United States by removing the requirement of a court issued warrant. Thank you very much Big Brother. More. . .

http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2007/07/27/various_items/index.html
[Glenn Greenwald] I would hope Congress would not even entertain any revisions until the White House finally provides the information the Intelligence Committee has long demanded about what they did when they were eavesdropping on Americans in secret, with no oversight. How can Congress consider claimed problems with FISA unless and until they know what the administration was doing for the last six years when eavesdropping on our country?

The White House needs to coach friendly wingers on how to defend their indefensible claims about executive secrecy

http://thenexthurrah.typepad.com/the_next_hurrah/2007/07/ix-nay-on-the-o.html

Iraq is like high school

http://www.marinecorpstimes.com/news/2007/07/ap_petraeusmaliki_070727/
A key aide says Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki’s relations with U.S. commander Gen. David Petraeus are so poor the Iraqi leader may ask Washington the withdraw the well-regarded U.S. military leader from duty here.

The Iraqi foreign minister calls the relationship “difficult.”

Petraeus says his ties with al-Maliki are “very good” but acknowledges expressing “the full range of emotions” on “a couple of occasions.”

U.S. Ambassador Ryan Crocker, who meets together with al-Maliki and Petraeus at least weekly, concedes “sometimes there are sporty exchanges.”

Al-Maliki has spoken sharply — not of Petraeus or Crocker personally — but about their tactic of welcoming Sunni militants into the fight against al-Qaida forces in Anbar and Diyalah provinces. . .

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/015925.php
[Steve Benen] Part of Gen. David Petraeus' job in Iraq is pressuring Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki. Apparently, heads of state don't care for marching orders from generals from other countries, so it's caused a little bit of a strain on their professional relationship.

OK, more than a little. . .

First, if the U.S. policy of arming Sunni militias is exacerbating the strained relations, Maliki probably won't like the fact that the administration has decided to do more of this, not less.

Second, if the relationship has deteriorated as poorly as the article suggests, would the White House seriously pull Petraeus from Iraq? After basing most of the existing policy on Bush's confidence in the general?

[NB: I can answer that one Steve – no. They would drop Maliki at this stage before dropping Petraeus. They may do it eventually anyway.]

A solution!

http://matthewyglesias.theatlantic.com/archives/2007/07/heres_a_thought.php
[Matt Yglesias] Maybe if the Prime Minister of Iraq doesn't like our commanding general in Iraq and wants us to stop arming Sunni groups, but the US government thinks our commanding general is a smart guy and we want to intensify the arming of Sunni groups that we ought to step back, take a deep breath, and decide to leave Iraq to the Iraqis.

It would be ridiculous, after all, to sack an American general because Nouri al-Maliki wants us to. But it would also be ridiculous for an American general to be running around Iraq implementing policies contrary to those of the Iraqi government we're supposed to be supporting. The best solution is to shake hands and go our separate ways.

Saudis want U.S. arms, know that Congress might be an impediment

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/11627.html

They’re right: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/07/28/AR2007072801172.html

The Bush/GOP tendency to ignore distinctions within Islam isn’t just sloppy political rhetoric – it has led them again and again into stupid decisions in the region. And the latest gaggle of presidential candidates might be even worse

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/11625.html

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2007_07/011764.php

War crimes?

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/07/25/AR2007072501881.html

Peter Fazio (D-OR), who has security clearance, can’t get the White House to share with him their contingency plans for seizing unilateral power in the event of a national emergency. Gee, can you think of any reason why they wouldn’t want to disclose that?

http://www.oregonlive.com/news/oregonian/index.ssf?/base/news/118559492719310.xml

Pat Tillman: fragged because of his antiwar views?

http://thinkprogress.org/2007/07/28/soltz-on-tillman/

Another example of the DC Establishment’s inordinate love of bipartisanship. Of course it is good to try to seek reasonable accommodation, but can anyone believe that the primary cause of polarized politics today is because of the Democrats' inflexibility and extremism?

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/07/27/AR2007072701691.html
[Anne-Marie Slaughter] A funny thing is happening in American politics: The fiercest battle is no longer between the left and the right but between partisanship and bipartisanship. The Bush administration, which has been notorious for playing to its hard-right base, has started reaching across the aisle . . .

[NB: WHAT???!!!????? I suppose you could stop at this point and give up on anyone who could write such a disingenuous opening. But read on, at least for the pleasure of seeing it totally decimated.]

http://highclearing.com/index.php/archives/2007/07/28/6861
[Jim Henley] The only honorable thing to do is admit that Anne-Marie Slaughter’s new oped in the Washington Post beats Anne Applebaum out for the title of dumbest thing ever written by anyone in any venue. . . . [read on]

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2007/07/village-bipartisan-block-party-by-digby.html
[Digby] "Bipartisanship" is only operative when the Democrats are in power. I don't recall hearing the commentariat scolding the Republicans for not being more accommodating to Democrats during their 12 year reign of terror, do you? I certainly don't recall a lot of garment rending over how the Republicans were isolating their moderates. My recollection was that everyone was cheering the GOP's responsiveness to its "traditional values, low tax, patriotic" base. You remember --- the Real Americans? Karl Rove was widely considered to be a genius. . . [read on]

More: http://matthewyglesias.theatlantic.com/archives/2007/07/partisan.php

http://www.talkleft.com/story/2007/7/28/114632/873

http://www.talkleft.com/story/2007/7/28/15472/9871

http://atrios.blogspot.com/2007_07_22_archive.html#2271607331277467792

http://www.firedoglake.com/2007/07/28/late-night-of-the-living-bipartisans/

One good thing that could come out of Chuck Schumer and Arlen Specter’s diatribe that SC nominees Roberts and Alito “duped” the Judiciary Committee into thinking they were more moderate and precedent-respecting than they actually were, could be a shift in the burden of proof, away from the presumption that the President gets whomever he wants, unless the person is incompetent or corrupt. Maybe you have to earn your way onto the most powerful bench in the country (no, I’m not holding my breath)

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/11621.html

Add it to the pile

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/07/28/AR2007072801420.html
A surgeon general's report in 2006 that called on Americans to help tackle global health problems has been kept from the public by a Bush political appointee without any background or expertise in medicine or public health, chiefly because the report did not promote the administration's policy accomplishments . . .

Three people directly involved in its preparation said its publication was blocked by William R. Steiger, a specialist in education and a scholar of Latin American history whose family has long ties to President Bush and Vice President Cheney. . . [read on]

More from the Do-Nothing Democrats

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/07/27/AR2007072702489.html
House and Senate negotiators completed days of contentious talks and reached final agreement last night on an ethics bill, despite the objections of members unhappy with tougher rules on lobbyist-delivered campaign contributions. . .

The Silly Season

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/11622.html
[Steve Benen] The “interest” in Hillary Clinton’s neckline on the Senate floor last week is a classic example. The Washington Post’s fashion writer, Robin Givhan, wrote an odd, 746-word piece about Clinton’s outfit showing a very modest amount of cleavage. “With Clinton, there was the sense that you were catching a surreptitious glimpse at something private,” Givhan wrote. “You were intruding — being a voyeur…. Showing cleavage is a request to be engaged in a particular way.”

Except, for most political observers, the only voyeur was Givhan. The piece was widely circulated, with most people feeling either felt bewildered or offended, and in many cases, both. . . [read on]

Now, ANOTHER one! http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/07/27/AR2007072702369.html
“Cleavage & the Clinton Campaign Chest” . . .

Why won’t Republicans participate in a YouTube debate?

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/015923.php

http://electioncentral.tpmcafe.com/blog/electioncentral/2007/jul/27/do_romneys_youtube_greatest_hits_explain_why_hes_skipping_debate

http://electioncentral.tpmcafe.com/blog/electioncentral/2007/jul/27/why_is_rudy_skipping_debate_his_youtube_greatest_hits_may_explain_all

A reason to shop at Lowe’s instead of Home Depot

http://www.americablog.com/2007/07/lowes-pulls-its-advertising-off-oreilly.html
Lowes pulls its advertising off O'Reilly . . .

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/7/28/91521/3113

http://www.americablog.com/2007/07/home-depot-wants-you-to-shut-up.html
[John Aravosis] Home Depot is now telling its customers that if you have the audacity to complain about BillOReilly.com's death threats against Hillary Clinton and suggestions of a terrorist attack against the US Capitol then YOU are the problem.

Here is the letter Home Depot is sending its customers . . .

Sunday talk show line-ups

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/07/28/AR2007072801395.html
FOX NEWS SUNDAY: Sen. Russell Feingold (D-Wis.), former House speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.) and Baseball Hall of Fame inductee Cal Ripken Jr.

THIS WEEK (ABC): Sens. Orrin G. Hatch (R-Utah) and Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.); Robert J. Dole and Donna E. Shalala, co-chairmen of the President's Commission on Care for America's Returning Wounded Warriors; Jacob Komar, founder of Computers for Communities.

NEWSMAKERS (C-SPAN): Secretary of Veterans Affairs Jim Nicholson.

FACE THE NATION (CBS): Sens. Patrick J. Leahy (D-Vt.) and Arlen Specter (R-Pa.).

MEET THE PRESS (NBC): Dan Balz, Ron Brownstein, John Harwood, Andrea Mitchell, Eugene Robinson and Chuck Todd.

LATE EDITION (CNN): Reps. Charles B. Rangel (D-N.Y.), Christopher Shays (R-Conn.), Roy Blunt (R-Mo.) and Jane Harman (D-Calif.); and U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Zalmay Khalilzad.

Bonus item: Fox News on the bloggers (video)

http://www.americablog.com/2007/07/faux-news-attacks-blogosphere-fox.html

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/7/28/10137/7186

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I don't get anything personally out of this project, except the satisfaction of doing it (I don't run ads, etc). The credit really all goes to the people whose material I copy and redistribute. But if I do have a "mission," it is to get this information into the hands of as many people as I can.***
- posted by Nick Burbules @ 7:17 AM

 
SPLITTING HAIRS

The Bush gang is trying a couple of different ploys to protect Gonzales from a perjury charge. One is to narrow as specifically as possible exactly the parsing of the language of what he was referring to when he said there was no controversy over the warrantless wiretapping program. The other is to repeat, over and over, that the controversy was over “another” program – when from all that we know the controversy was over THE SAME program, though perhaps in some earlier incarnation (which was apparently run illegally for more than two years, rejected by DOJ, then revised and narrowed into the “TSP” as it came to be called). Gonzales understood perfectly well what he was being asked, and chose to answer in what could at best be called a misleading and deceptively hair-splitting fashion

http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/003800.php
[DOJ spokesman] The Administration first used the term “Terrorist Surveillance Program” in early 2006 to refer publicly to a particular intelligence activity that the President publicly acknowledged and described in December 2005 -- that is, the NSA’s targeting for interception international communications coming into or going out of the United States where the NSA has reasonable grounds to believe that a party to the communication is an agent or member of al Qaeda or an affiliated terrorist organization. That is the only intelligence activity that the Attorney General meant when he used the phrase “Terrorist Surveillance Program.” . . .

There was not a disagreement between the Justice Department and the White House in March 2004 or any other time about whether there was a legal basis for that particular intelligence activity.

http://www.first-draft.com/2007/07/today-on-hol-15.html
[Tony Snow] This comes down to conversations in 2004. In 2004 the Department of Justice and the White House all agreed that there was a legal basis for intercepting conversations or communications involving al Qaeda or al Qaeda affiliates in the United States and overseas. There is no dispute about that. That program did not have a name at the time. It was later labeled the terrorist surveillance program, after some press disclosures, and I think the label stuck in 2006. But again, there has never been, at any juncture along the line, any disagreement about the propriety or legality of that program.

Now, when you talk about the terrorist surveillance program, there are many intelligence activities in the American government. We're talking about a very thin slice, limited to exactly what I was telling you about, which is monitoring communications between al Qaeda or suspected al Qaeda affiliates, one in the United States, one overseas. So when the Attorney General talks about TSP, that's precisely what he's discussing.

Here’s the plain language of what FBI Director Mueller said, and you can tell from his reluctant, halting manner that he knew he was driving the nail in Gonzales’s casket by saying it

http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/003805.php
Lee: Did you have an understanding that the discussion was on TSP?

Mueller: I had an understanding that the discussion was on a, uh, a, uh -- an NSA program, yes.

Lee: I guess we use "TSP," we use "warrantless wiretapping," so would I be comfortable in saying that those were the items that were part of the discussion?

Mueller: The discussion was on a National -- uh, NSA program that has been much discussed, yes.

[NB: Continue with this link to watch Tony Snow lie about it]

More bamboozlement: http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/015916.php

http://mediamatters.org/items/200707270009

Helen says to Tony Snow, “you’re not speaking English”

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/11612.html

Here is the key question: WHY is Gonzales lying? What would be so bad about saying, Yes, there was controversy over some aspects of the program, we made changes to be sure it conformed with legal requirements, and then everyone was satisfied? It certainly looks like they were doing something so bad that they’re terrified we might learn about it

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2007_07/011756.php

Background: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/blog/2007/07/27/BL2007072701308.html

http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/003787

http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room/2007/07/27/parsing/index.html

Drip, drip, drip. . . .

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/07/27/AR2007072702370.html
Two weeks before President Bush won reelection in 2004, the FBI sent a rare report to its overseers: One of its agents had engaged in a willful and intentional violation of a law by improperly collecting financial records during a national security investigation.

The FBI concluded that the actions of the rookie agent amounted to "intelligence activities that . . . may be unlawful or contrary to executive order or presidential directive," according to a declassified memo from Oct. 21, 2004.

The incident was deemed serious enough for the bureau to notify both the President's Intelligence Oversight Board and the Justice Department, and to consider punishing the agent.

The violation was the only one after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks that the FBI has specifically flagged as intentional. But it has attracted fresh attention because Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales testified six months later that no "verified case of civil liberties abuse" had occurred since the USA Patriot Act was enacted.

Gonzales told senators this week that his use of the word "abuse" was meant to narrowly refer only to intentional violations. "My view and the views of other leadership in the department is, in fact, when we're talking about abuses of the Patriot Act, we're talking about intentional, deliberate misuse of the Patriot Act," he testified Tuesday in explaining his 2005 remarks. . .

[NB: So, we know the code now -- there WERE misuses, probably a lot of them, but none that can be proven to be "intentional" and "deliberate." Except for this one. Maybe.]

Here is a LIST of the crimes that probably were committed during the US Attorney firings. It isn’t a short list

http://thenexthurrah.typepad.com/the_next_hurrah/2007/07/the-usa-purge-t.html

More: http://thenexthurrah.typepad.com/the_next_hurrah/2007/07/the-rove-subpoe.html

http://thenexthurrah.typepad.com/the_next_hurrah/2007/07/the-david-igles.html

DOJ still protecting us from “vote fraud” (wink, wink)

http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/003801.php

There is no bad news coming out of Iraq

http://www.latimes.com/la-na-iraqpower27jul27,0,705711.story
As the Bush administration struggles to convince lawmakers that its Iraq war strategy is working, it has stopped reporting to Congress a key quality-of-life indicator in Baghdad: how long the power stays on.

Ryan Crocker, the U.S. ambassador to Iraq, told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee last week that Baghdad residents could count on only "an hour or two a day" of electricity. That's down from an average of five to six hours a day earlier this year.

But that piece of data has not been sent to lawmakers for months because the State Department, which prepares a weekly "status report" for Congress on conditions in Iraq, stopped estimating in May how many hours of electricity Baghdad residents typically receive each day. . .

More: http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/003802.php
[Spencer Ackerman] Add "Baghdad electricity" to the Great List of disappeared information over the last six and a half years. Last one out, please turn on the lights. . .

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/11609.html
[Steve Benen] It’s the quintessential Bush move — when struggling with discouraging news, it’s easier to hide it than fix it.

Administration officials deny any ulterior motive. . . .

Our old friends

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/28/world/middleeast/28reconstruct.html
Iraq’s national government is refusing to take possession of thousands of American-financed reconstruction projects, forcing the United States either to hand them over to local Iraqis, who often lack the proper training and resources to keep the projects running, or commit new money to an effort that has already consumed billions of taxpayer dollars. . .

Our new friends

http://www.slate.com/id/2171354
[Andrew Rice] Gen. David Petraeus, the top U.S. commander in Iraq, calls the new "irregular" forces, intended to protect Sunni neighborhoods in Baghdad, a "very, very important component of reconciliation." But the new forces, which are recruited from the civilian population with little training provided and few questions asked, sound an awful lot like sectarian militias.

Our other friends. Despite the recent stories (see yesterday) on how unhelpful the Saudis have been lately in Iraq, the Bush gang is gearing up to sell them a ton of military equipment. Will there be a fight over this?

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/28/washington/28weapons.html
The Bush administration is preparing to ask Congress to approve an arms sale package for Saudi Arabia and its neighbors that is expected to eventually total $20 billion at a time when some United States officials contend that the Saudis are playing a counterproductive role in Iraq. . .

http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0707/27/sitroom.02.html
[CNN’s Wolf Blitzer] Dozens of foreign fighters crossing into Iraq each month and the U.S. military estimates half are from Saudi Arabia. Almost half the foreigners in U.S. detention facilities are said to be Saudis, as well. Along with that, a flow of funds from individuals in Saudi Arabia to Sunni insurgent groups. . .

And joining us now, our correspondent in Baghdad, Michael Ware -- Michael, the Saudis and their involvement in what's going on causing some consternation here in Washington. Saudi Arabia, a largely Sunni Muslim country. They're not very happy with the Shiite-dominated government in Baghdad.

What are you seeing on the ground?

MICHAEL WARE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, what we're seeing, Wolf, is that, you know, in Saudi Arabia, is experiencing just as much consternation with this U.S. experiment here in Iraq.

Now they said before the war that it wasn't going to work. Indeed, I think the quote, from memory, was something like, "you'll fix one problem, being Saddam, and create five more."

And then, as they saw -- saw the American expedition unfold, they saw it fall to pieces. Now, at first, they started whispering about it. Then they started screaming about it. And for a long time now -- we're talking years -- they've been acting on that.

They've been providing funds to Sunni sheikhs and tribal groups. There's been some connection with the insurgency. They're funding political opponents of this Maliki government, a government they don't trust.

And that's a sentiment shared by most of the Arab world. It's seen as either an Iranian proxy or so beholden to Iran -- this government -- that it cannot function as a truly independent entity.

The Saudis see that the American endeavor here in Iraq is not protecting legitimate Saudi national interests, let alone furthering them. They're saying that this war is destabilizing the whole region, to the disadvantage of America's allies.

BLITZER: And, Michael, do the Saudis see the prime minister, Nuri al-Maliki, as nothing more than an Iranian agent?

Because that's the word they're spreading, according to the "New York Times".

WARE: Yes, well, I mean, obviously, I can't speak for the government in Riyadh from here in Baghdad. But what I can tell you is that the Arab world doesn't trust Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, nor this government.

I mean this is not really a government. I mean, there's no water for people in the capital right now. Electricity, if you get it at all, is down to about an hour a day. And to fill up your car with gas, you've got ton cue for anything from five to 12 hours, or even overnight. So this government isn't delivering services.

This government is a loose coalition of militia, most of them backed or supported, in one way or another, by Iran.

And we wonder why America's Arab allies are nervous at what they see as an expansion of Iranian influence?

We're hearing that they're allowing insurgent commanders and political leaders to gather in Jordan, in Syria and, indeed, even in Saudi Arabia. Just expect this to pick up rather than deescalate -- Wolf.

What will happen when the next administration comes into office? This is a seriously underexamined question. Better than impeachment, MUCH better than censure, is to make sure that a Democrat takes office. There will be such a release of Bush gang documents, emails, secret orders, and hidden screw-ups that their legacy will be tarred forever. Unless they start destroying things at a record rate, which creates its own risks, you are going to see a whirlwind of declassification in 2009. A Republican, whoever it is, will probably continue the policy of expansive executive secrecy; a Democrat, whoever it is, is going to want to signal a different spirit – and they will start with everything the Bush gang has tried to hide

http://www.firedoglake.com/2007/07/27/relief/

Digby at her most brilliant. Must read!

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2007/07/private-peter-pan-by-digby-other-day-i.html
Thank God Joseph Heller and James Jones and Erich Maria Remarque and countless others aren't trying to write their books today. They'd be burned as heretics by a bunch of nasty boys and girls who have fetishized "the troops" into a strange form of Boy Band eroticism --- that empty, nonthreatening form of masculinity the tweens use to bridge the scary gap between puberty and adolescence. Private Peter Pan reporting for duty.

The real men for them are the civilians on 24 torturing suspected terrorists for an hour each week, keeping the lil'est tough guys safe from harm with hard sadism and easy answers. That's where this wingnut war is really being fought. With popcorn.

More: http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2007/07/frederick-of-hollywood-and-tiny.html

I have no sympathy for Schumer and the Democrats – none – when they complain that Supreme Court judges Roberts and Alito sounded more moderate during their confirmation hearings than they turned out to be. Anyone who didn’t know EXACTLY why they were picked, why key documents in their record suddenly turned up missing, or weren't made available, wasn’t paying attention. It’s too late now

http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/washington/politics-usa-court-congress.html

More: http://www.talkleft.com/story/2007/7/27/19597/8421

http://atrios.blogspot.com/2007_07_22_archive.html#632868727529323634

The coming fight over Executive Privilege

http://www.talkleft.com/story/2007/7/27/232119/717
[Big Tent Democrat] Apparently, the White House had a right blogger conference call on the ongoing executive privilege dispute. My first reaction is why would the White House do this? Why the reach oout to the Right bloggers on this issue? I can think of only one explanation - the White House intends to make a political fight out of this, not a legal fight. I mean honestly, if they were going to make this a purely legal dispute of Constitutional issues to be decided in a court, this would obviously be unnecessary. My other thought is that the White House is obviously very worried about the situation, particularly from a political perspective. Perhaps they felt the base was not supporting them as strongly as they expected. . . .

[NB: I have a slightly different read. They ARE going to make this a legal fight, and I think they know what a friendly Supreme Court will do for them in the end. But a lot of conservatives, especially those of a populist and/or libertarian bent, are very upset about the expansion of executive power. There is nothing “conservative” about that – unless you happen to be backing the particular conservative President of the moment.]

Those do-nothing Democrats

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/07/27/AR2007072700350.html
The House yesterday passed a far-reaching new farm bill . . . Passage of the 741-page bill by a vote of 231 to 191, after partisan battling unusual for farm legislation, was a major achievement for the new Democratic leadership.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/07/27/AR2007072702130.html
Congress gave final approval yesterday to legislation that requires tighter screening of air and sea cargo, and shifts more federal anti-terrorism grants to high-risk areas such as New York and Washington, delivering on a pledge by Democrats last fall to implement additional recommendations of the commission that investigated the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

[BUT. . .] Voting 371 to 40, the House followed the Senate, which voted 85 to 8 Thursday night, to send the measure to the White House after dropping a controversial provision that would have extended union protection to 45,000 federal airport screeners. That language had prompted a veto threat from President Bush.

More: http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/11614.html

Zing!

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/015889.php
[Josh Marshall] It's looking like there might not be a GOP CNN/Youtube debate. Rudy appears to be opting out and Mitt Romney doesn't seem far behind. And GOP party functionary Hugh Hewitt is already laying down a line of covering fire for the retreat, arguing that CNN and Youtube are biased against Republicans. . .

But if they can't face Youtube how can they defeat the terrorists?

Sound familiar? http://www.observer.com/2007/murdoch-ailes-weymouth-pump-bloomberg-breindel-awards
[Roger Ailes] had some choice words for Democratic candidates who have decided not to debate on Fox. “The candidates that can’t face Fox, can’t face Al Qaeda,” said Mr. Ailes.

http://newsbusters.org/node/12824#comment-342793
[Dennis Miller] "If these guys are afraid of Fox News, how are they going to stand up to terrorists?"

http://hotair.com/archives/2007/04/11/video-leno-asks-dems-how-will-you-stand-up-to-terrorists-when-youre-afraid-of-fox-news/
[Jay Leno] How will you “stand up to terrorists when you’re afraid of Fox News?”

http://thinkprogress.org/2007/06/16/nbcs-tim-russert/
[Tim Russert] “It’s a TV show. If you can’t handle TV questions, how are you going to stand up to Iran, and North Korea, and the rest of the world?”

Has Hillary finally found a good answer on the “L” word question?

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/11610.html
In Monday’s debate, Hillary Clinton was asked whether she’d describe herself as a “liberal.” . . .

So, now, there’s going to be a new fight over demonizing “progressive” – and the Right is already gearing up for that

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/015922.php

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2007_07/011763.php

New survey: youth are tilting heavily Democratic

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/11613.html

But: http://matthewyglesias.theatlantic.com/archives/2007/07/choose_your_own_the_who_refere.php
[Matt Yglesias] White young people like the GOP just fine; the GOP has a two point advantage. The issue is that black and hispanic youth loathe Republicans and the younger demographic has disproportionately few non-Hispanic whites. . . . [read on]

Bonus item: Haw, haw, haw! Yee-hee! Yuck, yuck, yuck, GAAAAH-HA-HA-HA-HA-HAHHHH!!! Now THAT is a funny, funny, funny joke. And oh, so clever and revealing about the Dems. Thanks Rush! You really got ‘em on that one!

http://mediamatters.org/items/200707270007
A graphic on the front page of radio host Rush Limbaugh's website depicted a screen shot of C-SPAN's Washington Journal doctored to show Osama bin Laden appearing as a guest identified as "Mr. Osama bin Laden, D-Afghanistan." . . .

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

I don't get anything personally out of this project, except the satisfaction of doing it (I don't run ads, etc). The credit really all goes to the people whose material I copy and redistribute. But if I do have a "mission," it is to get this information into the hands of as many people as I can.***
- posted by Nick Burbules @ 9:11 AM

 
PROGRAM X

As Josh Marshall says, the fact that Bush keeps Gonzales in office after all this shows, not loyalty, but his desperate need to keep a bulwark between himself and further investigations – no one but Gonzales could ever serve that purpose, and no new AG could be confirmed without a process that would repudiate nearly everything Gonzales has allowed to transpire. Until he is actually convicted of perjury, or impeached, Gonzo is there for the duration

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/26/washington/26cnd-gonzales.html
The dispute over the truthfulness of Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales reached a new intensity today as the F.B.I. Director, Robert S. Mueller 3d, contradicted Mr. Gonzales’s sworn testimony before a Senate committee. . .

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/07/26/AR2007072600253.html
Four Senate Democrats today formally asked the Justice Department to appoint a special prosecutor to investigate whether Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales lied to Congress in his testimony about a domestic surveillance program for terrorists. . .

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/11598.html
[Chuck Schumer, D-NY] “[Gonzales] took an oath to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. Instead he tells the half truth, the partial truth, and everything but the truth. And he does it not once, not twice, but over and over and over again. His instinct is not to tell the truth, but to dissemble and deceive….. We simply cannot stand for this any longer.”

More: http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/11602.html

Video: http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/003789.php

Media coverage: http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/015885.php

Tony Snow “explains”: http://www.first-draft.com/2007/07/today-on-hol-14.html
MR. SNOW: Unfortunately we get into areas that you cannot discuss openly. It's a very complex issue. But the Attorney General was speaking consistently. The President supports him. I think at some point this is going to be something where members are going to have to go behind closed doors and have a fuller discussion of the issues. But I can't go any further than that.

Q Everyone else says the meeting was about the TSP. Negroponte says it, people who were there said it, Comey said it. How could that not be right?

MR. SNOW: It's simply more complex than that, and I can't go into any more detail.

Q Is there another program that existed besides the TSP program?

MR. SNOW: I will repeat myself -- it's more complex, and I cannot go any further than that.

Q Does that mean that members of the Congress are being briefed on something they didn't realize they were being briefed on? If they're all describing it in this way --

MR. SNOW: Look, the most important thing to do is, I'll refer you back to DOJ to going through all this. But there were a series of briefings for a small, restricted number of members of Congress who seem to have differing recollections about what went on.

Here’s a serious argument that, while Gonzales may indeed be a liar, THIS instance – the “one program/two program” dispute, is too vague, too semantic, and too shrouded in classified secrets to ever make the stuff of a perjury showdown (however, the scope of the perjury charges is much wider than just the TSP dispute)

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/11598.html
[James Joyner] Oddly, however, Senate Democrats are now seriously pursuing a perjury probe over what seems, on the surface at least, among the least significant contradictions in his testimony and one that would be the hardest to prove. . . [read on]

What Gonzales is really trying to cover up

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/blog/2007/07/26/BL2007072601052.html
[Dan Froomkin] This is not just a story about Gonzales's relationship to the truth. It's also a story about all the things we still don't know about the White House and illegal wiretapping.

One of the chief unanswered questions, as I wrote in my May 17 column: What was the program like when it was illegal even in the opinion of Bush's own Justice Department? What was the government doing to its citizens for two and a half years -- starting soon after 9/11 through the spring of 2004?

http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/003787.php
[Spencer Ackerman and Paul Kiel] Alberto Gonzales' testimony that there was "no serious disagreement" within the Bush Administration about the NSA warrantless surveillance program has left senators sputtering and fulminating about the attorney general's apparent prevarications. But a closer examination of Gonzales' testimony and other public statements from the Administration suggest that there may be a method to the madness.

There's a lot of evidence to suggest that Gonzales's careful, repeated phrasing to the Senate that he will only discuss the program that "the president described" was deliberate, part of a concerted administration-wide strategy to conceal from the public the very broad scope of that initial program. When, for the first time, Program X (as we'll call it, for convenience's sake) became known to senior Justice Department officials who were not its original architects, those officials -- James Comey and Jack Goldsmith, principally -- balked at its continuation. They did not back down until the program had undergone as-yet-unspecified but apparently significant revisions. But when President Bush announced what he would call the "Terrorist Surveillance Program' in December 2005, he left the clear impression that the program had always functioned the same way since its 2001 inception.

The administration's consistent refusal to discuss any aspect of the program -- current or former -- aside from what President Bush disclosed in December 2005 appears to be intended, specifically, to gloss over Comey and Goldsmith's objections. If that's the case, it could mean that the public has been presented with an inaccurate picture of the origins and scope of Program X. . . . [read on!]

More: http://www.firedoglake.com/2007/07/27/which-nsa-program-was-it-and-what-else-arewere-they-doing/

[NB: So, on this analysis, the Bush people really do want to distinguish "two" programs -- the bad old illegal version of the warrantless wiretapping program (which they absolutely do not want to reveal or admit to in public), and the new and improved version of it, which Bush did discuss in public. So the perjury charge is really leverage, I guess, to force them to admit that they were running an illegal program for over two years. And THAT'S what Tony Snow wants to talk about behind closed doors.]

