In more than two and half years of doing this, I don’t think I’ve ever had an issue like today’s. I was going to lead with more Woodward revelations, but late Friday developments suggest that the Foley scandal has the potential to bring down the entire Republican House leadership! And I wonder how the media will manage to keep focus on Foley, Woodward, the NIE reports, and a ripening Abramoff scandal all at once, especially when they are so easily distracted – oh, look! A forest fire! A high school shooting! A tropical storm that may some day develop into a hurricane!
Never mind that our national government is rotten to the core . . .
Rep Mark Foley (R-FL): Yesterday we thought he was just guilty of some bad judgment. His staffers dutifully replied:
http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/8612.html
[ABC] Congressman Mark Foley's office says the e-mails were entirely appropriate and that their release is part of a smear campaign by his opponent.
Well, today we find out it was much, much worse than that. (You might not even want to read these emails – but then again you might.) Foley has quit, may very likely go to jail, and his seat could now swing to a DemocratNot so bad: http://blogs.abcnews.com/theblotter/2006/09/exclusive_the_s.html
Shocking: http://americablog.blogspot.com/2006/09/house-gop-leadership-knew-about-foley.html
[John Aravosis] Foley's "instant message" communications with yet another underage boy, circa 2003, have now been posted by ABC. They are horrendous. I cannot believe that Denny Hastert knew about Foley using the Net to chat-up underage boys a year ago and DID NOTHING . . . Tell me why Denny Hastert shouldn't be forced to immediately resign. They left your kids with this man AFTER they knew what he was doing. They let him stay in the GOP leadership. They let him remain the chair of the child sex offender caucus. Jesus Christ.
http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2006_09_24.php#010064
[WP] Foley chaired the House caucus on missing and exploited children and was credited with writing the sexual-predator provisions of the Adam Walsh Child Protection and Safety Act of 2006, which Bush signed in July.
[Huh???!!???] http://americablog.blogspot.com/2006/09/national-center-for-missing-exploited.html
Statement, National Center for Missing & Exploited Children (NCMEC)
On the Resignation of Congressman Mark Foley
September 29, 2006
“Congressman Mark Foley’s resignation is a great loss to Florida and the nation. He has been a hard-working, dedicated and effective Congressman. He will be missed."
http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2006_09_24.php#010051
[Josh Marshall] Rep. Foley (R-FL) may be prosecuted under child sex predator laws he helped pass. . .
http://makeashorterlink.com/?W2FD61FDD
[AP] His departure sent Republicans scrambling for a replacement candidate less than six weeks before midterm elections in which Democrats are making a strong bid to gain control of the House.
http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/001642.php
[Paul Kiel] According to state law, they can pick a new candidate -- but Foley's name will stay on the ballot. . .
http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2006_09_24.php#010052
[Josh Marshall] Let me explain.
Florida law says that the state GOP cannot remove Foley's name from the ballot. However, since he's dropped out of the race, they can designate a replacement. And any votes "Foley" gets will go to that GOP replacement.
The problem for the GOP is that Florida's 16th congressional district isn't that strong a GOP district. Foley won in 2004 with 68% of the vote. But President Bush pulled only 54%. That tells me it's a GOP district. But not by much. And there was already a serious Democratic challenger in the race.
So here's how this plays out to me. No question, strong Republican partisans will vote for "Foley" because they know that vote goes to the candidate the local GOP has chosen to replace him. But outside of strong partisans, I really don't think a lot of voters are going to check off the box next to the candidate who's just resigned because he was exposed for having sex chats with underaged congressional pages. That just doesn't play to me.
And once the replacement gets picked, candidate X and the local Republican party can start putting up flyers that say "Vote for guy who had cybersex with a minor because the vote will really go to candidate X who would never do such a thing." . . .
But then the real fun starts: let’s play Hot Potato
http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/010054.php
[Josh Marshall] Big. Big Trouble.
. . . The page in question worked for Rep. Rodney Alexander (R-LA). And the page brought the matter of his contacts with Foley to the congressman's attention via a staffer, who I'm told has since left Rep. Alexander's employ.
Here's the key passage from the AP article ...
The page worked for Rep. Rodney Alexander, R-La., who said Friday that when he learned of the e-mail exchanges 10 to 11 months ago, he called the teen's parents. Alexander told the Ruston Daily Leader, "We also notified the House leadership that there might be a potential problem," a reference to the House's Republican leaders.
