Discourse.net

Shameless Ballot Manipulation in Mississippi

MS-SEN: Even More Ballot Shenanigans

I wrote yesterday about the breathtaking attempts to fix an election in Mississippi by hiding the Senate race on the ballot in an effort to discourage voters. (See Republicans Acting Like Peronists — Or Maybe Chavezites.)

This ruse is so breathtakingly illegal in a state whose election statute requires the federal elections to come first — in the clearest possible terms — that the attempt seems destined to fail in court (it’s currently enjoined pending a hearing).

But that has not stopped the desperate Republicans, fearing their party’s brand: the latest wheeze is to remove party affiliations from the candidates in the Senate race (just the Senate race, not all of them). And the law appears to be silent on this tactic, so they might get away with it.

Republicans Acting Like Peronists -- Or Maybe Chavezites

Have a look at MS-Sen: The Hidden Race. Maybe there’s another side to this story, but having read the statute, I rather doubt it.

This is the sort of behavior that supports the theory that the US is sliding into the sort of corrupt governance that used to be the hallmark of South American republics. Courts can cure many symptoms of the disease, and indeed may cure this one. But the deeper problem is the number of people in power, or grasping for power, who have neither honor nor scruples, neither shame nor any serious fear of consequences. And who’s to say that this is not the better reading of the last decade’s — or two decades’ — history? OK, three decades.

Do something.

(Do I hear four? five?)

Murry Waas Wargames the Investigations into the US Atty Scandal

Murray Waas, How the President’s claims of executive privilege for the U.S. attorney probe could prove to be cataclysmic for his own party: And why Republian congressional candidates might prefer that Karl Rove testify sooner rather than later

Makes Sense to Me

At the Watchdog Blog (asst proprietor, Dan Froomkin), Saul Friedman has a great suggestion: Assign a Police Reporter to the White House.

FBI Raids the Guys (Supposed to Be) Investigating Rove

Remember the US Office of Special Counsel (OSC), the guys supposed to be investigating Karl Rove? As you’ll see if you click that link, I was more than a little skeptical given who runs the OSC,

The OSC is headed by a presidential appointee with a five-year term named Scott J. Bloch. That he has been somnolent in this job is beyond dispute. That he has been positively active in sabotaging investigations that might annoy the Bush administration has been repeatedly alleged, and has even led to a formal complaint charging sabotage of investigations and retaliation against those who sought to pursue them.

Well, guess what? NPR says the FBI just raided the OSC, and secured a separate warrant for Bloch’s home.

The FBI’s action isn’t about the Rove case — it’s about other alleged misdeeds — but who will bet that the FBI’s actions will not derail whatever little action there was in the Rove area?

DoJ Claims It Ran Out of Bits

The Bush Department of Justice today claimed that it has run out of bits. It seems that it can no longer send press releases to Talking Points Memo (a real thorn in its side due to thorough reporting of DoJ scandals) because — get this — there’s no room on the mailing list!

Embarrasement of Riches (or Something)

Today’s top 10 list: Dahlia Lithwick of Slate’s The Bush administration’s dumbest legal arguments of the year.

I make it about 387 days to go. Plenty of time for another bumper crop.

Oregon GOP's Idea of What Constitutes Criminals and Terrorists: Democrats

Look past the shtick in Scrubbing the Oregon GOP at Jesus’ General, and you find the sort of news about my co-nationals that really creeps me.

If the story can be believed, it seems that the Oregon GOP duly passed a plank at its convention that said,

7.5 Inter-jurisdictional agency cooperation shall be improved for more effective joint action against organized crime, drug cartels, terrorist networks and the Oregon Democratic Party.

Yup. Drug dealers, terrorists and Oregon Democrats. All kind of similar in the crackpot view of the Oregon GOP.

But when called on it, someone quickly scrubbed the website. But you can see the old version at the Internet Archive’s Way Back Machine.

Perhaps it was someone’s idea of a joke inserted on the website? I hope. But in a world of right-wing eliminationist rhetoric (see multiple posts of David Neiwert’s on this at Orcinus) there’s all too much reason to fear it was for real.

Gallows Humor

Via Think Progress , Cheney falls asleep during Cabinet meeting on wildfires.

There’s a video of him “meditating”. And then the comments there range from over the top to quite funny.

It's Always Worse than You Think

One of the amazing things about this administration is that what starts out seeming like isolated pockets of corruption gradually takes shape as a pattern, only to be relevaled to be a way of life.

So it is with partisan prosecutions, and the corruption of the once proud US Attorneys offices of the US Dept. of Justice. First we had some bad apples. Then we had signs that the apples were being picked for their rottenness by people in Main Justice. And now we find that when someone gives a prosecutor testimony of having bribed a Republican, the loyal Bushies respond…by indicting a Democrat. Digby has as good an intro as any, as does the Carpetbagger’s The hits just keep on coming: U.S. Attorney scandal reaches Mississippi and Did Rove, White House stymie criminal probe in Alabama?.

A Real Back-Handed Compliment

I can explain this.

You may think that this looks like media bias —

Crooks and Liars » Romney Fundraising Scandal Ignored By Liberal Media - Clinton Gets Hammered Over Hsu: In recent days, NBC, CNN, and Fox News have all aired reports or discussed the case of Norman Hsu, who The Wall Street Journal suggested may have funneled illegal campaign contributions to Sen. Hillary Clinton. However, when Mitt Romney’s national finance committee co-chairman Alan Fabian was charged with mail fraud, money laundering, bankruptcy fraud, perjury and obstruction of justice, the three networks did not report or discuss it during programs available in the Nexis database.

It looks like the media protect Republicans and go after Democrats, right? Well, that may be true of Fox News and the Wall Street Journal, but I have a different theory as to why the rest of the media falls into this pattern.

You see, it’s not news when Republican officials are involved in sleazy financial deals. It is news when it happens to Democrats. After all, it happens to Republicans all the time and only happens to Democrats occasionally — despite the vast disparity in prosecutorial resources devoted to trying to find dirt on Democratic office-holders as opposed to that devoted investigating Republicans.

(And don’t even get me started on the frequency of GOP sex scandals.)

Gonzales Resigns -- At Last

When the rumors flew yesterday that disgraced and AG Alberto Gonzales would resign and be replaced by Secretary of Homeland Security Michael Chertoff, I didn’t pay much attention. Looked like the memory-impaired Bush loyalist was bunkered in.

But it seems that it’s true: Gonzales Resigns as Attorney General - New York Times.

Chertoff you may recall is a former federal judge (and was considered a pretty good one), which argues well for the DoJ job. On the other hand, he’s done a lousy job at Homeland Security, and presided over the disaster in New Orleans and the even more disastrous ongoing failures since the floods. Both of which argue that his management talents may not be equal to his legal skills.

But he’s loyal.

TMP Collects "Gonzales' Top Six Fibs"

TPMmuckraker collects “Gonzales’ Top Six Fibs”.

Isn’t one too many?

Too Tame By Half

Jim Henley writes in No More Mister Nice Gal:

If I needed to describe the Laura Rozen Style in two words, they would be “quietly devastating.” Rozen prefers a level tone, sparse verbiage and the assembly of relevant quotes. So it tells you where we are that she writes something like the following:

There’s a solution no one has thought of here. Congress needs to come back and pass legislation to make perjury no longer a crime. If Gonzales is the example of how you are allowed to lie to Congress, just take it off the books as a crime. Did anyone ever think of that? The Judge Alberto Gonzales Lying is a Sometimes Necessary Form of Protected Free Speech Act of 2007.