Will the DOJ Solicitor General appoint a Special Prosecutor? I don’t see how that ever actually happens, but we can hope

http://thenexthurrah.typepad.com/the_next_hurrah/2007/07/the-call-for-a-.html
[Emptywheel] Perhaps the four Senators only submitted this request to force Clement to say no, which would provide the perfect justification for moving to impeachment proceedings in the House. . .

Here’s what the blogosphere does so well: Emptywheel, who knows these matters backwards and forwards, recounts the details of briefing dates over the warrantless wiretapping program, and what they tell us. This is the kind of serious tea-leaf reading that most of us have no time (or talent) for doing. Read on

http://thenexthurrah.typepad.com/the_next_hurrah/2007/07/the-briefing-da.html

See you in court

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/015872.php
[David Kurtz] The Senate Judiciary has issued a subpoena to Karl Rove for him to testify regarding his role in the U.S. Attorneys purge. Obviously, the White House will cite executive privilege and refuse to make Rove available, so we're not going to see Rove under the kleig lights anytime soon. But it's another step toward a long overdue confrontation in the courts on the true scope of executive privilege.

More: http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/003790.php
The Senate Judiciary Committee issued two more subpoenas as part of the U.S. attorney firings investigation today: one for Karl Rove and the other for his deputy, Scott Jennings. . .

http://thinkprogress.org/2007/07/26/rove-jennings-subpoena/

http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room/2007/07/26/rove_subpoenas/index.html
[Digby] It's true that Ashcroft and Gonzales reversed what had more or less been a Chinese wall between the White House and the DOJ in other administrations and basically allowed everyone but the cleaning staff to have access to personnel and information about criminal investigations. But oddly enough, Rove doesn't appear to have been among those granted that access.

Yet, he is clearly at the center of the U.S. attorney scandals, with revelations just the other day that from the beginning of the Bush administration he was considered an important conduit in matters of U.S. attorneys. Bogus claims of "voter fraud" are one of his special interests and his obsession with alleged fraud in the states in which the fired U.S. attorneys worked is more than just coincidence. Now we find that he must have been doing most of the dirty work outside the very wide official channel that allowed dozens of people inside the White House to interact with the DOJ. With one exception where he violated the rules directly, he very carefully avoided any obvious hands-on involvement.

Those missing Republican National Committee e-mails would probably shed some light on all this. Rove apparently used that account 95 percent of the time. Too bad they were destroyed.

Tell me, tell me, if this surprises you

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB118530038250476405.html
After 9/11, the Saudi monarchy pledged its full support in the fight against global terrorism. And following violent attacks inside the kingdom in the next two years, the Saudis did launch major strikes against militants operating on their soil. But the Saudi government has been far been less willing to tackle the financial infrastructure essential to terrorism. U.S. intelligence reports state that Islamic banks, while mostly doing ordinary commerce, also are institutions that extremism relies upon in its global spread.

As a result, the Bush administration repeatedly debated proposals for taking strong action itself against Al Rajhi Bank, in particular, according to former U.S. officials and previously undisclosed government documents. Ultimately, the U.S. always chose instead to lobby Saudi officialdom quietly about its concerns. . . .

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/27/world/middleeast/27saudi.html
Bush administration officials are voicing increasing anger at what they say has been Saudi Arabia’s counterproductive role in the Iraq war. . . .

Everyone noted at the time how short and hurried the latest NIE on Al Qaeda in Iraq seemed to be – almost as if it was rushed out to get certain talking points into circulation. Could that be? Imagine that!

http://rawstory.com/news/2007/National_Intelligence_Estimate_sloppy_and_possibly_0725.html
Current and former intelligence officials say the Bush Administration's National Intelligence Estimate regarding terrorist threats to the United States does not provide evidence to support its assertions . . .

Speaking under condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly, several intelligence officers asserted that the report was sloppy and lacked supporting evidence. "The NIE seems… fiddled [with]. . . Whether it is or isn't is not really the point. The point is that nobody is ready to believe it." . . . [read on]

The new “Joint Campaign Plan” – the Petraeus plan that projects US involvement in Iraq at least into 2009 – appears destined to end up like all the other “new” plans for Iraq

http://www.slate.com/id/2171125/

More: http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/11597.html

Bush likes to say he listens to his generals (the ones he doesn’t fire, at least) – but here’s who he REALLY listens to

http://www.examiner.com/a-844077~Arm_chair_generals_help_shape_surge_in_Iraq.html

The phrase we need to start using about Iraq

http://matthewyglesias.theatlantic.com/archives/2007/07/cleansing_baghdad.php
“Ethnic cleansing” . . .

Is the Maliki government in trouble?

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070725/ap_on_re_mi_ea/iraq_sunnis_2

http://www.talkleft.com/story/2007/7/26/223436/239

We’ve had this story before, but it just won’t go away

http://atrios.blogspot.com/2007_07_22_archive.html#3206634619579817097
[Atrios] US Embassy in Iraq built, in part, by forced labor. . .

More: http://www.speaker.gov/blog/?p=626

Oh my. How much worse can this get? Now we’re learning that Pat Tillman’s death wasn’t just a “friendly fire” cover-up. He might actually have been murdered by his own countrymen

http://www.forbes.com/feeds/ap/2007/07/26/ap3958728.html
Army medical examiners were suspicious about the close proximity of the three bullet holes in Pat Tillman's forehead and tried without success to get authorities to investigate whether the former NFL player's death amounted to a crime . . . [read on]

SecDef Bob Gates kinda sorta says that the Cheney lackey in his Department (Eric Edelman) who accused Hillary Clinton of subversion for questioning the war was. . . uh. . . full of it

http://www.talkleft.com/story/2007/7/26/141141/060
“First, allow me to reiterate that I have long been and continue to be an advocate of congressional oversight as a fundamental element of our system of government. I also have publicly expressed my belief that congressional debate on Iraq has been constructive, appropriate and necessary. . . . Furthermore, I agree with you that planning concerning the future of U.S. forces in Iraq — including the draw down of those forces at the right time — is not only appropriate, but essential. . . .

Specifically, I emphatically assure you that we do not claim, suggest, or otherwise believe that congressional oversight emboldens our enemies, nor do we question anyone’s motives in this regard. . . .”

Though he also says: http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/7/26/134240/186
Gates defended his aide and the author of the letter, Undersecretary for Policy Eric Edelman, calling him "a valued member" who provides "wise counsel and years of experience (that) are critically important to the many pressing policy issues facing the military."

Bush 41 was a “kinder and gentler Republican.” Bush 43 was a “compassionate conservative.” When will people realize that these are oxymorons?

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/11601.html

Stop the presses: a House Republican says, actually says, that the Dems have been pretty successful lately in forging bipartisan legislation

http://www.mydd.com/story/2007/7/26/143738/916

Of course: http://politicalwire.com/archives/2007/07/27/in_il18_lahood_will_not_seek_reelection.html
Rep. Ray LaHood (R-IL) "will not seek re-election when his term expires in January 2009," the Peoria Journal Star News reports.

I suppose it had to happen, eventually: Obama and Clinton get down and dirty with each other

http://www.mydd.com/story/2007/7/26/15539/9321

http://www.mydd.com/story/2007/7/26/165049/402

Republican candidates don’t want to do a CNN/YouTube debate. Wonder why?

http://politicalwire.com/archives/2007/07/27/republicans_hint_at_dropping_out_of_youtube_debate.html

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/015890.php
[KB] You realize why Rudy doesn't like the YouTube debate format, right? He doesn't want the NY fire fighter's to get a clean shot at him on national TV. Maybe Newt was right. Maybe pygmies is the perfect word... [read on]

From the local news: the next “DC Madam” disclosure could be someone in the Ohio GOP delegation

http://buckeyestateblog.com/rumor_ohio_republican_implicated_in_hooker_scandal

Could it be? http://downwithtyranny.blogspot.com/2007/07/will-john-boehner-be-next-gop-pervert.html

Glenn Beck: what more evidence do we need that he is a partisan ideologue, and no kind of serious journalist?

http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room/2007/07/26/birch_beck/index.html
[Alex Koppelman] Cable news viewers can be forgiven if, like us, they happened to turn on Glenn Beck's show on CNN Headline News Wednesday night and were surprised to see a spokesman for the John Birch Society being treated like an expert source.

It is, let's face it, pretty shocking to see a group that has been a pariah since the 1960's given credence on a mainstream television network, especially when the group is as far out as the JBS. The JBS is, after all, the group that believed fluoridated drinking water was a Communist mind-control plot. Oh, and its founder, Robert Welch, once accused Dwight Eisenhower -- and no, we are not kidding -- of being "a dedicated conscious agent of the communist conspiracy." . . .

Beck himself referred to the group's reputation, introducing his guest, JBS spokesman Sam Antonio, by saying, "Sam, I have to tell you, when I was growing up, the John Birch Society, I thought they were a bunch of nuts." But Beck's views on that score seem to have changed -- "You guys are starting to make more and more sense to me," Beck told Antonio.

Bonus item: Not normally the kind of thing we cover, but this is just strange. . . .

http://edition.cnn.com/2007/TECH/space/07/26/nasa.computer/
Someone intentionally damaged a computer intended for the International Space Station, NASA said Thursday. . .

***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.***

Labels: http://www2.blogger.com/img/gl.link.gif

- posted by Nick Burbules @ 8:19 AM

 
PERJURY TRAP

Looks like Mr. Gonzales has told one fib too many. A key issue has been over his Senate testimony that there was no significant disagreement over the warrantless wiretapping (TSP) program. When James Comey testified, he said that in fact he and several other DOJ officials were prepared to resign over it – and hence the fateful visit to John Ashcroft’s hospital room. No, no, sayeth Alberto, that disagreement was over some OTHER surveillance program. Did he just reveal the existence of a previously undisclosed program? Or was he fudging the facts? Today we know the answer

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070725/ap_on_go_ca_st_pe/congress_gonzales_2
Documents show that eight congressional leaders were briefed about the Bush administration's terrorist surveillance program on the eve of its expiration in 2004, contradicting sworn Senate testimony this week by Attorney General Alberto Gonzales.

The documents, obtained by The Associated Press, come as senators consider whether a perjury investigation should be opened into conflicting accounts about the program and a dramatic March 2004 confrontation leading up to its potentially illegal reauthorization.

A Gonzales spokesman maintained Wednesday that the attorney general stands by his testimony.

At a heated Senate Judiciary Committee hearing Tuesday, Gonzales repeatedly testified that the issue at hand was not about the terrorist surveillance program, which allowed the National Security Agency to eavesdrop on suspects in the United States without receiving court approval.

Instead, Gonzales said, the emergency meetings on March 10, 2004, focused on an intelligence program that he would not describe. . . .

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/7/25/20717/2457
Currently on "Countdown," David Shuster is reporting that, according to a legal expert that he's spoken to, "this is a clear case of perjury and it's not even close."

One program or two?

http://thinkprogress.org/2007/07/25/harman-intel-activities/

http://www.anonymousliberal.com/2007/07/parsing-gonzales-testimony.html

http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2007/07/25/gonzales/index.html

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2007/07/getting-with-programs-by-digby-glenn.html

Other problems with Gonzales’s story

http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/003773.php

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/015777.php

In case you missed his testimony, the Josh Marshall crew put together an unbelievable set of clips. Reading the transcript just doesn’t do justice to how awful it was. Don’t miss this!

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/015807.php

Perjury? Really really

http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room/2007/07/26/perjury/index.html
Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Sen. Pat Leahy, D-Vt., is discussing the possibility that he will ask for an investigation into possible perjury by Gonzales. Leahy will give Gonzales "until late next week to revise his testimony," then ask Glenn Fine, the Department of Justice's Inspector General, to investigate. . .

More: http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/11592.html

Even Fred Hiatt’s Bush-friendly WP editorial page has seen enough

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/07/24/AR2007072401962_pf.html
SOMETHING IS terribly, terribly wrong when the attorney general of the United States is called to testify under oath before Congress and much of the hearing revolves around his credibility -- or lack thereof. But such was the case yet again during an appearance yesterday by Alberto R. Gonzales before the Senate Judiciary Committee. . .

At what point does someone lose so much credibility that he should no longer serve in public office? In the case of Mr. Gonzales, we believe that time has come and gone.

The contempt vote. Republicans on the House committee (oh, this is rich) say that they certainly would be willing to vote for contempt (uh-huh), but this is a weak test case on the Bush gang’s ridiculously expansive view of executive privilege, since because no laws were broken the case will be thrown out – leaving the administration in even a stronger position that before. Does ANYONE believe that?

http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/003777.php

More: http://www.firedoglake.com/2007/07/25/breathtaking-gop-mendacity-in-the-house-judiciary-today/

http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room/2007/07/25/unitary_executive/index.html

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/7/25/16559/3594

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/11587.html

http://atrios.blogspot.com/2007_07_22_archive.html#436864433950102927
[Atrios] Obviously the Democrats have to do something. I'd like it if some Republicans thought that having their congressional powers mocked and laughed at was an area of concern, too, but those people who spent their time holding their breaths waiting for Republicans to do the right thing have long since died of asphyxiation.

No laws were broken?

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/07/24/AR2007072402311.html

The DOJ has already said they won’t act to enforce any congressional contempt citation – but it’s not so simple

http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/003779.php

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/11584.html

http://www.talkleft.com/story/2007/7/25/195318/033

The White House response – yes, I think you could call this “contempt”

http://www.first-draft.com/2007/07/today-on-hol-13.html
MR. SNOW: Hello, everybody. As you probably know, the House Judiciary Committee has just voted along partisan lines to have a criminal contempt of Congress referral against White House legal counsel and the White House Chief of Staff. For our view, this is pathetic. . .

Watch it: http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/015834.php

[NB: You know the code, the more dismissive the rhetoric, the more aloof they sound, the more worried they actually are]

Does the Bush gang really want to pick this fight?

http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/003778.php
[Nancy Pelosi] “The contempt proceedings in the House Judiciary Committee today are part of a broader effort by House Democrats to restore our nation’s fundamental system of checks and balances. . .”

A mini-debate over what to do next

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/015836.php

http://www.talkleft.com/story/2007/7/25/224159/579

More of the same: watch Tony brush off any suggestion that having Karl Rove’s people give briefings across the government about targeting elections where they want “support” to defeat Democrats is anything remarkable

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/11580.html

You know, there is just so much of this, each new disclosure so jaw-droppingly horrendous, that it’s hard to focus on each for its own sake. But have people paid enough attention to Gonzo’s disclosure that CHENEY was given access to influence DOJ decisions?

http://thenexthurrah.typepad.com/the_next_hurrah/2007/07/cheney-got-the-.html

They won’t stop (until we stop them)

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/015815.php
The FBI is taking cues from the CIA to recruit thousands of covert informants in the United States as part of a sprawling effort to boost its intelligence capabilities. . .

Nice line from Dan Froomkin

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/blog/2007/07/25/BL2007072501313.html
Like any terrorist organization, al-Qaeda wants attention. It wants to be perceived as powerful. And it particularly wants Americans to live in fear.

Could al-Qaeda possibly have found a better publicist than President Bush? . . . [read on]

More: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/25/washington/25prexy.html
Mr. Bush referred throughout his speech to what his aides said was newly declassified intelligence in his effort to link Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia and the central Qaeda leadership that is believed to be operating from the Pakistan-Afghanistan border region. Although the aides said the intelligence was declassified, White House and intelligence officials declined to provide any detail on the reports Mr. Bush cited. . . [read on]

Come September. . .

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/07/25/AR2007072502014.html

Conservatives, fearing a 2008 bloodbath, have advice for Bush on Iraq. Very strange advice

http://thehill.com/leading-the-news/conservatives-call-for-bush-to-emphasize-leaving-iraq-2007-07-25.html
Some conservative activist leaders, fearing voter anger with the Iraq war, want President Bush and GOP leaders to begin emphasizing that U.S. troops will be “leaving Iraq” to give Republicans cover as they head into a tough political landscape in 2008.

To assuage an angry public, the activists argue that the White House soon needs to articulate clearly that the war will end. . . [read on]

More: http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/11588.html

Hey, folks, there’s a reason why Bush doesn’t say anything about “leaving” from Iraq: he has NO INTENTION of leaving

http://www.speaker.gov/blog/?p=621
Today, the House passed H.R. 2929, Banning Permanent U.S. Bases in Iraq. This bill states that it is the policy of the United States not to establish any military installation or base for the purpose of providing a permanent stationing of United States Armed Forces in Iraq. . .

Doh!

http://www.slate.com/id/2171174
[Daniel Politi] The President's Commission on Care for America's Returning Wounded Warriors, chaired by Donna Shalala and former Sen. Bob Dole, made 35 recommendations and emphasized that only six of them would require approval from Congress, so it's up to the administration to take action. Among the recommendations, the commission called for an improvement in the way post-traumatic stress disorders and brain injuries are treated, the appointment of "recovery coordinators" to help wounded veterans get the care they need, and a restructuring of the veterans' disability system. . . .

The president appointed the Dole-Shalala commission after a series of stories in the WP revealed the poor conditions that some veterans had to contend with at Walter Reed. In their final report, the commission recommended "fundamental changes" to a flawed system, although it avoided criticizing the administration and instead focused on how to make it more efficient for the patients. . .

The Post notes that White House press secretary Tony Snow first said the president wouldn't immediately act on the commission's report. But after some criticism, Bush came out yesterday afternoon to say that his administration will quickly move to implement the recommendations.

Closing the barn door. . .

http://www.talkleft.com/story/2007/7/25/135738/521
[Politico] Sen. Arlen Specter (R-Pa.) plans to review the Senate testimony of U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Samuel A. Alito to determine if their reversal of several long-standing opinions conflicts with promises they made to senators to win confirmation. . .

In defense of “partisanship”

http://www.firedoglake.com/2007/07/25/im-proud-to-be-a-partisan/

The Democrats’ aggressive legislative agenda

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/07/25/AR2007072502201.html

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/07/25/AR2007072501127.html

Make Bush veto them: http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/7/25/221236/473

More resignations in the McCain campaign – and now Thompson’s got the bug too

http://www.tpmcafe.com/blog/electioncentral/2007/jul/25/happy_hour_roundup

http://politicalwire.com/archives/2007/07/26/thompson_fundraising_not_meeting_expectations.html

http://www.mydd.com/story/2007/7/26/13148/1924

Bonus item: Another edition of “Not from The Onion” -- calls for CHENEY to run for President in 2008

http://www.mydd.com/story/2007/7/26/23156/2293

***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 @ 8:47 AM

 
NO SURPRISE, REALLY

What a pathetic performance. You wouldn’t think Alberto Gonzales could do much more to bury his already moribund reputation, but he did. And in the process he apparently added new lies to the mix. I think the committee really might charge him with perjury

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/015764.php
[David Kurtz] Alberto Gonzales really is a national embarrassment. Even Arlen Specter displays a sneering contempt for the man. And that was before Gonzales began today's soft-shoe shuffle in front of the Senate Judiciary Committee.

How many U.S. Attorneys has he fired? He's not sure.

Why is he the man to fix the department he broke? That's a good question, he admits.

Why didn't the President's new executive order on torture specifically ban waterboarding? "[S]ome acts are clearly beyond the pale, and that everyone would agree should be prohibited," he testified. "There are certain other activities where it is not so clear, Senator."

And so on.

http://blog.washingtonpost.com/benchconference/2007/07/post_39.html
[Andrew Cohen] Forget about the politicization of the Justice Department. Forget about the falling morale there. Forget about the rise in violent crime in some of our biggest cities. Forget about the events leading up to the U.S. Attorney scandal and the way he has handled the prosecutor purge since. Forget about the Department's role in allowing warrantless domestic surveillance. Forget about the contorted and contradictory accounts he's offered before in his own defense.

Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales deserves to be fired for his testimony Tuesday alone; for morphing into Jon Lovitz's famous "pathological liar" character (or maybe just one of the Marx Brothers) as he tried to dodge and duck responsibility before the Senate Judiciary Committee not just for his shameful leadership at Justice but also his shameless role in visiting an ailing John Ashcroft in the hospital to try to strong-arm him into renewing the warrantless surviellance program. Can anyone out there remember a worse, less-inspiring, less confidence-inducing performance on Capitol Hill? I cannot.

No reasonable person watching Gonzales' tragically comedic performance Tuesday's on Capitol Hill-- especially his miserable exchange with Sen. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) in late morning-- can any longer defend his appalling lack of competence, courage and credibility. . . . [read on]

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/7/24/17656/7636
[Hunter] I'll add my two cents to all of this. Short version: this has gone on long enough. There are no reasons -- none -- for continuing to keep Alberto Gonzales in his position. No degree of supposed presidential perogative can justify obstruction and incompetence of the level that has been witnessed in the last few months.

Alberto Gonzales' testimony today was, as usual, outrageous. He seemed brow-furrowingly intent on balancing each answer between a thinly veiled lie, gross and wide-ranging job incompetence, and a total disregard for the right of Congress to know the actual answers in the first place. He must be a true pro at it, because he managed to give all three impressions with nearly every answer. . . . [read on]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/07/24/AR2007072402028.html
[Dana Milbank] "The department is dysfunctional. . . . Every week a new issue arises. . . . That is just decimating, Mr. Attorney General. . . . The list goes on and on. . . . Is your department functioning? . . . What credibility is left for you? . . . Do you expect us to believe that? . . . Your credibility has been breached to the point of being actionable."

And that was just from the top Republican on the committee, Arlen Specter (Pa.). . . . [read on]

Some lowlights

http://blog.washingtonpost.com/benchconference/2007/07/post_39.html
SCHUMER: These are your words, right? You don't deny that these are your words. This was a public press conference.

GONZALES: I'm told that in fact here in the press conference I did misspeak, but I also went back and clarified it with the reporter.

SCHUMER: You did misspeak?

GONZALES: Yes. But I went back and clarified it with the reporter...

SCHUMER: When was that? And which -- what was the reporter's name?

GONZALES: At The Washington Post two days later.

(CROSSTALK)

GONZALES: Dan Eggen was the reporter. . . .

GONZALES: I clarified my statement two days later with the reporter.

SCHUMER: What did you say to the reporter?

GONZALES: I did not speak directly to the reporter.

SCHUMER: Oh, wait a second -- you did not.

(LAUGHTER)

OK. What did your spokesperson say to the reporter?

GONZALES: I don't know. But I told the spokesperson to go back and clarify my statement...

SCHUMER: Well, wait a minute, sir. Sir, with all due respect -- and if I could have some order here, Mr. Chairman -- in all due respect, you're just saying, "Well, it was clarified with the reporter," and you don't even know what he said. You don't even know what the clarification is. Sir, how can you say that you should stay on as attorney general when we go through exercise like this, where you're bobbing and weaving and ducking to avoid admitting that you deceived the committee? And now you don't even know. I'll give you another chance: You're hanging your hat on the fact that you clarified the statement two days later. You're now telling us that is was a spokesperson who did it. What did that spokesperson say? Tell me now, how do you clarify this?

GONZALES: I don't know, but I'll find out and get back to you.

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/7/24/142637/234
Check out this exchange with Republican Sen. Arlen Specter.

S: How can you get approval from sedated Ashcroft?

G: Can I continue?

S: No, answer my question.

G: Obviously there was concern about Ashcroft's condition. There are no rules governing when Ashcroft decides he is well enough.

S: He had given up AG duties.

G: We knew he was ill...

S: Not making progress. Moving on. Do you think constitution govt can survive if Pres has unilateral authority to reject congress inquiries for Exec Privilege and prevent prosecution of claim?

G: Ongoing matter, I am recused, I cannot answer.

S: I am asking about constitutional law.

G: You are talking about an on-going issue.

S: No. Answer.

G: I won't answer - it is ongoing controversy and I am recused.

Leahy: Calls for decorum (room is protesting).

S: Won't pursue. This is hopeless. You are not just AG, you are a lawyer. This is a fundamental issues separate from USA resignations. Other subject. Do you have a conflict regarding the firing of US AGs?

G: Yes.

S: Do you have a conflict of interest about Miers?

G: Yes. I won't answer.

S: Let's find one you will answer. How about death penalty case? Charlton contacted your office and said case was not appropriate for dp. Testimony that AG spent 5-10 minutes on the issue...is this accurate?

G: I have no specific recollection of this case. But we have a detailed process for capital case review.

S: I am not interested in that. I want an answer to my question. You don't remember a case regarding a man's execution?

G: I have no recollection of the conversation.

S: Do you disagree with the testimony?

G: I can't agree or disagree.

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/7/25/73413/5633
Leahy asked if Gonzales would block prosecutors from prosecuting contempt-of-Congress cases. "I'm not going to answer that question," the witness answered.

"Do you think constitutional government in the United States can survive if the president has the unilateral authority to reject congressional inquiries?" Specter pressed.

"I'm not going to answer this question."

http://thenexthurrah.typepad.com/the_next_hurrah/2007/07/changing-the-ru.html
[Emptywheel] The issue is that DOJ has recently revised the US Attorney's (I think) manual. And they weakened--and in one important case--removed the restrictions on taking voting rights cases in the days leading up to an election.

In other words, DOJ just made it easier to tamper with elections by taking political cases against organizations like ACORN.

Later in the hearing (if I'm correct), Jeff Sessions (!?!?!) pursued this further, asking who approved the changes in the manual. Here's how Helen captured the exchange:

Sessions: what do you mean that you did not know about the voting manual changes? Who signed off on that?

Abu: DAG [Deputy Attorney General]

Sessions: You delegated that?

Abu: I can’t answer that.

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/015781.php
[Josh Marshall] In this exchange Sen. Schumer (D) asks Gonzales who sent him and Andy Card to John Ashcroft's bedside. And Gonzales just refuses to answer. He keeps repeating that they went "on behalf" of the president. But he won't say if the president sent them. He just won't answer.

Schumer notes the key point: Gonzales isn't even asserting any kind of privilege. He doesn't say he can't remember. He just won't answer. . .

Testifying before Congress is like being called to testify in court. You have to answer every question. Every question. You can fudge and say you don't remember something and see how far you get. Or you can invoke various privileges. And it's up to the courts to decide if the invocations are valid. But it's simply not permitted to refuse to answer a question. It is quite literally contempt of Congress.

More: http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2007/07/depends-on-what-definition-of-program.html

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/7/24/124741/698

A new lie?

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/015775.php
[David Kurtz] It's shaping up as perhaps the most crucial piece of testimony from Alberto Gonzales today in his appearance before the Senate Judiciary Committee.

In explaining why he and then-White House Chief of Staff Andrew Card made a dramatic visit to the hospital bedside of a seriously ill Attorney General John Ashcroft, Gonzales points to a key meeting earlier that same day, March 10, 2004.

At that meeting, according to Gonzales, the bipartisan group of congressional leaders known as the Gang of Eight, which oversees the most sensitive aspects of the intelligence community, demanded that a top secret surveillance program (widely believed to be the NSA's warrantless wiretapping program) be continued despite the refusal of the Department of Justice to sign off on the legality of the program.

It was upon that basis, Gonzales says, that he and Card went to Ashcroft to present him with this important new information.

But tonight Democratic leaders who were at that meeting dispute Gonzales' version of events. . . .

More: http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/003770.php

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2007/07/curly-lies-by-digby-washington-post.html

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/015780.php

http://thenexthurrah.typepad.com/the_next_hurrah/2007/07/time-to-talk-to.html

Live-blogging from Firedoglake

http://www.firedoglake.com/2007/07/24/alberto-gonzales-testimony-part-i-2/
[Pat Leahy] Three months ago when AG Goznales last appeared before thsi committee, I said that the DOJ was experiencing a crisis of leadership perhaps unrivaled in its history. That crisis continues. . .

http://www.firedoglake.com/2007/07/24/alberto-gonzales-testimony-part-ii-2/

http://www.firedoglake.com/2007/07/24/alberto-gonzales-testimony-part-iii-2/

http://www.firedoglake.com/2007/07/24/alberto-gonzales-testimony-part-iv-2/

http://www.firedoglake.com/2007/07/24/alberto-gonzales-testimony-part-v-2/

Perjury?

http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/003765.php
[Spencer Ackerman and Paul Kiel] The Senate Judiciary Committee will review Alberto Gonzales' past statements to determine whether Gonzales lied to the committee in 2006 by saying there had been no internal Justice Department dissent over the legality of the president's Terrorist Surveillance Program (otherwise known as the NSA's warrantless wiretapping program). When confronted by the senators, Gonzales today offered a surprising explanation of his consistency and veracity: he repeatedly suggested there's a different intelligence program, other than the TSP, that Justice Department officials found legally dubious in 2004. If Gonzales is telling the truth, he just disclosed the existence of a previously unknown intelligence program. If not, the embattled attorney general could be in some serious legal jeopardy. . .

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/015768.php
[David Kurtz] [T]hink about what it means for the institutions of justice in this country that the sitting Attorney General of the United States is suspected of perjury, by senators from his own party, who are willing to say so publicly, in matters involving national security and the fundamental constitutional rights of American citizens; yet, the President does nothing but voice his support for man.

I suppose we should not be surprised, but we should also not lose our capacity to be outraged.

More: http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/11571.html

A new Special Prosecutor?

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/prosecutors_gonzales;_ylt=AipHWeq3nBCjoG5XLRaR2Mis0NUE
Angry senators suggested a special prosecutor should investigate misconduct at the Justice Department, accusing Attorney General Alberto Gonzales on Tuesday of deceit on the prosecutor firings and President Bush's eavesdropping program. . .

More: http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/11573.html

Of course, all of this should have been perfectly apparent when they confirmed him for Attorney General in the first place. He was, has been, and always will be a loyal hack to provide cover for whatever the hell Bush and Cheney want to do

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/7/24/19464/2222

Mr. Reliable, John Yoo — they roll him out whenever they want some kind of quasi-legal justification for their lawbreaking, and he never disappoints

http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2007/07/24/yoo/index.html

Nope, no reason to be suspicious here

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/7/24/152747/125
[Kagro X] During today's Senate Judiciary Committee fireworks, Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse grilled the shameless Alberto Gonzales about a May 2006 memo under Gonzales' signature, granting the Vice President and his counsel and chief of staff clearance to communicate directly with DOJ personnel on any matter under DOJ jurisdiction.

Gonzales "answered" with all of his usual hemming and hawing, including his profession that he didn't really know why such powers would be granted. Or how such a memo would get signed. By him.

But Raw Story has some more on the memo. Among the matters under DOJ jurisdiction which the Vice President was apparently granted thereby: "Presidential Clemency Matters."

Did Cheney's office intervene in Bush's commutation of Scooter Libby's sentence?

Tony Snow wouldn't deny it. . .

