Katha Pollitt: Should Roe Go?

subject to debate by Katha Pollitt

[from the August 1, 2005 issue]

Should prochoicers just give up and let Roe go? With the resignation of Sandra Day O'Connor, more people are asking that question. Democratic Party insiders quietly wonder if abandoning abortion rights would win back white Catholics and evangelicals. A chorus of pundits--among them David Brooks in the New York Times and the Washington Post's Benjamin Wittes writing in The Atlantic--argue that Roe's unforeseen consequences exact too high a price: on democracy, on public discourse, even, paradoxically, on abortion rights. By the early 1970s, this argument goes, public opinion was moving toward relaxing abortion bans legislatively--New York got rid of its ban in 1970, and one-third of states had begun to liberalize their abortion laws by 1973. By suddenly handing total victory to one side, Roe fueled a mighty backlash (and lulled prochoicers into relying on the courts instead of cultivating a popular mandate). In 1993 Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg caused a flurry when she seemed to endorse this view: Roe, she declared in a speech, had "halted a political process that was moving in a reform direction and...prolonged divisiveness and deferred stable settlement of the issue." It's not an insane idea, even if most of its proponents (a) are men; (b) think Roe went too far; and (c) want abortion off the table because they are tired of thinking about it.

It's Time to Bench 'Team B'

An article from last year.--Dictynna.

by Lawrence J. Korb
August 18, 2004

The reports of the 9/11 Commission and the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence miss the real problem facing the intelligence community. The real problem is not organization or culture, but the Team B concept which began in 1976, and the real villains are those hardliners who refuse to accept the unbiased and balanced judgments of intelligence professionals about the threats facing the country.

On May 6, 1976, then Director of Central Intelligence George H.W. Bush created a Team B to assess a 1975 National Intelligence Estimate by his agency on Soviet Strategic Objectives. Because the NIE did not endorse a worst-case scenario of Soviet capabilities, outsiders demanded access to the same classified intelligence used by the CIA in preparing the report so they could come to their own conclusions. The concept of a Team B competitive analysis had been opposed by William Colby, a career professional and Bush's predecessor as CIA director. But Bush, under pressure from President Ford, who was facing a strong challenge from right-wing Republicans in that year's primary, and Rumsfeld's Pentagon, which was trying to undermine support for Kissinger's détente with the Soviet Union, caved in.

Digby: Get To Work, Kewl Kidz

Dan Froomkin nicely linked to my post from yesterday asking why Rove hadn't saved the country some time and money and made sure that Cooper knew he didn't have to keep his confidence. He says:

But here's what that makes me think: if reporters want to help get New York Times reporter Judith Miller out of jail, let's contact every conceivable person who might have been her source, and ask them (or their lawyers): if for some reason Judy Miller were in jail thinking that she's protecting you, would that be a mistake? Would you tell that to her lawyer?

Juan Cole - July 14, 2005

Shiite Children Targeted
Najaf Clerics Warn of Civil War

Borzou Daragahi of the Los Angeles Times reports on the gruesome bombing in the poor Shiite "New Baghdad" district on Wednesday. US troops in the neighborhood attracted the interest of children. At first the soldiers tried to wave them away, but then gave in and handed out candy. Presumably Baath or fundamentalist intelligence already had the US convoy under surveillance, and they saw this moment as an ideal time to act. A bomb-laden SUV slammed into the scene, killing over 30 persons, mostly children, and at least one US soldier. It also left over 25 wounded. The dead were immediately taken to the Shiite holy city of Najaf for burial.

New Leads in London Bombing

British police suspect that the four British/South Asian young men who carried out the London Underground bombings had mentors who came to the country from abroad, recruited them, trained them in bomb making, and then slipped out of the UK shortly before the operation.

Arthur Silber: Stop Those Gays! Ask A Queen to Help!

July 14th, 2005

The headline made me laugh:

Queen Begged To Halt Canadian Gay Marriage

(Ottawa) An evangelical Christian group is begging Queen Elizabeth to intercede and stop Canada’s same-sex marriage bill from becoming law.