Of course, my first reaction is, don’t give them ideas.

But of course the first commentator sets Jim straight:

Congress doesn’t need to legalize perjury. It’s an inherent power of the Executive. And anyway, the power to perjure was reaffirmed in the Authorization to Use Military Force.

Now, that, I can see them arguing.

Update: It has come to my attention that some people need the relevance of the above explained to them. If you are one of those people, look here.

Today's Lesson: Don't Get Near Dick Cheney

Don’t go near Dick Cheney.

If you say something he doesn’t like, however calmly and respectfully, he may have you arrested by the Secret Service and charged with “assault” — and threaten to have your child taken away by Child Services.

If you’re a public official, it’s harder to have you arrested, so he’ll just swear at you and a couple of years later make up a claim that you got within kissing range of him:

In a “chance meeting” on the Senate floor with Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-VT) in June 2004, Vice President Cheney told Leahy to “f*ck yourself.” According to Leahy’s spokesman, the “exchange began when Leahy crossed the aisle at the photo session and joked to Cheney about being on the Republican side.” Cheney then “‘lashed into’ Leahy for remarks he…made criticizing Iraq contracts won without competitive bidding by Halliburton.”

In the new biography of the Vice President by Stephen Hayes, Cheney claims that the reason he shouted the expletive was because Leahy had been too “close” to him:

Leahy came over and put his arm around me. And he didn’t kiss me but it was close to it. So I flashed and I told him — I dropped the F-bomb on him. … It was heartfelt.

Leahy was not “close” to kissing Cheney; all he did was try to shake his hand.

(There’s more where that came from, and plenty of witnesses.)

Moral of the story: Don’t go near Dick Cheney. He’s dangerous, and might be contagious.

Painful to Watch

AG Gonzales is testifying before congress at present — it’s live on CSPAN. It’s not pretty. His position is that he can’t testify about anything on which he’s recused. And he can’t recall much else — including how much attention he paid to approving a death penalty request. Were it not for the cavalier way in which he and his boss treated death warrants in Texas, this would not be credible. But unfortunately, it might be the truth.

Senator Specter did not look happy — but will this actually spur him to support a call for impeachment of Gonzales? Nothing less will do.

MN GOP Accused of Illegalities

The Republican Party of Minnesota is in for a spot of bother: Read the “confidential memo” from the Minnesota Republican Party that is the basis of CREW’s FEC complaint.

'Classic Scandal Harmonic Convergence'

“Classic Scandal Hamonic Convergence”! That Joshua Micah Marshall sure has a way with words.

Wasn’t it him that invented dingbat kabuki? Yes, it was.

Oh yes, the new scandal. Well, it seems that the new scandal about Rep. Rick Renzi (R-AZ), this week’s allegedly corrupt Republican Congressman, is tied to the old scandal of the US Attorney purge. In multiple ways.

My favorite cross-connection is the suggestion that in order to cover up the connection, DOJ failed to release relevant emails to Congress.

Weeks before election day 2006, word leaked to the press in Arizona that Charlton’s office was investigating Renzi. Renzi’s top aide Brian Murray then called Charlton’s office and asked Charlton’s spokesman, Wyn Hornbuckle.

Unlike what happened with David Iglesias, Charlton’s chief investigator did report the contact to the Department of Justice, as DOJ regs dictate.

Now, here’s the key: after all Congress’s document and information requests to DOJ, the Justice Department had not revealed the Renzi-Charlton contact. For some reason, they’ve held that back

That’s serious stuff. And it suggests there’s more lurking under the rocks.

Office of Special Counsel Stirs from its Torpor

The US Office of Special Counsel (OSC) is a free-standing agency which should not be confused with the US DOJ Office of Special Counsel.

The OSC is headed by a presidential appointee with a five-year term named Scott J. Bloch. That he has been somnolent in this job is beyond dispute. That he has been positively active in sabotaging investigations that might annoy the Bush administration has been repeatedly alleged, and has even led to a formal complaint charging sabotage of investigations and retaliation against those who sought to pursue them.

Thus, it’s a shock to discover the news that the OSC is launching a “high-profile inquiry” into Karl Rove and others — indeed into a number of the scandals that are currently being investigated by Henry Waxman and others in Congress.

One’s first reaction might to think, “about time”.

I wonder, though, if one might think again.

As the LA Times notes,

The 106-person Office of Special Counsel has never conducted such a broad and high-profile inquiry in its history. One of its primary missions has been to enforce the Hatch Act, a law enacted in 1939 to preserve the integrity of the civil service.

Back in 2005, the Government Accountability Project was noting serious problems in Bloch’s OSC including,

a torrent of criticism over wholesale dismissal of hundreds of whistleblower cases, gag orders he has issued to his own staff, a wave of forced resignations as part of an ill-fated effort to open a Mid-Western Field Office in Detroit, and cronyism in his hiring practices.

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

Is it too paranoid to expect a memo saying that they failed to prove anything beyond reasonable doubt — in Dec 2008? Or maybe just before the Nov 2008 election? After all, the OSC has a record of just closing cases without review in order to be able to report a lower number of backlogged cases.

So far, everything about this administration has been worse than anyone might reasonably have expected. Why should this be any different?

I can see Rove chuckling now, ‘Please OSC, don’t throw me in that briar patch!’

New Rules

OK, maybe I was too pessimistic in the previous post: four Senators have written Gonzales asking a series of pointed questions about the claim that he blocked an investigation into his own conduct.

Looks like new majority is starting to feel its oats. I could get to like this.

Gonzales Blocked Investigation Into His Own Conduct

Murry Waas has the scoop, Aborted DOJ Probe Probably Would Have Targeted Gonzales:

Shortly before Attorney General Alberto Gonzales advised President Bush last year on whether to shut down a Justice Department inquiry regarding the administration’s warrantless domestic eavesdropping program, Gonzales learned that his own conduct would likely be a focus of the investigation, according to government records and interviews.

Bush personally intervened to sideline the Justice Department probe in April 2006 by taking the unusual step of denying investigators the security clearances necessary for their work.

It is unclear whether the president knew at the time of his decision that the Justice inquiry — to be conducted by the department’s internal ethics watchdog, the Office of Professional Responsibility — would almost certainly examine the conduct of his attorney general.

That security clearances are abused to prevent pesky questions into administration misdeeds is unfortunately sufficiently common as to rise almost to business as usual.

That AG’s fail to recuse themselves from investigations into themselves, and that they potentially implicate Presidents in their obstruction of investigations is not business as usual. But it’s not unheard of either: think “Watergate” for starters.

This is as big a deal as the ‘Gonzales 8’ but because it doesn’t involve lying to Congress I don’t suppose it will get quite as much traction. Then again, given the seriousness of the underlying issue — the attempt to procure legal opinions justifying warrant less wiretapping — maybe there’s some hope.

Alberto Gonzales's Role in the Plame Cover-Up

As Senators start to pile on our lamentable Attorney General for presiding over Karl Rove's politicization of the US Attorneys Office -- an offense known as 'obstruction of justice' -- I would like to direct your attention to a similar but somehow forgotten scandal.

Everyone seems to have forgotten that then-White House Counsel Alberto Gonzales also presided over one of the more sordid aspects of the Plame scandal. When Gonzales first learned that the Justice Department had started an official investigation into the Plame leak, Gonzales waited twelve hours before putting the White House staff on notice that they had to preserve documents and electronic files. Which seemed than -- and seems now -- like an open invitation to "shredding and deleting," not to mention getting your story straight. In short, obstruction of justice.