. . . So Rep. Alexander knew about this 10 or 11 months ago. And he says he notified the House leadership. That means Hastert and (at the time) either Tom DeLay or Rep. Blunt (R-MO). . .
http://www.thenewsstar.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060929/updates01/60929030
[T]he boy e-mailed a staff member from Alexander’s office about Foley’s e-mails, saying, “This freaked me out.” On the request for a photo, the boy repeated the word “sick” 13 times.
http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/001644.php
Rep. Rodney Alexander, R-La., who sponsored the page from his district, told reporters that he learned of the e-mails from a reporter some months ago and passed on the information to Rep. Thomas Reynolds, R-N.Y., chairman of the House Republican campaign organization [the National Republican Congressional Committee].
http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2006_09_24.php#010055
An NRCC spokesman says the matter was brought before the House Page Board. But it's not clear what they did about it.
http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2006_09_24.php#010057
Chairman of the House Page Board, Rep. John Shimkus (R-IL) interviewed Foley last year about some of the contacts with the page. The House clerk, who is also a member of the Board, was also present. Speaker Hastert's office was informed of the interview, but according to GOP leadership sources who spoke to Roll Call, Hastert himself was not informed.
Rep. Dale Kildee (D-MI), the only Democrat on the Board, was not informed of the interview. . .
http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2006_09_24.php#010063
Rep. Shimkus on why he didn't inform the Page Board's lone Democrat about the Foley matter: "I'm the chairman of the page board. The Clerk and I addressed this issue."
http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/010057.php
Rep. Shimkus released the following statement ...
“As chairman of the bipartisan House Page Board in late 2005, I was notified by the then Clerk of the House, who manages the Page Program, that he had been told by Congressman Rodney Alexander about an email exchange between Congressman Foley and a former House Page. I took immediate action to investigate the matter.
“In that email exchange, Congressman Foley asked about the former Page’s well-being after Hurricane Katrina and requested a photograph. When asked about the email exchange, Congressman Foley said he expressed concern about the Page’s well-being and wanted a photo to see that the former Page was alright.
“Congressman Foley told the Clerk and me that he was simply acting as a mentor to this former House Page and that nothing inappropriate had occurred. Nevertheless, we ordered Congressman Foley to cease all contact with this former House Page to avoid even the appearance of impropriety. We also advised him to be especially mindful of his conduct with respect to current and former House Pages, and he assured us he would do so. I received no subsequent complaints about his behavior nor was I ever made aware of any additional emails.
“It has become clear to me today, based on information I only now have learned, that Congressman Foley was not honest about his conduct.
“As Chairman of the House Page Board, I am working with the Clerk to fully review this incident and determine what actions need to be taken.
“The House Page Program has been an integral part of the House of Representatives for many decades. Preserving the integrity of the House Page Program is of utmost importance to me and to the House of Representatives, and we intend to uphold and protect its values and traditions.”
The whole matter has been turned over to the House ethics committee.
http://americablog.blogspot.com/2006/09/gop-house-page-board-chair-may-have.html
[John Aravosis] What was the extent of Shimkus' investigation of whether a member of Congress was soliciting sex with a minor, or at the very least bordering on sexually harassing a minor? Shimkus asked Foley if he was hitting on the kid, Foley said no, so Shimkus said "okay," and let it go. Obviously sex with children is a real big concern to the Republican house. . .
First off, nice that Shimkus, who according to the Associated Press wrote this statement with the help of GOP Speaker Denny Hastert's office, after avoiding reporters for hours, spins Foley's creepy emails to sound totally benign. In fact, Shimkus doesn't bother mentioning the most damning parts of the email exchange, Foley commenting on the underage kid's apparently underage friend's hot body, and also somewhat creepy, asking the kid for a picture and asking how old he is. I'm sure it was an oversight. Oh that's right, there is no oversight in the Republican house. You simply ask someone a question and believe whatever answer they give you, then the investigation is over.
Interesting that the pages now say they were routinely warned about Foley by their page overseers. Did Shimkus bother talking to the page overseers, or any of the pages, to find out what was up with Foley? How is it that in just 24 hours ABC was able to get a copy of Foley's sex-talk instant message chat with an underage page, yet Shimkus found nothing? . . .
More from Roll Call, "According to a senior House GOP leadership aide, Speaker Dennis Hastert's (R-Ill.) office was informed of the interview shortly after it occurred, but Hastert himself was not told." Right. A male Republican member of Congress is being investigated for possibly sexually harassing an underage male page and Denny Hastert's office is notified and nobody tells Hastert? Right. And the matter is considered so important that the Clerk of House gets involved and joins in the interview with Foley. Yet still no one tells Hastert. Uh huh.
We still don't know when the kid's congressman, Rodney Alexander (R-LA), was told about the incident, and what he did about it. He claims he found out from a reporter. But at the same time he says his staff found out when the kid contacted them and was creeped out. Which one was it? Did Alexander sit on the information until the press finally contacted him and he was forced to act?