David Mainse, a televangelist who has opposed LGBT civil rights for nearly forty years through his 100 Huntley Street ministry, is leading the effort.

Arthur Silber: Karl Rove's War

KARL ROVE’S WAR: IT’S ALL ABOUT HIM
July 14th, 2005

The ongoing and remarkably vicious smear campaign against Joseph Wilson and Valerie Plame—the viciousness of which is notable even for those Republicans well-experienced in such matters—is an accurate measure of the contemptible depths to which the Bush administration has sunk. What had been the Iraq war—an “optional” war which we chose for no defensible reason, which we targeted against a nation that did not threaten us, and which has cost tens of thousands of deaths of innocent Iraqis, American military personnel and others, and which has maimed countless additional thousands for life—has now become Karl Rove’s war. The Bush administration thus confirms, in a manner as destructive as it is despicable, that none of this ever concerned national security or the defense of our country. It’s all about them.

The Mahablog: Naughty Bits

Josh White writes in today's Washington Post that Abu Ghraib tactics were first used at Guantanamo:

Interrogators at the U.S. detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, forced a stubborn detainee to wear women's underwear on his head, confronted him with snarling military working dogs and attached a leash to his chains, according to a newly released military investigation that shows the tactics were employed there months before military police used them on detainees at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq.

The techniques, approved by Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld for use in interrogating Mohamed Qahtani -- the alleged "20th hijacker" in the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks -- were used at Guantanamo Bay in late 2002 as part of a special interrogation plan aimed at breaking down the silent detainee.

A month ago, White and Jim VandenHei reported that the Defense Department said it had obtained valuable information from Qahtani about Osama bin Laden, al Qaeda, and the 9/11 attacks. Setting aside whether forcing someone to wear underpants on his head is torture, one could argue that if information obtained by unsavory methods helps prevent terrorist attacks, what's the deal? And that's a compelling argument. I'm sure many rightie bloggers today will make that argument.

The Mahablog: Bigger Than Karl Rove

Billmon suggests we spend less time defending Joe and Valerie and more time on the bigger issue--the disinformation campaign that stampeded America into war.

By defending the Wilsons, Left Blogostan simply helps Right Blogostan keep the focus on them, instead of Rove and his White House dirty tricks operation. It boggles the mind that more than a year after Fitzpatrick subpoened the records of the "White House Iraq Group," and nearly a week after the Newsweek story highlighted the obvious connection between Plame's outing and the administration's WMD disinformation campaign, virtually nothing about this shadowy committee has appeared in the mainstream press. If Left Blogostan can do anything useful here, it will be to urge (we're not strong enough to intimidate) the corporate media to keep the focus on Rove, and to point the direction we think they should be going to develop the larger story.

He has a point.

The Poor Man: Getting Over Ourselves

Fri 15 Jul 2005

Posted by The Editors under Uncategorized
[11] Comments

Andrew Sullivan writes:

LOOKING BACK: In 2000, the word ‘blog’ barely existed in common discourse; and I had to beg TV producers to cite it under my name. Those were the Clinton years, believe it or not. And the last five years have contained as much news and drama as most decades. But looking back, I can honestly say I have not been taken completely by surprise by the blogosphere’s amazing success. It seemed clear to me from the very start that once you allowed publishing independently of editors or publishers, a revolution was imminent. In the early days, I played a part in pioneering some blog tropes: media micro-criticism, instant news judgment, phony awards, political mini-campaigns (against Lott, Raines or torture), money quotes, etc. These are now staples of the genre. I also hoped that one day, a lone writer could finance himself this way - and so really break the MSM monopoly.

This coincides nicely with my unveiling of this exciting new expanded and greatly enhanced version of The Poor Man, which I have given the jaunty little name “The Poor Man Cafe”, or “TPM Cafe” for short. What this means for you, the reader, is that I will be typing all my posts while puffing on a clove cigarette and drinking $7 a cup exotic coffee flown in at great expense from Ooga-Booga Land, the only place on Earth where you can still buy Brim. Also, anyone who manages to scald their crotch with their laptop while reading one of my piping-hot blog posts gets a year’s subscription to The Poor Man Cafe - absolutely free! The Poor Man Cafe is available at all fine internets.