More: http://thenexthurrah.typepad.com/the_next_hurrah/2007/07/agags-just-give.html

http://thenexthurrah.typepad.com/the_next_hurrah/2007/07/cunningham-cifa.html
[Emptywheel] November 28, 2005, Cunningham pleads guilty to bribery
November 30, 2005, USNORTHCOM JPEN deletes all TALON reports . . . [read on]

More and more evidence that the Bush gang sought to politicize decisions throughout EVERY major part of the administration

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/07/23/AR2007072301907.html
White House aides have conducted at least half a dozen political briefings for the Bush administration's top diplomats, including a PowerPoint presentation for ambassadors with senior adviser Karl Rove that named Democratic incumbents targeted for defeat in 2008 and a "general political briefing" at the Peace Corps headquarters after the 2002 midterm elections.

The briefings, mostly run by Rove's deputies at the White House political affairs office, began in early 2001 and included detailed analyses for senior officials of the political landscape surrounding critical congressional and gubernatorial races, according to documents obtained by the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

The documents show for the first time how the White House sought to ensure that even its appointees involved in foreign policy were kept attuned to the administration's election goals. . . .

http://www.theindychannel.com/news/13746083/detail.html
Political briefings given by Bush White House aides to high-ranking diplomats "were probably inappropriate," Sen. Richard Lugar, R-Ind., said Tuesday. . .

What about the DOJ? http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/015758.php

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/015750.php
State Department

Treasury Department

Agriculture Department

Interior Department

Labor Department

Department of Education

Energy Department

Commerce Department

Department of Veterans Affairs

Transportation Department

Department of Health and Human Services

Department of Housing and Urban Development

General Services Administration

Environmental Protection Agency

NASA

Small Business Administration

Office of Science and Technology Policy

Office of National Drug Control Policy

U.S. Agency for International Development

Peace Corps

[David Kurtz] The Department of Homeland Security should probably be on the list, too, but DHS has been vague about what kind of briefing it received.

More: http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/003753.php

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/11568.html

Now that we’ve learned that the military has plans to keep fighting until 2009, this comment sounds especially worrisome

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/015753.php
“We are going to try a dozen different things. Maybe one of them will flatline. One of them will do this much. One of them will do this much more. After a while, we believe there is chance you will head into success. I am not saying that we are absolutely headed for success.”

Bush keeps beating the Al Qaeda drum – and keeps making himself look foolish

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/2007/07/bush_warns_anew_of_terror_thre.php

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/11579.html

http://www.americablog.com/2007/07/bush-just-said-that-al-qaeda-is-public.html

http://www.slate.com/id/2171101
[Daniel Politi] In his speech, which all the papers cover with some skepticism, Bush was clearly answering to critics who say the war in Iraq has distracted from the larger effort of fighting al-Qaida. Using newly declassified documents, which the administration refused to release, the president said those who attacked on 9/11 belong to pretty much the same group as the Sunni insurgents in Iraq. Many don't quite buy it and said Bush is oversimplifying the situation to gather support for the war effort.

[NB: I think we're into Social Security/immigration territory here. People have already made up their minds that they aren't going to be convinced that suddenly the war is a good thing -- and so the more that Bush keeps repeating his lies and misrepresentations, the more it hurts, not helps]

Would it surprise you to learn that Bush is a lousy listener?

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/11574.html

In Nixon territory

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/07/24/AR2007072402263.html

Theocracy watch

http://www.first-draft.com/2007/07/bush-and-maliki.html
[NYT] Once every two weeks, sometimes more often, President Bush gathers with the vice president and the national security adviser in the newly refurbished White House Situation Room and peers, electronically, into the eyes of the man to whom his legacy is so inextricably linked: Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki of Iraq.

In sessions usually lasting more than an hour, Mr. Bush, a committed Christian of Texas by way of privileged schooling in New England, and Mr. Maliki, an Iraqi Shiite by way of political exile in Iran and Syria, talk about leadership and democracy, troop deployments and their own domestic challenges.

Sometimes, said an official who has sat in on the meetings, they talk about their faith in God. . .

Do it!

http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room/2007/07/25/judiciary/index.html
As announced on Monday, the House Judiciary Committee will be meeting at 10:15 Eastern this morning to consider citing White House chief of staff Joshua Bolten and former White House counsel Harriet Miers for contempt of Congress. . .

Senate Republicans are blocking every major piece of legislation from coming to a vote — and it’s all Harry Reid’s fault!

http://www.washingtontimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070724/NATION/107240074/1001
Senate Republicans are preparing to take aim at Majority Leader Harry Reid over the August recess for being "all talk but no action" . . .

http://www.firedoglake.com/2007/07/25/now-the-republicans-are-obstructing-childrens-health-care/
[Scarecrow] As they’ve done throughout their history as a minority party, the Republican strategy for the 2008 elections is to block Congress from getting anything done, and blame it on the Democrats. They’re now obstructing more than 20 major appropriations and policy bills through threatened filibusters and vetoes. Yesterday, the leaders of the Grand Obstruction Party announced their latest obstruction target, a much needed expansion of the popular and effective State Children’s Health Insurance Program. . .

More: http://matthewyglesias.theatlantic.com/archives/2007/07/boehner_i_hate_schip_because_i.php

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2007_07/011739.php
[Kevin Drum] You have to give Republicans points for consistency. They bring the Senate to a halt and then blame Democrats for not getting anything done. They destroy FEMA's ability to respond to natural disasters and then hold it up as an example of why you can't trust government to do anything right. They lose a war via unparalleled military incompetence and then claim that liberals are defeatists for pointing it out. They spend 20 years claiming that Social Security is going bankrupt and then use the resulting public insecurity about Social Security as an explanation for why the whole system needs to be privatized.

I could go on, but you get the idea. The question is, will the press help them pass along their latest ode to chutzpah or will they instead give it the mockery it deserves? Unfortunately, I think we know where the smart money is.

More: http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/11576.html

Oil-rich Alaska: Republican Corruption Central

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/015779.php

Bonus item: Once is a mistake – but four times?

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/7/24/184250/101

More: http://mediamatters.org/items/200707250001

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/015782.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 @ 8:55 AM

 
CONTEMPT

Will the full House vote contempt charges against the Bush gang? (Yes, yes, I know Bush has told the DOJ not to pursue them.) I think this underestimates (a) the power of newspaper headlines announcing “Contempt of Congress” and (b) renewed scrutiny on exactly WHY Bush doesn’t think the DOJ has to pursue these charges

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/7/23/141742/553
[Kagro X] [T[here will rarely be an issue more crystalline than this one. The White House has instructed the U.S. Attorney not to prosecute contempt citations against the people who have obstructed justice by refusing to honor Congressional subpoenas in the investigation into . . . politicization and selective prosecution by the U.S. Attorneys.

http://www.firedoglake.com/2007/07/23/our-media-is-missing-the-story-of-the-century/
[Scarecrow] We need to be very clear about what this latest WH defiance means: the White House believes the Justice Department does not have an obligation to uphold the law on behalf of the Congress of the United States; instead, DoJ exists solely as a legal arm to shield the President and his staff from all efforts to hold them accountable under the law. Of course, the Attorney General, a man without honor or sense of his legal obligations to the American people, will do nothing to overturn the WH capture of America’s Justice Department.

As the New York Times lead editorial recognized Sunday, the Bush White House is now in complete and open defiance of all lawful Congressional efforts to hold the executive accountable for misconduct and possible crimes committed by members of the White House staff. Just as Bush claimed he had an inherent right to disregard Congressional statutes (e.g., FISA, the Geneva Conventions, signing statements) and the First, Fourth, and Fifth Amendments, or to cover up WH complicity in crimes (via commuting Scooter Libby’s prison term), the President is now claiming he can ignore any Congressional oversight of White House misconduct.

I’ve almost given up waiting for the media’s most public faces to express outrage over what is happening. . . The traditional media can’t seem to get their heads around how dangerously unAmerican this is and how serious a threat it poses to our constitutional framework. And there are too many in the media like the editorial writers at the Washington Post who pretend that the Administration might be more cooperative if only the Congress would be less insistent and simply offer the WH a face-saving compromise.

So I’m going to appeal to whatever remaining instincts the journalists in our media might still have as news people, and as Americans. There’s a story here, folks; a really big story. The details may be hard to follow, but the basics are simple: we are already deeply into a constitutional crisis deliberately provoked by a brazenly lawless Administration, a regime that is violating the laws with impunity because it regards itself as above the law, and a regime that is openly daring Congress to impeach it. Can any of you smell a story here?

Too many in the media seem either in denial or blissfully ignorant that we are headed for an unavoidable showdown to determine whether the constitutional principle of checks and balances will survive. . . . The biggest political story in a century is unfolding right in front of you, and you’re not reporting it; you’re missing the forest and just barely covering a few trees. Wake up and do your jobs, because we need you and it’s your country too.

Alberto Gonzales back for more testimony today. He is, of course, shocked, SHOCKED to hear that there was any politicization of DOJ processes – and he promises to get right on finding out how it ever happened

http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/003750.php
“I believe very strongly that there is no place for political considerations in the hiring of our career employees or in the administration of justice. As such, the allegations of such activity have been troubling to hear. From my perspective, there are two options available in light of these allegations. I could walk away or I could devote my time, effort and energy to fix the problems. Since I have never been one to quit, I decided that the best course of action was to remain here and fix the problems. That is exactly what I am doing”. . . . [read on]

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/11561.html
[Steve Benen] Of course, once again, we’re reminded that in Bush’s America, merit and accountability are irrelevant. . .

Slate recently concluded, “It is just about universally agreed upon that Gonzales will go down in history as the attorney general who helped the president: 1) torture, 2) wreak havoc on civil liberties, 3) fire U.S. attorneys who didn’t prosecute along preferred political lines, 4) demoralize the Department of Justice, 5) worsen Bush’s already dismal relationship with Congress, and 6) relentlessly hector a man in the intensive care unit.”

And yet, Gonzales enters tomorrow’s hearing knowing that no matter what he says, no matter how much he lies, no matter how often he dodges, Bush is going to keep him on the job. It must be liberating.

Background: http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/003752.php

Leahy’s questions for AG: http://bobgeiger.blogspot.com/2007/07/leahy-demands-straight-answers-from.html
[Bob Geiger] "When you last testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee on April 19, 2007, you often responded to questions from Senators on both sides of the aisle that you could 'not recall,'" wrote Leahy in his letter to Gonzales. "By some counts, you failed to answer more than 100 questions, by other counts more than 70, and the most conservative count had you failing to provide answers well over 60 times. As a result, the Committee’s efforts to conduct oversight were hampered."

So Leahy sent questions in advance hoping to give Gonzales a week to think about some better responses . . [read on]

No evidence of politicization of DOJ prosecutions, huh?

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2007/07/prime-directive-by-digby-using-justice.html
[McClatchy] Two years into a fraud investigation, veteran federal prosecutor David Maguire told colleagues he'd uncovered one of the biggest cases of his career.

Maguire described crimes "far worse" than those of Arthur Andersen, the accounting giant that collapsed in the wake of the Enron scandal. Among those in his sights: executives from a subsidiary of Berkshire Hathaway, the investment empire overseen by billionaire Warren Buffett.

In May 2006, he felt strongly enough about his case that he prepared a draft indictment accusing executives from a Virginia insurer, Reciprocal of America, of concocting a series of secret deals to hide its losses from regulators. Although he didn't name anyone from Berkshire Hathaway's subsidiary, he described the company as a participant in the scheme.

But Maguire never brought those charges.

Months after preparing the draft, he was removed as the lead prosecutor on the case and reassigned.

His replacement, a prosecutor who hadn't been involved in the case until then, soon announced that the Berkshire Hathaway subsidiary, General Reinsurance, wouldn't be indicted. By April of this year, the entire investigation, which the Justice Department once hailed as one of the largest insurance-fraud cases in the history of Virginia, had fizzled. . .

Internal documents that McClatchy Newspapers obtained show that Justice Department lawyers in Washington had become locked in an intense debate with Maguire over the case until he was removed from it. . . [read on]

Another DOJ liar

http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/003739.php
Von Spakovsky said the accusation that he'd retaliated against career lawyers was "simply untrue" because he lacked the authority to transfer or fire employees. He admitted, however, that he'd modified the performance evaluations of certain career attorneys, but said that such changes were approved by the Deputy Assistant Attorney General -- at the time, Bradley Schlozman, who's been heavily criticized for politicizing the Division. He asserted that there's "no evidence that any information included in any evaluation was false" and added that he was "unaware" that any appeals to those changes were successful.

In fact, three voting section attorneys successfully appealed such changes, Joe Rich, the former chief of the voting section, told me. Two more appeals were unsuccessful. The appeals were handled by senior political appointees in the Division. . .

There's evidence that von Spakovsky not only changed the lawyers' evaluations, but also stifled their bids to appeal the changes. Contrary to the grievance process outlined in a Justice Department order, the appeals to those changes went unanswered for more than a year (grievances are supposed to be resolved in less than thirty days). . .

[NB: Nice guy, currently a recess appointee to the Federal Election Commission, looking for formal confirmation.]

Savvy analysis: filibusters versus vetoes

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2007_07/011729.php
[Kevin Drum] It's also worth noting why Republicans are filibustering everything in sight. It's not because it's the only way they have of blocking legislation they dislike. After all, a Republican is president. The real reason is a desperate desire to kill popular legislation quietly (the press doesn't spend much time reporting on routine filibusters) rather than force President Bush to kill popular legislation in full public view (the press does report on presidential vetoes). The problem is that the public tends to be on the side of Democrats when domestic issues actually get some attention, so Republicans benefit by keeping their disagreements as low key as possible. The last thing they need is a bunch of high-profile vetoes that would make it crystal clear exactly what they're fighting against.

Thus, as a friend keeps reminding me, griping about obstructionism per se won't really get us very far. For the most part the public just tunes it out as "politics." It's a point worth making, but it has to be secondary to the main point: making sure the public knows what it is that Republicans are opposing. Unfortunately, I'm not really sure how to do that given the current state of the press in America. . .

More information Congress wants (and won’t get)

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/015712.php
Hillary's war with the Pentagon continues. . . She's just joined forces with Senators Webb, Bayh and Byrd, calling in a letter for Senate Armed Services Committee hearings to force the Department of Defense to share its contingency Iraq withdrawal plans with Congress.

Read it: http://iraqcontingency.notlong.com

Meanwhile. . .

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/24/world/middleeast/24military.html
While Washington is mired in political debate over the future of Iraq, the American command here has prepared a detailed plan that foresees a significant American role for the next two years.

The classified plan, which represents the coordinated strategy of the top American commander and the American ambassador, calls for restoring security in local areas, including Baghdad, by the summer of 2008. “Sustainable security” is to be established on a nationwide basis by the summer of 2009. . .

What the Bush gang won’t tell anyone about their “interrogation” policies

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/blog/2007/07/23/BL2007072300799.html

http://www.slate.com/id/2170983/fr/rss/

Bush, War King

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/11556.html
[Steve Benen] About two weeks ago, during a rare press conference, the president was surprisingly candid about what he sees as Congress’ role when it comes to shaping war policy: “Congress has all the right in the world to fund. That’s their main involvement in this war.”

As far as the president is concerned, the Legislative branch is an ATM. It has “all the right in the world” to give Bush money, but anything else is entirely unacceptable. Congress can express opinions, of course, and the president has graciously agreed to listen to lawmakers’ suggestions — “I’m certainly interested in their opinion,” he said at the press conference — but he’s The Decider and the Commander in Chief. Policy decisions are his and his alone.

As Adam Cohen explained today in the NYT, all of this is completely antithetical to what those who wrote the Constitution had in mind . . . [read on]

Bush’s incompetence

http://www.salon.com/opinion/feature/2007/07/24/al_qaida/
[Juan Cole] In the past week, worrying signs of a resurgence of al-Qaida surfaced in cyberspace, in Pakistan and in Washington, D.C. The Pakistani military's invasion of a major mosque and seminary complex in the country's capital set off an unprecedented, violent wave of protests and car bombings in the north of the country. A new National Intelligence Estimate warned that al-Qaida was reconstituting itself in those very areas of northern Pakistan. A U.S. threat to send Special Forces into Pakistan in search of al-Qaida roiled relations with the weakened Pakistani president, Gen. Pervez Musharraf. And a new videotape of Osama bin Laden surfaced. . . . [read on]

If Bush were a door-to-door salesman, he’d be broke

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/11559.html
[Steve Benen] It’s a necessary evil tucked into the president’s job description: the chief executive is supposed to also be a good salesman. Presidents have a unique megaphone and bully pulpit, which they have to use effectively if they plan on getting what they want.

With that in mind, McClatchy’s Steven Thomma makes a good observation: Bush is really bad at this. . . [T]he second term provides two gems: immigration and privatization of Social Security. . . . When Bush started touting his policy publicly, it was unpopular. The more he pushed, the less support he found.

More bad salesmanship: http://thenexthurrah.typepad.com/the_next_hurrah/2007/07/crappy-product-.html

Theocracy watch

http://atrios.blogspot.com/2007_07_22_archive.html#3916661348147802359
[CNN] Pakistani leaders say President Bush said God told him to invade Iraq and Afghanistan. . . The White House dismisses it as absurd.

[NB: Absurd, huh?]

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/11488.html
[David Brooks] While some in his administration may be looking for exit strategies, he is unshakably committed to stabilizing Iraq. . . Bush is convinced that history is moving in the direction of democracy, or as he said Friday: “It’s more of a theological perspective. I do believe there is an Almighty, and I believe a gift of that Almighty to all is freedom. And I will tell you that is a principle that no one can convince me that doesn’t exist.”

[NB: Well, yes, it IS absurd. But it’s also true]

New ARG poll on Bush approval

http://americanresearchgroup.com/economy/
Feb 2007 39%
Mar 2007 32%
Apr 2007 33%
May 2007 31%
Jun 2007 27%
Jul 2007 25% . . .

More: http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2007_07/011733.php
78% think George Bush is too unwilling to change policies in Iraq. . .

Mitt Romney, dumbass: he didn’t just get photographed with the “Obama Osama” sign, he didn’t just hold it up and smile for the camera, he then AUTOGRAPHED the photo

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/7/23/134649/227

Video: http://www.mydd.com/story/2007/7/23/125620/294

Oh please, oh please, oh please, oh please: Newt Gingrich calls the current pool of GOP presidential candidates “pygmies,” threatens to get in himself

http://atrios.blogspot.com/2007_07_22_archive.html#5390627641175537509

http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room/2007/07/23/gingrich/index.html

The verdicts are in on the Democrats’ “YouTube” debate

http://www.prospect.org/csnc/blogs/tapped_archive?month=07&year=2007&base_name=post_4339
. . . a fantastic, fascinating, illuminating, moving debate -- a true realization of the potential of the new technologies to bring the voices of ordinary citizens into the political process.

http://www.prospect.org/csnc/blogs/tapped_archive?month=07&year=2007&base_name=post_4341
LEFTIEST, YOUNGEST DEBATE EVER . . .

http://www.mydd.com/story/2007/7/23/202857/088
. . . a big success.

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/7/23/215141/648
. . . pretty cool.

More: http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/015731.php

The scorecards: http://www.prospect.org/csnc/blogs/tapped_archive?month=07&year=2007&base_name=post_4344

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2007/07/debating-on-tubes-by-digby-i-rather.html

http://www.juancole.com/2007/07/debate-scorecard-on-iraq-here-is-debate.html

http://www.talkleft.com/story/2007/7/23/19940/1507

http://www.talkleft.com/story/2007/7/23/215052/962

Video: http://www.politicstv.com/blog/?p=3243

By consensus, the best of the night: http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/015726.php

“The Politico” wants credibility as a serious journalistic force. If so, they’d better stop publishing crap like this

http://www.prospect.org/csnc/blogs/tapped_archive?month=07&year=2007&base_name=post_4336
“. . . despite repeated pledges to the contrary, Democrats have made no move to require members to disclose earmark requests. Regarding the lowest of low-hanging fruit -- cleaning up the earmarking process -- Democrats have simply adopted the practices they once called corrupt.”

[Author: Tom DeLay]

Bonus item: George (hearts) Bill

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/11557.html
[Steve Benen] About a week ago, William Kristol wrote a transparently ridiculous WaPo column praising Bush’s presidency. He began his love letter, “I suppose I’ll merely expose myself to harmless ridicule if I make the following assertion: George W. Bush’s presidency will probably be a successful one.” And sure enough, Kristol was ridiculed relentlessly, here and elsewhere.

At least one person, however, really liked it.

President Bush read the July 15 Outlook article that morning and recommended it to his staff. […]

White House aide Pete Wehner calls Kristol “intellectually independent and intellectually courageous.”

***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

 
NOW THEY TELL US

The Republicans’ war strategy

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/7/22/81946/8593
[Devilstower] You can't really say that Republicans haven't been plotting a strategy on Iraq. Not for removal of the troops, for avoidance of blame. . . [read on!]

The new mantra: http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2007/07/22/bond/index.html
[Kit Bond, R-MO] While I agree that we had the wrong plan for three years, we now have the right one. . . . [read on]

One step forward, two steps back

http://www.slate.com/id/2170961/
[Daniel Politi] USA Today leads with the top U.S. official in charge of training Iraqi security forces saying that the priority has shifted away from training local troops. . . .

Pittard told USAT that although training Iraqi security forces so they can take over is "still a priority," at the moment it "is not a main priority." This could go a long way to explaining why the Pentagon had reported a "slight reduction" in combat-ready Iraqi troops. Pittard also said that the extra troops that were sent to Iraq as part of the "surge" will probably have to stay until the spring and Iraqis will still need support from the U.S. military for at least another two years.

Boy, they never stop, do they? So the real lesson of the recent NIE is, “It’s been all about Al Qaeda, all along”

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/015681.php
[Stephen Hayes] I think for a long time administration critics had begun to make the argument that really this al-Qaeda threat is overblown, that they misled us into the war in Iraq, they're misleading us about the seriousness of the threat from al-Qaeda. And I think what the NIE does, even though in some ways it's, it's very critical of the administration, is it strengthens the basic case that the administration has been making that al-Qaeda remains a serious threat. . . . [read on]

Interesting: http://thenexthurrah.typepad.com/the_next_hurrah/2007/07/a-tale-of-two-n.html
[Emptywheel] I decided it would be useful to compare this most recent NIE with the NIE on terror produced in April 2006 and released in late September 2006 . . . [read on]

And of course they still refuse to acknowledge that the Iraq adventure, on balance, has made Al Qaeda much stronger

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/015679.php

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/015672.php

War profiteering: I think we’ll be hearing a lot more about this

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/21/washington/21contract.html
Federal investigators have uncovered what they describe as a sweeping network of kickbacks, bribes and fraud involving at least eight employees and subcontractors of KBR, the former Halliburton subsidiary . . .

Bush’s new Executive Order on "interrogation.” Emptywheel calls it his “signing statement on the Geneva Conventions”

http://thenexthurrah.typepad.com/the_next_hurrah/2007/07/the-new-rules-o.html
[T]hree other key details: the Executive Order explicitly denies any legal responsibilities associated with the EO, so even if some overzealous torturer ignores it, he's not going to jail. The Red Cross remains unable to monitor prisoners in this newfangled "enhanced interrogation" program. And Congress still doesn't have a copy of the DOJ opinion on the program. For that matter, Karen DeYoung reports that the Administration hasn't responded to Congress' other questions, either. . . [read on]

Gitmo: not in the news much, but still a national disgrace

http://www.openleft.com/showDiary.do?diaryId=327

Constitutional options for reasserting Congressional authority

http://www.talkleft.com/story/2007/7/22/22443/3354

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/7/22/234112/238

http://www.samefacts.com/archives/gwb_the_beloved_leader_/2007/07/plan_b.php

http://www.firedoglake.com/2007/07/23/should-bushcheney-be-censure/

More: http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/07/22/opinion/edbush.php

The coming showdown on health care

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/23/washington/23health.html

Mitt Romney shows he still has a lot to learn about making excuses. He and Fred Thompson are having a contest for dumbest attempts at damage control

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/7/23/31656/4987

The racial politics of Rudy Giuliani

http://www.tpmcafe.com/blog/electioncentral/2007/jul/21/the_real_meaning_of_rudy_screaming_bulls_t

http://matthewyglesias.theatlantic.com/archives/2007/07/chart_of_the_day.php

Republican obstructionism, chapter and verse

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2007/07/obstruct-this-by-digby-just-in-case.html

Bonus item: Yes, Fred, this is a sign of “effectiveness”

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/015673.php
[Fred Barnes] "Bush and the Republicans aren't dominant. They're a minority, but an unusually effective one. One measure of this: At the end of 2007, there will be more American troops in Iraq than when Democrats took over Congress in January."

***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 @ 7:29 AM

 
WINNING WHILE LOSING

We’re watching a sea change in conventional wisdom inside the Beltway. The new mantra, crafted in Karl Rove’s workshop, and now being rolled out on all stations to “frame” the upcoming Petraeus report, is that things are getting better in Iraq, and it’s only those unreasonable Democrats who fail to see that finally, in the few weeks since the “surge” started, we are WINNING

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/7/21/82452/6950
[DemfromCT] What's happening now is that Washington is realizing the obvious. There's nowhere to go come September, so they're lashing out. While they ineffectually try to explore moving the goalposts or pretending we're winning (with no movement at all in the political process, that's absurd), they also figure the best defense is a good offense. . . .

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/11544.html
[Bill Kristol] With the ongoing progress of the surge, and the obvious fact that the vast majority of the troops want to fight and win the war, the “support-the-troops-but-oppose-what-they’re-doing” position has become increasingly untenable. How can you say with a straight face that you support the troops while advancing legislation that would undercut their mission and strengthen their enemies? . . . [read on]

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/11543.html
[Steve Benen] Tony Snow told reporters yesterday that the administration has seen “a declining level in the overall pace of attacks” in Iraq.

The reality, of course, is far different. . . .

Oh, the pleasures of pointing out Fred Hiatt’s deep and profound intellectual dishonesty

Hiatt: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/07/20/AR2007072001893.html

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/7/21/51757/0459
[Frank] If you read the Washington Post editorial titled "The Phony Debate" (and linked off the frontpage with the title "Democratic demagoguery on Iraq"), you come away with the idea that the current situation can be squarely blamed on Harry Reid, and that a solution could be found if only the Democrats were willing to compromise with Bush and the Republicans. It is a strange piece from the bizarro world. . . . [read on]

http://matthewyglesias.theatlantic.com/archives/2007/07/no_fuck_you.php
[Matt Yglesias] The Washington Post's latest editorial on Iraq is, of course, idiotic . . .

The decision of Democrats led by Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (Nev.) to deny rather than nourish a bipartisan agreement is, of course, irresponsible....A Democratic strategy of trying to use Iraq as a polarizing campaign issue and as a club against moderate Republicans who are up for reelection will certainly have the effect of making consensus impossible — and deepening the trouble for Iraq and for American security.

Yes, yes . . . providing political cover to moderate Republicans who want to distance themselves from Bush while minimizing the practical impact of their actions would solve our problems in Iraq.

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2007_07/011726.php
[Kevin Drum] Yes, you heard right. After four years of Republican insistence that Congress's only role in the war is to pony up trainloads of money and then shut the hell up, it turns out that it's actually Democrats who are making consensus impossible. . . .

http://tbogg.blogspot.com/2007/07/trouble-with-harry-shorter-fred-hiatt.html
[TBogg, summarizing Hiatt] “The glaring lack of an exit strategy from Iraq is entirely Harry Reid's fault.”

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2007/07/big-babies-golly-i-wonder-what-village.html
[David Brooks] One, a lot of Republicans who detest where the White House is are furious at Harry Reid. And a colleague of mine wrote a good piece today saying that partisan feeling, rancor in the Senate was already phenomenally high, but now it's extra-phenomenally high. And over this issue, a lot of Republicans would like to peel off from the president, but they feel that Harry Reid is making it impossible. He's taking this as an issue, forcing them to vote with the president for political reasons. So that's stalled it on partisan grounds. . . [read on]

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/7/21/14312/4790
[McJoan] The country has made up its mind. And it made up its mind by ignoring the conventional wisdom of the D.C. punditocracy.

And who is right there with the public? Harry Reid.

The D.C. cocktail weenie crowd has concentrated their venom on Harry Reid for the last six months. They've attacked him more viciously than anyone and given the architects of this debacle a relative pass.

Why this rampage against him? Because he's ignored them and in doing so, he's made them largely irrelevant to the debate. He has rejected their politics of the fear of the negative and has focused on the fact that we've lost and the only good option left is a responsible withdrawal.

He's effectively changed the public debate about the war. Notice that no one is seriously arguing the merits of withdrawal anymore in the public sphere, other than this handful of war supporters who for far too long have held sway inside the Beltway. But now, largely thanks to Reid and his ongoing efforts, the debate has shifted to how we're going to get out of Iraq, and when. . . [read on]

More: http://www.mahablog.com/2007/07/21/saturday-cartoons-5/

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/11548.html

http://www.talkleft.com/story/2007/7/21/11122/3365

[NB: This is chapter umpty-umpth in the age-old litany, compromise and bipartisanship are good, but the burden is always on the Democrats to bend. Bush’s “with us or against us” stance isn’t questioned, his demonization of the Democrats as war wimps (or traitors) isn’t questioned, his absolute commitment to letting his war plans play themselves out until HE deems the time is right to change them isn’t questioned, the Republicans’ refusal to let bills with majority (and bipartisan) support come up for a vote isn’t questioned, but when Harry Reid says, We’re no longer going to let them game the process by voting for symbolic and nonsubstantive “alternatives” (like endorsing the recommendations of the Iraq Study Group, which the Bush gang has already overridden), none of which will do a THING to actually end the war (and they know it), suddenly Reid is violating the spirit of good will and comity. Expect tons of this crap on the Sunday talk shows today.]

Psssst. . . Harry’s winning!

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070721/ap_on_an/us_iraq
Senate Republicans are growing increasingly nervous defending the war in Iraq, and Democrats more confident in their attempts to end it. . .

More: http://www.firedoglake.com/2007/07/21/profiles-in-courageishness/

How do these two Post stories fit together?

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/07/21/AR2007072101359.html
The American ambassador in Baghdad, Ryan C. Crocker, has asked the Bush administration to take the unusual step of granting immigrant visas to all Iraqis employed by the U.S. government in Iraq because of growing concern that they will quit and flee the country if they cannot be assured eventual safe passage to the United States. . . .

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/07/21/AR2007072101143.html
White House Wants Iraqi Leaders to Reach 'Political Accommodation' . . .