What are the House procedures for dealing with an allegation of this kind? Simply to pass it to the Page Board, having Foley's own Republican peers investigate him? There are no House rules whatsoever about having someone independent look into whether a member of Congress sexually harassed a minor page? . . .
So the Republicans are telling us that they never heard anything else about Foley in all the time he was in Congress. Very interesting. Because I certainly heard some rumors about Foley over the years . . .
http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2006/9/30/0642/65697
[Hunter] [Minority Leader Nancy] Pelosi, furious that the Democratic leadership were not informed of the situation for nearly an entire year after the emails were discovered, has already demanded and gotten a House Ethics investigation -- her resolution passed the House 410 to zero. The House committee on Official Conduct now has ten days to issue a preliminary report on what the Republican leadership knew, when they knew it, and what they did or didn't do about it. . .
http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2006_09_24.php#010060
Though I haven't seen the point made explicitly, it's clear from the late ABC News reports that there are multiple pages in question. . .
http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2006/9/29/21480/3482
[Hunter] This is huge. The number of Republican representatives who knew about the Foley advances towards young pages nearly a year ago appears to include House Speaker Dennis Hastert; Tom Reynolds; John Shimkus; Alexander; and as Josh Marshall points out, Tom Delay and/or Roy Blunt.
Jesus. They knew for nearly a year, and covered it up. The "corruption" frame just got a hell of a lot more serious. Today, Dennis Hastert said an investigation would be forthcoming. I'll bet he's right, and I'll bet he's going to be one of the ones investigated -- because he knew of it ten months ago.
http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2006/9/29/23241/3623
Republican Majority Leader John Boehner was also informed by Alexander of Foley's behavior.
That makes between seven and nine Republican Congressmen, minimum, that had been informed.
http://politicalwire.com/archives/2006/09/30/house_leadership_knew_of_foleys_emails.html
Roll Call says "at least four Republican House Members, one senior GOP aide and a former top officer of the House were aware of the allegations about Foley that prompted the initial reporting regarding his e-mail contacts with a 16-year-old House page. They include: Majority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio), National Republican Congressional Committee Chairman Tom Reynolds (N.Y.) and Reps. Rodney Alexander (R-La.) and John Shimkus (R-Ill.), as well as a senior aide to Speaker Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.) and former Clerk of the House Jeff Trandahl."
http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2006_09_24.php#010059
House Majority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) told The Washington Post last night that he had learned this spring of some "contact" between Foley and a 16-year-old page. Boehner said he told House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.), and that Hastert assured him "we're taking care of it."
http://americablog.blogspot.com/2006/09/today-gop-house-speaker-denny-hastert.html
[John Aravosis] GOP House Speaker Denny Hastert has asked for an investigation to make sure other pages weren't sexually harassed or abused. But the House leadership was told almost a year ago about Mark Foleys' hanky-panky online communications with underage pages and Hastert did nothing. Why didn't Hastert do an investigation at the time to make sure the pages were all right? Why did Hastert leave Foley in charge of the House Caucus on Missing and Exploited Children when he knew Foley had some possible personal issues involving the exploitation of children? Why did Hastert let Foley remain in the House leadership for a good year after he knew about these accusations? Cruising underage kids isn't a disqualifier for being in the House leadership? Why did Denny Hastert let Foley remain anywhere near underage pages at all?
Would you let your kids near someone like Foley if you had been warned a year ago? Then why did Denny Hastert? The parent of every kid who was a page in the last year should be livid at the Republicans right now.
And where is our wonderful religious right? Or doesn't the sexual exploitation of children bother them when it's their own politicians who are doing the exploiting and the covering up?
http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2006_09_24.php#010062
[Roll Call] Boehner strongly denied media reports late Friday night that he had informed Hastert of the allegations, saying "That is not true."
http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2006_09_24.php#010065
Boehner later contacted The Post and said he could not remember whether he talked to Hastert. . .
http://americablog.blogspot.com/2006/09/cl-with-abc-news-report-on-foley.html
[Chris] Did the GOP not learn anything from the massive Vatican cover up with pedophilia? Sweeping this under the rug and hoping it goes away is not a strategy. Helping a pedophile and sexual predator is not a positive value. Choosing to prop up a pedophile and predator for campaign purposes tells me this crowd, who seems to have known about the Foley abuses for a long time, tells me that the GOP will say and do anything to hold power.
It is especially disturbing to hear that everyone seemed to know that Foley was a child predator yet it continued to happen without helping the children involved. How morally bankrupt is the GOP leadership when they just sit there and let this happen?
http://americablog.blogspot.com/2006/09/saturday-morning-open-thread_30.html
[Joe] In most of these scandals involving elected officials, it's not the crime, it's the cover-up. In the Foley case, it's the crime AND the cover-up. . . .
So, let's get it started....