And it's not as if Gonzales dithered trying to make up his mind what to do. He told White House Chief of Staff Andy Card about the investigation right away -- many hours before sending the official notification to preserve all evidence.

Here's how Senator Harkin described the sequence of events back in October 2003:

On September 26, the Department of Justice officially launches its investigation.

Interestingly, it took 4 days after that "official" launch for the Justice Department to call White House Counsel Gonzales and notify him of the official investigation. Gonzalez then asked for an extra day before the Justice Department gave the White House the official notice, which means all documents and records must be preserved.

A recent letter was sent to the President from Senators Daschle, Schumer, Levin, and Biden which also expresses concern about this break from regular procedure.

They wrote:

Every former prosecutor with whom we have spoken has said that the first step in such an investigation would be to ensure all potentially relevant evidence is preserved, yet the Justice Department waited four days before making a formal request for documents.

Interestingly, the letter goes on:

When the Justice Department finally asked the White House to order employees to preserve documents, White House Counsel Alberto Gonzales asked for permission to delay transmitting the order to preserve evidence until morning. The request for a delay was granted. Again, every former prosecutor with whom we have spoken has said that such a delay is a significant departure from standard practice.

Lest you think this is much ado about nothing, consider that when Patrick Fitzgerald came looking, key emails to or from the Vice President's office mysteriously could not be found in the White House computer system's archives.

More on Political Prosecutions

Here’s TPM Muckraker’s summary of report by Profs. Donald Shields and John Cragan on the very partisan tilt to Bush appointees’ corruption investigations. (This is the report that got mentioned in Paul Kurgman’s op-ed today):

A study of reported federal investigations of elected officials and candidates shows that the Bush administration’s Justice Department pursues Democrats far more than Republicans. 79 percent of elected officials and candidates who’ve faced a federal investigation (a total of 379) between 2001 and 2006 were Democrats, the study found – only 18 percent were Republicans. During that period, Democrats made up 50 percent of elected officeholders and office seekers during the time period, and 41 percent were Republicans during that period, according to the study.

It is pretty damning to learn that the US Attorneys who were not fired — presumably because they were more pliable than the Gonzales Eight — were investigating seven Democratic candidates and office-holders for every Republican, but even so, I wish I had a link to the paper because there’s a lot more I’d like to know.

How did relative investigation rates compare in previous administrations of both parties?

How do the conviction rates of investigated Dems and Reps today compare with each other and with historical rates?

Armed with these facts, I could figure out whether

(A) the investigation-to-conviction rate for Democrats was as high as for Republicans, suggesting that so many officials in both parties are corrupt that this is a case of political opportunism in a target-rich environment (which would be bad), or

(B) the investigation-to-conviction rate for Democrats was much lower than for Republicans, meaning that honest people were subject to bogus investigations concocted for political gain (which would be much worse). Ditto for historical comparisons.

Plus, if the investigation-to-conviction rate should prove to be lower for Republicans than historically, it suggests that the investigations into Republican wrongdoing were either mis-aimed or mis-handled, for I think it stretches credulity to suggest that today’s GOP is less corrupt than yesterday’s.

But all this is speculation without more data.

Sargent Breaks a Big Taboo

Cartoonist Ben Sargent -- a big-time, mainstream syndicated cartoonist -- breaks a huge taboo in this cartoon drawn for his hometown paper, the American-Statesman.

Inspired, perhaps, by the evidence that Bush-appointed US attorneys were seven times more likely to investigate Democrats than Republicans, or perhaps inspired only by the general stench coming from the "Gonzales Eight" scandal, Mr. Sargent draws a cartoon that quite clearly equates GOP appointees with jackbooted fascists. There's no swastika, but we don't need to be told what that means. It means Nazis.

Until now, any invocation of that parallel has been so taboo that any person making it was immediately voted off pundit island.

I predict, however, that any attempt to make a fuss about Sargent's cartoon will fizzle.

Today's Buzzword: Waltergate

They haven’t come up with a good name for the firing prosecutors scandal yet, but the military hospital scandal has a great new moniker: “Waltergate.”

Perfect.

It's a Scandal Trifecta

Today’s scandal trifecta is pretty amazing.

• The jury system works…and Scooter Libby’s Guilty, Guilty, Not Guilty, Guilty, Guilty. Calls for Bush and Cheney to at least explain themselves. (Not to mention rumblings about Cheney’s impeachment.) But don’t hold your breath: Cheney is already stonewalling (“Since his legal team has announced that he is seeking a new trial and, if necessary, pursuing an appeal, I plan to have no further comment on the merits of this matter until these proceedings are concluded,” Cheney said. Earlier, White House spokeswoman Dana Perino issued a similar statement, saying that President Bush saw news of the verdict on television and was also “saddened” for Libby. She said Bush would continue to withhold comment because there is still “an ongoing criminal proceeding” in view of the defense’s plan to seek a new trial or appeal the verdict.)
  
  And the White House won’t rule out a pardon. The hope of which (on the administration’s last day in office?) keeps Scooter from ratting on his boss — especially if the Judge at the July sentencing lets him stay out of jail pending appeal.



• Huge Day on Fired Prosecutors Story. US Attorney ‘Pressuregate’ scandal (aka “Purged Prosecutors” ) metastasizes. Looks like lots more to come here. And that this scandal will end the careers of some Republican members of the legislature too. And maybe worse?



• And of course there’s the Walter Reed scandal. Some scandal containment (at last) by SecDef Gates, but just flopping around at the White House; and I don’t think newly appointed investigatory commission co-chair Donna Shalala will do them any favors in her report.
  
  I wonder, though, if the co-chair, Bob Dole, is as safe a choice as the White House may think. I imagine they are banking on Dole’s life-long track record of being a rabidly partisan tool when the crunch is on. But this might just be the exception: Bob Dole is said to have bitter memories of his own rehabilitation at the hands of the VA. As the blurb for his book put it,

  Dole suffered an arm wound during WWII, and because of the poor army medical treatment he also lost a kidney during his rehabilitation.

  And, interestingly, Dole was a physical therapy patient at Walter Reed in 2005.

Not to mention Bin Laden hasn’t been caught for something like 2003 days. And, oh yes, there’s a couple of wars on…

Donna Shalala Gets a New Part-Time Job

Dole, Shalala to Head Health Care Probe:

President Bush today appointed former senator Bob Dole and former health and human services secretary Donna E. Shalala to co-chair a new presidential commission that will look into problems at the nation’s military and veterans’ hospitals.

Shalala is of course also the President of the University of Miami — and a Hillary Clinton supporter.

Denver Three Uncovering the Truth

First there was this big news in the Denver Post, Activists’ expulsion cited as Bush rule. The official White House line has been that overzealous volunteers (akin to ‘a few bad apples’) threw the Denver Three out of a Bush rally either because they had it coming, or in an excess of zeal. But now the truth emerges:

A former White House official who ordered three activists expelled from a 2005 Denver public forum with President Bush says it was White House policy to exclude potentially disruptive guests from Bush’s appearances nationwide.

The former official, Steve Atkiss, revealed the policy Friday in an interview after two volunteer bouncers identified him and a current White House staffer, Jamie O’Keefe, as the officials who ordered the so-called Denver Three activists sent away from the event.

The activists had done nothing to disrupt the forum, and two of them sued over the incident.

In sworn legal depositions, bouncers Michael Casper and Jay Bob Klinkerman for the first time named the White House officials who they say ordered the Denver Three to be excluded.

