Wednesday, November 02, 2005

Harry gave 'em hell.

Hunter, at Daily Kos:

In a move worthy of a Wild West gunfight, Minority Leader Harry Reid changed the political landscape on a dime, and cleaved the Republican talking point brigades into shards and splinters. This move was political brilliance on more fronts than I can count. ...

  • First, obviously, it forced the Senate to agree to finally investigate the massaged and/or bogus Iraq War intelligence, after stonewalling the investigation for over two years.
  • Second, it shows the American people that the Democrats are serious about the Republicans' ongoing dismissal of critical national security matters, even if Republicans like Frist and Roberts have proven over the last two years they aren't trustworthy or responsible about pursuing them. And that Democrats are also dead serious about the Iraq War, and investigating any frauds or manipulations used to send us into the quagmire.
  • It absolutely nails the Republicans to the wall on Plamegate. President Bush, the Senate, and now the entire nation knows that senior administration official Scooter Libby, chief of staff to the Vice President, was the first administration official to leak the name of a covert CIA agent to the press, in retaliation for her husband's political stance. And we now know that Rove was the second, and that the two had some conversations as to Plame's status and what they were telling reporters about it.

    And yet Bush didn't fire either one of them. He allowed Libby to resign after being indicted for obstructing the further investigation into the White House leaks. And Rove remains by his side today, while the investigation continues.

    Today, by demanding a response to Senate obstruction efforts, Reid squarely brought the national discourse back to the ongoing now-criminal obstruction efforts in the White House -- a criminal obstruction that had in the last days been made into a talking point praised by Republicans as a Republican victory over the investigation. And it masterfully highlights the fundamental dishonesty of a Republican Senate with no intentions of getting to the bottom of either of them. Frist squealed like a stuck pig at even the mere thought of having to discuss either matter.



Go count a few more of the fronts.

David Sirota has some questions to which he wants answers. He's been asking those same questions for quite awhile now.

The Democrats are going to the mattresses on this, and on "Sloppy Seconds" Scalito. The GOP heads are exploding.

Hell of a "Boston Legal" episode last night on the subject, too.

It's on. Pop the corn.

Tuesday, November 01, 2005

Damned liberal media again

From the transcript (you'll find this almost halfway down):

FITZGERALD: I would have wished nothing better that, when the subpoenas were issued in August 2004, witnesses testified then, and we would have been here in October 2004 instead of October 2005. No one would have went to jail.


Had Judith Miller, Matt Cooper, and the other members of the media who were manipulated by the assistants to the President and Vice President testified when they were issued the subpoenas, then Scooter Libby would have been indicted in October 2004.

That would have made Bush's re-election more than a little unlikely.

John Kerry would be President, the Senate and/or the House would likely be under Democratic control, and the current Supreme Court nominee most certainly would not be a Fascist.

Not to mention Stephen Breyer as Chief Justice.

Just sayin'...

Update (11/2): Susan has much more.

Sunday, October 30, 2005

Alito, but maybe also Luttig

Here's what President Katrina has been up to since we last saw him on Friday praising Scooter Libby as a "great patriot"(bold emphasis is mine):

Bush spent the weekend at Camp David huddled with Miers, who remains his White House counsel and is therefore in charge of the judicial selection process, along with Chief of Staff Andrew H. Card Jr., who originally advocated Miers as the first choice to replace retiring Justice Sandra Day O'Connor. As the three talked, White House officials contacted prominent conservatives to test the reaction to various candidates.

One group consulted was the Concerned Women for America, whose decision to oppose Miers last Wednesday became one of the final blows to help kill the nomination. Janet M. LaRue, the group's chief counsel, said it received a call from the White House on Saturday and liked what it heard.

"Alito and Luttig have always been at the top of our list," she said in an interview. "We think either of them would be a supreme pick. There isn't a thing stealthy about them. They've got a long, proven record of constitutional conservatism."

Other conservatives yesterday also embraced Alito, in particular. "Alito, Luttig -- all these people are solid conservatives," Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.) said on CBS's "Face the Nation." On CNN's "Late Edition," Gary L. Bauer, president the conservative group American Values, described his criteria for a Supreme Court justice and added, "Certainly, Judge Alito fits those characterizations."


My prediction is filibusters and nukes.