The Woodward hits keep a’cominghttp://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/09/29/AR2006092900368.html
Former White House chief of staff Andrew Card on two occasions tried and failed to persuade President Bush to fire Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, according to a new book by Bob Woodward that depicts senior officials of the Bush administration as unable to face the consequences of their policy in Iraq.
Card made his first attempt after Bush was reelected in November, 2004, arguing that the administration needed a fresh start and recommending that Bush replace Rumsfeld with former secretary of state James A. Baker III. Woodward writes that Bush considered the move, but was persuaded by Vice President Cheney and Karl Rove, his chief political adviser, that it would be seen as an expression of doubt about the course of the war and would expose Bush himself to criticism.
Card tried again around Thanksgiving, 2005, this time with the support of First Lady Laura Bush, who according to Woodward, felt that Rumsfeld's overbearing manner was damaging to her husband. Bush refused for a second time, and Card left the administration last March, convinced that Iraq would be compared to Vietnam and that history would record that no senior administration officials had raised their voices in opposition to the conduct of the war. . .
Last May, Woodward writes, the intelligence division of the Joint Chiefs of Staff circulated a secret intelligence estimate predicting that violence will not only continue for the rest of this year in Iraq but increase in 2007.
"Insurgents and terrorists retain the resources and capabilities to sustain and even increase current level of violence through the next year," said the report, which was distributed to the White House, State Department and other intelligence agencies.
The report presented a similarly bleak assessment of oil production, electricity generation and the political situation in Iraq. . .
Woodward writes that Rice and Rumsfeld have been warned repeatedly about the deteriorating situation in Iraq.
Returning from his assignment as the first head of the Iraq Postwar Planning Office, retired Lt. Gen. Jay Garner told Rumsfeld on June 23, 2003, that the United States had made "three tragic mistakes" in Iraq.
The first two, he said, were the orders his successor, L. Paul "Jerry" Bremer, had given banning members of the Baath Party from government jobs and disbanding the Iraqi military. The third was Bremer's dismissal of an interim Iraqi leadership group that had been eager to help the United States administer the country in the short term.
"There's still time to rectify this," he said. "There's still time to turn it around."
But Rumsfeld dismissed the idea, according to Woodward. "We're not going to go back," Rumsfeld said. . .
A year later, Rumsfeld received an even more blunt criticism from Steve Herbits, a longtime friend who according to Woodward has served as an informal adviser to Rumsfeld since he became defense secretary. . .
Herbits . . . described "Rumsfeld's style of operation," which he said was the "Haldeman model, arrogant," referring to Nixon's White House chief of staff H. R. "Bob" Haldeman. "Indecisive, contrary to popular image. Would not accept that some people in some areas were smarter than he. . . . Trusts very few people. Very, very cautious. Rubber glove syndrome---a tendency not to leave his fingerprints on decisions." . . .
Some of the highest-ranking officers serving under Rumsfeld had similar misgivings about Iraq.
Last March, Gen. John Abizaid, head of the Central Command, met privately with Rep. John Murtha (D-Pa.), who had criticized the Bush administration for its approach to Iraq as "a flawed policy wrapped in illusion" and called for withdrawal. Murtha was then attacked by the White House for "endorsing the policy positions of Michael Moore and the extreme liberal wing of the Democratic Party."
According to Murtha, Woodward writes, Abizaid raised his hand for emphasis and held his thumb and forefinger a quarter of an inch from each other and said, "We're that far apart."
But, according to Woodward, Rumsfeld made sure that the two men who he has chosen to be chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff -- Air Force Gen. Richard Myers and Marine Corps Gen. Peter Pace -- were not people who would directly challenge him. . .
Woodward describes Rice as frequently at odds with Rumsfeld when she served as national security adviser and her staff as increasingly concerned about the lack of a strategy for winning the war in Iraq.
When she became secretary of state in 2005, Rice asked Philip Zelikow, an old friend, to travel to Iraq to assess the situation. On February 10, Rice's 14th day as secretary, Zelikow presented her with a 15-page, single-spaced memo.
"At this point Iraq remains a failed state shadowed by constant violence and undergoing revolutionary political change," Zelikow wrote.
"State of Denial" adds new information about Rice's role in the Bush administration's efforts to combat terrorism in the months before the Sept. 11 attacks. . .
Woodward writes that on July 10, 2001, then-CIA director George Tenet became so concerned about the communication intelligence agencies were receiving indicating that a terrorist attack was imminent that he went to the White House with counterterrorism chief J. Cofer Black . . . But Tenet and Black felt that Rice gave them "the brush-off," according to Woodward, telling them that a plan for coherent action against bin Laden was already in the works. Woodward writes that both Tenet and Black felt the meeting was the starkest warning the White House was given about bin Laden. . .