That’s followed by this open letter:

Dear ProgressNowAction Member,

In March of 2005, we were forcibly removed from a publicly-funded “town hall” event in Denver at which President Bush promoted his privatization plan for Social Security.

We were removed from that event, along with another friend, simply because someone associated with the event observed that we had a “No More Blood for Oil” bumper sticker on our car. We did absolutely nothing to disrupt the event and had no intention of doing so.

Our Constitutional rights were violated, and we filed a lawsuit against the individuals involved. Our complaint asserted that the White House directed our removal, but the White House has insisted they had no involvement.

In sworn testimony today, however, we’ve learned that White House staff directly ordered our removal.

Please join us in demanding a public apology by President Bush:

http://www.ProgressNowAction .org/BushApologize

Thomas Jefferson said that “the price of freedom is eternal vigilence.” We were deprived of our right to attend a publicly funded event, and we will not allow this to go unanswered.

Thank you for standing with us!

Sincerely,

Leslie Weise and Alex Young
Colorado Residents and ProgressNowAction Network Members

P.S. Click on the following link to read today’s Denver Post article covering the testimony about White House involvement: http://www.denverpost.com/ci_5341085

That was the weekend. I look forward today to some reporters asking the White House why the misled us for so long, and what they have to say about this. After which Tony Snow will stonewall (“not sure what you are talking about”?) or just simply lie.

His Master's Voice

My brother’s column today notes that White House Spokesman Tony Snow sure lies a lot.

Senator's Office Finds New Way to Avoid Voters

Senator Gordon Smith R-OR) sinks to a new low in voter relations.

Having two self-described little old ladies arrested when they visit your office and ask to see you seems like an odd way to treat your constituents.

It's Missing Cheney

Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington has posted its list of Criminals and Scoundrels: The 25 Most Corrupt Officials of the Bush Administration. Someone seems to be missing….

More seriously, I think that including petty thieves like Claude Allen on this list cheapens the effect — the real problem with the Bush administration is not that there is the occasional shoplifter or petty fraudester in private life but rather the institutionalized corruption amounting to kleptocracy.

Stimson Resigns (About Time)

Defense Official Resigns Over Detainee Remarks.

He says he wasn’t pushed by Robert Gates. I hope this is as true as lots of other stuff he’s said.

Hack

Andrew Cohen, at Bench Conference notes, U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales “has achieved in just a few years what many legal scholars and court watchers had presumed impossible: he has made his predecessor, John Ashcroft, seem studious, grave and competent.”

To which I would add, Gonzales makes Aschcroft look non-political too. (I’m thinking of this abusive purge of key US Attorneys — replaced with loyal partisans.)

Worst AG of the past 100 years? It’s a fierce competition. Consider John Mitchell and Ed Meese for starters. But there are also a number of great ones on the list.

Moral Turptitude

Libby Destroyed Evidence Prior To Testifying, Cheney “Deeply Involved”.

At what point does this sort of behavior stop being politics as usual and instead become high crimes and misdemeanors?

Are We Starving Our Soldiers?

Meals for Marines in Afghanistan insufficient, report states. Apparently Marines trying to subsist on MREs are starving, losing so much weight that they need medical evacuation.

If there’s any truth to this, Congress should get on top of it.

The Missing Link

Swing State Project finds something funny and true at the House Government Reform Committee Web site.

David Brin Has Been Worrying

We all know that cornered politicians can be dangerous (and, in my experience in both Connecticut and Florida, cornered members of the Bush family are more dangerous still). Science fiction writer David Brin (author also of The Transparent Society) has been letting his imagination run loose, and he’s come up with A Timely Warning To All New Democratic Members Of Congress. Calling Brin pessimistic doesn’t begin to do it justice,

Let me say that I am less worried about the things that dour pundits normally dwell upon — e.g. political temptations like earmarking and lobbyist dinners — than by something far more profound and potentially devastating. Today’s topic is a vital alert that I hope will percolate through channels to every officeholder and/or sincere civil servant, during an era of political transition.

Indeed, it may also be pertinent to some members of the Republican establishment. For we are about to discuss a danger and an opportunity that cross party lines. We’ll be dealing with traits like honor and pragmatism, cynicism and patriotism, cynical self-protection… and courage.

While negotiating the ethical and political minefield that is Washington, always remain wary of a particular worst-case scenario… one that can systematically undermine even the most well-meaning politicians.

That worst-case scenario is BLACKMAIL.

Brin has some sensible advice for avoiding the modern blackmailer. It starts with clean living, but it doesn’t end there.

More Sleaze

Item: right-wing radio host Laura Ingraham today urged her listeners to obstruct efforts to protect voting rights by jamming a free voter protection hotline.

Item: Michael Steele and Bob Ehrlich hit an all time low in American politics. They distributed misleading sample ballots that pretend Ehrlich-Steele are Democrats and that Jack Johnson and Kweisi Mfume endorsed both of them. It's very clear that the party establishment is behind this -- the Governor's wife was part of the welcoming committee for the folks involved in this.

Dirty Tricks 2006

Details at DCCC.org.

GOP Vote Suppression Tactics in Full Swing

Item: Daily Kos: VA-Sen: Voter suppression in Virginia

Item: The robocalls from hell.

Statement by Mike Stark

Mike Stark wrote a letter about his assault by three men (who appear to have been George Allen staff members, although that's not entirely clear to me); the letter is posted at NBC29:

My name is Mike Stark. I am a law student at the University of Virginia, a marine, and a citizen journalist. Earlier today at a public event, I was attempting to ask Senator Allen a question about his sealed divorce record and his arrest in the 1970s, both of which are in the public domain. His people assaulted me, put me in a headlock, and wrestled me to the ground. Video footage is available here, from an NBC affiliate.

I demand that Senator Allen fire the staffers who beat up a constituent attempting to use his constitutional right to petition his government. I also want to know why Senator Allen would want his staffers to assault someone asking questions about matters of public record in the heat of a political campaign. Why are his divorce records sealed? Why was he arrested in the 1970s? And why did his campaign batter me when I asked him about these questions.

George Allen defends his support of the Iraq war by saying that our troops are defending the ideals America stands for. Indeed, he says our troops are defending our very freedom. What kind of country is it when a Senator's constituent is assaulted for asking difficult and uncomfortable questions? What freedoms do we have left? Maybe we need to bring the troops home so that they can fight for freedom at George Allen's campaign events. Demanding accountability should not be an offense worthy of assault.

I will be pressing charges against George Allen and his surrogates later today. George Allen, at any time, could have stopped the fray. All he had to do was say, "This is not how my campaign is run. Take your hands off that man." He could have ignored my questions. Instead he and his thugs chose violence. I spent four years in the Marine Corps. I'll be damned if I'll let my country be taken from me by thugs that are afraid of taking responsibility for themselves.

It just isn't the America I know and love. Somebody needs to take a stand against those that would bully and intimidate their fellow citizens. That stand begins right here, right now.

W. Michael Stark

Chris Matthews Says GOP Campaign 'Crosses the Line'

Even generally right-wing supporters of the GOP find its racist ad campaign to be too much to bear. Here's Chris Matthews, an unreliably right-wing commentator (he has a contrarian streak he lets out now and then), commenting on the "race-baiting in Tennessee" as one of the "last tactics in a losing campaign":

"I think it's awful for America," Matthews said.

Politicizing the IRS is a Political Cancer Symptom

The NYT reports that the admonistration is manipulating the IRS for political gain: I.R.S. Going Slow Before Election,

The commissioner of internal revenue has ordered his agency to delay collecting back taxes from Hurricane Katrina victims until after the Nov. 7 elections and the holiday season, saying he did so in part to avoid negative publicity.