[NB: If we are so hated that people who help us fear for their lives, what kind of “political accommodation” can we broker? Are politicians who help to promote US interests there simply adding to the list of people who will need to leave the country?]

Fighting back against the Bush gang’s contempt of Congress

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/7/21/95644/3241

http://www.talkleft.com/story/2007/7/21/19407/3867

It just goes on and on. . .

http://www.oregonlive.com/news/oregonian/index.ssf?/base/news/118489654058910.xml&coll=7
Oregonians called Peter DeFazio's office, worried there was a conspiracy buried in the classified portion of a White House plan for operating the government after a terrorist attack.

As a member of the U.S. House on the Homeland Security Committee, DeFazio, D-Ore., is permitted to enter a secure "bubbleroom" in the Capitol and examine classified material. So he asked the White House to see the secret documents.

On Wednesday, DeFazio got his answer: DENIED. . .

Homeland Security Committee staffers told his office that the White House initially approved his request, but it was later quashed. DeFazio doesn't know who did it or why. . . .

Norm Ornstein, a legal scholar who studies government continuity at the conservative American Enterprise Institute, said he "cannot think of one good reason" to deny access to a member of Congress who serves on the Homeland Security Committee.

"I find it inexplicable and probably reflective of the usual, knee-jerk overextension of executive power that we see from this White House," Ornstein said.

Does he get the Cynthia McKinney treatment now? (thanks to Buzzflash for the link)

http://www.swamppolitics.com/news/politics/blog/2007/07/congressman_regrets_yelling_at.html

http://www.outsidethebeltway.com/archives/2006/04/capitol_police_request_mckinney_arrest_for_assaulting_officer/

Rudy Giuliani, one-trick pony

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/015667.php

Sunday talk show line-ups

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/07/21/AR2007072101197.html
FOX NEWS SUNDAY: Frances Fragos Townsend, White House homeland security adviser; Sens. Christopher S. Bond (R-Mo.) and Evan Bayh (D-Ind.); and industrialist Richard Branson.

NEWSMAKERS (C-SPAN): Rep. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.).

FACE THE NATION (CBS): Sens. Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.) and Olympia J. Snowe (R-Maine).

MEET THE PRESS (NBC): Director of National Intelligence Mike McConnell and Sen. Russell Feingold (D-Wis.).

LATE EDITION (CNN): Townsend; Sens. Richard J. Durbin (D-Ill.) and Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.); Rep. Artur Davis (D-Ala.); former Iowa governor Tom Vilsack (D); Pakistani Foreign Minister Khurshid Mahmud Kasuri; Iraqi Deputy Prime Minister Barham Salih; and David E. Bonior, campaign manager for former senator John Edwards (D-N.C.).

Bonus item: Make – him – pay

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/7/21/173623/077

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/015671.php
[Steve Benen] It's one thing for a Romney supporter to make a sign with homemade writing that reads, "NO TO OBAMA OSAMA AND CHELSEA'S MOMA" (sic). It's slightly worse for Romney to be photographed with it. And it's slightly worse still for Romney to then hold up the sign himself.

Is it any wonder, then, that the Romney campaign is struggling to explain all of this?

http://www.talkleft.com/story/2007/7/21/232057/328
["Worst excuse of the day”] "The governor stopped briefly for a picture with a supporter who just happened to be holding their own sign with an alliterative play on words," Madden said, via e-mail. "I don’t think it was equating or comparing anyone."

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/7/21/233131/777
[McJoan] Just a little alliterative play on words. Kind of like "macaca" was just some funny-sounding made-up word George Allen heard somewhere.

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

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

 
BEYOND THE PALE

The Bush gang shrugs over questions about their unprecedented claims of executive privilege – What’s the big deal? they ask

http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/003735.php
"It has long been understood that, in circumstances like these, the constitutional prerogatives of the president would make it a futile and purely political act for Congress to refer contempt citations to U.S. attorneys." . . . [read on]

More: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/21/washington/21attorneys.html

Here’s the big deal: http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/7/20/155957/402
[Hunter] To repeat: in an investigation into the politicalization of the Justice Department by the president, an investigation that has turned up numerous accusations that members of the Department of Justice were directed to enforce the law unequally, the president is blocking the investigation... by ordering the Justice Department to not enforce the law. . . .

It is itself obstruction, there is no possible question of that. . . . [read on]

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/11524.html
[Steve Benen] Let’s cut to the chase: the president and his team are arguing that once the White House claims executive privilege, there is no recourse. The president is accountable to literally no one — not the Congress, whose subpoenas can be ignored, or the federal judiciary, which can’t hear a case that cannot be filed.

We’re talking about what is, in effect, a rogue presidency. . .

More: http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/015648.php

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/015639.php

http://matthewyglesias.theatlantic.com/archives/2007/07/the_unitary_executive.php

What next? http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2007_07/011723.php

http://www.samefacts.com/archives/gwb_the_beloved_leader_/2007/07/gaming_out_the_confrontation.php

http://thenexthurrah.typepad.com/the_next_hurrah/2007/07/let-the-sunshin.html

Did it all start with Clinton?

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/07/20/AR2007072002277.html
The experts cautioned that complaints by Democratic lawmakers about the administration's legal stance are undercut by a Justice Department legal opinion issued during the Clinton administration. It contended, as the Bush administration did this week, that Congress has no power to force a U.S. attorney to pursue contempt charges in cases in which a president has invoked executive privilege to withhold documents or testimony. . .

The Democrats are presently struggling to decide whether to pursue contempt proceedings against present and former White House officials for refusing to provide records and testimony related to last year's firings of nine U.S. attorneys. Several Democratic aides said yesterday that they had no immediate strategy for responding to the administration's new legal position on enforcing any contempt charges, and that Congress is severely limited in its legal options.

"Those who have been working on it for a while up here have long understood the difficulty of bringing this to a legal conclusion," said one senior Democratic aide, who added that many are hopeful the administration will eventually bow to political pressure and cooperate.

Lawmakers have two basic options for forcing a person to testify or turn over documents: They can pursue a statutory contempt citation -- which requires a U.S. attorney to submit a case to a grand jury -- or they can hold their own trial in a process known as "inherent contempt." The latter has not been used for more than 70 years, however, and is not under serious consideration by Democrats. . . .

“Inherent Contempt” – how Congress could force the issue (but won’t)

http://www.talkleft.com/story/2007/7/20/185912/487

And on a related issue. . .

http://thenexthurrah.typepad.com/the_next_hurrah/2007/07/the-jurisdictio.html
[Emptywheel] This is a follow-up on my post on the loophole in the jurisdiction of DOJ's Inspector General, which appears to be preventing DOJ's IG from investigating the role of any lawyer in the USA Purge--which is, after all, just about everyone involved . . .

[NB: So, here’s the state of things. The Bush gang opposes the appointment of Special Prosecutors, because it’s the Justice Department’s job to investigate wrongdoing. But now they’re arguing that the Justice Department can’t do it. AND, what do you do if the Justice Department itself is under investigation? Give it to its Inspector General. But he can’t do it either!]

I don’t believe for an instant that this multiply sourced, on-again off-again juggling of deadline dates in Iraq by different generals is an accident. No one is happy about being jerked around like this, but as I’ve noted, the Republicans – who are depending on the September date – are particularly pissed off

http://www.cnn.com/2007/POLITICS/07/20/congress.iraq.ap/index.html
The White House said Friday it has not changed the timetable for assessing progress in Iraq and that September remains the next critical timeframe for judging the course of the war. A day earlier, a top general said a solid judgment may not come until November.

White House press secretary Tony Snow said that . . . the administration was not trying to move the goal posts for assessing the buildup, from September until November.

On Thursday, Lt. Gen. Raymond Odierno said that he would need beyond September to tell if improvements in Iraq represent long-term trends.

"In order to do a good assessment I need at least until November," said Odierno, a deputy to Gen. David Petraeus, the U.S. military commander in Iraq.

But on Friday, Odierno clarified his statements.

"There is no intention to push our reporting requirement beyond September," he said. "Nothing I said yesterday should be interpreted to suggest otherwise. My reference to November was simply suggesting that as we go forward beyond September, we will gain more understanding of trends." . . .

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB118487288009871968.html
Despite growing calls from lawmakers for drastic change in Iraq, senior U.S. military officials on the ground say they believe the current strategy should be maintained into next year -- and already have mapped out additional phases for doing so through January. . . .

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070720/ap_on_re_mi_ea/iraq_us_troops_6;_ylt=Aut4exPw9ev8KK7yf45ge4UE1vAI
Maj. Gen. Rick Lynch, commander of the 3rd Infantry Division, mentioned none of the proposals in Congress for beginning to withdraw U.S. troops as soon as this fall. But he made clear in an interview that in his area of responsibility south of Baghdad, it will take many more months to consolidate recent gains.

"It's going to take through (this) summer, into the fall, to defeat the extremists in my battle space, and it's going to take me into next spring and summer to generate this sustained security presence," he said, . .

The Tony Snow shuffle: http://www.first-draft.com/2007/07/today-on-hol-10.html
MR. SNOW: Well, I think what's recognized now is people are waiting for a September report. That's all we're asking for.

Q So you're going to ask -- you're going to report in September. How significant do you think that report is going be, when Odierno says he's going to -- it's going to require until November before he can make a (inaudible)?

MR. SNOW: Well, again, General Petraeus has already said that he is going to be making recommendations in September, he's going to be in a position to do it. . . .

Q So you'll be able to tell in September if the surge is working?

MR. SNOW: You know what, I'm not going to try to prejudge. . .

Is Bush clearing the way for torture again?

http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/us/AP-Bush-Terrorism.html
President Bush breathed new life into the CIA's terror interrogation program Friday in an executive order that would allow harsh questioning of suspects, limited in public only by a vaguely worded ban on cruel and inhuman treatment.

The order bars some practices such as sexual abuse, part of an effort to quell international criticism of some of the CIA's most sensitive and debated work. It does not say what practices would be allowed. . .

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/21/washington/21intel.html
With the new authority, administration officials said the C.I.A. could proceed with an interrogation program that had been in limbo since the Supreme Court ruled last year that all prisoners in American captivity be treated in accordance with Geneva Convention prohibitions against humiliating and degrading treatment.

A new executive order signed by President Bush does not authorize the full set of harsh interrogation methods used by the C.I.A. since the program began in 2002. But government officials said the rules would still allow some techniques more severe than those used in interrogations by military personnel in places like the detention center in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba.

Several officials said the permitted techniques did not include some of the most controversial past techniques, among them “waterboarding,” which induces a feeling of drowning, and exposure to extremes of heat and cold. . .

More: http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/015659.php

http://www.talkleft.com/story/2007/7/21/22259/1373

What, you don’t trust us anymore?

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/07/20/AR2007072001264.html?hpid=topnews
In an executive order lacking any details about actual interrogation techniques, Bush said the CIA program will now comply with a Geneva Conventions . . .

Two administration officials said that suspects now in U.S. custody could be moved immediately into the "enhanced interrogation" program and subjected to techniques that go beyond those allowed by the U.S. military. . .

"All the order really does is to have the president say, 'Everything in that other document that I'm not showing you is legal -- trust me,' " said Tom Malinowski of Human Rights Watch.

The CIA interrogation guidelines are contained in a classified document. A senior intelligence official, asked whether this list includes such widely criticized methods as the simulated drowning known as "waterboarding," declined to discuss specifics but said "it would be very wrong to assume that the program of the past would move into the future unchanged." . . .

Sen. John D. Rockefeller IV (D-W.Va.), chairman of the Senate intelligence committee, said it was unclear what the order "really means and how it will translate into actual conduct by the CIA." In a statement, Rockefeller repeated a committee demand made last spring that the White House turn over a copy of the Justice Department's legal analysis of the new guidelines. . .

The audacity of this liar (Well, why not? He knows the press won’t call him on it)

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/07/20/AR2007072000192.html
President Bush, ratcheting up a fight with Congress over Iraq, accused Democrats on Friday of conducting a political debate on the war while delaying action on money to upgrade equipment and give troops a pay raise.

"It is time to rise above partisanship, stand behind our troops in the field, and give them everything they need to succeed," Bush said in the Rose Garden after meeting with veterans and military families. . .

http://www.speaker.gov/blog/?p=611
[Bush, May 16] The Administration strongly opposes sections 601 and 606. The additional 0.5 percent increase above the President’s proposed 3.0 percent across-the-board pay increase is unnecessary.

More: http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/11528.html

http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room/2007/07/20/troops/index.html

Bush is concerned about the message it will send if we fail in Iraq. Yeah, here’s the message it will send

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/015647.php
[MR] I say what the rest of the world already knows, that failure in Iraq would send an unmistakable signal that no matter how well prepared your military is, it does you no good if your Commander in Chief over-rides the judgment of the military professionals and fires any general who dares to suggest anything that might be politically inconvenient for the President.

Will we find out the results of this exam if the news is bad?

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2007/07/20/national/w093459D23.DTL

The Goofus Files

http://www.first-draft.com/2007/07/your-preside-11.html
See, if you believe in the principle the more money you have -- and all of a sudden you see some rough, economic times, act on the principle. . .

So I worked with Congress and we cut taxes on everybody who pays taxes. On one of these tax cuts -- said, okay, you deserve a tax cut, but you don't deserve a tax cut. . .

And as you can see from this chart here, this is what the tax cuts have meant in 2007. But ever since they have been enacted, it has got the same type of effect. . .

We want people to say, I'm making a living for my family, and I've got more money in my pocket so I can make decisions for the best of my family. . .

And that is, most of the time they raise taxes on you, they figure out new ways to spend the money, as opposed to reckon it to deficit reduction. . . .

And I got a chart here I'm about to show you. . . . [read on]

Bob Gates (almost) repudiates the highly politicized DOD statement against Hillary Clinton by Cheney-flack Eric Edelman

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/015653.php

More: http://electioncentral.tpmcafe.com/blog/electioncentral/2007/jul/20/breaking_gates_distances_himself_from_edelmans_attack_on_hillary

http://www.firedoglake.com/2007/07/20/simply-choose-to-forget/

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2007_07/011722.php

http://www.slate.com/id/2170852/fr/rss/

http://www.juancole.com/2007/07/last-neocon-attacks-hillary-you-might.html

Hillary fires back: http://thenexthurrah.typepad.com/the_next_hurrah/2007/07/edelman-says-co.html

Politicizing prosecutions: it’s the Karl Rove way

http://www.harpers.org/archive/2007/07/hbc-90000569

From Harper’s:

Number of Bush White House officials who are authorized to discuss pending criminal cases with the Justice Department: 711

Number of Clinton officials who were: 4

Putting numbers on Republican obstructionism – nearly triple the rate of any previous Congress

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/015649.php

Blocking ethics reform: http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/7/20/10263/8666

Looks like BOTH Republican senators from Alaska are crooks

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/015630.php

http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/003740.php

Words that come back to haunt you

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/7/20/121416/799
When Sen. David Vitter (R-LA) replaced former Rep. Bob Livingston (R-LA) — who “abruptly resigned after disclosures of numerous affairs” in 1998 — he argued that an extramarital affair was grounds for resignation: “I think Livingston’s stepping down makes a very powerful argument that Clinton should resign as well and move beyond this mess,” he said. [Atlanta Journal and Constitution, 12/20/98]

[Kos] Vitter would likely be gone by now if Louisiana had a Republican governor. And he may be holding out for Novembers' elections when a Republican is expected to win the state house. But I doubt Republican strategists have any relish for giving Democrats a free Senate seat.

More: http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/11533.html

The silly season

Yes, Edwards gets expensive haircuts: http://mediamatters.org/altercation/200707200009#5

http://www.openleft.com/showDiary.do?diaryId=295

Yes, Hillary has breasts: http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/7/20/141514/611

I am licking my chops over ANY of the major Republican candidates getting the nomination

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/015620.php
[Boston Herald] In an apparent violation of the law, a controverisal aide to ex-Gov. Mitt Romney created phony law enforcement badges that he and other staffers used on the campaign trail to strong-arm reporters, avoid paying tolls and trick security guards into giving them immediate access to campaign venues, sources told the Herald.

The bogus badges were part of the bizarre security tactics allegedly employed by Jay Garrity, the director of operations for Romney who is under investigation for impersonating a law enforcement officer in two states. Garrity is on a leave of absence from the campaign while the probe is ongoing. . .

More: http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/11537.html

http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2007/07/21/romney_aide_accused_of_using_fake_badges_quits_campaign/

Fred Thompson proves, once again, that there are lies, damn lies, and really STUPID lies

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/11538.html
[Steve Benen] If you’re just joining us, here’s a quick rundown:

* The LAT discovered that Thompson worked as a lobbyist for the group, pushing a pro-choice position to the H.W. Bush White House.

* Thompson aides adamantly denied the accuracy of the story. “Fred Thompson did not lobby for this group, period,” Thompson spokesman Mark Corallo said.

* Four days later, Thompson started to equivocate, telling right-wing personality Sean Hannity, “You need to separate a lawyer who is advocating a position from the position itself.”

* Though Thompson’s staff insisted that there are “no billing records” to connect him to lobbying for the group, the NYT reports on billing records that connect Thompson to lobbying for the group.

Late yesterday, a close Thompson insider offered a new defense . . . [read on]

From the latest Harper’s:

[Kevin Baker] Rudolph Giuliani has, by far, the most dubious known personal history of any major presidential candidate in American history, what with his three marriages and his open affairs and his almost total estrangement from his grown children, not to mention the startling frequency with which he finds excuses to dress in women’s clothing. . .

Theocracy hypocrisy watch (thanks to John Aravosis for the link)

http://www.charlotte.com/407/story/204465.html

Bonus item: NOT from “The Onion”

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/7/21/5232/67581

***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

 
ANGRY YET?

Yesterday we had the snark. Today we have the really outrageous stuff. Hold onto your seats

Showdown. The Bush gang goes all the way, ORDERING their Justice Department not to investigate their claims of Executive Privilege (now we know why “Freddo” Gonzales had to be kept around)

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/07/19/AR2007071902625.html
Bush administration officials unveiled a bold new assertion of executive authority yesterday in the dispute over the firing of nine U.S. attorneys, saying that the Justice Department will never be allowed to pursue contempt charges initiated by Congress against White House officials once the president has invoked executive privilege. . . .

Mark J. Rozell, a professor of public policy at George Mason University who has written a book on executive-privilege issues, called the administration's stance "astonishing."

"That's a breathtakingly broad view of the president's role in this system of separation of powers," Rozell said. "What this statement is saying is the president's claim of executive privilege trumps all." . . .

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/7/20/72541/3993
[Kagro X] Good Morning. There are only two branches of government today. . . [read on]

More: http://thenexthurrah.typepad.com/the_next_hurrah/2007/07/with-all-due-re.html

http://www.samefacts.com/archives/gwb_the_beloved_leader_/2007/07/almost_nixonian.php

They don’t know what else to do. The Bush gang reverts to the “questioning the war is treason” line they’ve been falling back on from the very beginning

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/7/19/155633/376
[AP] The Pentagon told Democratic presidential front-runner Hillary Rodham Clinton that her questions about how the U.S. plans to eventually withdraw from Iraq boosts enemy propaganda....

"Premature and public discussion of the withdrawal of U.S. forces from Iraq reinforces enemy propaganda that the United States will abandon its allies in Iraq, much as we are perceived to have done in Vietnam, Lebanon and Somalia," [Undersecretary of Defense Eric] Edelman wrote.

He added that "such talk understandably unnerves the very same Iraqi allies we are asking to assume enormous personal risks." . . . [read on]

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/11519.html
[Steve Benen] Got that? Even discussing withdrawal helps the enemy. . . . [read on]

The full letter: http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/docs/hillary-cpr/

Who is he? http://thenexthurrah.typepad.com/the_next_hurrah/2007/07/oh-it-was-eric-.html
[Emptywheel] But now I discover it was Eric Edelman, Under Secretary of Defense for Policy. That makes a whole lot more sense--and really dictates the proper response.

You see, Edelman is kind of a poor man's Dougie Feith. A total shill--and Cheney asset--though apparently with less flair for propaganda. He's the bright guy who first suggested leaking Plame's identity to rebut Joe Wilson. And, as it turns out, he realized after he suggested to Libby that the information in question may have been classified. . . .

Edelman then went on to write a leniency letter, hailing Libby's loyalty, with no concern that--as the guy who first suggested the leak--the invocation of loyalty reeked of impropriety. You can't take someone like that seriously!

The proper response to such a lecture, it seems to me, is to point out what a hack Edelman is, to suggest that this is just Dick Cheney lying to the American people again. And an attempt to hide the fact that the war party Has. No. Plan. B.

More: http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/015595.php

http://rawstory.com/news/2007/Olbermann_slams_Bush_after_Hillary_blamed_0719.html

Apparently, this is part of a much wider coordinated push-back against war dissenters, especially on the Republican side

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/7/19/10320/0217

“Partisanship and acrimony”? If you can’t work up a little acrimony over defending a war, justified by lies and managed with foolish bravado, which is ruining this country and doing lasting damage in Iraq and across the Middle East, what IS worth fighting about? Or is this just supposed to be a little gentlemanly disagreement?

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/015580.php
[Josh Marshall] Sen. Lieberman (I) said Tuesday night during the Republicans' Iraq filibuster [that] he decried the partisanship and acrimony of the Iraq debate, with an undisguised emphasis on his Democratic colleagues. I agree to the extent that the dangers we face because of the Iraq catastrophe are so great and the long term consequences so vast that we can't afford score settling and jockeying for advantage. This isn't rhetoric. Completely setting aside the lives we've lost and the money we've squandered I don't think this country has really taken stock of the damage we've done to ourselves or the prices we're going to pay for this folly for decades to come. As it is with a family so to with a country, when catastrophe strikes everyone has to pull together to help find a way out, a way back.

But that's not where we are. A faction in this country, and it doesn't merit a loftier label given its quickly diminishing size and its focus on loyalty to a single man, is still focused on perpetuating the catastrophe -- continuing it, expanding it and perhaps most importantly denying its very existence. One might say that denial and refusal to come clean on how we got into this mess is actually the least important element. But that's not the case since it is these that make the continuation of the policy possible.

A litany of lies (don’t miss it)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vAH3AeFy0SY

Still lying: http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/015608.php
[David Kurtz] There's no use trying to debunk each and every lie or half truth that comes out of Tony Snow, but this one has been gnawing at me all day. . .

Debunking the Big Lie

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/blog/2007/07/19/BL2007071901169.html

Of course, you have to read an international paper to see this story

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2007_07/011713.php
[Kevin Drum] The Guardian reminds us today that the major source of attacks on U.S. troops — by a wide margin — is still the guerrilla war waged by Sunni insurgent groups, not suicide attacks by al-Qaeda in Iraq. . . .

Did the NIE assessment on “Al Qaeda” fool anyone?

http://www.salon.com/opinion/blumenthal/2007/07/19/bush_iraq/
[Sidney Blumenthal] The familiar props are rolled out, like the well-worn and peeling painted backdrop for a production of a traveling Victorian theatrical troupe, and members of the audience are expected to watch with rapt fascination, as though they had never seen this show before. The negative response to the preview does not alter the same old script.

The usual atmospherics are pumped up -- sudden panic and fear, an elusive and ubiquitous enemy that assumes many guises and shapes, cherry-picked information to provide a patina of verisimilitude to the danger, followed by a march of authority figures to rescue us. Michael Chertoff, the secretary of homeland security, held a press conference on July 11 to announce that he had a "gut feeling" that the terrorist threat was dire. Gen. Peter Pace, the outgoing chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, on his final tour of Iraq Tuesday, proclaimed a "sea change." Meanwhile, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice frantically telephoned moderate Republican senators, urging them not to defect from support of the president's position.

Even Rosencrantz and Guildenstern supporting players wander through, like Frances Townsend, President Bush's homeland security advisor, who, Tuesday, entered right into the White House press room to declaim about the terrorist threat, only to confirm the administration's failure to destroy al-Qaida and expose her own bafflement: "You're assuming it's a zero-sum game, which is what I don't understand."

Gen. Petraeus is promised as the dramatic hero who will stride to triumph in the last act. The author of a recent study of counterinsurgency who has not previously fought such a war, he has been thrust into the spotlight partly because his halo is yet untarnished. Bush's unpopularity disqualifies him from the "Mission Accomplished" moment. So he pushes out his handpicked general and walks behind his chariot, hoping the cheering of the crowd will be also for him. In his July 12 press conference, Bush mentioned Petraeus 11 times, his name flourished as a talisman for "victory." The generals with the greatest experience with the Iraq insurgency, who opposed Bush's surge, such as Gen. John Abizaid, an Arabic speaker, have been discharged or reassigned. The burden on the ambitious general to produce a military solution is unbearable and his breaking inevitable. But for now, Petraeus' tragedy foretold is being cast as the first dawn of a happy ending. . . [read on!]

More: http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/11516.html

The tragedy unfolds: top general now says Petraeus’ September report means nothing, we need to wait until November

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/20/washington/20policy.html
The top commanders in Iraq and the American ambassador to Baghdad appealed for more time beyond their mid-September assessment to more fully judge if the new strategy was making gains.

Lt. Gen. Raymond T. Odierno, the No. 2 commander in Iraq, told Pentagon reporters that while he would provide the mid-September assessment of the new military strategy that Congress has required, it would take “at least until November” to judge with confidence whether the strategy was working.

But their appeals, in three videoconferences on Capitol Hill and at the Pentagon, were met by stern rebukes from lawmakers of both parties. . . .

More: http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/7/19/21497/1101

http://www.americablog.com/2007/07/surprise-now-we-wont-know-how-surge-is.html
[John Aravosis] Show of hands for anyone who is surprised. . .

Nope, no reason to be troubled by this either. I still believe totally in Gen. Petraeus’s objectivity and integrity

http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/the_daily_dish/2007/07/petraeus-coopte.html
[Andrew Sullivan] If I were eager to maintain a semblance of military independence from the agenda of extremist, Republican partisans, I wouldn't go on the Hugh Hewitt show, would you? And yet Petraeus has done just that. . . .

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/11517.html
[Steve Benen] This morning, in passing, I suggested Gen. Petraeus’ credibility “suffered a serious blow this week when he appeared on far-right activist Hugh Hewitt’s radio show, and stuck closely to the White House script.” In response, Hewitt responded that I am an “anti-intellectual screamer,” which may very well be the strangest, projection-like insult I’ve ever received.

The point of the criticism, of course, is that Petraeus, as the top military commander in Iraq, should maintain a politically-neutral position. His honorable military service shouldn’t have anything to do with advancing the president’s political goals, or rallying the GOP base. By giving his time to Hewitt, an unabashed Republican operative, Petraeus undermines his own integrity, lending the appearance of partisanship and the politicization of his position . .

More: http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2007/07/19/petraeus/index.html

Hey, where is our “war czar”?

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/11515.html

Did Harry Reid’s all-nighter accomplish anything?

http://electioncentral.tpmcafe.com/blog/electioncentral/2007/jul/18/iraq_and_the_defense_bill_a_post_mortem_guide_for_the_perplexed

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/7/19/85545/6032

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/7/19/102555/882

Reid understands the “compromise” trap

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/07/19/AR2007071902627.html

Partitioning for Iraq: its going to happen, sooner or later

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-garton19jul19,0,6963317.story

ANOTHER shockingly broad expansion of executive power

http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/003726.php
In a little-noticed executive order issued on Tuesday, President Bush directed the Treasury Department to block the U.S.-based financial assets of anyone deemed to have threatened "the peace or stability of Iraq or the Government of Iraq" or who "undermin(e) efforts to promote economic reconstruction and political reform in Iraq." . . .

[NB: I guess that includes you and me, doesn’t it?]

More: http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/015606.php

This is the man who ran as a “compassionate conservative.” Hard to believe, isn’t it?

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/19/washington/19cnd-health.html
Defying a veto threat from President Bush, the Senate Finance Committee approved a major expansion of the Children’s Health Insurance Program on Thursday, with a majority of Republicans joining all Democrats on the panel in supporting the legislation. . .

[NB: Looks like Dubya might get his first veto overridden.]

Tony blurts out an inadvertent truth

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/7/19/193624/426
Q: Why did you pick the Opry House?

MR. SNOW: Because, basically, it's a good facility where you can pack in a bunch of people and at the same time have the right kind of. . . [read on]

Plame lawsuit dismissed

http://www.first-draft.com/2007/07/how-appealing.html
[AP] "The alleged means by which defendants chose to rebut Mr. Wilson's comments and attack his credibility may have been highly unsavory," [Judge] Bates wrote. "But there can be no serious dispute that the act of rebutting public criticism, such as that levied by Mr. Wilson against the Bush administration's handling of prewar foreign intelligence, by speaking with members of the press is within the scope of defendants' duties as high-level Executive Branch officials." . . .

Who is he? http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/11521.html
[Steve Benen] Bates was named to the federal bench by — you guessed it — George W. Bush. Better yet, Bates was a prosecutor on Ken Starr’s Whitewater team, and in 2002, ruled in Dick Cheney’s favor in keeping his energy-task force secret.

It’s awful to have lost faith in the integrity in parts of the federal judicial system, isn’t it? . .

More: http://thenexthurrah.typepad.com/the_next_hurrah/2007/07/dear-congress.html

What do you do when the Department of Justice is breaking the law?

http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/003728.php

http://thenexthurrah.typepad.com/the_next_hurrah/2007/07/sjc-corners-bus.html

You see, they testify before Congress and lie, then “revise” their comments in private afterwards to avoid a perjury rap. Hey, it worked for Rove with Fitzgerald

http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/003722.php

Well, you knew it, and it’s been covered copiously here – but here’s an overview of the degree to which Rove has turned every major government agency into an extension of his WH political operation

http://thinkprogress.org/2007/07/18/mass-politicization/

The OTHER Senator from Alaska

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/015571.php
[David Kurtz] Laura McGann has the rundown on the breaking news from Alaska regarding the sweetheart land deal for Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-AK).

Short version: Murkowski bought riverfront property on the Kenai River from a politically connected developer for $179,400, which just happened to be the assessed value of the property for property tax purposes. There are indications that the fair market value of the property may be nearly twice what Murkowski paid. . . .

People seem to forget: Sen. David Vitter has serious LEGAL trouble ahead

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/015587.php

Let’s see. First Fred Thompson denied doing any pro-choice lobbying, then said he didn’t remember, then said it didn’t really matter because a lobbyist is a whore who will say anything for money. What’s his excuse now?

http://electioncentral.tpmcafe.com/blog/electioncentral/2007/jul/19/election_central_morning_roundup
The New York Times reports that billing records have been unearthed that prove Fred Thompson did lobbying work for the National Family Planning and Reproductive Health Association in 1991 and 1992 . . .