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/29/washington/29account.html
Robert D. Blackwill, then the top Iraq adviser on the National Security Council, is said to have issued his warning about the need for more troops in a lengthy memorandum sent to Ms. Rice. The book says Mr. Blackwill’s memorandum concluded that more ground troops, perhaps as many as 40,000, were desperately needed.
It says that Mr. Blackwill and L. Paul Bremer III, then the top American official in Iraq, later briefed Ms. Rice and Stephen J. Hadley, her deputy, about the pressing need for more troops during a secure teleconference from Iraq. It says the White House did nothing in response.
The book describes a deep fissure between Colin L. Powell, Mr. Bush’s first secretary of state, and Mr. Rumsfeld. . .
Vice President Cheney is described as a man so determined to find proof that his claim about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq was accurate that, in the summer of 2003, his aides were calling the chief weapons inspector, David Kay, with specific satellite coordinates as the sites of possible caches. None resulted in any finds. . .
[More on that wild Cheney story: http://www.tinyrevolution.com/mt/archives/001103.html]
http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2006_09/009588.php
[Kevin Drum] Bottom line: Powell didn't get along with Rumsfeld, Rumsfeld didn't get along with Rice, Cheney didn't get along with anyone, the war was going to hell the entire time, and Bush was sleeping through the whole thing. Cheers!
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/30/us/30account.html
The White House on Friday dismissed a new book’s portrayal of division and discord inside the Bush administration, suggesting that the account by Bob Woodward had been provided by former aides who believed that their advice on troop levels and other questions of strategy in Iraq had been ignored.
[NB: Of course, that doesn’t mean it’s not true!]
Even as the White House scrambled to obtain a few copies of the book, “State of Denial,” to be released Monday, administration officials were rebutting specific examples in Mr. Woodward’s account, which described sharp clashes and long-running feuds fueled by the debate over the war. But other administration officials, speaking only if they were not identified, said the details in the book reflected a breakdown of discipline in an administration that once prized its ability to keep its disputes in-house. . . .
Mr. Snow had difficulty explaining why President Bush had failed to listen to such a broad range of officials who had called for more troops, including Robert D. Blackwill, the former top Iraq adviser, and L. Paul Bremer III, the senior American official running the occupation. Nor did Mr. Snow explain why Mr. Bush’s upbeat assessments of a “Plan for Victory” in Iraq, laid out in speeches late last year, contrasted so sharply with the contents of classified memorandums written by officials who warned that failure was also a significant possibility.
Some of those memorandums were written by Philip D. Zelikow, a counselor to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, including one in early 2005 in which Mr. Zelikow characterized Iraq as “a failed state” two years after the invasion, and another in September 2005, in which he said there was a 70 percent chance of success in achieving a stable, democratic state. That meant, Mr. Zelikow said, that there was a 30 percent chance of failure, including what he called a “significant risk” of “catastrophic failure,” meaning a collapse of the state Mr. Bush has tried to create. . .
The book contends that Andrew H. Card Jr., as White House chief of staff, urged Mr. Bush to replace Mr. Rumsfeld. In a telephone interview on Friday, Mr. Card confirmed that he had raised the issue, but suggested that Mr. Woodward had ignored the context. “Right after the election, I went to Camp David and talked to the president, and we talked about a lot of changes, starting with the chief of staff,” Mr. Card said, recounting how he used to tote around what he called his “hit by a bus book,” a notebook of lists of potential replacements for senior White House staff members and top cabinet officials.
“It’s not inaccurate to say that we talked about Rumsfeld,” he said. “I can understand why Bob would try to create a climate around these conversations.” But he added: “There was no campaign, and I didn’t go out and solicit others to back any view about getting rid of anyone. I could talk about these things with the president, and plant seeds, because there is a cadence to life in Washington and you raise these issues periodically.”
Mr. Card acknowledged that he renewed the question of replacing Mr. Rumsfeld this year, but again insisted that it was not part of a specific effort to single out the defense secretary for removal. . .
The White House went to extra lengths to dispute Mr. Woodward’s portrait of Mr. Bush as a president who viewed news from Iraq through the best possible lens and who failed to come to grips with reports of a deteriorating security situation.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/blog/2006/09/29/BL2006092900657.html
[Dan Froomkin] After two books that made President Bush look pretty good, Bob Woodward is out with a new one that comes awfully close to calling the president a liar. . .