The commissioner, Mark W. Everson, who has close ties to the White House, said in an interview that postponing collections until after the midterm elections, along with postponing notices to people who failed to file tax returns, was a routine effort to avoid casting the Internal Revenue Service in a bad light.

Except that it isn't routine at all: "four former I.R.S. commissioners, who served under presidents of both parties, said that doing so because of an election was improper and indefensible."

Kudos to David Cay Johnston for doing a little fact checking.

Nixon politicized the IRS. Are there any bad habits of Nixon's left that we haven't seen in this lot? (Not to mention all their newly-minted bad habits.)

There is a cancer on the Presidency. And this is one of its many symptoms.

51% Support Bush Impeachment

It's not a 'fringe' idea: Apparently 51% of those polled think impeachment is a reasonable idea. Even if "only" 28% say it's a high priority.

As I've said before, I don't support impeachment since it would tear the country apart, wouldn't get through the Senate...and if it did all it would do is make Cheney's status official. Not worth the effort.

But it's interesting to see how widespread the anger is. And, yes, it is a surprising, even shocking, number. Why? Because dissent just isn't visible enough.

Another Tasteless National GOP Ad

How's this for nasty negative advertising:

Aide may have misdialed phone sex line A Democratic congressional candidate accused in a political ad of billing taxpayers for a call to a phone-sex line said an associate may have misdialed the number while trying to reach a state agency.

The ad that began airing Friday shows Democrat Michael Arcuri leering at the silhouette of a dancing woman who says, "Hi, sexy. You've reached the live, one-on-one fantasy line."

But Arcuri's campaign released records showing the call two years ago from his New York City hotel room to the 800-number sex line was followed the next minute by a call to the state Department of Criminal Justice Services. The last seven digits of the two numbers are the same

On the one hand you have to be kind of amazed at the attention to detail in opposition research that was capable of ferreting out this call from phone records.

On the other hand, you have to be appalled at the sleaze of running with it.

The ad's sponsor, the National Republican Congressional Committee, stood by the 30-second message. Spokesman Ed Patru insisted it was "totally true"...

Character Counts

Dana Milbank lets the facts do the snarking.

During National Character Counts Week, Bush Stumps for Philanderer: So it has come to this: Nineteen days before the midterm elections, President Bush flew here to champion the reelection of a congressman who last year settled a $5.5 million lawsuit alleging that he beat his mistress during a five-year affair

....

While representing the good people of the 10th District, the married congressman shacked up in Washington with a Peruvian immigrant more than three decades his junior. During one assignation in 2004, the woman, who says Sherwood was striking her and trying to strangle her, locked herself in a bathroom and called 911; Sherwood told police he was giving her a back rub.

At a time when Republicans are struggling to motivate religious conservatives to go to the polls next month, it is not clear what benefit the White House found in sending Bush to stump for Sherwood -- smack dab in the middle of what Bush, in an official proclamation, dubbed "National Character Counts Week."

What's the Definition of Chutzpah?

This is.

Did Allen Get a Bum Rap on the Stock Options? No.

Here's the pro-George Allen take on the options issue.

Its main claims are (1) that the options were riding high before he was in the Senate, but near-zero by the time Allen took office; (2) that Allen's assistance to the company that issued the options was pretty small stuff, quite routine; (3) Allen disclosed the options in his first filing, then relied on advice that there was no need to do so any more.

Compare these claims to the AP/Washington Post version of the facts:

Allen disclosed the options once _ on an amendment to his 2000 ethics report filed three months after the normal filing period ended. He excluded the options from subsequent reports.

When AP showed Allen's lawyer the Senate ethics manual requirement that such options must be reported each year regardless of value, the lawyer said he was unfamiliar with that provision. Allen has now asked the Senate ethics committee for an opinion on whether he should have disclosed them.

So: Excuse #1 makes little sense: if the options are still alive, the holder has an interest in helping the company gain value to the point where they are in the money.

Excuse #2 is half right: What we know Allen did for the company on office time does in fact sound pretty routine. But the disclosure requirements don't have an exception for just routine assistance. And in any case this wasn't just some arms-length relationship, but a deep and complex financial relationship.

Excuse #3 is weird. If Allen had a blessing from the ethics committee staff why is he asking for an opinion now? And why would the staff give their blessing to what seems like a violation of the rules? And did Allen really think the company was dead beyond repair by 2001? It didn't file for bankruptcy reorganization until July 2005. So see excuse #1...

GOP: Always Worse Than You Think

George Allen's defense to the revelation that he had failed to disclose stock options to the Senate as its rules require was that the options were worthless and thus not worth disclosing (never mind that the Senate rules require disclosure regardless of value, and that even options with negative value are a potential conflict since there might be incentive to move the stock to a position where the options become profitable).

Well, it turns out that Allen lobbied the Army for one of the firms at a time he held their options. And, those "worthless" options? They were worth $1.1 million at their peak. I guess that's "worthless" only if you're a Republican.

Bonus: Here's the latest anti-Allen ad from the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committe:

Sen. Allen Failed to Declare Stock Options

You'd think this ought to finish him off: Virginia Senator Did Not Disclose Stock Options.

But it will probably be a nail-biter anyway.

Like a Bad Movie

Daily Kos: DE-AL: Castle (R) stroke severity covered up by local media. If this story is true, it's like one of those old movies.

Only I don't think we are going to get Jimmy Stewart saving the day.

I find it hard to believe that a newspaper could be as corrupt as is being suggested. They are not, after all, Republicans in Congress.

How to Win Votes (Not): Tell Voters they are Worse than Congress

Rep. John Shimkus, one of the leading figures who seems to have known about Predatorgate for some time but done little, has found a novel defense which I hope he will keep using: Insult the voters. Yes, really:

He insisted the page program is safe. "They are as safe there as they are at home," he said. "In fact, in a lot of homes--they're safer in our program than they are in a lot of homes."

I am certain that voters all across America will appreciate hearing this assessment of their parenting.

The Mind Boggles (Predatorgate ed.)

Some more items with varying relevance to Predatorgate.

Wishful thinking dept? Or just old-fashion lying? You be the judge: Fox News identifies Foley as...a Democrat. (Yes, really.) Update: And then they did it again in a completely different caption! Amazing.

The Trademark Blog says You Can't Make Up This Kind Of Irony: "Congratulations to the Foley Hoag firm, which won the exclusive right to be known as Foley, today." (Explanatory link.)

Human Shields: NRCC head Rep. Tom Reynolds -- second most likely head to roll after Hastert -- did a press conference. Surrounded by kids. Reporters asked if the kids could be cleared out so they could ask the R-rated questions. Reynolds said no -- prompting some bloggers to accuse him of using the kids as "human shields" to avoid tough questions.

Foley enters rehab and the rumors start to swirl. People keep emailing me saying he checked into a Scientology rehab center. I have no idea if this is true and don't care. (In keeping with the national trend, the Scientologists have put their picture of Foley accepting an award that used to be on this page down the memory hole.) More interesting is this AP story (ephemeral link, sorry):

When disgraced former Rep. Mark Foley announced he was entering rehab for treatment of alcoholism and "other behavioral problems," some of those who have known him for years were shocked and suspicious.

Some friends and acquaintances said they rarely saw him drink.

A former colleague, Rep. Peter King, R-N.Y., said on Fox News Channel: "I don't buy this at all. I think this is a phony defense. The fact is, I think he's responsible for what he did here and I think it's a gimmick."