More: http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/11511.html

http://www.samefacts.com/archives/_/2007/07/busted.php

Crappy and distorted reporting: today’s lineup

Exhibit A: http://atrios.blogspot.com/2007_07_15_archive.html#840901716130014031

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/11518.html

Exhibit B: http://atrios.blogspot.com/2007_07_15_archive.html#6302884959219077070

Exhibit C: http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2007_07/011714.php

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/11520.html

How wrong can Michael Duffy be?

http://atrios.blogspot.com/2007_07_15_archive.html#5740460157480644451

Bonus item: College Republicans, through the lens of a Michael Moore-style expose. Don’t miss it!

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/015589.php

More:http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2007/07/joe-n-jane-college-by-digby-most-of-you.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 @ 7:42 AM

 
SNARK ATTACK

Extra-large portions of snark today: enjoy!

Shorter NIE report

http://www.warandpiece.com/blogdirs/006445.html
"'We're creating terrorists in Iraq, we are creating terrorists outside of Iraq who are inspired by what's going on in Iraq,' [says Dan Benjamin]. 'The longer we stay, the more terrorists we create.'"

Snarky version

http://welcome-to-pottersville.blogspot.com/2007/07/maureen-dowd-hey-w-bin-laden-still.html
[Maureen Dowd] Oh, as it turns out, they’re not on the run.

And, oh yeah, they can fight us here even if we fight them there.

And oh, one more thing, after spending hundreds of billions and losing all those lives in Iraq and Afghanistan, we’re more vulnerable to terrorists than ever.

And, um, you know that Dead-or-Alive stuff? We may be the ones who end up dead.

Squirming White House officials had to confront the fact yesterday that everything President Bush has been spouting the last six years about Al Qaeda being on the run, disrupted and weakened was just guff. . . . [read on]

This is the question the Bush gang cannot answer: Hasn’t the war in Iraq been the greatest recruiting tool Al Qaeda ever had? Watch them try to weasel around it

[CNN] http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/015511.php
Yesterday, CNN's Ed Henry asked [Frances] Townsend precisely this question. Weren't you warned about this in advance of the war and haven't those predictions now proven out? Isn't al Qaeda stronger and aren't we more vulnerable because of the invasion of Iraq. . . [read on]

[NPR] http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/11505.html
INSKEEP: Well, you know that one of the intelligence officials that helped to draft this report has been briefing reporters, and has said that before the war in Iraq, al Qaeda had no capabilities in Iraq, and overwhelmingly now their resources are focused inside Iraq, not attacking the United States. Is that correct?

TOWNSEND: Al Qaeda’s resources are focused in Iraq because that’s where we are capturing and killing them every single day, so it drains their resources there. There’s no question that they’d like to try and extend their reach. And we see them trying to inspire like-minded affiliates, if you will, around the world in places like London and Glasgow. But they are very much tied down because we are keeping them tied down fighting them in Iraq.

INSKEEP: Is it correct that they had no capability in Iraq before the war?

TOWNSEND: I don’t know — I wasn’t at that briefing. I don’t know what the intelligence official said. . . [read on]

More: http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/11497.html

Tony’s turn: http://www.first-draft.com/2007/07/today-on-hold-7.html
Q Tony, when the report -- the NIE says that al Qaeda is likely to try to leverage the gains it's made in Iraq to mount an attack on U.S. soil, doesn't that undermine the President's case that by fighting the terrorists in Iraq, we're preventing them from coming to U.S. soil and attacking here? . . . [read on]

More: http://www.first-draft.com/2007/07/today-on-hold-8.html

Pretzel logic

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/7/18/10402/4848
[Devilstower] In addition to having no explanation for why they left al-Qaeda to fester while rushing into Iraq, the administration is pushing an even bigger load of Vaseline toward the media lens.

At multiple points in the report, they refer to al-Qaeda in Iraq as an "affiliate" of the original terror organization. And they state that the organization in Iraq -- which did not exist previous to the US invasion -- is focused on targets in Iraq. The original al-Qaeda is looking for targets overseas. Then, in an astounding array of illogical reasoning, the administration follows these statements by repeating the idea that Iraq is the "central front" in the war on terror, and that (you know what's coming) by fighting them there, we don't have to fight them here.

Did you catch those steps?

A. "al-Qaeda in Iraq" is an affiliated but different organization than al-Qaeda.

B. We're fighting "al-Qaeda in Iraq."

C. al-Qaeda is meanwhile growing.

Purple. We're keeping al-Qaeda from attacking us.

So how are we possibly reducing the threat of al-Qaeda attacks in the US by fighting a different organization in Iraq? Just for fun, you can listen to Townsand's brilliant explanation.

Here it is: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=12056280

Candy Crowley (wow!) actually says that the NIE report politically benefits the Democrats. If you follow her typically cynical and dismissive commentary, you know what a shocker this is

http://matthewyglesias.theatlantic.com/archives/2007/07/some_news_bad_for_gop.php

Just a coincidence, I’m sure

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/015520.php
[David Kurtz] Hot on the heels of yesterday's release of the declassified NIE on Al Qaeda, the U.S. military in Baghdad announced today that it has captured a top leader of Al Qaeda in Iraq . . . First off, the capture took place two weeks ago but was not announced until today. Hmmm, have we seen that before? And the detainee just happened to confess to a greater level of coordination between AQ in Iraq and Osama bin Laden's global AQ, right in line with the official White House line that AQ in Iraq and AQ are one and the same. The White House is already highlighting the capture in its daily email to reporters. Go figure.

More: http://www.americablog.com/2007/07/more-smoke-and-mirrors-on-al-qaeda-in.html

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-iraq19jul19,0,886772.story

Harry Reid goes nuclear, says he will hold up the entire Defense Reauthorization bill until the Republicans allow a vote on Iraq war policy. This is high-stakes brinksmanship – will he stick to it?

http://electioncentral.tpmcafe.com/blog/electioncentral/2007/jul/18/breaking_reid_yanks_defense_authorization_bill_to_force_gops_hand

More: http://bobgeiger.blogspot.com/2007/07/after-gop-iraq-withdrawal-filibuster.html

http://www.slate.com/id/2170699
[Daniel Politi] Everyone notes Reid's decision surprised lawmakers, but the NYT reveals that the majority leader had come to the decision on Monday out of concern that Republicans who voted against the withdrawal plan could gain "political cover" by voting for other, less extreme, Iraq-related measures. . .

Highlights of the Senate all-nighter

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/015554.php

Bad, very bad, and worst

Bad: http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/015531.php
[TH] [The NYT] reads: "Democrats Fail to Force Vote on Iraq Pullout." It's technically accurate, of course, but even someone up on the debate is likely to think that the Democrats couldn't get their act together, that they weren't united on this. An equally accurate but essentially more truthful headline would be: "Republicans Stymie Vote on Iraq Pullout."

Very bad: http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/015531.php
The vote to end debate and proceed to a vote on the Democrats' withdrawal amendment was 52-47, with 60 votes needed for passage. So that's 52 senators voting to end debate and proceed to a vote. How does FOX News report it? The Democrats proposal failed 52-47, as if only 47 votes could be mustered for the Democrats' position. . . .

Worst: http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/015548.php
[David Kurtz] The award for most misleading headline on today's Iraq vote goes to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, whose website leads with "Filibuster Fails to Force Iraq Vote."

Whoa. Wrong on so many levels.

We were just kicking that one around amongst ourselves. Greg Sargent pointed out that it's a twofer: "The Dems filibustered, and they failed at it. They are filibustering losers."

Just in case all the bamboozling has you confused, it was the Republicans who were threatening to filibuster to thwart a vote on withdrawing from Iraq. Rinse and repeat.

More like these, please: http://www.americablog.com/2007/07/headlines-america-doesnt-like-to-see.html
[AP] “GOP Torpedoes Iraq Trop Pullout Plan”
[Reuters] “Republicans Block Vote on Troop Pullout”

How can the Dems change the “frame” that a bill on troop withdrawal is a betrayal of the troops, when it’s meant to get them out of a no-win quagmire?

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/11507.html

War profiteering

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2007/07/freshmen-by-digby-this-is-excellent.html

Why does the Washington Post editorial page have any reason to believe that the Bush gang wouldn’t screw this up too?

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2007_07/011711.php
[WP] If Pakistani forces cannot — or will not — eliminate the [al-Qaeda] sanctuary, President Bush must order targeted strikes or covert actions by American forces . . . [read on]

Here’s how bad it is: Bush isn’t only refusing to compromise with the Democrats in Congress – he won’t even compromise with his own party

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/07/18/AR2007071801434.html
The president objects on philosophical grounds to a bipartisan proposal to expand the program, known as SCHIP, by $35 billion over five years, saying that would expand it beyond its target population of low-income children and enlarge the role of the federal government. . . .

http://www.samefacts.com/archives/gwb_the_beloved_leader_/2007/07/made_to_be_broken.php
[Mark Kleiman] [I]t seemed implausible that any President would be able to duplicate the feat achieved by Harry Truman (who didn't deserve it) and Richard Nixon (who deserved it in spades) of leaving the Presidency with a job-performance rating in the low 20s.

But the Formerly Beloved Leader is persistent. He's been stuck for about a month just below 30, a hard place to go down from, but the Mission Accomplisher won't give up. And he's found a move that may just do the trick: yesterday Mr. Bush threatened to veto a bipartisan measure to extend health insurance to a few million children of the working poor. . .

So Bill Kristol thinks Bush is going to be viewed as a “successful” President. Let the snark begin. . .

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/11503.html
[David Corn] Who knew Bill Kristol had such a flair for satire? . . . [read on]

Condi Rice, in her own words

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/015550.php
MB: Would you consider a position in business or on Wall Street?

CR: I don't know what I'll do long-term. I'm a terrible long-term planner.

Tony, you can revise your phraseology, but there’s no way you can put a good face on the Iraqi parliament’s summer vacation

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/2007/07/snow_recants_comment_about_ira.php

When Fred Fielding came on board at the White House, everyone assumed that it was because he was bringing his much-vaunted expertise in finding constitutional compromises over testimony, executive privilege etc. Well, guess what? It hasn’t worked out that way

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/07/17/AR2007071701745.html
Rather than walk the White House toward middle ground, Fielding has been on the front line of the escalating battle between the White House and Congress over the limits of presidential power and privilege. . . .

No deal

http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/003721.php
[Paul Kiel] Today, the Justice Department announced that Craig S. Morford, currently the interim U.S. Attorney for the Middle District of Tennessee, will eventually replace Deputy Attorney General Paul McNulty as the acting deputy. McNulty announced earlier this year that he'll be gone by late summer or until the administration names a successor.

The Senate Judiciary Committee, however, has signaled that it won't confirm any senior Justice Department appointees until it gets the documents and testimony it wants from the White House. So it's unclear when (if ever) Morford will take McNulty's place. . .

More: http://thenexthurrah.typepad.com/the_next_hurrah/2007/07/the-pdag-who-ap.html

Why the DOJ Inspector General CAN’T investigate the US Attorney firings

http://thenexthurrah.typepad.com/the_next_hurrah/2007/07/the-ig-loophole.html
[Emptywheel] Remember how Senator Whitehouse busted Alberto Gonzales for trying to bury the DOJ's internal investigation of the USA firing into the Office of Professional Responsibility, which has no authority over potential illegalities and doesn't issue public reports? Remember how Paul Clement, who has ostensibly been in charge of DOJ's internal investigation since the time Gonzales recused himself, has at the same time been defending the White House's ability to keep materials from Congress? Well, that's not the only way AGAG has managed to avoid any incrimination on this matter. Here's the second bombshell question Leahy asked AGAG:

Other Inspectors General can investigate misconduct throughout their agencies. Apparently, the Department of Justice Inspector General suffers under a limitation that restricts his ability to investigation misconduct by you, the Deputy Attorney General, and other senior Department lawyers. Will you agree to the removal of this limitation on the Department of Justice Inspector General so that the Inspector General may investigate misconduct by you, other senior Department of Justice officials, lawyers, and law enforcement agents?

In other words, all those assurances that DOJ was conducting an investigation into this issue? Well those assurances were utterly cynical and false. DOJ's IG, apparently, can't investigate AGAG and his clique!!! Yet we're supposed to rest assured that DOJ can investigate this themselves???

Frankly, I don't know why Leahy bothers. At this point, it's time to call for a Special Counsel to take over the USA Purge investigation. Alternately, HJC can take it on, under the full weight of an impeachment investigation. But it's well past clear that 1) Alberto Gonzales is actively obstructing any investigation into the USA Purge with his little games and 2) there is no way DOJ can conduct the investigation themselves.

Waiting for a pardon?

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/015539.php
[David Kurtz] Former Cheney aide sentenced to 10 years for passing classified information to the Philippines. No word yet on a commutation. . . .

Now that we have it confirmed that Cheney’s energy task force was heavily influenced by industry demands (duh), the question arises, “Why was it so important to keep it secret?”

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2007_07/011706.php

http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room/2007/07/18/cheney_energy/index.html

Ted Stevens’ (R-AK) non-denial denial

http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/003719.php

Background: http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/003699.php

Mitt Romney versus Fred Thompson: bring it on!

http://www.samefacts.com/archives/campaign_2008_/2007/07/letsyouandhimfight_dept.php

The silly season, part 1: Chilean sea bass

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2007/07/rotting-fish-by-digby-ferchrists-sake.html

The silly season, part 2: Pizza and coffee

http://www.americablog.com/2007/07/thursday-morning-open-thread_19.html

Bill O’Reilly – he can dish it out, but he sure can’t take it

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/7/18/18849/8142

Bonus item: It’s hard to feel too much sympathy for Wendy Vitter, who spouted a lot of “Lorena Bobbitt” bravado when she was talking about Hillary Clinton’s humiliation and suffering. Maybe she has a bit more empathy now. . .

http://politicalwire.com/archives/2007/07/10/flashback_quote_of_the_day.html
[2000] "I'm a lot more like Lorena Bobbitt than Hillary. If he does something like that, I'm walking away with one thing, and it's not alimony, trust me."

AP photos: http://www.nocaptionneeded.com/?p=97
“Three Faces of the Political Wife”

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

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

 
INTELLIGENCE TEST

It’s so simple. They think we’re stupid. The only purpose of the latest NIE is to allow them to say: “Al Qaeda and its various offshoots are still a threat. We are fighting one of those offshoots in Iraq. Therefore, we are fighting the people who attacked us on 9-11 in Iraq. Forget civil war, Sunnis and Shiites, or the mind-numbing failures of our own war policies – Iraq has always been about attacking Al Qaeda.” The Big Lie continues.

The problem is, there’s no way to talk about a resurgent Al Qaeda without drawing attention to (1) the complete failure of their policies in Pakistan and their inability to find the people who WERE behind 9-11, (2) the fact that the war in Iraq has helped rebuild Al Qaeda’s strength, and has brought them there when they WEREN’T there before, and (3) the lie behind the whole excuse that “we are fighting them there so we don’t have to fight them here” -- because clearly they are still preparing to attack us here.

Watch the tricky way Frances Townsend tries to deflect the issue (Bush used this line too, the other day):

http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2007/07/20070717-7.html
“We should be clear that despite a resurgent al Qaeda threat and some of their capabilities, they are weaker today than they would have been if we had not taken strong action against them over the last five-and-a-half years. . .”

[NB: This is the sort of hypothetical subjunctive that can never be proved or disproved one way or the other – but it is almost certainly NOT TRUE. If we had not invaded Iraq, and used our resources instead against “the people who attacked us on 9-11,” we almost certainly would have made more progress against them in Pakistan and Afghanistan, and would certainly have not created this new recruiting ground and haven for them in Iraq]

http://www.slate.com/id/2170564/fr/rss/
[Fred Kaplan] Its main point is that the threat—after having greatly receded over the past five years—is back in full force. Al-Qaida has "protected or regenerated key elements" of its ability to attack the United States. It has a "safe haven" in Pakistan. Its "top leadership" and "operational lieutenants" are intact. It is cooperating more with "regional terrorist groups."

As a result, the report concludes, "the U.S. Homeland will face a persistent and evolving terrorist threat over the next three years" and is, even now, "in a heightened threat environment." . . .

Worse news still is the report's further observation—never stated explicitly but clear nonetheless—that the threat has re-emerged as a result of the war in Iraq.

http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/003704.php
[Spencer Ackerman] Tons of intelligence reports exist about the windfall that the Iraq war has given to global Salafist jihad. The National Intelligence Council in 2005, for instance, called Iraq the new "breeding ground" for "professionalized" terror. An April 2006 NIE, which remains classified, plainly said the war "has made the overall terrorism problem worse," as one intelligence official told the New York Times. It's hard to see how this could be controversial: there would be no al-Qaeda in Iraq -- which the National Intelligence Estimate today says "energize(s) the broader Sunni extremist community" -- had there been no invasion.

Yet the declassified key judgments of the NIE don't address Iraq -- except for a few bizarrely constructed sentences. What gives with the NIE's weaselly wording? . . . [read on]

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2007_07/011699.php
[Kevin Drum] Richard Clarke says you have to understand what's missing from the report to understand what it's really saying:

The 2006 version of the National Intelligence Estimate claimed U.S. efforts had "seriously damaged the leadership of al-Qa'ida and disrupted its operations."

"That's no longer the case in 2007, and you have to read between the lines to understand how we have lost ground," Clarke says.

More: http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2007/07/hyping-intelligence-again-by-digby-like.html

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/11490.html

http://www.juancole.com/2007/07/nie-iraq-fueling-al-qaeda-threat-to-us.html

http://www.nsnetwork.org/node/172

Ya think?

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/18/washington/18intel.html
President Bush’s top counterterrorism advisers acknowledged Tuesday that the strategy for fighting Osama bin Laden’s leadership of Al Qaeda in Pakistan had failed . . .

http://www.firedoglake.com/2007/07/18/when-youre-a-failure-blame-someone-else/
[Scarecrow] The White House’s latest spin on the National Intelligence Estimate is that it’s Pakistan’s fault for allowing Osama bin Ladin to reemerge as strong as ever along the Pakistan-Afghanistan border, even though everyone knows that Bush/Cheney ignored their Secretary of State, their intelligence professionals and senior military leaders and took their eye off the ball by invading Iraq when they should have focused on Afghanistan. . . . [read on]

More: http://www.samefacts.com/archives/terrorism_and_its_control_/2007/07/hat_trick.php

The Big Lie persists

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/015489.php
White House Homeland Security Advisor Frances Townsend saying Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda and al Qaeda in Mesapotamia (aka al Qaeda in Iraq), a group that appears to have no operational ties to bin Laden's group are in fact "the same organization." . . . [watch it]

Tough questions for Townsend: http://www.first-draft.com/2007/07/grilled-townsen.html

You read it here first. . .

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/015485.php
In today's episode of TPMtv we look at President Bush's largely successful effort to get the press to report the story in Iraq as though bin Laden's al Qaeda is the main enemy we're fighting in the country. . .

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/015494.php
[Josh Marshall] Let me return one more time, at least for today, to this issue of who's al Qaeda and who's not. . . .

More: http://www.americablog.com/2007/07/while-gop-senators-invoke-al-qaeda-to.html

Theocracy watch: this is just what we were afraid of

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/11488.html
[David Brooks] Bush is not blind to the realities in Iraq…. Rather, his self-confidence survives because it flows from two sources. The first is his unconquerable faith in the rightness of his Big Idea. Bush is convinced that history is moving in the direction of democracy, or as he said Friday: “It’s more of a theological perspective. I do believe there is an Almighty, and I believe a gift of that Almighty to all is freedom. And I will tell you that is a principle that no one can convince me that doesn’t exist.” . . . [read on]

Sycophancy: http://www.firedoglake.com/2007/07/17/brooks-plays-follow-the-leader/

http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2007/07/17/brooks/index.html

http://scoop.epluribusmedia.org/story/2007/7/16/0259/01696

Bush suddenly interested in Middle East peace? Puh-LEAZE

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/blog/2007/07/17/BL2007071700706.html

Ooops! http://www.americablog.com/2007/07/bush-middle-east-peace-conference.html
[Chris in Paris] Pathetic. It only took one day to show the rudderless, unambitious nothingness that has become a hallmark of the Bush administration. . . .

Who says generals don’t spin too?

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/11494.html
[Steve Benen] Amazing. Just as the debate begins in earnest over Iraq policy in the Senate, Gen. Peter Pace, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, wants everyone to know that Iraq is finally on track for success. “What I’m hearing right now is a sea change that’s taken place in many places here, that it’s no longer a matter of pushing al-Qaida out of Ramadi, for example but rather, now that they have been pushed out, helping the local police and local army have a chance to get their feet on the ground,” he said. I think there’s reason for skepticism. . . .

http://www.americablog.com/2007/07/its-miracle-iraq-has-suddenly-gotten.html
[John Aravosis] The Pentagon apparently thinks the American people are stupid. Our top military commander, General Pace, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, is now suddenly announcing, just in time for the Iraq debate in Congress, that Iraq has suddenly improved amazingly! Even Baghdad, according to Pace, is amazingly safer! . . . [read on]

“Heckuva job, Jimmy”

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/11489.html
[Steve Benen] I’m not sure who thought Jim Nicholson was qualified to serve as Secretary of Veterans Affairs in the first place, but he’s been heading the cabinet agency since 2005. Today, to the great relief of veterans and their families, Nicholson announced his resignation. . . . For a Bush administration burdened by hacks and incompetents, Nicholson was one of the more embarrassing members of the president’s team. The WaPo’s Christopher Lee noted that the VA has been running a “model health system,” but the truth is that system was established in the 1990s; all Nicholson had to do was not screw it up too much.

In far too many instances, it looked like he was trying to do just that. . . .

http://www.prospect.org/csnc/blogs/tapped_archive?month=07&year=2007&base_name=post_4255
[Kay Steiger] Although the early AP wire report said that the resignation was due to the Walter Reed scandal, it appears that the reasons for his resignation were far more diverse than originally reported. . . [read on]

Well, Harry, I guess you can only highlight Republican obstructionism if the news media cover the story honestly and accurately. Keep waiting, my friend . . .

http://mediamatters.org/items/200707170007
Media outlets avoid reporting that Senate GOP is blocking or "filibustering" Iraq amendment . . .

Short memories? http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/7/17/143950/160
[May, 23, 2003] Sen. Trent Lott (R-MS): "[Filibustering] is wrong. It’s not supportable under the Constitution. And if they insist on persisting with these filibusters, I’m perfectly prepared to blow the place up." . . [read on]

Idiotic, or venal? http://mediamatters.org/items/200707170005
During the July 17 edition of ABC's Good Morning America, co-anchor Diane Sawyer falsely claimed that Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) "vows to filibuster . . .”

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/11493.html
[Steve Benen] . . . (bangs head on desk) . . .

[Aaargh!] http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/015507.php
[McClatchy] McConnell spokesman Don Stewart said Republicans would speak on the floor, not just yield to Democrats, but that it wouldn't be a true filibuster because the lawmakers in the minority party weren't the ones who wanted it. . .

More: http://atrios.blogspot.com/2007_07_15_archive.html#4974972666726544733

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2007/07/three-stooges-strategery-by-digby-it-is.html

Did it work?

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/11495.html
[Steve Benen] Well, how’d things go in the Senate’s overnight debate? As far as I can tell, the unusual debate was largely successful. Reports about procedural hurdles that would short-circuit the debate proved to be false, and lawmakers got down to business. . .

More: http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2007/07/pulling-all-nighter-by-digby-this-is.html

http://www.mydd.com/story/2007/7/18/360/68268

http://www.openleft.com/showDiary.do?diaryId=239

The politics of Iraq, part 3

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/7/17/81419/0329

Could be a clue: the WH is carefully remodulating the meanings of “redeployment.” Looks like it’s on their agenda, in some form

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/11482.html

The House will investigate the highly suspicious prosecution of Alabama Gov. Don Siegelman. He may be a crook who got what he deserved, but this story could still reveal Rove’s role in selecting DOJ cases to prosecute

http://www.speaker.gov/blog/?p=595

More trouble for the DOJ: http://thenexthurrah.typepad.com/the_next_hurrah/2007/07/desperation-at-.html

It’s what they do

http://www.talkleft.com/story/2007/7/17/22358/0349
Drug Czar John Walters Used Taxpayer Funds to Campaign for Republicans . . .

If a tree falls and no one is paying attention. . .?

http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/003697.php
[Spencer Ackerman] USA Today conducted a Freedom of Information Act review of Pentagon contracting in the Iraq war. The paper found that, through October, more than two-thirds of contracts flagged by auditors as "inflated, erroneous or otherwise improper" eventually found their way to approval . . .

Looking for a “macaca moment” – what a way to pick a President

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/07/16/AR2007071601883.html

More: http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/015470.php
[Josh Marshall] I must say this really does make my day. "None of the Above" has surged into the lead in the new GOP primary poll out from AP/Ipsos. The only thing funnier is that this is even surprising. McCain's campaign has imploded. Giuliani's the fading pro-choice contender, which is sort of redundant. People seem to be catching on to the fact that Fred Thompson is a one-term senator and lobbyist not Reagan 2.0. And that leaves you with Mitt Romney, the avatar of transcendent phoney-baloneyism.



The decline and fall of John McCain. Let me just say for the record that I’m thrilled. I’ve hated this guy ever since 2004, when he watched his friend and fellow Vietnam war hero John Kerry get savaged by the Swift Boat liars when, with a single public statement, he could have put the entire issue away. Instead, he literally and figuratively embraced Bush at a time when he was significantly more popular than the President, boosting Bush ahead in a very narrow election. He helped the very people who, in 2000, had said he was “mentally unstable” and had fathered a mixed-race “love child.” Hey John, you got into bed with these people and you got EXACTLY what you deserved

http://www.openleft.com/showDiary.do?diaryId=212





Vitter who?

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/11494.html
[Steve Benen] Speaking of the Vitter sex scandal, I found this hard to believe, but the CBS Evening News has not mentioned the controversy once, not even in passing. The show has plenty of time for Paris Hilton, but if a Republican lawmaker is exposed as a hypocrite who illegally paid for adulterous sex, Katie Couric isn’t interested?

BAD news article writing

http://www.cnn.com/2007/POLITICS/07/16/vitter/index.html
(CNN) -- Sen. David Vitter broke a week of silence on Monday and, with his wife by his side, denied allegations he had relationships with New Orleans prostitutes.

[NB: But confirmed that he DID have relationships with other prostitutes. Which is the lede?]

"I know this has hurt the relationship of trust I've enjoyed with so many of you," Sen. Vitter said Monday.

[NB: No, lying and posturing about morality while he was actively contradicting his own sanctimony is what undermined that trust]

Media reports surfaced in the past week linking the Louisiana senator to a well-known prostitution case in New Orleans. Vitter attributed those charges to "long-term political enemies" and people seeking money.

"Those stories are not true," he said.

[NB: That’s that, huh? No follow-ups?]

Vitter admitted he made calls to an alleged prostitution operation in Washington, offered an apology "to all those I have let down" and vowed to resume his work in the Senate.

Vitter, 46, acknowledged in a statement last Monday that his number was included in the telephone records of an escort service run by Deborah Jeane Palfrey, a woman dubbed by the news media as the "D.C. Madam."

In the statement, Vitter said the incident was "a very serious sin in my past for which I am, of course, completely responsible."

[NB: Having made calls to her was a very serious sin? Or something else?]

"Several years ago, I asked for and received forgiveness from God and from my wife in confession and marriage counseling."

[NB: That’s all well and good. Did he ask for forgiveness from those who voted him into office, at the same time, or did he continue to cover it up?]

The phone records were dated before 2004, when Vitter was first elected to the Senate. . .

[NB: But while he WAS a member of the House. Isn’t that a relevant detail?]

"I'm not going to answer endless questions about it all over again and again and again and again. That might sell newspapers but it wouldn't serve my family or my constituents well at all," he said.

[NB: Or my own political prospects, either. . .]

Better: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/blog/2007/07/17/BL2007071700406.html
[Howard Kurtz] There came a point in David Vitter's take-no-questions press appearance last night that I had to suppress a chuckle.

After a week in seclusion, the tense-looking senator apologized, said his wife had forgiven him for being in touch with the D.C. Madam, denied messing around with any New Orleans prostitutes, and then declared he would not keep answering questions about this (actually, he's answered zero) and intended to resume work on the water resources bill.

The water resources bill?

I feel hosed. Doesn't a senator who preaches the sanctity of marriage and then breaches it have a responsibility to do more than read a statement? Does Vitter think reporters aren't going to dog him about this at every subsequent public appearance? . . .

More: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/07/16/AR2007071601606.html
[Dana Milbank] Perhaps it was inevitable at a time when the front-runner for the Republican presidential nomination supports legal abortion and gay rights and has on numerous occasions dressed up as a woman. Whatever the reason, social conservatives appear unusually permissive these days. . . .

More Senatorial sex escapades to come?

http://politicalwire.com/archives/2007/07/18/flynt_ready_to_implicate_another_senator.html

All you need to know about the level of reporting in the new kiss-kiss Cheney biography

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/11491.html

We finally know who met with Cheney’s energy task force (and it only took six years)

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2007_07/011703.php

Bonus item: Yeah, but George, tell us how you REALLY feel about her

Reuters photo: http://www.first-draft.com/2007/07/why-i-would-lov.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 @ 8:53 AM

 
UNSPINNABLE

Harry Reid’s shrewd move: hey Republicans, you want to filibuster, then filibuster

http://thinkprogress.org/2007/07/16/reid-filibuster/
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) announced that in response to conservative obstructionism, he plans to force war supporters to physically remain in the Senate and filibuster Iraq withdrawal legislation. . .

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/015445.php
[Josh Marshall] It's about time on the Iraq filibuster. But it's a very good move. There has been little if any press attention to the fact that senate Republicans are filibustering practically every piece of legislation to come before the senate. But Iraq is the sui generis issue. And the Democrats need to make it clear that the Republicans won't allow anything on Iraq to even come to the floor.

The Republicans have every right to filibuster. But it should be clear that that's what they're doing.

Will it work? http://bobgeiger.blogspot.com/2007/07/reid-to-force-senate-into-all-night.html

It won’t work? http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2007_07/011697.php

Bad press coverage: http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/015460.php

More: http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/11477.html

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2007_07/011694.php

Major vote today (if the Republicans don’t block it)

http://www.talkleft.com/story/2007/7/16/152850/931
Senators will vote [today] on restoring habeas corpus rights to detainees and others who were stripped of those rights by the Military Commissions Act. . .