This snippet is interesting. It suggests that Woodward partly composed his latest book by taking material that wasn’t used in the previous two – which came out when Bush was riding high. Now that he’s not, and the disaster of Iraq is becoming apparent to all, Woodward is taking the out-takes that didn’t fit the “Bush as hero” narrative, and reconstructing an alternative view of history that suits the current mood. But it seems apparent that he must have had a lot of this material before, and buried it (either that or a lot of people are suddenly changing their stories)
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/29/washington/29account.html
Mr. Woodward’s first two books about the Bush administration, “Bush at War” and “Plan of Attack,” portrayed a president firmly in command and a loyal, well-run team responding to a surprise attack and the retaliation that followed. As its title indicates, “State of Denial” follows a very different storyline, of an administration that seemed to have only a foggy notion that early military success in Iraq had given way to resentment of the occupiers. . .
Or, as Susan Madrak puts it. . .
http://susiemadrak.com/2006/09/28/13/09/drum-major/
Bob Woodward senses the massive problems with the Iraq war, and runs to the front of the parade. . .
Two can play that game
http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1003188885
Snow ignored a question from one reporter who asked why the White House had hailed Woodward's two previous books on Bush and the war as accurate but now they say the new one has many errors. . .
http://www.slate.com/id/2150755/
White House spokesman Tony Snow, meanwhile, says the book and its tales of dysfunction, deceit, and backstabbing is "sort of like cotton candy—it kind of melts on contact." . . .
More on the emerging struggle to rewrite history
http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2006/9/29/114822/157
[E.J. Dionne] We remember the period immediately after Sept. 11 as a time when partisanship melted away. That is largely true, especially because Democrats rallied behind President Bush. For months after the attacks, Democrats did not raise questions about why they had happened on Bush's watch.
But not everyone was nonpartisan. On Oct. 4, 2001, a mere three weeks and a couple of days after the twin towers fell and the Pentagon was hit, there was Rush Limbaugh arguing on the Wall Street Journal's op-ed page: "If we're serious about avoiding past mistakes and improving national security, we can't duck some serious questions about Mr. Clinton's presidency."
To this day I remain astonished at Limbaugh's gall -- and at his shrewdness. Republicans were arguing simultaneously that it was treasonous finger-pointing to question what Bush did or failed to do to prevent the attacks, but patriotic to go after Clinton. . .
More: http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/8617.html
[Steve Benen] The debate, for quite a while, has been rather one sided — Bush's allies have said simultaneously that we can't play the "blame game," and in the next breath, have said everything is Clinton's fault.
It's not only contradictory, it's plainly, demonstrably wrong. It's no wonder the Bush gang is sensitive about it. . .
Add to this today's revelation that the Bush White House was presented with a plan to kill Osama bin Laden months before 9/11, but Condi Rice and the Bush gang blew off intelligence officials, and we see that this isn't an argument the president and his supporters really want to have.
Indeed, it's been an odd week in this regard. The Bush gang fueled the fight over pre-9/11 counter-terrorism, even though they knew they'd end up looking bad. The same Bush gang responded to the NIE leak with a bogus defense, even though they knew the NIE would make them appear foolish.
I wonder what the weather is like in the Bush gang's reality?
http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2006_09_01_digbysblog_archive.html#115956608566473296
Olbermann examines the recent claims that Bush in his first 8 months was as aggressive in going after bin Laden as Clinton. Guess what? It's all lies and Olbermann has compiled the facts and footage to prove it, including stuff I suspect is quite new to most of us (such as that the Taliban offered Bush, yes Bush, to hand over bin Laden to the Saudis and he ignored the offer). And guess what? It's on MSNBC and nobody will see it. . .
And in Iraq. . . .
http://www.slate.com/id/2150755
[Barbara Raab] In Iraq, the minority Sunni Arabs have long been pissed off about the problem of rogue militia members and criminals infiltrating the Shiite-dominated national police and security forces, and Iraqi leaders' unwillingness or inability to purge the worst offenders. In May, Iraqi and American inspectors found a house of horrors at the police prison in eastern Baghdad known as Site 4—1,400 prisoners crowded into a small space, some with "lesions resulting from torture," others beaten, bound, and hung by their arms. The Times reports the U.S. is warning Iraqi leaders that if they do not crack down on the abuses, the U.S. will withhold funding for the police forces under a law, known as the Leahy law, that prohibits the financing of foreign security forces that commit "gross violations of human rights."
The Times makes no mention of what feels like the elephant in the (news)room: the administration's high road stand on human rights comes just two days after the Bush administration succeeded in getting Congress's permission for all but the most extreme types of interrogation techniques for terror suspects in U.S. custody. Moreover, TP notes that it was just 10 days ago that the Times gave front page real estate to senior Iraqi and American officials' strong doubts about Maliki (note: subscription required); is the paper merely reporting on, or is it being used to help create, a dump-Maliki movement?