The Poor Man: New target acquired

Fri 15 Jul 2005

Posted by The Editors under Uncategorized
[9] Comments

Ted Barlow takes it upon himself to do garbage pickup on the Joseph Wilson smears which the right wing has been trying to perpetuate in order to distract attention from the fact that Karl Rove betrayed his country to attack Wilson, who was an enemy of his party by virtue of his telling the truth. As a measure of how successful this smear campaign has been, one need only note that even the esteemed Mr. Barlow falls for the tale that Wilson misrepresented his wife’s role in arranging the Niger trip. The details are intensely boring, and are ably explored by the commenters in that post. None of this changes in any way the fact that Karl Rove betrayed his country for his party, and that his fellow Republicans are united in support of his despicable, traitorous actions.

Talking Points Memo - July 14, 2005

06:02 PM EDT

I haven't been able to get a copy of the exact text yet. But the Republican counter-amendment on the floor is truly amazing. It would strip of his or her security access any senator who repeated a statement by an FBI agent which was subsequently used as "propaganda" by America's enemies. In other words, the law is targeted at Sen. Durbin, making it against the law to say what he said a month ago.

04:24 PM EDT

Another TPM Reader ads his two-cents ...

The parallel between the White House's attack on Clarke and the defense of Rove is spot on, but I think most people misunderestimate the effectiveness of this strategy.

04:05 PM EDT

A TPM Reader checks in ...

I'm struck by how similar the Republican's attack on Richard Clarke and their defense of Rove are. Both issues cut right to the core of their right-wing being and needed to be defended, or else they risk losing everything. So that is why the defense is so ferocious. But it is also why, like the Clarke attack, it is so scattershot and incoherent.

11:25 AM EDT

A TPM Reader updates on Rove's last public appearances ...

The Rove appearance in Nebraska was no reporters and not open to the public. The questions were pre-screened and I think limited to questions about Social Security.

09:48 AM EDT

If you have access to Salon, set aside a few minutes to read this new piece by Sid Blumenthal, which sets out the broad horizon of where the Rove/Plame story is at press, while knocking down much of the standing disinformation. See also the quotes from Kovach about what the Times is up to in this with Judy Miller. This goes to the earlier conversation about just how Miller is involved in this whole matter.

09:14 AM EDT

I was thinking this morning that if I had the right software and better business sense I'd set up one of those cool Internet futures markets, only in this case, the site would sell futures contracts on which day the Rove machine would go after which person involved in this scandal.

01:55 AM EDT

It didn't escape the notice of the reporters at the Times or the Post today. Never one for subtlety, Rove lawyer Robert "GB" Luskin has started laying the ground work for accusing Matt Cooper of lying about his client. Said Luskin: "Cooper's truthful testimony today will not call into question the accuracy or completeness of anything Rove has previously said to the prosecutor or the grand jury."

01:27 AM EDT

I think it's only late in the evening, when the email traffic slows and the other distractions fade, that I can really see and marvel at the collosus that is, as Brock calls it, the Republican noise machine, with its ferocity that is only surpassed by its nihilism.

12:17 AM EDT

Perhaps someone can help me with this.

When was the last time Karl Rove appeared at a public event and when was the last time he spoke to a reporter? (And I don't mean the calls he's making to them now in the spin war. I mean, on the record public questions.)

James Wolcott: One City, One World, One America

One of the puzzling and perverse questions raised by the poodle relationship between Tony Blair and George Bush is what Blair gets out of it, and, by extension, what benefit Britain obtains by playing deputy sidekick to the Sheriff of Nazareth. Where's the payoff, the reward? Even a poodle ought to receive a doggy treat now and then. The loyalty has been entirely one-sided. Bush made it insultingly clear before the G8 summit that he wasn't going to do a major budge on global warming and African aid just because Blair was so staunch on Iraq. He said that he didn't believe in any quid pro quo and as for Iraq--"Tony Blair made decisions on what he thought was best for keeping the peace and winning the war on terror, as I did." His manner in that interview couldn't have been more matter-of-fact and dismissive, when he wasn't blinking up a storm.