Here is a list of bills the Republicans have already blocked (without paying any political price at all)

http://www.openleft.com/showDiary.do?diaryId=189
January 17, Reid Amendment to Legislative Transparency and Accountability Act of 2007: a bill to provide greater transparency in the legislative process.
January 24, Fair Minimum Wage Act of 2007: a bill to amend the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 to provide for an increase in the Federal minimum wage. . . [read on!]

More obstruction: Bush’s veto list

http://www.speaker.gov/legislation?id=0058

Tony Snow can try all he wants, but the Iraqi parliament vacation is a public relations catastrophe – and as we saw with Bob Schieffer yesterday, it just might be the last straw for a lot of people

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/015429.php

Do these people really think that the American people will support ANOTHER troop increase, when the justification of the “surge” in the first place was to set the conditions for withdrawal?

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070716/ap_on_re_mi_ea/iraq_pace_4;_ylt=AvGVgafIrV8r5n96JnGIfA0E1vAI

Why hasn’t the US gone after Bin Laden in Pakistan? The usual answer is that doing so would undermine Pervez Musharraf, who had to cut a deal with the warlords of Waziristan, who are protecting Bin Laden. Well, guess what? They’ve declared war on Musharraf anyway

http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/003685.php

Supporting the troops?

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/7/16/14631/8696
[Kagro X] The long and short of it is this: military commanders on the ground in Iraq asked for these Mine Resistant Ambush Protected vehicles, or MRAPs, in December 2003. Despite continued pleas for the vehicles, it took two years to get them any. . .

Bullet proof (thanks to Ahmad S. for the link)

http://news.independent.co.uk/world/americas/article314944.ece
US forces have fired so many bullets in Iraq and Afghanistan - an estimated 250,000 for every insurgent killed - that American ammunition-makers cannot keep up with demand. As a result the US is having to import supplies from Israel. . . .

A simple truth, simply said

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/blog/2007/07/16/BL2007071600891_pf.html
[Dan Froomkin] President Bush says that he should be trusted on military issues because he listens to his commanders. But he has a tendency to celebrate his generals when they're providing him political cover -- then stick a knife in their backs when they're no longer of any use to him.

Last week, Bush rejected any blame for the chaos that ensued in Iraq after the March 2003 invasion. So whose fault was it? Bush pointed the finger at Gen. Tommy Franks, the Central Command chief at the time. "My primary question to General Franks was, do you have what it takes to succeed? And do you have what it takes to succeed after you succeed in removing Saddam Hussein? And his answer was, yes," Bush said.

That's the same Tommy Franks to whom Bush awarded a Medal of Freedom in 2004.

And when virtually all of Bush military line of command, including the entire Joint Chiefs of Staff, opposed his "surge" proposal late last year, Bush responded not by listening, but by removing the top two commanders responsible for Iraq and replacing them with more amenable leaders, including Army Lt. Gen. David H. Petraeus.

Petraeus, as it happens, wrote an op-ed in The Washington Post just five weeks before the 2004 election describing what he called "reasons for optimism" in Iraq. Now Petraeus is Bush's "main man." Maybe he should be watching his back. . . .

Have you ever seen a serious analysis of this question (and not just Bushian fearmongering)? What WOULD happen if we just pulled up and left Iraq?

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/07/16/AR2007071601680.html

Hearings on the Pat Tillman case: and Donald Rumsfeld is on the witness list

http://www.prospect.org/csnc/blogs/tapped_archive?month=07&year=2007&base_name=post_4240

How bad was Duke Cunningham’s (R-CA) corruption? The House Intelligence Committee (now under Democratic control) doesn’t want us to know. Why not?

http://www.motherjones.com/mojoblog/archives/2007/07/4882_dysfunctional_h.html#more
[Laura Rozen] More evidence if you needed it that the intelligence oversight process is broken, that some of the companies hired to protect the country won their contracts through graft and are unqualified, and that post 9/11 homeland security and intelligence are just a big new trough for some contractors with the added benefit (for them) of no public accountability because the contracts are classified. Evidence as well that the entrenched conflicts of interest continue, to the degree that the committee still will not agree to publicly release even the unclassified version of the report. And that's just the greed factor. Who's looking out that the intelligence and security are any more functional? The same conflicted people. . .

The vote suppression expert the Bush gang wants to put on the Federal Elections Commission (thanks to Buzzflash for the link)

http://scoop.epluribusmedia.org/story/2007/7/16/101446/957

Hey Senator Vitter, some things CAN’T be spun. Resign now, and save us all a lot of trouble

http://www.samefacts.com/archives/lying_in_politics_/2007/07/vitter_goes_all_in.php
[Mark Kleiman] I expected David Vitter's press conference today to be mostly grovelling, with some attacks on the press thrown in. No such. Apparently Vitter denied all the New Orleans allegations — he'd already admitted the DC allegations — but refused to take any questions. Mrs. Vitter decided to do a Hillary Clinton rather than a Lorena Bobbit after all. . .

http://www.mydd.com/story/2007/7/17/32538/5529
[Chuck Toss] If this is what they were going to say and do then they should have done it within 24 hours of sending that original statement to the AP last Monday. If this is what they waited a week to come up with...Vitter's part of it was borderline disastrous . . .

“Intellectual consistency”

Here: http://rawstory.com/news/2007/Conservative_Christian_group_calls_for_Vitter_0716.html
Arguing for "intellectual consistency," the Louisiana-based group 'Christian Conservatives for Reform' have called on Senator Vitter to resign . . .

Not here: http://www.americablog.com/2007/07/gop-sen-kyl-says-he-doesnt-know-if.html
GOP Senator Jon Kyl (R-AZ), when asked on CNN if Senator David Vitter (R-Louis.) should resign . . .

Yikes!

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070716/ap_on_el_pr/mccain_campaign;_ylt=Aj9myoHLsMOVhOIFI2JeXdLMWM0F
John McCain's top communications aides and several staffers in Iowa and South Carolina quit on Monday, the latest departures to hit the Republican as he struggles to rebound from financial and political woes. . . .

Why isn’t Fred Thompson filing financial records with the FEC?

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/7/16/84635/8451

More: http://www.mydd.com/story/2007/7/16/20756/9338

Will Thompson pass the anti-abortion litmus test?

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/2007/07/interest_flares_for_thompsons.php

By the way, that story yesterday about how candidates are blowing through their campaign war chests at record rates? It really only applies to the Republicans

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/015419.php
Obama and Clinton each have an astonishing $30 million-plus in cash on hand . . .

Bonus item: What will all the networks who thought John Edwards’ $400 haircut was urgent national news, think about this?

http://www.mydd.com/story/2007/7/16/224039/945

***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 @ 7:36 AM

 
130 DEGREES

Here they go again: No sooner does Bush beg for patience based on the July interim progress report, asking Congress to hold off until the full report from General Petraeus in September, than another of his generals says, It doesn’t matter, we won’t know until spring anyway

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/15/world/middleeast/16cnd-commander.html

And where does this new “we must back Petraeus” mantra come from? He may be a smart and honorable man, but this war has eaten up many smart and honorable generals before him. Is he suddenly above criticism?

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2007/07/sensitive-general-by-digby-i-was-going.html

The politics of Iraq: a roundtable (of sorts)

DemfromCT: [Pt. 1] http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/7/14/81438/0509
Toothless legislation attracts votes, but doesn't get the job done. Legislation with teeth doesn't attract a consensus or a working majority (at this time) because there isn't one in Congress.

However, this misses a major issue which the members of Congress are going to hear about, and in spades, when they go back home for recess. The simple fact is that the public is way ahead of the politicians. . .

[Pt. 2] http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/7/15/7649/22724
The question for today is "why don't the Republicans who think a change of strategy is needed work and vote with Democrats?" The answers are somewhat varied. . .

Big Tent Democrat: http://www.talkleft.com/story/2007/7/15/16591/0725
Personally, as I have stated, I think the best POLITICAL, not just policy, course for Dems on Iraq is to provoke a binary showdown on the issue through the use of the Spending Power. I think the showdown can come next Spring if Dems announce their intentions now. SO far the Dem leadership in Congress does not agree with me. . .

Steve Benen: http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/015398.php
As weak as the Lugar/Warner amendment is, it's still too tough for the White House. . .

[NB: For what it’s worth, here’s what I think might be coming: A big vote on the Iraq Study Group report, which calls for a redeployment of troops and mission shift, but hedged with language that says “as conditions allow.” This might get over the 50-vote hump with Republican support, and I doubt the Dems could filibuster it. The media mavens and chin-pullers would praise its “moderation” and “bipartisanship.” The Repubs up for re-election could say they voted for a change in strategy, moderate Dems could say they didn’t cut off funding or impose an “arbitrary deadline” – and Bush could let it go through as long as it gave him enough wriggle room to keep doing what he’s doing (i.e. the conditions are never quite right to redeploy, until he says they are). This would get the Republicans off his back and buy him more time. It would be a gutless sham, but there you have it. . .]

A failure

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/19750254/site/newsweek/
President Bush may be trying to rally support for his strategy in Iraq, but his efforts are not faring well with the American public, according to the latest NEWSWEEK Poll. Nearly two thirds of Americans believe that the president's troop “surge” has been a failure . . .

A failure and a liar

http://www.samefacts.com/archives/lying_in_politics_/2007/07/shorter_george_w_bush.php
[Bush] He explained “that last fall, if I had been part of this polling, if they had called upstairs and said, do you approve of Iraq I would have been on the 66 percent who said, `No I don’t approve.’ That’s why I made the decision I made. To get in a position where I would be able to say ‘Yes, I approve.’”

[Mark Kleiman translates] Back when I was telling the world that things in Iraq were going well, and you folks were helping me by calling anyone who said otherwise a traitor, I knew we were all lying.

More: http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/015401.php
[Steve Benen] Last fall, the White House was insisting, aggressively, that critics of the war were confused and misguided. To disapprove of the war, the president and his aides said, was to support a dangerous agenda that would necessarily undermine national security.

Except now the president is prepared to argue that he was with the unsatisfied majority. Here's a follow-up: what does that say about Bush's opinion of the one-third of Americans who bought into the White House line and told pollsters that they approved of how the war was going?

Oh yeah, THIS is going to work out just great . . .

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/16/world/middleeast/16reconcile.html
Abu Azzam says the 2,300 men in his movement include members of fierce Sunni groups like the 1920s Revolutionary Brigade and the Mujahedeen Army that have fought the American occupation. Now his men patrol alongside the Americans, who want to turn them into a security force that can bring peace to this stretch between Baghdad and Falluja.

A few miles away, in the town of Abu Ghraib, Brig. Gen. Nassir al-Hiti and his brigade of Iraqi Army soldiers also have the support of the American military. But they have a different ambition, some American commanders here say: doing everything they can to undermine Abu Azzam’s men, even using a stolen membership list to single them out for wrongful detention.

General Nassir, a 37-year-old former special forces officer, denies that, but says he has strict orders not to support “unofficial” groups and to arrest armed men, no matter who they are. He says he supports those who join the security forces but objects to “those who have Iraqi blood on their hands and who kill our soldiers.” . . .

What we’re doing to our soldiers

http://www.samefacts.com/archives/the_occupation_of_iraq_/2007/07/are_all_iraqis_our_enemies.php

More: http://www.usatoday.com/printedition/news/20070716/1a_iedcoverxx.art.htm

Taking their eyes off the ball

http://thenexthurrah.typepad.com/the_next_hurrah/2007/07/a-second-strate.html
[Lord Ashdown] 'The consequences of failure in Afghanistan are far greater than in Iraq,' he said. 'If we fail in Afghanistan then Pakistan goes down. . . I think you could not then stop a widening regional war that would start off in warlordism but it would become essentially a war in the end between Sunni and Shia right across the Middle East.' . . .

And in Pakistan:http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2007_07/011689.php

Grain of salt time: has Cheney finally won the internal debate over attacking Iran?

http://www.discourse.net/archives/2007/07/bush_plans_to_attack_iran_guardian_says.html

More: http://www.guardian.co.uk/usa/story/0,,2127115,00.html

Fun: watch James Webb (D-VA) and Lindsey Graham (R-SC) go hammer and tong over Iraq

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/015393.php

More: http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2007/07/huckleberry-has-hissy-fit-by-digby-im.html

The humor writes itself. . . .

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/11467.html
[Bill Kristol] “I suppose I’ll merely expose myself to harmless ridicule if I make the following assertion: George W. Bush’s presidency will probably be a successful one” . . . [read on]

More: http://mediamatters.org/items/200707150001

Schizophrenia between the Washington Post news and editorial pages

http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2007/07/15/hiatt/index.html
[Glenn Greenwald] Senior Washington Bush spokesman Fred Hiatt -- who also works as the Editorial Page Editor of The Washington Post -- shatters conventional wisdom this morning by defending the Bush administration's mild, balanced, and restrained use of government secrecy. Government secrecy, you see, is a complex and serious issue -- we desperately need our leaders to act in secret, but they should try to balance that with a concern for civil liberties. And, decrees Hiatt, let us all be grateful that we have a Government that is so sensitive about this need for balance and is so fair and judicious in its use of secrecy privileges . . .

More: http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2007/07/protecting-village-by-digby-glenn.html

I’m with Mark Kleiman on this: the Pat Tillman case is the perfect opportunity to go right after the ridiculous claims of executive privilege by the Bush gang. This is an argument they can’t win

http://www.samefacts.com/archives/gwb_the_beloved_leader_/2007/07/the_right_place_to_fight.php
The Tillman cover-up is a far smaller scandal than the U.S. Attorney firings, but it's much easier to understand. . .

A contrary view: http://thenexthurrah.typepad.com/the_next_hurrah/2007/07/field-position.html

In case you missed Bill Moyers’ episode on impeachment: a brief

http://thenexthurrah.typepad.com/the_next_hurrah/2007/07/bill-moyers-jou.html

Just watched “An Inconvenient Truth” (finally), and if even a fraction of what Al Gore says is true, we had better get serious about global warming

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/7/15/111431/126
[Devilstower] Suppose a house is just starting to burn. . .

More: http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2007_07/011690.php

Failing to deal with health care might be Bush’s biggest domestic policy failure – and now he’s making it worse

http://thenexthurrah.typepad.com/the_next_hurrah/2007/07/bush-vetoes-and.html
The White House said on Saturday that President Bush would veto a bipartisan plan to expand the Children’s Health Insurance Program, drafted over the last six months by senior members of the Senate Finance Committee. . .

http://welcome-to-pottersville.blogspot.com/2007/07/paul-krugman-waiting-game.html
[Paul Krugman] Being without health insurance is no big deal. Just ask President Bush. “I mean, people have access to health care in America,” he said last week. “After all, you just go to an emergency room.”

This is what you might call callousness with consequences. . . .

In Congress, what would happen if obstructionist Republicans had to ACTUALLY filibuster to block legislation (and not just quietly state their intention of doing so?)

http://www.openleft.com/showDiary.do?diaryId=189
[Chris Bowers] If they want to use the threat of unlimited debate on issues like raising the minimum wage and providing mandatory time at home between deployments to Iraq for American troops, let's actually make them engage in unlimited, or at least nearly unlimited, debate on those subjects and see what the American people think.

Politically, there is no way we can lose by employing this tactic. . . .

What a way to run a Presidential campaign

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/07/15/AR2007071500465.html
Candidates for the White House are not only raising far more than ever before, many are also spending that money as fast as they get it, leaving some close to being forced from the race almost six months before the first votes are cast. . . .

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/07/15/AR2007071501037.html
[Shankar Vedantam] There are two ways to think about the staggering amounts of money given by special interest groups to politicians . . .

New book debunks Giuliani/9-11 hagiographies

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/7/15/19858/4466

Mitt Romney, pornographer?

http://www.firedoglake.com/2007/07/15/sunday-late-nite-mitts-p0rn-problem/

Here are the GOP talking points on David Vitter (R-LA) (thanks to Buzzflash for the link)

http://www.bayoubuzz.com/News/Louisiana/Politics/US_Senate_Computer_Used_For_Louisiana_David_Vitter_Talking_Points__4247.asp

I hope all those folks who gave money to Curt Weldon (R-PA) for his re-election are happy. He lost, but he’s making good use of the cash

http://www.warandpiece.com/blogdirs/006438.html
[Laura Rozen] Filings show that in the first half of the year, he spent $24,000 of his campaign funds to pay legal fees, and $5,000 to a private investigator. . .

Bonus item: Bob Schieffer says it for all of us

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/07/15/opinion/schieffer/main3058990.shtml
I am still not sure that I believe it: The Iraqi parliament is going on vacation during the month of August.

The White House offers the lame excuse that, after all, Baghdad is hot in August – sometimes 130 degrees.

May I ask a follow-up?

How much hotter do you suppose it is if you are a wearing a helmet, full body armor, carrying ammunition and walking foot patrols through Baghdad?

The last I heard, that is how American troops are spending their August in Iraq.

For me, this does it.

God help the Iraqi people because there is not much America can do to help a government that leaves Americans dying in the streets while the parliament escapes to cooler climes.

Does this mean we should pull out immediately?

No. A sudden withdrawal could set the entire region aflame. The truth is there are no good options left. But from here on, we need to put aside the dream of building a democracy in Iraq and focus solely on what is in our national interest.

It won't be pretty, but for all our good intentions, about all we can do now is try to contain this mess, pull our troops back from the middle of this civil war, and concentrate instead on the terrorist threat that this country faces around the world.

As for what kind of government Iraq needs, let their parliament figure it out. They can get right on it when the Baghdad weather turns cooler.

***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

 
YOU DON’T HAVE TO GO HOME, BUT YOU CAN’T STAY HERE

OK, great, that’s what we’ve been waiting to hear. Let’s go

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/15/world/middleeast/15iraq.html
Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki declared Saturday that Iraqi forces could secure the country on their own “any time” American troops decided to withdraw, his first response to the White House report this week that found his government falling well short of many political reforms and military goals sought by Congress. . . .

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070714/ap_on_re_mi_ea/iraq;_ylt=AlK2qKJPWsi1iUc0VnvSMu2s0NUE
One of al-Maliki's close advisers, Shiite lawmaker Hassan al-Suneid, bristled over the American pressure, telling The Associated Press that "the situation looks as if it is an experiment in an American laboratory (judging) whether we succeed or fail."

He sharply criticized the U.S. military, saying it was committing human rights violations and embarrassing the Iraqi government through such tactics as building a wall around Baghdad's Sunni neighborhood of Azamiyah and launching repeated raids on suspected Shiite militiamen in the capital's slum of Sadr City.

He also criticized U.S. overtures to Sunni groups in Anbar and Diyala provinces, encouraging former insurgents to join the fight against al-Qaida in Iraq. "These are gangs of killers," he said.

In addition, he said that al-Maliki has problems with the top U.S. commander, Gen. David Petraeus, who he said works along a "purely American vision."

"There are disagreements that the strategy that Petraeus is following might succeed in confronting al-Qaida in the early period but it will leave Iraq an armed nation, an armed society and militias," al-Suneid said.

Al-Suneid's comments were a rare show of frustration toward the Americans from within al-Maliki's inner circle as the prime minister struggles to overcome deep divisions between Shiite, Sunni and Kurdish members of his coalition and enact the U.S.-drawn list of benchmarks.

But the U.S. focus on the benchmarks has rankled the deep sense of Iraqi pride, even among those who share the goals set forth by the Americans. . . .

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/11456.html
[Steve Benen] Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari told reporters earlier this week that a U.S. withdrawal would make Iraq’s chaos worse, but Maliki dismissed his concerns, saying, “We say in full confidence that we are able, God willing, to take the responsibility completely in running the security file if the international forces withdraw at any time they want.” In other words, “We can take it from here.” . . .

Hmmm . . . could it be that we AREN’T staying in Iraq because the government wants us to be there?

http://www.samefacts.com/archives/the_occupation_of_iraq_/2007/07/last_one_out_please_leave_the_lights_on.php

What will the US domestic response be when people realize that the Iraqi Parliament is taking a month off with their major benchmarks unfulfilled?

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/11462.html

Progress?

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/11460.html
[Reuters] The number of Iraqi army battalions that operate independently, with no assistance from U.S. forces, has dropped from 10 to six over the last two months, the top U.S. general said on Friday. . . [read on]

More: http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/7/14/191355/921

You can’t complete your “mission” when the mission keeps changing

http://thinkprogress.org/2007/07/14/changing-mission/

Atrios started this line of analysis, and more and more of us have been converted: Bush simply won’t EVER admit a mistake and change course in Iraq. Every time a leak or hint comes out of the WH spin machine suggesting that he might, a quick follow-up clarifies that he won’t. It’s all about suppressing discontent and buying time, one “Friedman” (six month period) at a time, until he leaves office and dumps the mess on the next President

http://www.americablog.com/2007/07/any-plan-that-expects-bush-to-change.html

How the Dems have mishandled this issue, and the perception game around it

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2007/07/losing-thread-by-digby-you-may-have.html
[Digby] First, as I wondered earlier in the week, is there some reason that the Democrats didn't force the Republicans to actually filibuster the Webb legislation the old fashioned way and force them to publicly justify why they don't think the troops in Iraq should be allowed to spend some time at home before being redeployed? I still can't figure that one out --- it seemed like a no-brainer to me. . . [read on]

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/11457.html
[Steve Benen] In recent weeks, several Senate Republicans have talked a good game when it came to the failures of the president’s tragic policy in Iraq, but the question was always going to be whether they were willing to follow through. Those of you who placed your bet on “They won’t” can collect your money. . . [read on]

http://www.firedoglake.com/2007/07/14/when-all-they-understand-is-fear-or-force/
[Ian Welsh] It’s been a sad, sad spectacle to watch Republicans beating Democrats bloody in Congress - in both the House and the Senate, but most especially in the Senate. In the last two months Congressional approval numbers have dropped from from 48% amongst Democrats to 27% and almost no bills have been passed. The most significant bill to pass was the supplemental, which by itself caused a 10% drop in Democrats ratings in a single week - a huge down draft.

Democratic leaders continue to talk about how they want to govern, while Republicans continue to let nothing pass if they can avoid it. . . .

Losing the perception game: http://www.openleft.com/showDiary.do?diaryId=175
Tammy Lambirth, 42, a data researcher from San Antonio, disapproves of "all the fighting that they do all the time." . . . "The Republicans are just stonewalling everything, and the Democrats are just not stepping up and making them do what they need to do, especially about Iraq," said Lambirth, a Democrat. "They need to make our troops get out of Iraq."

The Big Lie

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/11458.html
[Tony Snow] “[T]he al Qaeda that exists today is not the al Qaeda that existed September 11, 2001. That is an al Qaeda that was a more traditional, top-down organization where you had bin Laden and a series of lieutenants and he issued orders and they carried them out.

“That organization was smashed. Three-quarters of its leadership — or, I guess, two-thirds of its leadership has either been killed or captured.” . . [read on]

Iran, huh?

http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/front/la-fg-saudi15jul15,1,6916057.story
Although Bush administration officials have frequently lashed out at Syria and Iran, accusing it of helping insurgents and militias here, the largest number of foreign fighters and suicide bombers in Iraq come from a third neighbor, Saudi Arabia, according to a senior U.S. military officer and Iraqi lawmakers.

About 45% of all foreign militants targeting U.S. troops and Iraqi civilians and security forces are from Saudi Arabia; 15% are from Syria and Lebanon; and 10% are from North Africa, according to official U.S. military figures made available to The Times by the senior officer. Nearly half of the 135 foreigners in U.S. detention facilities in Iraq are Saudis, he said. . .

Yet another object lesson of why it’s a fool’s game to play “the enemy of my enemy is my friend” in the Middle East

http://toohotfortnr.blogspot.com/2007/07/real-enemy-real-enemy.html

The little steps toward a wider regional conflagration: Kurdish troops now fighting against Iran

http://www.juancole.com/2007/07/are-we-already-at-war-have-us-enabled.html

Another great Bush foreign policy success (thanks to Buzzflash for the link)

http://www.dw-world.de/dw/article/0,2144,2682497,00.html
Russian President Vladimir Putin made true on earlier warnings to withdraw Russia's participation from the Treaty on Conventional Armed Forces in Europe (CFE) on Saturday. . . .

Intelligence watchdog panel didn’t report ANY abuses by the Bush gang – that must be because there weren’t any, right? Right? (This one’s a stunner) . . .

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/07/14/AR2007071400862.html

http://thenexthurrah.typepad.com/the_next_hurrah/2007/07/no-oversight.html

I probably haven’t done enough here to cover the shameful, disgusting performance of the Defense Dept and the Bush gang generally over the Pat Tillman “friendly fire” death. The thing is, it keeps getting worse

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/11463.html
[Steve Benen] In recent years, Pat Tillman’s death in Afghanistan has gone from being tragic to suspicious to scandalous. . . .

[WP] The White House has refused to give Congress documents about the death of former NFL player Pat Tillman, with White House counsel Fred F. Fielding saying that certain papers relating to discussion of the friendly-fire shooting “implicate Executive Branch confidentiality interests.”. . . . [read on]

More: http://www.speaker.gov/blog/?p=583

Why has the White House drawn the final line in the sand over Harriet Miers’ testimony? Some speculation

http://thenexthurrah.typepad.com/the_next_hurrah/2007/07/why-harriet.html

The case for impeachment

http://atrios.blogspot.com/2007_07_15_archive.html#1035411971738634106

Other roads: http://www.talkleft.com/story/2007/7/15/7575/34277

Anne Armstrong, a name you probably don’t know. Here’s why she’s important

http://thenexthurrah.typepad.com/the_next_hurrah/2007/07/rove-and-nixon-.html

Have they really thought this through? GOP making excuses for Vitter

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/015381.php
[IHT] "We all think that we're not vulnerable to something like that happening," [Sen. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.)] said, "but the fact is this can be a very lonely and isolating place to be away from your family. So I'm certainly not going to judge him because I don't want that kind of pressure on me." . . . [read on]

This stinks

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/7/14/193954/592
[Rick Perlstein] The liberal channel is called "SIRIUS Left."

The conservative channel is called "SIRIUS Patriot."

SIRIUS Satellite Radio doesn't think you're patriotic. This is an obscenity.

SIRIUS's media relations representative for talk radio is Hillary Schupf. Her email is hschupf@siriusradio.com.

Sunday talk show line-ups

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/7/14/234635/901
NBC’s Meet the Press: Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) & Sen. Jim Webb (D-VA) on Iraq; roundtable of Bloomberg's Al Hunt, Mike Murphy (R), Fox News' Bob Novak, and Bob Shrum (D) on 08

CBS’s Face the Nation: Gen. Mark Kimmitt; Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-TN); Time's Karen Tumulty; WaPo's Dan Balz

ABC’s This Week: Sen. Richard Lugar (R-IN) & Sen. John Warner (R-VA) on Iraq; NSA Stephen Hadley on Iraq and al-Qaeda; roundtable of Time's Jay Carney, ABC News' Claire Shipman, Sam Donaldson and George Will.

Fox News Sunday: NSA Stephen Hadley; Sen. Carl Levin (D-MI); AEI's Fred Kagan

CNN’s Late Edition: Sen. Joe Biden (D-DE): Sen. Trent Lott (R-MS); Sen. Jack Reed (D-RI); Iraqi Foregin Minister Hoshyar Zebari; NSA Stephen Hadley; roudntable of Ed Henry, Joe Johns & Hotline's Amy Walter

Bonus item: Heh

http://www.needlenose.com/node/view/4172

***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 @ 7:54 AM

 
“A SURGE OF FACTS”

Calling a lie, a lie

http://matthewyglesias.theatlantic.com/archives/2007/07/the_alqaeda_factor.php
[Joe Klein] Recently, in his desperation, starting with his speech at the Naval War College on June 28, [Bush] has been telling an outright lie, and he repeated it now, awkwardly, in Cleveland: "The same people that attacked us on September the 11th is the crowd that is now bombing people, killing innocent men, women and children [in Iraq]”. . .

That is not true. . .

More: http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/7/13/102611/036

http://www.americablog.com/2007/07/that-al-qaeda-in-iraa-that-bush-keeps.html

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/11439.html

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/015358.php

Simulacra of “progress”

http://www.firedoglake.com/2007/07/13/progress/

Oh, christ: now Tony Snow is calling for a “surge of facts” about Iraq (yes, of course, because you know they have always been concerned about presenting the unvarnished truth)

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/11440.html
[Steve Benen] I have a few questions.

* With the war in its fifth year, why did the White House wait until now to start “providing real hard data”?

* What does this say about the data the Bush gang has offered up until now?

* Will the “real hard data” include information about al Qaeda’s role in Iraqi violence, even though it contradicts the president’s talking points?

* Will the data resemble the bogus and exaggerated success stories from the Initial Benchmark Assessment Report?

* Snow now says, “We’re not gonna spin.” Can we get that in writing?

Ahem, here are some “facts”

http://www.firedoglake.com/2007/07/13/we-are-aware-of-the-dark-assessments/

Bush wants to talk about the consequences of a pullout in Iraq, and I’m sure they won’t be good. But, of course, we also have to consider the consequences of continuing with his policy – if he will just admit what they are. . . .

http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/us/AP-Iraq-What-Next.html
[AP] Between now and September the battle for Baghdad will intensify, likely costing hundreds of American troops' lives. . .

The U.S. casualty rate has increased in recent months . . .

No more spin, huh Tony? Please explain to us why the decision of the Iraqi parliament to take a month vacation, with NO major benchmarks met and a deadline coming up in September, is a good thing

http://www.first-draft.com/2007/07/today-on-hold-5.html

More: http://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/2007/07/us_eyes_iraqi_parlimentry_sche.php

And guys, please answer this: Why, six years later, are you still refusing to go into Pakistan to get the people who WERE behind 9-11?

http://blogs.abcnews.com/theblotter/2007/07/terror-commande.html

Bush doesn’t just say he will veto any legislation that limits his options on Iraq (or Iran) – he strongly indicates that he will ignore such legislation even if it does get passed

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/7/13/14494/2064

More: http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2007/07/he-really-wants-to-direct-by-digby.html

Just as the “Gang of 14” brought us wonderful “compromises” on filling the Federal judiciary with right-wingers that the Dems promised not to filibuster, a new Gang of 13 will show us the Middle Way on Iraq (and it is bipartisan, therefore it must be good)

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/7/13/131328/720
Moderate Democrats and politically vulnerable Senate Republicans who want change in Iraq — but fear being lumped together with the anti-war crowd — have been desperately searching for an alternative. . . .

[McJoan] This is the David Brooks and David Broder kind of plan. One that the Beltway Gasbags and Wise Old Men of Washington will look serious and make smugly approving noises over. . .