Meltdown: So here's the serious item: The GOP leadership can't keep its various stories straight. If they are not guilty of something, then they certainly are doing the most amazing job of acting like co-conspirators who have been discovered. The Washington Post speculates that Predatorgate may move several house seats.

Is Predatorgate a Democratic October Ambush?

Those few of you who read the comments on this blog may have noted a small dust-up in the comments to Predatorgate Scandal Spreads. One of the GOP spin points asserted there by an assiduous commentator is the idea that the Democrats are (at least? more?) to blame for letting a known predator run loose because they knew all about the scandal and did nothing. This isn't a reference to the Democratic member of the page committee being totally shut out of discussions then (and now!) but rather an unsourced and unsubstantiated allegation that some unnamed Democratic sympathizer must have known all the juicy details and sat on them until the time it might do the most good. Since in fact neither I nor almost anyone else knows the source of the info that finally brought Rep. Foley's behavior into the open, this sort of calumny is hard to rebut, although to my ear it has an element of blaming the victim -- since a victim had to the original source of the damning information.

Amazingly, however, we now have some information on the subject of who leaked what to whom when:

Papers Knew of Foley E-Mail but Did Not Publish Stories: Then, in June, the reports resurfaced on Capitol Hill, where a neighborhood resident struck up a conversation in a bar with someone who had provided the e-mail messages. He said he passed them on to several news outlets. The resident, who said he was not affiliated with either party and was motivated by concern for the teenager, would talk only on condition of anonymity.

No one acted on the information until last week, and even then, it was a Web site that first posted the exchange. It is not clear who maintains the Weblog, stopsexpredators.blogspot.com, which appears to be largely devoted to the Foley scandal.

ABC News had its first account several days later on its Web site.

Mr. Ross said he was surprised by how quickly the congressman's office confirmed the authenticity of the e-mail messages, first when ABC reported them on Sept. 28, and again a day later when confronted with much more explicit exchanges.

Mr. Ross dismissed suggestions by some Republicans that the news was disseminated as part of a smear campaign against Mr. Foley.

"I hate to give up sources, but to the extent that I know the political parties of any of the people who helped us, it would be the same party," Mr. Ross said, referring to Republicans.

So to the extent we know who pushed this into the media ... it's Republicans. I have no idea who is behind stopsexpredators.com, but I bet that none of the people accusing them of being Machiavellian Democrats sitting on the info for ages do either. (And since when did Democrats get so good at Machiavellian tactics anyway?)

Predatorgate: GOP Leaders Cover-Up Unravels

Predatorgate is a serious matter, and Glenn Greenwald is all over it: This needs to be investigated. Things look really bad for Hastert -- the Washington Times is going to call for his resignation. And things look bad for NRCC Chairman Tom Reynolds too.

I wish I lived in a country in which this or even this was the biggest scandal of the week. (Not to mention the Torture bill.) But there it is. And there's some karmic appropriateness that those who lived by the sex scandal should also die by it.

Who Are the Members of the House Caucus on Missing and Exploited Children?

It's easy to find the membership list of the Senate Caucus on Missing, Exploited, and Runaway Children.

Oddly, today, I can't find the membership list for the Congressional Missing and Exploited Children's Caucus anywhere. Google has let me down.

The Senate Caucus web page has a link for The Congressional Missing and Exploited Children's Caucus at http://www.house.gov/lampson/CMECC.htm but that page is missing because Rep. Lampson lost his seat. (He's now running in TX-22, DeLay's old seat. Oh the irony.) Seems the Senate Caucus doesn't update its links very often.

Archive.org hasn't visited Lampson's page since 2004, which is probably when it stopped existing. Back then it listed three leaders of the caucus:

Rep. Nick Lampson, (D-TX) CHAIRMAN & FOUNDER
Rep. Bud Cramer, (D-AL) CO-CHAIRMAN
Rep. Mark Foley, (R-FL) CO-CHAIRMAN

Thanks to archive.org I was able to find that in 2004 the House Caucus boasted 150 members -- but even there I couldn't get the list, just a "Data Retrieval Error".

It would be good to have that list -- a target-rich environment, even if an article from July, 2006 in US Fed News suggests the number of members may have dropped to 136.

Bonus Ironic Article Title: "Making prey of the predators" By Mark Foley and Orrin Hatch (Washington Times, June 24, 2005). Good quotes: "For too long, too many sex offenders have been treated like petty criminals. As a result, too many children and too many lives have been lost. These pedophiles prey on our children and will continue to do so unless stopped." And "We need to stop playing Russian roulette with children's lives. We need to stop these pedophiles now."

Predatorgate Scandal Spreads

The New York Times promotes the Predatorgate cover-up to a full page one scandal.

Glenn Greenwald has excellent play-by-play of the more recent developments.

One unanswered question: What On Earth were these people thinking? When they decided to take the cover-up option rather than investigate, were they really so arrogant as to think they could sweep it all under the rug? So uncaring as to the possible consequences for Senate pages that they didn't even want to find out if there was a serious problem? Or so clubby and confident in each other that they believed their colleague's assurances that there was nothing to worry about?

Maybe. Then again, remember this important rule about the modern GOP: Even when you factor in that they are much worse than you think, they're still much worse than you think.

In that spirit, I bring you this commentary from a shrewd if also cynical e-mail correspondent:

I think that the reason that the GOP leadership allowed Foley to hang around knowing that he was a sexual predator will soon become clear: in machine politics you have to know who to trust and the only people who you can put a great deal of trust in are people who you can blackmail.

Its not a coincidence that Foley, Ney, Cunningham have been convicted, DeLay is indicted and Doolittle and Burns are facing imminent indictments. Thats the way machine politics works, the only people who can be allowed into the inner circle are people who they have the goods on.

RICO claims could be built on less.

Must Read: Retired Military Officers On Rumsfeld, Iraq (and Congress)

True patriots howling in pain.

AlterNet: Blogs has a partial video and full text.

Here's a tiny sample:

My name is [Maj. Gen.] John Batiste. I left the military on principle on November 1, 2005, after more than 31 years of service. I walked away from promotion and a promising future serving our country. I hung up my uniform because I came to the gut-wrenching realization that I could do more good for my soldiers and their families out of uniform. I am a West Point graduate, the son and son-in-law of veteran career soldiers, a two-time combat veteran with extensive service in Bosnia, Kosovo, and Iraq, and a life-long Republican. Bottom line, our nation is in peril, our Department of Defense's leadership is extraordinarily bad, and our Congress is only today, more than five years into this war, beginning to exercise its oversight responsibilities.

There is so much more.

Update--Full videos:

• Major General John Batiste
• Major General Paul Eaton
• Col. Thomas Hannes

Digby Reads the Rove Playbook

I don't know who Digby (the proprietor of "Hullabaloo") is, but s/he has a scary smart analysis of the next page of the Rove playbook at The Theme:

The Republicans have figured out something that the Democrats refuse to understand. All political messages can be useful, no matter which side has created it. You use them all situationally. The Republicans have been adopting our slogans and memes for years. They get that the way people hear this stuff often is not in a particularly partisan sense. They just hear it, in a sort of disembodied way. Over time thye become comfortable with it and it can be exploited for all sorts of different reasons.

In this instance, there has been a steady underground rumbling about stolen elections since 2000. Now we know that it's the Republicans who have been doing the stealing ---- and the complaining has been coming from our side. But all most people hear is "stolen election" and they are just as likely to paste that charge onto us as they are onto them. It's like an ear worm. You don't know the song its from, necessarily, but you can't get it out of your head.