Update: I forgot to mention that they call him "Scalito":

A judge on the Philadelphia-based 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, Alito has been dubbed "Scalito" or "Scalia-lite" by some lawyers because his judicial philosophy invites comparisons to Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia's.

"That is not one of the names that I've suggested to the president," Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., told "Late Edition" on CNN. "In fact, I've done the opposite. I think it would create a lot of problems."

Reid said Bush would be making a "mistake" were he to settle on a hard-liner simply to appease the far right in his party, especially after conservatives' wrath undermined Miers' nomination.


Yes. A big mistake.

Ten reasons to oppose gay marriage

On November 8, Texans will cast ballots on a number of constitutional amendments, among them one which defines marriage as being exclusively between a man and a woman. So when you go into the voting booth, please keep these mind:

1) Being gay is not natural. Real Americans always reject unnatural things like eyeglasses, polyester, and air conditioning.

2) Gay marriage will encourage people to be gay in the same way that hanging around tall people will make you tall.

3) Legalizing gay marriage will open the door to all kinds of outlandish, immoral behavior. As Senator John Cornyn has pointed out, people may even choose to marry their pets, because box turtles have legal standing and can sign a marriage contract.

4) Marriage is a fundamental institution and cannot be expected to be revised on the basis of societal whim. After all, women are still property, blacks still cannot marry whites, and divorce is still illegal.

5) Heterosexual marriage will be damaged if gay marriage were allowed; the sanctity of Britany Spears' 55-hour, alcohol-induced, impulsive marriage would be devastated.

6) Heterosexual marriages are valid because they produce children. Gay couples, infertile couples, and old people shouldn't be allowed to marry because our orphanages aren't full yet, and the world needs more children.

7) Obviously gay parents will raise gay children, since straight parents only raise straight children.

8) Gay marriage is not supported by religion. In a theocracy like ours, the values of one religion are imposed on the citizens of an entire country. That's why there is only one religion in America.

9) Children can never succeed without a male and a female role model at home. That's why our nation has expressly forbidden single parents to raise children.

10) Gay marriage will alter the foundation of society for the worse; we could never adapt to new social mores. This is similar to the way our society has failed to adapt to automobiles, the service-sector economy, and longer life spans.

Be sure to vote against proposition 2.

Friday, October 28, 2005

"Official A"

As Hunter at Kos notes, the Associated Press cites no fewer than "three people close to the investigation" who identify "Official A" as none other than the Turd Blossom himself.

Why is "Official A" the only person not identified by name or title in the indictment?

On or about July 10 or July 11, 2003, LIBBY spoke to a senior official in the White House ("Official A") who advised LIBBY of a conversation Official A had earlier that week with columnist Robert Novak in which Wilson's wife was discussed as a CIA employee involved in Wilson's trip. LIBBY was advised by Official A that Novak would be writing a story about Wilson's wife.


Why the secrecy around the identity of "Official A"? Why the deference to his anonymity? What's going on with "Official A" that isn't going on with anybody else?

At the end of this Fitzmas Day...

... the gifts revealed aren't as significant as the gifts still to be.

**For example (as I asked earlier), from whom did the Vice President learn of Joseph Wilson's wife as a CIA officer? Tenet has claimed it was not he, and the indictment only identifies a "senior officer of the CIA". As Mssrs. Lang and Johnson indicate, we may only learn that at a trial of Mr. Libby.

**Who is the "undersecretary of State" mentioned on page 4 of the indictment who was working with Libby to get information on Wilson?

Why, it could be Marc Grossman, or it could be John Bolton.

**And who is "Official A"?

**Finally, the gift revealed puts to rest the neocon bromide that Valerie Wilson was not undercover, as well as revealing that Libby -- and Cheney -- knew she was undercover. Page 5, top, item #9:

On or about June 12, 2003, LIBBY was advised by the Vice President of the United States that Wilson's wife worked at the Central Intelligence Agency in the Counterproliferation Divison. LIBBY understood that the Vice President had learned this information from the CIA.


Why is this noteworthy? As Josh Marshall clarifies, CPD is where the spies work, not the analysts. Libby and Cheney, with their top security clearances and close association going back to their days at the Pentagon, knew Plame was NOC. There was no way they could not know.

And yes, as Fitzgerald indicated, the investigation continues, but it's no longer just about Karl Rove.

It's about the Vice President of the United States.