David Brooks gives his roadmap of the political terrain, obviously pointing to a 60-vote “middle ground” that he thinks will adopt the ISG recommendations, but not pull out on the war

http://www.talkleft.com/story/2007/7/13/115456/949
“To simplify a bit, roughly 20 senators, led by John McCain and Joe Lieberman, believe in Gen. David Petraeus and the surge. There are roughly 30 Republicans, led by Dick Lugar, John Warner and Lamar Alexander, who believe that the U.S. should scale back its mission and adopt the Iraq Study Group’s recommendations. There are roughly 30 Democrats, led by Carl Levin and Jack Reed, who also want to scale back and adopt the study group’s approach. And finally, there are roughly 20 Democrats, led by Ted Kennedy and Russ Feingold, who just want to get out as quickly as possible.”

Leading Republicans call for passing a new, narrower, war reauthorization. Hmmm . . . what happened when the Dems were calling for that?

http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room/2007/07/13/reauthorization/index.html
[Julia Dahl] [T]oday two Republican senators introduced a measure that would, among other things, require Bush to seek reauthorization of the war -- including a new rationale for it -- before Gen. David Petraeus issues his report on the progress of the surge in mid-September.

Sens. John W. Warner, R-Va., and Richard G. Lugar, R-Ind., filed their amendment to the 2008 Defense Authorization Act early this afternoon.

Lugar, who is one of several Republicans who have recently broken with Bush over his Iraq policy, told the New York Times that "many of the conditions and motivations that existed when we authorized force almost five years ago no longer exist or are irrelevant to our current situation." . . .

http://www.bayoubuzz.com/News/World/Iraq/US/Hillary_Clinton_Sen._Byrd_Want_Iraq_War_Reauthorization__3621.asp
[May 3, 2007] "Here we go again," [Dana] Perino said in a statement in response to the Clinton, Byrd efforts. "The Senate is trying another way to put a surrender date on the calendar. Welcome to politics '08-style."

Anyway, it’s less, much less, than meets the eye – and it’s probably going nowhere

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/7/13/224318/903

http://electioncentral.tpmcafe.com/blog/electioncentral/2007/jul/13/lugar_admits_amendment_wont_force_bush_to_change_course

http://www.slate.com/id/2170443
[Ben Whitford] Democrats dismissed the proposals as too timid, and it appears unlikely the senators' plan will gain a broad following; the LAT calls it "largely symbolic". But the papers agree that it constitutes a major challenge for Bush, underscoring his dwindling support on the Hill while staking out a coherent position from which Republicans can mount a challenge to his administration's handling of the war. With Congress still trying to hammer out a consensus and cement a veto-proof supermajority, the NYT argues that the Warner-Lugar proposal is likely to frame much of the debate in coming weeks; it also raises the stakes for the next Iraq progress report, due in September. Adding fuel to the widening Republican revolt, the Post reports that spiraling casualty numbers are prompting a growing opposition to the war in small Midwestern communities, once among the staunchest supporters of the conflict. . . .

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/7/14/81438/0509
[DemfromCT] Toothless legislation attracts votes, but doesn't get the job done. Legislation with teeth doesn't attract a consensus or a working majority (at this time) because there isn't one in Congress.

However, this misses a major issue which the members of Congress are going to hear about, and in spades, when they go back home for recess. The simple fact is that the public is way ahead of the politicians. The urgency to adjust the status quo outweighs the loyalty to the base, and far outweighs loyalty to an unpopular President, that GOP congress critters feel. The country thinks Congress is dithering. . . [read on]

The emerging new argument for “staying the course”

http://www.talkleft.com/story/2007/7/13/95444/0041
[Big Tent Democrat] The new argument is, as mcjoan discussed the other day, we can't leave because even worse things will happen. Predictably, Fred Hiatt and David Ignatius and all the "Very Serious People" at the Washington Post and in the Beltway, who have gotten it wrong on every single issue regarding Iraq (I kid you not, look it up, wrong every time), are now mouthing the latest Bush talking point. . .

Gen. David Petraeus, magic man

http://matthewyglesias.theatlantic.com/archives/2007/07/the_petraeus_dodge.php

Oh by the way, if you remember the audacious attack in Karbala that kidnapped and killed five US soldiers, the instant analysis was that Iran must have been behind it. Well, guess what? (thanks to Buzzflash for the link)

http://www.boomantribune.com/story/2007/7/13/143325/105
According to a U.S. Army investigation, the Iraqi Police assisted a brazen January assault on U.S. troops in the southern city of Karbala -- an attack that a U.S. military spokesman tied to Iranian operatives earlier this month. . . .

Yes, you read this right, we’re fighting the Iraqi police forces

http://www.slate.com/id/2170443
[Ben Whitford] Meanwhile, the Post and the NYT both give big play to yesterday's clashes between US troops and Iraqi police in eastern Baghdad. Thirteen Iraqis were killed as US forces raided a police station, capturing a police lieutenant accused of directing a Shiite militia group. The fighting highlights problems in recruiting and training army and police units; the NYT reports that American commanders are concerned that training programs have stalled in recent months, and could hinder attempts to reduce US troop levels. The Post runs a troubling interview with the leader of a group of Sunni militants, who describes Iraq's situation as all-out civil war and claims that the US surge strategy merely inflames the situation on the ground.

Joe Lieberman, worse and worse

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2007/07/oh-sweet-jesus-i-hate-joe-lieberman-by.html
“Look, the American military, working together with coalition forces including Iraqis, will never lose the war in Iraq. I just can’t stress that enough. ... If America suffers a defeat in Iraq, it will be because the American people didn’t stick with it, didn’t have the will. And some people here in leadership positions politically were so much against it that they built up that public opposition, that a lot of it is framed by the media. I won’t say a lot of them lie, but the constant focus is on the suicide bombers. And I know that’s news, but you know, the suicide bombers are our enemy. They’re carrying out more dramatic acts because we’re on the move, and we’ve got them on the run. And incidentally, Hugh, they’re not only trying to kill Iraqis and Americans with the suicide bombs over there, they’re trying to kill American support for the war in Iraq.”

Yes, there ARE worse places than Guantanamo

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/07/13/AR2007071301892.html

Let’s go to court. People seem to think this is a terrible idea, because it means the constitutional struggle over Bush’s outrageous claims of executive authority might be tied up in court through the end of his term. I say, so be it – we need an adjudication of this nonsense, and delaying it with negotiations or “compromises” (like secret testimony not under oath and with no written record; or selectively dribbling out heavily redacted documents while keeping the most damaging ones hidden) serves the Bush gang’s interest in seeming to be fair and open to reason. They are not. I want the headlines to read “White House Charged with Contempt of Congress,” because that’s the way it is. Then let’s see what they do

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/07/13/AR2007071301377.html
House Democrats told no-show witness Harriet Miers on Friday that she could soon be held in contempt as they issued the Republican National Committee a new subpoena for White House e-mails.

The deadline for replies from both: Tuesday. . .

http://thenexthurrah.typepad.com/the_next_hurrah/2007/07/the-embarrassme.html
[Emptywheel] We've got to start calling these refusals to testify what they are--because they surely aren't executive privilege. With Sara Taylor's plea to avoid testifying because she admires--and apparently took a vow to--Bush it's not executive privilege because she didn't speak to him about the USA firings. But we might call her refusal to testify the "I love me my Prezident privilege"--because that's about as serious as the legal discussion behind it is.

And then there's Harriet Miers. To justify her refusal to even show up, some DOJ hack suggested that the branches of government are so independent that they cannot force the other branch to show up . . .

But the real absurdity is BushCo's refusal to show up and reveal the truth about when it learned that Pat Tillman was killed by friendly fire. They don't assert executive privilege. Rather, they're calling this Embarrassment Privilege "Executive Branch confidentiality interests"

Oh, and have I mentioned the Exempt from Presidential Records Act but not from Executive Privilege Privilege, being used to prevent Congress from seeing emails sent on an external server?

This is getting absurd--and deserves to be treated with appropriate absurdity in return. It's like a new party game we're playing, the "dream up the most absurd privilege" game. Bush has been playing it already for six months. It's time Democrats realized that fact.

More: http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2007/07/14/tillman/index.html

Fired US Attorney Bud Cummins calls Sara Taylor a liar

http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/003672.php

Having said for months that he can’t talk about the Plame case while it is being litigated, but promising to give a full accounting when it is over, is the press really going to let Bush get away with saying, now, “it’s over, and we’re moving on”?

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/blog/2007/07/13/BL2007071301045.html

Why the Dems don’t want impeachment: because they think that keeping Bush and Cheney in office is the best thing they can do for their prospects in 2008

http://www.tpmcafe.com/blog/coffeehouse/2007/jul/13/why_are_dems_such_cowards_on_impeachment

A good slogan for 2008: Do you want a third term for Bush?

http://www.mydd.com/story/2007/7/13/14235/0618

Mitch McConnell (R-KY) just makes stuff up

http://electioncentral.tpmcafe.com/blog/electioncentral/2007/jul/13/mcconnell_lies_about_his_constituents_falsely_says_they_back_war
[Greg Sargent] GOP Senator Mitch McConnell made an appearance on CNN this morning, promptly revealing once again just how high his regard for his own constituents is these days.

Asked about Iraq, the good Senator told America that people from his home state of Kentucky "overwhelmingly" support the war.

McConnell is lying to America. Better yet, he knows he's lying, but more on that in a bit.

There have been to my knowledge two polls of Kentucky voters since the surge started, and both show that McConnell is spewing baloney. The first poll, done by the Courier-Journal, found that a majority -- 52% -- thought McConnell should oppose the surge. Only 40% said he should back it.

Now on to the second poll, done in April. Yep -- it found that an overwhelming 64% of Kentuckians favored pulling out by the middle of next year. Only 36% favored the surge, while 59% opposed it. And more respondents (39%) said McConnell didn't represent their views on Iraq than said he did (34%). This was admittedly a Dem poll, but since it's in line with the earlier indy one, it'll do.

Ah, and here's the most fun part of all: McConnell actually knows he's lying. He's on record actually commenting on the results of the first poll, so he knows full well that it found the opposite of what he told America this morning. . . .

Looks like McCain and Romney are rehearsing to run the nation’s budget the way Bush has

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/015374.php
Romney blows through $20 million in campaign expenditures in one quarter. . .

What John McCain can do to salvage his dying campaign: two diametrically opposed strategies

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/11442.html
[Thomas Edsall] McCain tried to become the establishment candidate and failed. Fred Thompson is now seeking to fill that vacuum, although the value of that position appears to have dropped sharply. “The collapse of the McCain campaign is simply a metaphor for the disintegration of the entire Republican Party establishment,” conservative public relations strategist Craig Shirley noted.

Rudy Giuliani has become the post-9/11 national security candidate. Mitt Romney, in turn, appears to have locked up Iowa, where a victory will turn him into a competitor elsewhere.

The only place left for McCain is to be the anti-Bush Republican. This was his turf in 2000, and it is far more fertile ground today. . .

More: http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/015334.php

http://matthewyglesias.theatlantic.com/archives/2007/07/mccain_doubles_down.php
With regard to the post below, Marc Ambinder's report on how John McCain hopes to revive his dying presidential campaign by giving a speech in which he "will steel his audience to prepare for a 'Long War'" is a reminder of why McCain and Rudy Giuliani are both so dangerous. They both rely on mindless warmongering as their only hope of securing the nomination. . .

Are Repubs trying to cut a deal for David Vitter’s (R-LA) resignation?

http://www.legitgov.org/vitter_replacement_appointment_130707.html

http://www.mydd.com/story/2007/7/13/185154/185

Media watch

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/015349.php
[NYT] Senate Narrowly Backs Bush in Rejecting Debate on Increasing Time Between Deployments

[Josh Marshall] Well, no, I'm sorry. That's not right. The vote was 56 to 41. A solid majority of senators supported increasing time between deployments.

Republicans blocked a vote on the bill. Say it again: They blocked a vote. They filibustered it. . . .

As they say, even a stopped watch is right twice a day: Bill O’Reilly comes out against the war in Iraq

http://rawstory.com/news/2007/OReilly_takes_on_Tony_Snow_You_0713.html

Bonus item: I’m glad to hear that he sleeps so well – Peggy Noonan figures out something about Bush that the rest of us have known from the start

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/11448.html

http://www.firedoglake.com/2007/07/13/late-late-night-fdl-peggy-it-was-really-nothing/

***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 @ 8:21 AM

 
PROGRESS REPORT

In one of the most anticlimactic press conferences in history, Bush announces that the latest report on progress in Iraq gives mixed results (gosh!), and this is proof of why we need to give the surge more time (gee, really?)

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/13/washington/13policy.html
The report assessed the Iraqi government’s progress in meeting 18 benchmarks set by Congress on military, economic and political matters. It found the Iraqis had made satisfactory progress in meeting eight benchmarks, including committing three brigades for operations in and around Baghdad, and spending nearly $7.3 billion in Iraqi money to train, equip and modernize its forces.

But the Iraqis made unsatisfactory progress in meeting another eight benchmarks, including passing an oil revenue-sharing law and preparing for local elections that could help reconcile the country’s Shiite, Sunni and Kurdish factions. On two benchmarks, progress was too mixed to be characterized. . .

[NB: Here’s how Rush Limbaugh characterized the report: “We’re doing great in eight areas, not as good in eight others, and in two it’s too early to tell”]

http://www.ericumansky.com/2007/07/doing-the-kabuk.html
[Eric Umansky] So the White House's self-evaluation on Iraq is in. And surprise, surprise, the administration has concluded that things aren't going soooo terribly. On eight of 18 "benchmarks," the admin has decided that "satisfactory" progress is being made. Whether the benchmarks have actually been met isn't the point, you see . . [read on]

http://jamesfallows.theatlantic.com/archives/2007/07/donnez_moi_un_break_bush_press.php
[Jim Fallows] It is hard to know what is the most contemptible part of President Bush's press conference . . . But it's going to be hard to top what he just uttered: the most blatant attempt so far to blame everything that went wrong in Iraq on the advice of the military. . . [read on]

http://matthewyglesias.theatlantic.com/archives/2007/07/surprise_of_the_day.php
[Matt Yglesias] White House review of White House Iraq policy deems said policy to be successful; White House decides, based on the report, to continue with its same policy.

There's something, I dunno, degrading about this exercise. Bush is the Bush. The Republicans plus Joe Lieberman constitute a majority of the Senate. As few as 34 Senators can uphold Bush's vetos. Bush has no practical need to do anything other than keep playing the role of petulant boy-king. Why the pretense? I have in my inbox a ""Benchmark Report Fact Check" email that is, of course, devastating. . . It says the report is BS.

AP Photo: http://hosted.ap.org/photos/6/6424fd11-be97-4c2d-aff8-df5ce468d291-big.jpg

They read the report (so you don’t have to)

http://www.nsnetwork.org/node/168
The National Security Network reviewed the benchmarks labeled by the Bush Administration as "satisfactory." Unfortunately the facts show that this moniker is misleading. Some benchmarks claimed as "satisfactory" only demonstrate minimal progress, not achievement. Others have been achieved on the surface, but fail to accomplish the overall purpose of the specific measurement. A point-by-point analysis follows. . . . [read on]

http://www.slate.com/id/2170303/
[Fred Kaplan] The White House report released today, on how far Iraq has progressed toward 18 political and military benchmarks, is a sham. . . [read on]

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/11437.html
[Steve Benen] I finally got around to reading the White House’s Initial Benchmark Assessment Report (.pdf) last night, so I could learn all about the “progress” that the president is so encouraged by. It’s worth checking out, if for no other reason, than to see just how desperate the situation really is and to see just how low the Bush gang’s spin machine can go. . . [read on]

http://www.ericumansky.com/2007/07/doing-the-kabuk.html
[Tony Cordesman] It is clear that the Iraqi government has not really met the Bush administration’s benchmarks in any major area. . . .

http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/front/la-fg-iraqreport13jul13,1,1861908,full.story
The Bush administration's status report Thursday on the Iraq war gives the Iraqi government an even mix of "satisfactory" and "unsatisfactory" grades, but a closer look provides a more sobering impression: The least progress is being made on the most important goals. . .

http://www.slate.com/id/2170378
[Daniel Politi] The Post goes inside with a look at what the report says about the Iraqi military. Due to several factors, there has been a "slight reduction" in the number of combat-ready Iraqi troops. The paper tried to figure out what "slight reduction" actually means but it turns out that information is "in the classified realm," as one spokesman put it.

On Iraq

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/11424.html
[Helen Thomas, bless her heart] Q: Mr. President, you started this war, a war of your choosing, and you can end it alone, today, at this point — bring in peacekeepers, U.N. peacekeepers. Two million Iraqis have fled their country as refugees. Two million more are displaced. Thousands and thousands are dead. Don’t you understand, you brought the al Qaeda into Iraq. . . [read on]

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/015302.php
[Josh Marshall] Bush: We'll do what the generals want, not what the people want.

Of course, the generals were pretty much to a man against the surge. But Bush fired them and got some generals that agreed. So there ...

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2007/07/no-war-left-behind-by-dover-bitch-on_12.html
[Digby] Bush is like a superintendent with a large toolbox containing only a hammer. When he fails to solve a problem that cannot be fixed with a hammer, he either demands to know how anybody could suggest it's not the finest hammer ever manufactured, or he tries to obscure the view so only the nails are visible. . . .

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/blog/2007/07/12/BL2007071201059.html
[Dan Froomkin] At his press conference this morning, President Bush tried to redefine the debate about the war in Iraq.

"Sometimes the debate over Iraq is cast as a disagreement between those who want to keep our troops in Iraq and those who want to bring our troops home," he said. "And this is not the real debate. . .”

"The real debate over Iraq is between those who think the fight is lost or not worth the cost and those who believe the fight can be won, and that, as difficult as the fight is, the costs of defeat would be far higher." . . . [read on]

Defeatists, one and all

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/7/12/1929/72003
By the largest margin yet in favor of redeployment, the House approved the Responsible Redeployment from Iraq act today by a vote of 223-201. . . .

See you in September

http://www.slate.com/id/2170378
[Daniel Politi] Despite an initial panic at the White House after some high profile defections, it's clear most Republicans are standing by their man, and giving the president the benefit of the doubt until September. Since Democrats won't be able to get anywhere near enough votes to override a veto, Washington will give us "at least two more months of anger and posturing but no change in direction," concludes the Post. Sounds like fun.

Although many Republicans admitted that it's not quite clear how things will really be different in eight weeks, the LAT interestingly notes that it looks like the September report won't only gauge progress but will also present Congress with options to change the war strategy. Even though it's easy to deride the political posturing, it's evident that all the criticism is having some sort of effect on the White House. As the Post notes, only two weeks ago administration officials were hinting that September might be too soon to gauge whether the "surge" was working. . . .

On Al Qaeda

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/11426.html
Q: But, sir, on that point, what evidence can you present to the American people that the people who attacked the United States on September the 11th are, in fact, the same people who are responsible for the bombings taking place in Iraq? What evidence can you present? And also, are you saying, sir, that al Qaeda in Iraq is the same organization being run by Osama bin Laden, himself? . . . [read on]

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/13/world/middleeast/13qaeda.html
President Bush on Thursday employed a stark and ominous defense. “The same folks that are bombing innocent people in Iraq,” he said, “were the ones who attacked us in America on September the 11th, and that’s why what happens in Iraq matters to the security here at home.”

It is an argument Mr. Bush has been making with frequency in the past few months, as the challenges to the continuation of the war have grown. On Thursday alone, he referred at least 30 times to Al Qaeda or its presence in Iraq.

But his references to Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia, and his assertions that it is the same group that attacked the United States in 2001, have greatly oversimplified the nature of the insurgency in Iraq and its relationship with the Qaeda leadership. . .

http://atrios.blogspot.com/2007_07_08_archive.html#8571901197032634954
[Atrios] The only "bad guys" we can kill are those we label "al Qaeda" because anything else basically involves taking sides in any number of sectarian conflicts. . .

More than that, "fighting al Qaeda" is simply Bush administration propaganda for what the entire war effort is about. Bush thinks we're fighting al Qaeda, the public thinks "fighting terrorists" is a noble cause, and 6 years later we're still linking all this up to a horrible day in September when a bunch of guys not from Iraq killed a bunch of people on US soil.

The administration has never been able to distinguish their propaganda about what was going on in Iraq with what was actually going on in Iraq.

More: http://www.americablog.com/2007/07/military-spokesman-absolutely-wrong.html

A couple of days ago, the NY Times ombudsman chided his own paper for being too credulous in accepting the Bush gang’s characterization of the enemy in Iraq as “Al Qaeda.” I guess people at the Washington Post don’t read the Times

http://mediamatters.org/items/200707120003

Tony Snow earns his salary

http://www.first-draft.com/2007/07/today-on-hold-4.html
Q Tony, is al Qaeda in Iraq and al Qaeda the same organization?

MR. SNOW: Al Qaeda in Iraq is obviously an offshoot --

Q Is it taking operational instructions from Osama bin Laden?

MR. SNOW: That I'm not competent to tell you.

Q Why did the President say yesterday that the same people who attacked us on September the 11th was the crowd that is now bombing people in Iraq? . . . [read on]

On “fighting them there so we don’t have to fight them here” (one of the dumbest excuses of all). Guess what? They’re coming here anyway

http://www.cnn.com/2007/US/07/12/terror.threat.ap/index.html
Al Qaeda is stepping up its efforts to sneak terror operatives into the United States and has acquired most of the capabilities it needs to strike here, according to a new U.S. intelligence assessment. . .

http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/003673.php
According to practically every available intelligence report, the summer of 2007 is eerily similar to the summer of 2001: numerous, compounding threats, without specificity, emanating from a souped-up al-Qaeda with save haven in South Asia. . .

More: http://www.warandpiece.com/blogdirs/006426.html

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/11428.html

http://atrios.blogspot.com/2007_07_08_archive.html#2756364596700088948
[Atrios] This administration's entire premise is that it exists to reduce the risk of terrorism. That was what the GWOT was supposed to be about. That is what they've used to justify all of their illegal actions and all of their fuckups. So when 6 years later it turns out those policies have not actually achieved their aims, even leaving aside all of the additional dead people they've helped create, you'd think it would be fairly logical to see that as a bad thing.

Who?

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/015335.php
[DV] Remember the War Czar? Anyone heard anything from him lately? Shouldn't he be pretty prominent what with all the news from Iraq and the surge in full swing now? Oh, maybe he's off "coordinating" or something. Here's, arguably, the most powerful military man in the country and I'll bet 9 out of 10 Americans (even the informed ones) don't even know the guy's name (it's Lt. Gen. Douglas Lute). Talk about another brilliant idea.

On Iran

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/015319.php
[Josh Marshall] As the president told us again today, he'll veto any bill that will tie his hands on doing whatever he wants in Iraq. We know that. But not many people seemed to notice that he also told Congress he'd veto any measure that would limit his ability to take military action of any sort in Iran.

On Libby

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/11425.html
Q: You spoke very soberly and seriously in your statement about how you weighed different legal questions in coming to your decision on [the Scooter Libby] commutation. But one issue that you did not address was the issue of the morality of your most senior advisors leaking the name of a confidential intelligence operator. Now that the case is over — it’s not something you’ve ever spoken to — can you say whether you’re at all disappointed in the behavior of those senior advisors? And have you communicated that disappointment to them in any way? . . .

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/015305.php
[Josh Marshall] A very revealing moment. For the first time the president was asked, now that all the legal stuff is over and there's nothing more pending, whether he was disappointed in the fact that a number of his top advisors were responsible for revealing the name of a covert CIA operative.

He couldn't even manage a perfunctory statement of disappointment or regret. He managed to slip in a dig at Rich Armitage, a general statement that the whole thing had been very rough on the White House staff and that now "we're" moving on.

Needless to say, the president was involved from day one. He was always in favor of doing it. And he basically said so again today. Truly a shameful man. . . .

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/07/12/AR2007071200577.html
President Bush always said he would wait to talk about the CIA leak case until after the investigation into his administration's role. On Thursday, he skipped over that step and pronounced the matter old news hardly worth discussing.

"It's run its course," he said. "Now we're going to move on." . . .

http://www.firedoglake.com/2007/07/12/pretzel-logic/
[Jane Hamsher] So George Bush takes advantage of the groundwork put in place by the Libby Lobby and builds on the story that Richard Armitage (whom he refers to as “that person”) is the only one in the administration that exposed Valerie Wilson’s identity as a CIA agent (because as aficionados of right wing logic will have no trouble accepting, this act means that Karl Rove and Scooter Libby could not have also done it too, and at the same time absolves them from legal culpability when they did). . . .

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/wire/ats-ap_top10jul12,0,7854307.story
Several Bush administration officials revealed Plame's identity. White House political adviser Karl Rove and Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage were the primary sources for a 2003 newspaper article outing Plame. Former White House press secretary Ari Fleischer also admitted telling reporters about her. And jurors apparently believed prosecutors who said Libby discussed Plame with reporters from the New York Times and Time magazine. . . .

Libby judge not happy: http://thenexthurrah.typepad.com/the_next_hurrah/2007/07/reggies-going-t.html

“A subpoena isn’t an invitation”

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/7/12/15426/7096
[Hunter] This is -- yet again -- a remarkable situation. Harriet Miers isn't merely refusing to answer certain questions under the rubric of executive privilege, the White House is asserting that her very person is immune to constitutional oversight, and that thus she may ignore congressional subpoenas in their entirety.

That's an astonishing claim, if for no other reason than it is flatly, unambiguously, and laughably wrong. It's not even a debatable statement, but one of those now-regular White House quasilegal statements that mocks well-known and well-established laws to such an extent that no other conclusion can be reached but that the White House legal team is willfully setting out to break laws just to demonstrate that they can. . . . [read on]

Watch: http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/003671.php

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/015297.php
[Paul Kiel] Harriet Miers blows off Congress, appropriately enough, with the help of the Justice Department. . . .

http://www.firedoglake.com/2007/07/12/you-stop-a-war-with-the-constitution-you-have/
[Thers] So let me get this straight. Bear with me here.

Congress is investigating the improper firings of US Attorneys by the Bush administration. The charge is that the Bush Justice Department was colluding with the Bush Political Hack Department to such a degree that the Justice Department and the Political Hack Department became indistinguishable. To find out what happened, congressional committees issued subpoenas of documents and of persons: Harriet Miers, exposed as a thoroughly comical hack two years ago, and Sara Taylor, whose incredible hackery has only recently been put on display. The Bush administration has refused to comply with these subpoenas, invoking Executive Privilege in a thoroughly hacktastic fashion.

OK. But here’s the punchline: now, in order to enforce its subpoenas, Congress must trust that… the Bush Justice Department will decide to prosecute the Bush Political Hack Department for refusing to obey these subpoenas… which are intended to show to what extent the Bush Justice Department was as one with the Bush Political Hack Department. . . . [read on]

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2007/07/politics-in-extreme-by-digby-you-have.html
[Digby] You have to give these Republicans credit, you really do. They are changing the rules of the game right in front of our eyes and daring the Democrats to do something about it. And the Democrats are flummoxed, as usual, scrambling to figure out the play. Republicans are just better at this new form of extreme politics. . .

More: http://sideshow.me.uk/sjul07.htm#07131140

Contempt charges coming: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/07/12/AR2007071200136.html

A new Cheney biography

http://matthewyglesias.theatlantic.com/archives/2007/07/cheney.php
[Matt Yglesias] Sitting on the table next to me is a copy of the imminently forthcoming masterwork, Cheney: The Untold Story of America's Most Powerful and Controversial Vice President by . . . Steven Hayes (yes, that Steven Hayes).

The jacket copy is priceless: "With exhaustive reporting, Hayes shines a light into the shadows of the Bush administration and finds a very different Dick Cheney from the one America thinks it knows." In short, Hayes was able to penetrate the legendary veil of secrecy surrounding the Vice President and uncover the shocking truth that -- Dick Cheney is awesome! Why, one wonders, has the administration been covering this up? . . . [read on]

Bush: 26%, and still falling

http://atrios.blogspot.com/2007_07_08_archive.html#3203393169950020556

The F word

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/015298.php
[TS] There seems to be no mention in the press of the current use of the threat of filibuster by Senate Republicans. In the previous Congress, as I recall, there was much criticism of Democrats for suggesting that they might filibuster Bush's Court appointments. Am I wrong in thinking that Republicans have stopped ordinary legislation at least twice in the last week by threatening extended debate? But where's the mention of it in the press? In the NYT story this morning about the amendment to give troops more time at home, the f-word only appears in the second to last paragraph. shouldn't they be called on this?

“John McCain's Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Week”

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/7/12/84856/6820

It gets worse: http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/07/12/two-more-mccain-aides-depart/
The drip, drip, drip of difficulties continued Thursday for Senator John McCain’s presidential campaign, as two of his key Iowa hands departed. . .

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/015332.php
CNN has a story running on its political ticker revealing that John McCain's campaign is down to only $250,000. . . .

http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2007/07/12/mccain-state-co-chairman-arrested/
A day after four of Sen. John McCain’s top political strategists stepped down, the Arizona Republican’s presidential campaign was dealt another setback when the co-chairman of his Florida campaign was arrested Wednesday for allegedly offering an undercover police officer money for a sex act . . .

What IS it with these people?

http://www.firedoglake.com/2007/07/12/late-nite-fdl-grand-old-perverts/

The video you’ll see 24x7 if Romney is the Republican nominee

http://electioncentral.tpmcafe.com/blog/electioncentral/2007/jul/12/romney_not_so_keen_on_being_republican_while_in_massachusetts

Giuliani attacked by NY firefighters

http://electioncentral.tpmcafe.com/blog/electioncentral/2007/jul/11/breaking_fire_fighters_attacking_rudy_in_new_video

More: http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2007/07/metaphor-reporting-by-digby-i-realize.html

http://www.samefacts.com/archives/rudy_giuliani_/2007/07/despicable.php

Fred Thompson’s lobbying trouble continues

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/11423.html
[Steve Benen] So, on Saturday, the official Thompson line is, “This didn’t happen.” On Wednesday, the official Thompson line is, “It doesn’t mean anything.”. . . is it me or does Thompson’s line need a little work? . . .

http://www.talkleft.com/story/2007/7/12/115356/940
[Thomas Edsall] Hannity: "They have attacked you, they have attacked your family, and now, they come out in the Los Angeles Times with a piece that says you lobbied for abortion rights. You say that's absolutely not true."

[THOMPSON]: "You need to separate a lawyer who is advocating a position from the position itself."

[NB: Hmmm. . . doesn’t that mean it IS true?]

http://politicalwire.com/archives/2007/07/13/thompson_backs_off_abortion_lobbying_denial.html
"Fred Thompson is backing off his flat denial that he once lobbied for an abortion-rights group. He now says he doesn’t remember it, but does not dispute evidence to the contrary," reports The Politico.