We have created an ear worm that the Republicans are going to appropriate --- and they will use it much more aggressively and effectively than our side did. They are already gearing up for it. As I mentioned a month or so ago, Karl Rove was at the Republican Lawyers Association talking about how the Democrats are stealing elections.

See, they're doing it with all those illegal immigrants they have invited here to take your jobs...

Gonzales in the Cross Hairs?

Forgive me for quoting myself, but it's time to reprint Lest We Forget: Gonzales Appeared to Obstruct Justice in the Plame Affair, with a little extra commentary. First, the rerun:

---

Do not forget that Gonzales -- nominated to be the nation's top cop -- is the guy who when the Plame investigation was bearing down on the White House ensured that the guilty parties had all the time they could want to shred everything incriminating:

Senator Harkin, quoted in the "Congressional Record" (emphasis added):

Let me give a quick recap of the timeline. It started with the President's deception in his State of the Union Address in January. In his remarks, Mr. Bush stated Iraq tried to buy uranium from Niger. A few months later, in July, former Ambassador Joseph Wilson's op-ed appears in the New York Times, questioning the President's assertion.

Then in order to discredit Wilson and ``seek revenge'' on Wilson, senior administration officials leaked to the press the identity of Wilson's wife and the fact she was a CIA operative, thereby undercutting our national security and clearly violating Federal law.

This happened in early July. Let's see what happened since.

On July 24, Senator Schumer calls on the FBI Director to open a criminal investigation into the leak of a CIA operative based on that column.

In late July, the FBI notified Senator Schumer that they had done an inquiry into the CIA.

Then it appears nothing happened for 2 months.

On September 23, the Attorney General says he and CIA Director Tenet sent a memo to the FBI requesting an investigation.

On September 26, the Department of Justice officially launches its investigation.

Interestingly, it took 4 days after that ``official'' launch for the Justice Department to call White House Counsel Gonzales and notify him of the official investigation. Gonzalez then asked for an extra day before the Justice Department gave the White House the official notice, which means all documents and records must be preserved.

A recent letter was sent to the President from Senators Daschle, Schumer, Levin, and Biden which also expresses concern about this break from regular procedure.

They wrote:

Every former prosecutor with whom we have spoken has said that the first step in such an investigation would be to ensure all potentially relevant evidence is preserved, yet the Justice Department waited four days before making a formal request for documents.

Interestingly, the letter goes on:

When the Justice Department finally asked the White House to order employees to preserve documents, White House Counsel Alberto Gonzales asked for permission to delay transmitting the order to preserve evidence until morning. The request for a delay was granted. Again, every former prosecutor with whom we have spoken has said that such a delay is a significant departure from standard practice.

That is what has been happening--departure from standard practice.

I am also troubled that the White House Counsel's Office is serving
as "gatekeeper'" for all the documents the Justice Department has requested from the White House. Mr. Gonzales' office said he would not rule out seeking to withhold documents under a claim of executive privilege or national security.

What kind of a zoo is this outfit?

---

What's new is the fevered speculation about Rove either being indicted, or becoming a cooperating witness. The blogs are atwitter with the idea that this could be bad for Cheney, and I suppose in the highly unlikely event that Rove sings, this might be true.

But I can't help but wonder if a good prosecutor like Fitzgerald might not have had his eye drawn to the chronology above, which certainly suggests the possibility of obstruction of justice. Enabled -- intentionally? -- by the now-Attorney General of the United States, our nation's top law enforcement officer.

Our Enemies Strike Again

Further evidence of domestic subversion by our enemies: Moles in the White House killed a (probably) legal NSA data mining project with built-in privacy protections.

The National Security Agency developed a pilot program in the late 1990s that would have enabled it to gather and analyze massive amounts of communications data without running afoul of privacy laws. But after the Sept. 11 attacks, it shelved the project -- not because it failed to work -- but because of bureaucratic infighting and a sudden White House expansion of the agency's surveillance powers, according to several intelligence officials.

The agency opted instead to adopt only one component of the program, which produced a far less capable and rigorous program. It remains the backbone of the NSA's warrantless surveillance efforts, tracking domestic and overseas communications from a vast databank of information, and monitoring selected calls.

Treason at Least Has Profit or Principle

It is a given that the inventiveness of our nation's enemies surpasses human imagination. Even so, could anyone ever have imagined they'd come up with something as fiendish as this?

Merely Parsimonious With the Truth

TPMMuckraker, in post being widely cited elsewhere, echos Reps. Bennie G. Thompson (D-MS) and Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-CA) in asking Did Gonzales Mislead Congress about NSA Program?

I don't think this is perjury. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales assured the House Judiciary Committee that the government wasn't deliberately engaging in warrantless "surveillance" of calls between two Americans.

And, in fact, what we've learned today about the NSA is (just barely) consistent with that claim: the surveillance was by telephone companies, and then they voluntarily gave the info -- not in real time -- to the government. So what we have here is a massive privacy violation by the phone companies (other than Qwest, and good for them), engineered by the NSA. That's not quite exactly the same thing as 'surveillance' in which the government usually does the spying itself, and usually in real time.

It's a serious matter, of course, if the government tries to blackmail someone into cooperating. USA Today reported that the NSA suggested to Qwest that it might lose government contracts if it didn't play ball.

That sounds illegal. Of course, it also sounds like the Bush admnistration's m.o. from the K Street Project right up to the scandal about to take down HUD Secretary Alphonso Jackson.

Musings on the Hayden Appointment

The politics of the Hayden nomination to the CIA are an object lesson in why the historian's task is so very difficult. For a series of complex and highly contingent reasons, almost every position on this issue is confusing, and often at odds with long-run stances. It's pretty hard to understand what is going on today; it will be even harder to recapture it in the future, and almost impossible to explain it to people who are not well marinated in all the messy details.

Let's start with the Bush administration. The administration describes its motive for choosing Hayden as a reflection of his long experience and knowledge -- in short, competence. That's always possible, but hardly characteristic of this administration. And in fact the nominee's indisputable competence is in sigint, not in humint, which is the area that most establishment observers say is the CIA's current crisis.

More plausibly, several commentators have suggested that this is intended as a wedge appointment. By picking a technocrat with a strong c.v. who has also made public statements arguably calling into question his understanding of and commitment to the Fourth Amendment, the Rovians thought they were setting up the Democrats to oppose an indisputably qualified candidate which would then allow the opponents to be accused of being soft on terror or having an archaic and feminine pre-9/11 vision of freedom.

A third, highly cynical, version says that this appointment was designed to fail: that it exists to give vulnerable Republican legislators something to be against so that they can create the appearance distance from the administration. This is not a plausible story because losing this nomination would make the administration look so weak that it might never recover.

What gives the third version the shred of plausibility is the vocal opposition to this nomination from the Republican right. The issue there is being framed as civilian vs. military, with the subtext being a concern that Hayden would support or fail to fight the slide of authority to the spook shops in the Pentagon. While that's a very valid concern, it darned odd to see the GOP raising it now. Although they may have woken up to the danger that Rumsfeld is no longer in full command of his faculties, as a long-run matter they have no beef with the Pentagon. Yes, the military intel people winning the turf wars are Neo-Cons rather than paleoconservatives, and yes, they're not the brightest bulbs, and yes, the CIA was the traditional fief of the Yale establishment conservative, but even so. It's hard to tell who's serious and who is being disingenuous here. Interestingly, however, today the spinners suggest that Hayden will be an anti-Rumsfeld appointment -- although the bureaucratic horse may have already bolted.