The WH has been flirting with this new mantra for a while: now it bursts forth in full blossom. Questioning the war – or even referring to THE GOVERNMENT’S OWN EVIDENCE that the war is going badly – is succumbing to the “propaganda” of the enemy
http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2006_09_24.php#010045
[Josh Marshall] I think we're getting down to that true last refuge of the scoundrel marrow.
According to the president, those who think he's created a mess in Iraq which is making us less rather than more secure are "buy[ing] into the enemy's propaganda."
Isn't this what the president's own intelligence agencies are telling him? I guess they're buying into the enemy's propaganda. From what the polls seem to say, more than half the country is buying into the enemy's propaganda too. Pretty much everybody does, I guess, beside the president and those who sign on to his dogmas. . .
http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2006_09/009589.php
[Kevin Drum] You have to give the hawks credit. Here is Robert Kaplan on why George Bush will have trouble getting support for a war with Iran:
Though they may not admit it, the political elites beyond loyal administration circles, and particularly in Europe, simply do not trust Bush's ability to wage another war. Here is where the real problem lies; by delegitimizing his ability to wage war, they delegitimize his right to wage war.
That's a helluva triple gainer, isn't it? The problem, apparently, lies not in the actual fact that Bush has prosecuted the Iraq war with astonishing incompetence, but in the fact that non-Republican "political elites" have peevishly decided to take note of Bush's performance. Wow.
Believe it or not, though, it gets worse later on in the piece:
As someone who supported the invasion of Iraq, I know that the problem with grand assumptions is that they're nice when they succeed; otherwise you require a Plan B. The idea that there is no alternative to diplomacy in dealing with Iran, even after it achieves nuclear status, is another grand assumption, but without a Plan B.
The president and his hawkish enablers are rather plainly trying to maneuver the country into a position where military force will be the only plausible option available to us against Iran. Not only do they have no Plan B, but they're actively trying to close off even the possibility of a Plan B in the future. Is this a problem? You'd think so, but in a breathtaking piece of table-turning chutzpah Kaplan declares that the real problem lies with those who are trying to keep our options open. Apparently they suffer from the unforgivable stain of having been right about Iraq.
Bush logic
http://voanews.com/english/2006-09-28-voa71.cfm
"The Democrats can't have it both ways," said President Bush. "Either they believe that Iraq is a distraction from the war on terror, or they agree with the intelligence community and the terrorists themselves that the outcome of Iraq is important in the war on terror. The truth is the Democrats are using the NIE to mislead the American people . . .
Desperate whitehousewives
http://www.warandpiece.com/blogdirs/004950.html
"It's hard to overstate how frantically the White House has swung into damage control in response to the NIE on terrorism. It's the biggest deal here this week - not the escalation in Bush's rhetoric on terrorism, not Abramoff, not Bob Woodward's new book, not the housing picture. Bush has not discussed Iraq without trying to spin the NIE. For quite some time, we'd heard Bush use his speeches to challenge the idea that attacking Iraq had stirred up a "hornet's nest." And he'd been offering up variations on "some say Iraq made terrorism worse, I disagree." Now we know who "some" were: The US intelligence community."
The Abramoff case starts to bear fruit – will the press take the time to lead people through the details of systemic Republican corruption?
http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/001635.php
[Paul Kiel] There's already a lot of evidence out there that Ken Mehlman was Jack Abramoff's prime favor man in the White House -- but this new congressional report provides the most damning example yet.
[WP] One exchange of e-mails cited in the report suggests that former Abramoff lobbying team member Tony C. Rudy succeeded in getting Mehlman to press reluctant Justice Department appointees to release millions of dollars in congressionally earmarked funds for a new jail for the Mississippi Choctaw tribe, an Abramoff client. Rudy wrote Abramoff in November 2001 e-mails that Mehlman said he would "take care of" the funding holdup at Justice after learning from Rudy that the tribe made large donations to the GOP.
So in exchange for political contributions, Mehlman made sure the Choctaw got their $16 million contract. I believe that's called a quid pro quo.
It's by no means the only example of Mehlman's favors.
In 2001, he made sure a State Department official wasn't re-nominated for his post -- the official, Allen Stayman was a long-time foe of Abramoff's.
And according to a report from the Justice Department's Inspector General, Mehlman ordered one of his suboordinates at the White House to keep Abramoff updated on issues related to Guam; Abramoff was keen to see the U.S. Attorney there replaced. . .
http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/001636.php
[Paul Kiel] In an email exchange subject-lined "were you able to whack mccain's wife yet?" Ralph Reed and Jack Abramoff discuss derailing the nomination of a woman named Angela Williams to an Interior post.
Williams was up for head of the Office of Insular Affairs in the Department of the Interior, which has authority over decisions affecting the Northern Mariana Islands, an Abramoff client.
With the White House's help, Abramoff's effort was successful. Ralph Reed emailed Abramoff, "talked to rove about this and I think I killed it."