I think this is called a non-responsive answer to the question

http://www.cnn.com/2007/POLITICS/07/12/surgeon.general.reut/index.
President Bush's surgeon general nominee disputed critics' claims that he holds "anti-gay" views . . .

"I can only say that I have a deep, deep appreciation for the essential humanity of everyone, regardless of their personal circumstances or their sexual orientation," Dr. James Holsinger testified during his two-hour confirmation hearing. . . .

But Democratic Sen. Edward Kennedy of Massachusetts, the committee's chairman, said, "Dr. Holsinger's paper cherry-picks and misuses data to support his thesis that homosexuality is unhealthy and unnatural."

"I did not attempt to write a definitive scientific paper," Holsinger responded, admitting its contents were now outdated. . . .

Combo entry: Theocracy watch AND The kind of people they are

http://electioncentral.tpmcafe.com/blog/electioncentral/2007/jul/12/christian_right_activists_disrupt_hindu_chaplain_in_the_senate
Today was a historic first for religion in America's civic life: For the very first time, a Hindu delivered the morning invocation in the Senate chamber — only to find the ceremony disrupted by three Christian right activists. . .

"Lord Jesus, forgive us father for allowing a prayer of the wicked, which is an abomination in your sight," the first protester began. . .

Watch it: http://www.cnn.com/2007/POLITICS/07/12/prayer.protest.reut/index.html#cnnSTCVideo

Bonus item: The Goofus Files

http://atrios.blogspot.com/2007_07_08_archive.html#4502621828108769018

***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 @ 8:26 AM

 
PLAIN SPEAKING

Let’s be honest, shall we? A few things that no one wants to say quite out loud

Truth #1: Bush will never pull out a significant number of troops from Iraq. Why not? Because any reduction, which is inevitable, will lead to an increase of violence if not open chaos and civil war. Bush wants the next President to get blamed for that, not him

http://www.slate.com/id/2170145/
Stay the Course
There was nothing new in Bush's weird, rambling speech. . .
[Fred Kaplan] Some officers and midlevel officials have been telling me and other reporters that President George W. Bush is preparing to give in on Iraq—to recognize that victory is no longer feasible, that the "surge" isn't working, and that it's time to cut back U.S. troop levels and shift strategy once more.

After watching Bush's speech in Cleveland this afternoon, I can only conclude that this prediction—like all the similar predictions of an impending drawdown these past three years—is wishful thinking. . . .

Truth #2: The Bush plan can’t succeed. The Maliki government is incapable of forging the kind of national consensus he wants. The insurgency is driven by domestic frictions that our presence only makes worse. Civil war or some kind of partitioning are the only alternative futures now. Western-style democracy? Look at the rest of the region. If we leave, Al Qaeda will proclaim victory and use it as a recruiting tool; if we stay, Al Qaeda will demonize us as an occupying force and use it as a recruiting tool. Either way, Bush’s policies are making Al Qaeda stronger, not weaker, with every passing day

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/07/11/AR2007071102451.html
Early on the morning of Nov. 13, 2006, members of the bipartisan Iraq Study Group gathered around a dark wooden conference table in the windowless Roosevelt Room of the White House.

For more than an hour, they listened to President Bush give what one panel member called a "Churchillian" vision of "victory" in Iraq and defend the country's prime minister, Nouri al-Maliki. "A constitutional order is emerging," he said.

Later that morning, around the same conference table, CIA Director Michael V. Hayden painted a starkly different picture for members of the study group. Hayden said "the inability of the government to govern seems irreversible," adding that he could not "point to any milestone or checkpoint where we can turn this thing around” . . .

http://atrios.blogspot.com/2007_07_08_archive.html#7791365365472857768
[Atrios] When an occupying force is seen by a sufficient number of the people as an unwelcome occupier to be opposed, then there's no way that occupier can be responsible for creating and maintaining order.

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/2007/07/iraq_report_points_to_limited.php
Struggling to defend its Iraq policy, the Bush administration in a 23-page classified report will point to limited progress being made by the U.S.-backed government in Baghdad, U.S. officials told The Associated Press on Tuesday.

The interim assessment, which will be presented on Capitol Hill on Thursday, finds the Iraqi government has failed to pass long-promised laws that Washington has called key to national cohesion and economic recovery, such as legislation that would fairly divide Iraq's oil resources.

http://www.slate.com/id/2170293
[Daniel Politi] As the NYT makes clear, the decision to rate the progress, instead of simply stating whether the benchmarks had actually been met, allows the White House to paint a more positive picture of the situation in Iraq. . .

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/7/12/01520/7888
[Devilstower] The Bush administration has decided to grade the war on a curve. . .

http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/front/la-na-benchmarks12jul12,1,2094063.story
The Bush administration's decision to set benchmarks for measuring the progress of the Iraq mission is now seen by some U.S. officials as a costly blunder . . .

http://www.slate.com/id/2170293
[Daniel Politi] Both the WP and NYT contrast the White House's leaked report with the much more negative assessment given by intelligence officials, who told lawmakers yesterday that there has been little progress since January. . . .

Lovely

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/7/11/101240/880
[AP] The U.S. military expects al Qaeda in Iraq to strike back with "spectacular attacks" after major U.S.-led offensives that have disrupted its activities, a military spokesman said on Wednesday.

http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/front/la-fg-intel12jul12,1,554464.story
Three top U.S. intelligence officials said Wednesday that a resurgent Al Qaeda had stepped up training and worldwide operations from safe havens in Pakistan, a development they worry could lead to ambitious new attacks. . .

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/7/11/175547/534
[ABC] While the military has maintained that al Qaeda is on the run in Iraq, by any number of measures the terror group and its affiliates are as strong as ever, and June was the most violent month since the start of the war, a senior U.S. military official told ABC News.

"Despite our successes in taking out leaders and infrastructure," said the official, "al Qaeda's operational capability appears to be undiminished." . . .

http://atrios.blogspot.com/2007_07_08_archive.html#3427797004770788278
The government has concluded that al-Qaida has rebuilt its operating capability to a level not seen since the summer of 2001, The Associated Press has learned.

“Opposite Day” http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/11405.html

Lieberman's world: http://atrios.blogspot.com/2007_07_08_archive.html#8120961069848505239
The enemy is on the run in Iraq. . .

More: http://www.motherjones.com/mojoblog/archives/2007/07/4843_intelligence_br.html

Truth #3: The Republicans have imposed a 60-vote requirement on everything in the Senate. This is called “filibustering,” “blocking,” or “obstructing.” No other verbs should appear in headlines describing the dynamics of this Congress

http://www.americablog.com/2007/07/gop-senate-leader-mcconnell-says-he.html
[Roll Call] Reid's tack on Tuesday appeared to be a dual attempt to press Republicans on the political question of Iraq and to challenge the need for 60 votes for passage of any measure — one of Minority Leader Mitch McConnell's (R-Ky.) chief tactical tools this year. . . .

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/07/11/AR2007071101044.html
Senate GOP Blocks Longer Leave for Troops

[NB: There you go, is that so hard? Meanwhile, the NYT gives us. . .]

http://www.talkleft.com/story/2007/7/12/84153/6636
[NYT] Senate Narrowly Backs Bush . . .

More: http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/11410.html

http://atrios.blogspot.com/2007_07_08_archive.html#7028768781305068638
[James Webb, D-VA] A clear majority of the Senate—56 Members – sent a strong message today in favor of ensuring responsible deployment cycles for our men and women serving in Iraq and Afghanistan. I regret that we did not reach the 60-vote margin that would have allowed this amendment to prevail. It was offered in the spirit of bipartisanship. It was offered with the intention of protecting the well-being of our troops.

“A Republican filibuster kept this amendment from passing by an up-or-down vote. Americans are tired of this kind of posturing. The troops and their families don’t want to hear about political, procedural maneuvers. What they really care about are results. They are looking for concrete actions that will protect the well-being of our men and women in uniform. . .”

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/7/11/12537/2406
[Reid] I am discouraged that the Republican leadership chose to block this troop readiness amendment. . . .

[BarbinMD] Senators' Warner, Snowe, Collins, Coleman, Sununu, Hagel and Smith voted with the Democrats, while Voinovich and Domenici proved that for all their tough talk, at the end of the day their loyalty is to this President, not to their country. And of course it goes without saying that Joe Lieberman voted with the Republicans. . .

What’s wrong with the Salazar “compromise” bill on Iraq

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/7/11/155117/240

http://www.americablog.com/2007/07/publish-wed-dear-ap-do-you-actually.html

Truth #4: OF COURSE the plan to politicize the US Attorney system and use it to drive electoral success for Republicans was a Karl Rove operation from start to finish. Do we really need an investigation or a “smoking gun” to tell us this? Has anyone been paying attention to the pattern all along? EVERY professional and nonpartisan branch of government was being turned into an extension of the WH political office and the RNC – that’s the lesson of Doan, Carmona, Whitman, and on and on. It’s what they do

http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/story?id=2954988
New unreleased e-mails from top administration officials show that the idea of firing all 93 U.S. attorneys was raised by White House Deputy Chief of Staff Karl Rove in early January 2005, indicating Rove was more involved in the plan than the White House previously acknowledged. . .

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/17637053/site/newsweek/
Karl Rove participated in a discussion about the firing of U.S. attorneys in 2005, asking White House lawyers “how we planned to proceed” on the issue and whether the prosecutors would be selectively dismissed or fired en masse . . .

My Carmona: http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/11408.html

ONLY someone as feckless as Alberto Gonzales would let the political office of the White House draw up a list of HIS US Attorneys to fire. These people worked for him as Attorney General, and they had a right to be evaluated by him and hired and fired by him. Gonzales has become the Useful Idiot of this administration – and a person with any self-respect would have quit or refused to be their tool a long time ago. Plus, he’s not only a liar, he’s a bad, stupid liar

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/11406.html

Truth #5: Bush will never let anyone from his inner circle testify, or give up WH or RNC emails, unless a court forces him to -- and possibly not even then. These are the Watergate tapes of the administration, revealing its true id and its darkest secrets. Negotiating with these people about it is a waste of time

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-usattys12jul12,1,866122.story
In a broadly worded legal opinion, the Justice Department has concluded that President Bush's former top lawyer, and possibly other senior White House officials, can ignore subpoenas from Congress to testify about the firings of U.S. attorneys.

The three-page opinion raises questions about whether the Justice Department would prosecute senior administration officials if Congress voted to hold them in contempt for not cooperating with the investigation into the firing last year of eight top prosecutors. . . .

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/11/washington/11cnd-attorneys.html
President Bush has told his former White House counsel, Harriet E. Miers, not to even appear on Thursday before the House Judiciary Committee . . .

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/11416.html
[Steve Benen] This afternoon, based on no law that anyone can recognize, the White House ordered former WH Counsel Harriet Miers to disobey a congressional subpoena. Unlike Sara Taylor, who appeared before the Senate Judiciary Committee but declined to answer some questions, Miers will not show up at all. Her successor, Fred Fielding, insisted that Miers has “absolute immunity.”

http://www.speaker.gov/blog/?p=571
[Conyers and Sanchez] We are aware of absolutely no court decision that supports the notion that a former White House official has the option of refusing to even appear in response to a Congressional subpoena. . . .

A refusal to appear before the Subcommittee tomorrow could subject Ms. Miers to contempt proceedings, including but not limited to proceedings under 2 U.S.C. § 194 and under the inherent contempt authority of the House of Representatives.

We are prepared at the hearing tomorrow to consider and rule on any specific assertions of privilege in response to specific questions. We strongly urge you to reconsider, and to advise your client to appear before the Subcommittee tomorrow pursuant to her legal obligations. The Subcommittee will convene as scheduled and expects Ms. Miers to appear as required by her subpoena.

Contempt: http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/7/11/202837/564

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/015273.php
[Josh Marshall] Hmmm. A very knowledgeable emailer says it's a felony ...

Invoking a privilege is one thing, but telling a person not to show up in response to a subpoena -- if only to actually invoke the privilege -- is quite another. It's not just worse, it's a felony under federal criminal law. See for yourself.

18 U.S.C. Sec. 1505 : ... Whoever corruptly ... influences, obstructs, or impedes ... the due and proper exercise of the power of inquiry under which any inquiry or investigation is being had by either House, or any committee of either House or any joint committee of the Congress ... [s]hall be fined under this title, [or] imprisoned not more than 5 years ... or both.

18 U.S.C. Sec. 1515(b): As used in section 1505, the term "corruptly" means acting with an improper purpose, personally or by influencing another, including ... withholding, [or] concealing ... information.

Truth #6: No one accepts the ridiculously expansive view of “Executive Privilege” asserted in the case of Sara Taylor’s testimony yesterday. She couldn’t even talk about HER conversations with people working OUTSIDE the White House!

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/11/opinion/11wed1.html
[NYT] Mr. Bush’s claim is baseless. Executive privilege, which is not mentioned in the Constitution, is a judge-made right of limited scope, intended to create a sphere of privacy around the president so that he can have honest discussions with his advisers. . . .

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/7/11/132743/250

http://thinkprogress.org/2007/07/11/leahy-taylor-privilege/

More on Taylor: FDL’s liveblogging, excellent as always

http://www.firedoglake.com/2007/07/11/in-advance-of-sara-taylor-and-the-hjc/

http://www.firedoglake.com/2007/07/11/sara-taylor-part-ii/

http://www.firedoglake.com/2007/07/11/sara-taylor-part-iii/

http://www.firedoglake.com/2007/07/11/sara-taylor-part-iv/

A quick summary: she doesn’t recall http://thinkprogress.org/2007/07/11/sara-taylor-cant-recall/

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/11416.html
[Steve Benen] Sara Taylor, during her appearance before the Senate Judiciary Committee today, seemed confused about her loyalties. At one point she said, “I took an oath to the president, and I take that oath very seriously.” When Judiciary Committee Chairman Pat Leahy asked if perhaps she meant an “oath to the Constitution,” Taylor clarified — but still seemed confused.

Ha! http://atrios.blogspot.com/2007_07_08_archive.html#7994456610203160450
[Atrios] Why is Tracy Flick testifying to Congress?

Truth #7: The Bush gang has nothing but contempt for the press: he bullies and humiliates them just for his own amusement (and, of course, they take it)

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/blog/2007/07/11/BL2007071101146.html

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2007/07/funny-boy-by-digby-earlier-today-in-ny.html

Cause and effect?

http://politicalwire.com/archives/2007/07/11/dole_vulnerable_in_north_carolina.html
According to a new Public Policy Polling survey, a hypothetical U.S. Senate race between Sen. Elizabeth Dole (R-NC) and state legislator Grier Martin (D) could be very close . . .

http://dole.senate.gov/index.cfm?FuseAction=PressReleases.Detail&PressRelease_id=1202
DOLE STATEMENT ON IRAQ
July 10th, 2007 . . . “The troop surge was completed just a couple weeks ago, so it is too early to declare the ultimate success or failure of this strategy. That said, preliminary details about the administration’s interim report on Iraq, due on July 15, indicate that the Iraqi government has failed to meet these benchmarks.

“Simply put, our troops have been doing a great job, but the Iraqi government has not. Our commitment in Iraq is not indefinite, nor should the Iraqi government perceive it to be. It is my firm hope and belief that we can start bringing our troops home in 2008.”

The sharks are eating each other

http://electioncentral.tpmcafe.com/blog/electioncentral/2007/jul/11/boehner_senators_favoring_withdrawal_are_wimps
[The Hill] Rep. Heather Wilson (R-N.M.) called for comity Wednesday during a meeting of the Republican Conference after House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) referred to Senate colleagues who have begun to favor a change in course in Iraq as “wimps.” . . .

Fred Thompson’s new excuse for his pro-choice lobbying efforts: when you’re a lobbyist, you’re hired to say anything, even if you are morally opposed to it (yeah, that’ll endear him to the Christian Right)

http://www.samefacts.com/archives/campaign_2008_/2007/07/fred_thompson_political_prostitute.php

Tell me again, WHY does he want to become President? http://www.mydd.com/story/2007/7/12/04452/8020

Bonus item: Diapers??!!??? Eeeeewwww!

http://www.first-draft.com/2007/07/sin-nator-vitte.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 @ 7:44 AM

 
THE DECIDER

Bush tells the nation: this is MY war, and it isn’t over until I say so

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/10/washington/10cnd-prexy.html
Bush Is Firm as Criticism Over Iraq Mounts . . .

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/07/10/AR2007071000627.html
Bush Stands Firm on Iraq Policy . . .

Photo: http://www.needlenose.com/node/view/4161

[NB: But one thing we know for sure. He is “firm”]

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/11393.html
[Steve Benen] This is the “new” campaign in a nutshell: if the nation gives Bush more time, and the same policy that’s been failing miraculously starts working, then the president will consider some degree of troop withdrawal. That’s it.

In other words, there’s no news here at all. The Bush gang are hard at work trying to shape a new sales pitch, not a new policy. They’re hoping to slap a fresh coat of paint on a car that’s already on fire.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/blog/2007/07/10/BL2007071000746.html
[Dan Froomkin] To the extent that Karl Rove still has a reputation as a political genius, he owes it to his signature move: Faced with potential political disaster, Rove never plays defense, he doesn't change course, he attacks the problem head on -- and tries to co-opt the opposition's position.

So it should come as no great surprise that, confronted with a tide of anti-war sentiment and a growing number of defecting Republican lawmakers, the White House is changing not its policy on Iraq, but its message.

Enter the new White House talking point: You want out? We want out, too! . . . [read on]

So now we’ve got “The New Way Forward”

http://thinkprogress.org/2007/07/10/tony-snow-new-way/
[Tony Snow] Some want us to take a new look at the way we’re doing things, which is exactly what’s taking place. . .

This is not the beginning of the end, it’s the beginning of a new way. . .

That’s why we’re coming up with a new strategy. . .

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/7/10/135813/799

Remember? http://www.americablog.com/2007/07/bush-claims-he-has-strategy-for-victory.html

The price of war

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/015234.php
[Spencer Ackerman] Bush's address to a Cleveland business organization was heavy on his old standards. Failure in Iraq will have "serious consequences for the security of your children." (And no, he didn't mean that as an apology.)

http://www.usatoday.com/printedition/news/20070711/1a_cover11.art.htm
"I can't think of a single modern president about to bequeath to his successor such a difficult agenda and such a damaged presidency," says Paul Light of New York University. . . [read on]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/07/10/AR2007071001868.html
The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan will cost U.S. taxpayers hundreds of billions of dollars over the next decade, no matter how quickly U.S. troops are reduced in those countries over the next few years . . .

What a load of crap

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/7/10/18418/4268
[Bush] I want to talk about this war we're in. First of all, I regret I have to tell you we're in war. . .

I understand there's a debate, and there ought to be a debate in our democracy, and I welcome it. I welcome a good, honest debate about the consequences of failure, the consequences of success in this war. But I believe that it's in this nation's interest to give the commander a chance to fully implement his operations. And I believe Congress ought to wait for General Petraeus to come back and give his assessment of the strategy that he's putting in place before they make any decisions. . .

And that's the way I'm going to play it, as the Commander-in-Chief.

http://electioncentral.tpmcafe.com/blog/electioncentral/2007/jul/10/bush_digs_himself_in_deeper
[Spencer Ackerman] One key point stands out from President Bush's Iraq remarks in Cleveland this afternoon: Bush didn't say a single thing that could possibly help provide any wavering GOP Senators with any political cover at a time when they're heading into a series of bruising battles with Dems over the war.

Indeed, if anything, his remarks are likely to push antsy Republicans further away. . . [read on]

More: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070710/ap_on_go_co/us_iraq;_ylt=Ag7jgagFBcRzXOpfqZZSLFis0NUE

Watch the Republicans, having said Bush needs to change policy in Iraq, fight every congressional effort to actually get him to do so

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/7/10/124124/444

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/7/10/172523/335

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/11395.html

But. . . . ? http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/07/10/AR2007071001860.html
But the GOP leadership's use of a parliamentary tactic requiring at least 60 votes to pass any war legislation only encouraged the growing number of Republican dissenters to rally and seek new ways to force President Bush's hand. They are weighing a series of proposals that would change the troops' mission from combat to counterterrorism, border protection and the training of Iraqi security forces.

"I think we should continue to ratchet up the pressure -- in addition to our words -- to let the White House know we are very sincere," said Sen. George V. Voinovich (R-Ohio), who broke with the president last month. . . .

http://www.mydd.com/story/2007/7/11/2941/04354
[Jonathan Singer] On the front page of The Washington Post Wednesday, Jonathan Weisman and Shailagh Murray report that Senate Republicans' hard edged tactics on Iraq -- taking the nearly unprecedented step of threatening to filibuster any amendment that would help bring an end to the war -- could backfire. . . [read on]

GOP frontrunners get nervous, start hedging their bets

http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/front/la-na-iraqpol11jul11,1,5004061.story
As President Bush struggles to maintain support in Congress for his Iraq "surge" strategy, the three leading Republican presidential contenders have been quietly backing away from any commitment to continue the buildup. . .

What timing: Look out, look out, Al Qaeda, right here in the US!

http://www.americablog.com/2007/07/al-qaeda-cell-may-be-in-us-ready-to.html

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/015231.php

http://www.firedoglake.com/2007/07/11/these-people-scare-me/

More: http://atrios.blogspot.com/2007_07_08_archive.html#412766376040529859
[Avedon Carol] Shouldn't it concern us that Republicans are constantly talking about how people will all wise up when the next terrorist attack at home comes?

Gonzales will get another chance to explain his lies in front of Congress

http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/003642.php
[Paul Kiel] Senate Judiciary Chairman Patrick Leahy (D-VT) said the misdirection went beyond Alberto Gonzales' spoken testimony before Congress in 2005 and then again in April of this year. The Justice Department had misled Congress in written responses to questions for the record as well, which were provided to Congress just last week. . . .

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/07/10/AR2007071001992.html
Two senior Justice Department officials said yesterday that they kept Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales apprised of FBI violations of civil liberties and privacy safeguards in recent years. . .

More: http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/11392.html

http://www.americablog.com/2007/07/gonzales-to-face-tough-question-at.html
"This should be the last straw, but there never seems to be a last straw when it comes to George W. Bush and Alberto Gonzales," said Sen. Charles Schumer, a New York Democrat.

Today we find out if WH aide Sara Taylor will talk to Congress (not really). We already know Harriet Miers won’t

Taylor: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/11/washington/11attorneys.html
Sara Taylor, the former White House political director, has agreed to answer some questions as a “willing and cooperative private citizen,” during testimony about the United States attorney firings last year when she appears before the Senate Judiciary Committee later today.

But, as a former presidential adviser, she will also honor the president’s invocation of executive privilege to keep quiet about “White House consideration, deliberations, or communications, whether internal or external, relating to the possible dismissal or appointment of United States attorneys,” according to a written copy of her opening statement provided by her lawyer’s office. Those parameters were set forth in a letter to Ms. Taylor’s attorney, W. Neil Eggleston, from the White House counsel, Fred F. Fielding.

Ms. Taylor acknowledges in the statement that differences may emerge about what falls under Mr. Fielding’s parameters and that, “This may be frustrating to you and me.” . .

Miers: http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room/2007/07/10/miers/index.html

http://www.talkleft.com/story/2007/7/10/175657/356
[Big Tent Democrat] Whether Ms. Miers, her attorney or Fred Fielding think executive privilege applies here, only the President has the power to invoke it. A letter from Fred Fielding does not invoke it. . . . Ms. Miers is clearly in contempt of Congress. The House should immediately begin proceedings to enforce its subpoena.

Going after the RNC emails

http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/003645.php

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/docs/wh-rnc/?resultpage=1&

“Contempt of Congress”? How much more proof do they need?

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/7/10/15295/2968

Will anyone ever go after Pete Domenici (R-NM) for making calls behind the scenes to get US Attorney David Iglesias fired? Not the mainstream press, apparently

http://thenexthurrah.typepad.com/the_next_hurrah/2007/07/i-dont-know-eno.html

The way they do it

http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/washington/politics-bush-surgeongeneral.html
The first U.S. surgeon general appointed by President George W. Bush accused the administration on Tuesday of political interference and muzzling him on key issues like embryonic stem cell research.

"Anything that doesn't fit into the political appointees' ideological, theological or political agenda is ignored, marginalized or simply buried," Dr. Richard Carmona, who served as the nation's top doctor from 2002 until 2006, told a House of Representatives committee.

"The problem with this approach is that in public health, as in a democracy, there is nothing worse than ignoring science, or marginalizing the voice of science for reasons driven by changing political winds. . .”

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/10/washington/11cnd-surgeon.html
He was ordered to mention President Bush three times on every page of every speech he gave, Dr. Carmona said. He was asked to make speeches to support Republican political candidates and to attend political briefings, at least one of which included Karl Rove, the president’s senior political adviser, he said.

And administration officials even discouraged him from attending the Special Olympics because, he said, of that charitable organization’s longtime ties to the Kennedy family. . . .

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2007/07/stand-down-dont-talk-about-it-by-digby.html
[Digby] We knew all this, of course. But the most important theme that's emerging these days about the lawless Republican rule of the past decade is their manipulation of non-partisan government agencies for political gain. (Considering these people took office through a partisan congressional impeachment followed by a corrupt Supreme Court decision, this shouldn't have been any kind of surprise.) This kind of testimony is important for hammering that home.

The Universal Health blog has Carmona and Waxman's video. It'll make the hair on the back of your neck stand up. . . .

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/11400.html
[Steve Benen] I started drawing up an informal list of non-partisan offices and federal agencies that the Bush gang have politicized to an unprecedented extent, but quickly gave up — the list was too long and it became too depressing. . . .

The kind of man he is: Bush gives a speech on health policy praising the virtues of good diet and exercise. It’s all a matter of good habits and personal responsibility, see? Government barely has any role at all

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2007/07/health-hazard-by-digby-dover-bitch.html
[Dover Bitch] Have we ever had a president who has been more of an obstacle to average Americans' ability to make informed decisions about the food and products they consume? Or a president who has been less interested in protecting average Americans from dangerous products and food? . . . [read on]

Ding, ding, ding. . . we have a loser

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/11397.html
[Gallup] [Bush’s] current disapproval rating in the latest Gallup poll, 66%, equals Richard Nixon’s highest Gallup disapproval rating of 66%, registered the week before he resigned from office. . . .

What a review!

http://www.firedoglake.com/2007/07/10/late-nite-fdl-to-revel-in-angry-pleasure/
[TRex] Sometimes when I’m in the car and a song that I absolutely hate comes on the radio, I’ll turn it up so I can hate it in detail. I get that same feeling reading Glenn Greenwald’s masterful take-down of President Bush and his witless coterie of sycophants and demagogues in Tragic Legacy, Greenwald’s latest book that chronicles how an overly simplistic, black and white, Good vs. Evil mentality has destroyed the Bush Presidency and by extension, inflicted heavy damage on the Republican party, the United States, and the world.

Initially, I was a bit skeptical about diving headlong into a 300-page screed about the egregious state of the Bush administration. You and I already know that George W. Bush is a man of intractable stubbornness, knee-jerk religious fanaticism, and breathtaking ignorance, a combination that makes him singularly unsuited for his current employment status. Why get an upset stomach and a rage-induced headache learning about it in even greater detail?

And yet, I was dead wrong, and I knew it before the end of the first chapter. Tragic Legacy is, in fact, a highly entertaining read, if you, like me, enjoy the sensation of (in the words of Jane Austen) “reveling in angry pleasure” at seeing so insidious an enemy taken down point by point and left huddled in the smoking ruins of his own hubris by the end of the book. . . .

The wheels are coming off the Straight Talk Express

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/07/10/AR2007071000759.html
Sen. John McCain accepted the resignations of two of his top aides today in a stunning shakeup of a campaign that has been roiled by financial and political problems.

Campaign manager Terry Nelson and chief strategist John Weaver issued terse statements announcing their departures from the McCain camp, which reportedly came after the candidate erupted after concluding that his top-level advisers had mismanaged the operation. . . .

More: http://blog.washingtonpost.com/thefix/2007/07/top_advisers_leave_mccain_camp.html

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/11401.html

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/7/10/143050/947

Rudy Giuliani goes hard after the Neanderthal Right

http://www.thewashingtonnote.com/archives/002215.php

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/015216.php

Joe, Joe, Joe, – what game ARE you playing?

http://www.tpmcafe.com/blog/electioncentral/2007/jul/10/lieberman_launches_unprovoked_attack_on_harry_reid_on_right_winger_bill_bennetts_show

Theocracy watch: when Democrats do discuss their faith it does them no good with the Christian Right – if anything, it’s worse, because they have the WRONG KIND of faith

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2007/07/christian-heathens-by-digby-in-case.html

The press versus the blogs: one man’s distorted view

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/11398.html
[On David Vitter’s (R-LA) dalliance with prostitutes, while spouting “family values” and “traditional marriage,” CBS News’ Brian Montopoli] The blogs are having a field day with that hypocrisy…. The mainstream media, however, has largely steered clear of focusing on Vitter’s past statements, opting instead to play the story relatively straight. The Washington Post, noting only about his rhetoric that Vitter is “reliable conservative vote in the Senate,” didn’t front the story, opting instead for A3. Rather, it’s the blogs and liberal sites like Salon that are jumping on the story and hammering Vitter for statements at odds with his behavior.

If you want a straight news story, then, you can stick with the traditional media. But if you want a spotlight placed on Vitter’s hypocrisy — and the rush of satisfaction that comes with experiencing schadenfreude that you can justify — you can head over to the blogs. Is it any wonder that the latter get so many clicks?

More schadenfreude: http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/015233.php

Bonus item: How dumb do they think we are?

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/11402.html
National Review’s Mark R. Levin . . .

“So, the Iraqi government reportedly hasn’t met any of its targets. Has the Democrat [sic] Congress met any of its targets?”

Some benchmarks the Iraqi government CAN reach

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/7/11/81359/0796

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- posted by Nick Burbules @ 8:08 AM

 
BOB AND WEAVE

The Republicans have decided that their electoral survival in 2008 is more important than “staying the course” with Bush. Now it gets interesting. . .

http://www.philly.com/inquirer/special/iraq/8368057.html
After the shift of three prominent Republicans on Iraq, the capital is waiting to see if there will be more. . . .

Answer, yes: http://news.yahoo.com/s/bloomberg/20070709/pl_bloomberg/amnff2zaaqqc_1
Republican Senator Olympia Snowe, saying the political "tide has turned'' on the Iraq war, backed forcing President George W. Bush to withdraw U.S. troops and predicted that more Republicans will abandon his war policy. . . .

[NB: But it still isn’t clear what, if any, bill they’re actually prepared to vote for]