Now consider the odd position that the Democrats find themselves in. The CIA has been known to be dangerous and stupid for going on 20 years. The NSA were the smart guys (and, until recently, we thought the straight-and-narrow guys too); the CIA were the loose cannons and the B/C+ students. The quality of the analysis during the cold war tended to be rather low, and the quality of the covert missions spotty at best, and quite dire at worst. So no great love lost there. Plus, as a matter of democratic theory, Democrats at least as much as Republicans are wired to want firm civilian control of the spooks, especially the covert action branch. The Church Commission would never have happened in a Republican Senate.

But recently the CIA has been at war with the administration. Part of it is a CYA exercise over WMDs. Part of it the Plame outing. Part of it probably has to do with the CIA's fear of prosecution for its killings, torture, renditions, and illegal activities on foreign soil, including several of our closest allies. On the one hand, Democrats are not in favor of rogue spies leaking to undermine their civilian masters. On the other hand, the Democrats are not for fake or cherry-picked or stovepiped intelligence, unnecessary wars, torture, outing agents, or George Bush. (Alas, the party is more split on the question of prosecuting criminal agents.) So it's hard to figure out who to root for. Plus Democrats tend to like it when Republicans nominate technocrats -- so long as they don't seem like closet partisans; after all it tends to better outcomes than the standard practice of appointing unqualified open partisans, even when they are not caught up in sex scandals and money scandals. Thus, I'm afraid that Democrats will find it very hard to unite on this one, even given Hayden's somewhat troubling statements about surveillance.

One would think, hope, that Hayden's involvement in the NSA's illegal wiretaps would suffice to make him unconfirmable. But the technocratic allure may yet carry the day, which is sort of sad, but not incomprehensible when the alternative -- total ineptitude -- is so dangerous and costly.

Rumsfeld's Lips

Rumsfeld Called Out On Lies About WMD:

Speaking in Atlanta today, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld was sharply questioned about his pre-war claims about WMD in Iraq. An audience member [CIA veteran Ray McGovern] confronted Rumsfeld with his 2003 claim about WMD, "We know where they are." Rumsfeld falsely claimed he never said it. The audience member then read Rumsfeld's quote back to him, leaving the defense secretary speechless.

See the video.

This will surely enhance the SecDef's standing with the officer corps, whose concept of honor is somewhat less elastic.

Let Us Pray

There are none so blind as those who will not see.

No Institution Left Behind

It's amazing. This administration corrupts everything it touches -- even librarians. And that's saying a lot, because librarians have been in the forefront of fighting against many of the objectionable aspects of this governments' information control policies. That's why it's such a shock to learn from The Project On Government Oversight (POGO) Blog that the National Archives Agreed to Coverup Reclassification Scheme:

The National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) secretly agreed to hide from researchers attempts by intelligence and defense agencies to reclassify thousands of documents that had already been publicly released, some for as long as 50 years. Through the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), the National Security Archive (the Archive) obtained a secret memorandum of understanding (MOU; pdf) between NARA, the Air Force, the Central Intelligence Agency and other intelligence agencies whose existence has been covered up through redactions.

The National Security Archive site's explanation of what it discovered says that the program started four years ago, in 2002. The deal to which the Archives agreed could hardly be more explicit in its goals, among them "to avoid the attention and researcher complaints that may arise from removing material that has already been publicly available."

I should note that although this agreement is dated 2002, the National Security Archive's article suggests the reclassification program may have started "at the end of the Clinton administration" although I'm unclear on what they base that. Not that it matters; it's wrong as a general matter.

I won't go so far as to say that there are no circumstances in which an accidentally declassified document should be pulled from the shelves; I just think at most they're very rare. And it's evident that this program, which swept up thousands of documents, many of no possible national security value, was nowhere near reasonable.

Our Brownshirts Wear White T-Shirts

Just keep saying, It Can't Happen Here.

The Tom DeLay campaign operation is going out in style. Last night it sent out this message to supporters:

We would meet tomorrow morning at 9:45 am on the first floor of the parking garage attached to the Marriott. Please get folks to call our campaign office 281.343.1333 and let us know they can do it - or e-mail Leonard Cash (in the cc field above) so that we can get some head count. Let's give Lampson a parting shot that wrecks his press conference.

Not surprisingly, this call to action incited violence.

Eyewitness report and photos. More details here.

Thoughts on the Libby Bombshell

This is a time when no amount of cynicism is too much. This is a time for Informed Comment.

The admnistration's current line of defense is when the President does it, it's not illegal.

Atrios has the perfect rejoinder:

It's probably reasonable that the president can declassify whatever he wants, or at least I haven't really seen an especially strong argument to the contrary, but that doesn't mean that the president can declassify stuff, show it to Judy Miller, and then turn around claim the stuff is still classified. That's where this argument falls apart.

The Carpetbagger Report: All of a sudden it's a scandal again shows how completely the administration's latest spin conflicts with the previous spin.

I wonder how long before the defense becomes, 'Cheney said Bush authorized the leak, but in fact he was mistaken on that point.' Nixon threw Agnew to the wolves. But it didn't work.

(Here's the full text of the Special Prosecutor's filing)

Bonus: David Neiwert challenges the media.

Libby Fingers Bush, Cheney as Ordering Plame Leak

Why do I have to read news like this in my brother's blog rather than major media? Read today's column -- scroll down to "Fitzgerald lets loose".

[The NY Sun's Josh] Gerstein writes that according to [special prosecutor Patrick J. Fitzgerald's latest] filing, Libby "testified to a grand jury that he gave information from a closely-guarded 'National Intelligence Estimate' on Iraq to a New York Times reporter in 2003 with the specific permission of President Bush."

...

That reporter, of course, was Judith Miller.

Here's an excerpt from Fitzgerald's filing: "Defendant testified that he was specifically authorized in advance of the meeting to disclose the key judgments of the classified NIE to Miller on that occasion because it was thought that the NIE was 'pretty definitive' against what Ambassador Wilson had said and that the vice president thought that it was 'very important' for the key judgments of the NIE to come out."

Gerstein writes: "Mr. Libby is said to have testified that 'at first' he rebuffed Mr. Cheney's suggestion to release the information because the estimate was classified. However, according to the vice presidential aide, Mr. Cheney subsequently said he got permission for the release directly from Mr. Bush. 'Defendant testified that the vice president later advised him that the president had authorized defendant to disclose the relevant portions of the NIE,' the prosecution filing said."

That is, as my brother says "a shocker".

Yet, he writes, "In fact, as of this writing, none of the major news outlets has published a word on the subject."

(Although, I see that since he wrote that, at 12:35 the Associate Press has moved the story.)

Profile in Caution: Senator Bill Nelson

Back on March 13, I contacted Senator Bill Nelson to urge him to support the Feingold censure proposal.

Looks like it took his office a while to decide its position, but today -- more than three weeks later -- I got an emailed reply (so he can't blame the postal service for the delay). And here is Senator Nelson's very considered reply:

Thank you for contacting me regarding Senator Russ Feingold's proposal to censure President Bush. A number of members of Congress and other groups, including the American Bar Association, have raised serious concerns about the legality of the President's domestic wiretapping program. I share these concerns, but I want to hear the outcome of congressional investigations into this program before judging the appropriateness of any action such as censuring the president.

Please do not hesitate to contact me in the future with your thoughts on this or any other topic.

Three weeks to get around to saying that? In an election year?

Always Release the Sleazy