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/09/29/AR2006092901434.html
A top aide to presidential adviser Karl Rove passed along inside White House information to superlobbyist Jack Abramoff at a time when she was also accepting his tickets to nine sports and entertainment events, according to e-mails released yesterday in a bipartisan congressional report. . .
http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2006_09/009594.php
[Kevin Drum] "BETTER TO NOT PUT THIS STUFF IN WRITING...."
The House Government Reform Committee has released a bipartisan report on the Jack Abramoff scandal, including hundreds of emails between Abramoff and various GOP luminaries, including Karl Rove's assistant, Susan Ralston. And why not? Ralston used to work for Abramoff, after all.
You can see 'em all here. Mostly they seem to be obsessed with the giving and getting of skybox tickets to various sporting events, but Abramoff's bilking of Indian tribes and other clients is an ongoing favorite too. I haven't read the whole bunch, but I've reproduced my favorite exchange below. I wonder how many emails to "Susan's mc pager" didn't get into the White House system? . . .
The press: http://mediamatters.org/items/200609300003
CBS and NBC have almost completely ignored Roll Call's revelation that a House committee is preparing to release a bipartisan report documenting closer ties to convicted lobbyist Jack Abramoff than the Bush White House previously acknowledged.
The kind of people they are
http://glenngreenwald.blogspot.com/2006/09/mark-steyn-and-hugh-hewitt-reveal-true.html
[Glenn Greenwald] These two coddled authoritarian cultists are giggling about people who have been put into cages for the last five years on an island, away from their lives and their families, with little hope of ever being released. Many of them have attempted suicide. . . To sit around chortling about how great these detainees have it and how grateful they should be requires a sociopathic derangement that is nothing short of grotesque. . .
Didn’t I predict this? Republicans voted for the torture/tribunal bill KNOWING it would be overturned by the courts
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/28/washington/29detaincnd.html
And even some Republicans who voted for the bill said they expected the Supreme Court to strike down the legislation because of the habeas corpus provision, ultimately sending the legislation right back to Congress. . .
http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2006_09_24.php#010041
[Paul Kiel] How long before the torture bill the Senate passed yesterday is challenged in court? "Days." . . .
Having cowed the media, the Congress, and half the population not to dare question their war and terror policies, or be branded as traitors, the Bush gang now prepares to browbeat the courts. (They REALLY ARE totalitarians.)
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/09/29/AR2006092900511.html
Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, who is defending President Bush's anti-terrorism tactics in multiple court battles, said Friday that federal judges should not substitute their personal views for the president's judgments in wartime. . .
http://www.salon.com/wire/ap/archive.html?wire=D8KEOMA80.html
Supreme Court decisions that are "so clearly at variance with the national will" should be overridden by the other branches of government, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich says. . .
The Senate caves (again)
http://talkleft.com/new_archives/015871.html
The drip, drip, drip of George Allen (R-VA) N-word anecdotes is becoming a flood
http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2006/09/29/allen_sabornie/
Edward J. Sabornie, a special education professor at North Carolina State University. . . remembered Allen using the word "nigger" to describe blacks. "It was so common with George when he was among his white friends. This is the terminology he used," Sabornie said in that article.
Sabornie said he has now decided to let his name be known because he was upset by how Allen responded this week to the Salon story. "What George said on Monday really kind of inflamed me -- that it was 'ludicrously false' that he ever used the N-word," Sabornie told Salon. "I don't know how George can look himself in the mirror after saying that."
Since Sunday, four other named acquaintances of Allen have told news organizations that they witnessed Allen using a racial epithet or demonstrating racist behavior. Allen, and his campaign staff, have denied each of the claims. . .
Sabornie said his opinion of Allen dimmed after the senator called an Indian-American student "macaca" at a recent campaign rally. "That was the catalyst," Sabornie said. "I saw the old George." . . He said he remembers Allen also referring to blacks as "roaches," and using the word "wetback" to refer to Latinos.
And now Allen’s getting it from the other side!
http://www.prospect.org/weblog/2006/09/post_1522.html
Now, Even Allen's Apologies Are Getting Him in Trouble
Sons of Confederate Veterans Is the Most Recent Group Offended by Senator's Comments . . . [read on!]
Theocracy watch
http://pandagon.net/2006/09/29/another-conservative-turns-on-the-bible-beaters/
More on Bush’s “comma” http://www.prospect.org/horsesmouth/2006/09/post_385.html#010131
Yes, the 2000 election was stolen, and no, I’m not willing to let it go and get over it
http://www.buzzflash.com/store/items/353
Bonus item: Rush Limbaugh is a racist pig (I know, I know – stop the presses)
http://mediamatters.org/items/200609300001
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