State of the Art

Discovering the New Disappeared

By Gloria Cooper

Once again, the press has given proof to the proposition that the whole may be greater than the sum of its parts. Bit by bit and piece by piece, individual news outlets, here and abroad, have added substantial layers to our knowledge of what the CIA daintily calls extraordinary rendition. The term, of course, refers to the policy by which the United States renders unto certain friendly countries (friendly, that is, to the practice of torture) suspected terrorists who would otherwise be protected by the laws of more civilized societies from such information-gathering techniques as having electrodes attached to their genitals or being bodily boiled.

Why the "Paul Revere Freedom to Warn" Act Should Be Passed

Why the "Paul Revere Freedom to Warn" Act Should Be Passed, to Better Protect National Security Whistleblowers:
The Lessons of Deep Throat, the Plame Leak, and the Lindh Case
By JESSELYN RADACK
----

Monday, Jun. 13, 2005

I was as shocked as the rest of the country to learn that former FBI deputy director W. Mark Felt is Deep Throat. Deep Throat is, of course, the grandfather of whistleblowers - the most well-known unknown source, and perhaps the most significant in our history: When Felt leaked secrets to the Washington Post that exposed the Watergate scandal, he brought down President Nixon.

What shocked me even more, however, was Felt's timing. While his advanced age is an obvious reason for revealing himself as the Post's source, all other indicators counsel against it.

Mr. Rove and the Access of Evil

Published on Wednesday, July 13, 2005 by CommonDreams.org
by Greg Palast

The only thing more evil, small-minded and treacherous than the Bush Administration's jailing Judith Miller for a crime the Bush Administration committed, is Judith Miller covering up her Bush Administration "source."

Judy, Karl Rove ain't no "source." A confidential source -- and I've worked with many -- is an insider ready to put himself on the line to blow the whistle on an official lie or hidden danger. I would protect a source's name with my life and fortune as would any journalist who's not a craven jerk (the Managing Editor of Time Magazine comes to mind).

Cursor's Media Patrol - July 14, 2005

The Wall Street Journal reports on its new poll that shows President Bush's credibility slipping, with a plurality rating him "negatively on 'being honest and straightforward' for the first time in his presidency."

With Bush declaring that "our pro-growth policies are working," and the White House budget director proclaiming that the federal deficit "is falling, and it's falling fast," the U.S. Comptroller General is quoted as saying: "Don't be deceived. We face large and growing structural deficits ... that are getting worse every day."

Calling it 'an insult to the dead to deny the link with Iraq,' a Guardian commentary argues that despite the claim that "the London attacks had nothing to do with Iraq," advanced by supporters of the Blair government, "the only surprise was that the attacks were so long coming."

"[T]he comments made on Fox News are beneath contempt," said the head of BBC television news, referring to Steven Emerson saying that "the BBC almost operates as a foreign registered agent of Hezbollah and some of the other jihadist groups," and Bill O'Reilly's commentary on "How Jane Fonda and the BBC put you in danger."

I'll Be Backed The Los Angeles Times reports that Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, who vetoed a bill regulating dietary supplements, is being paid $8 million to "further the business objectives" of fitness magazines heavily dependent on ad revenue from the nutritional additives.

Enviro-con

Neoconservatives and Greens join forces to 'Set America Free' from US dependence on Middle East oil. Are new nuclear power plants coming down the pike?

Mainstream U.S. environmental groups, stymied by political defeats, public indifference and budget cuts, are weighing alliances with neo-conservatives. In the struggle to rein in global warming and reduce US dependence on Middle East oil, some greens are reconsidering their longstanding opposition to nuclear power.

Bradblog: Rush Unglued Over RoveGate...

Working Hard to Defend Alleged Treason in the White House

And BRAD BLOG Scoops AP...

Looks like we scooped AP with our report yesterday on Ambassador Joe Wilson's call for Bush to fire Rove last night. They're just now running their story on it ...

Looks like we scooped AP with our report yesterday on Ambassador Joe Wilson's call for Bush to fire Rove last night. They're just now running their story on it.

Meanwhile, back at Disinfo Central...If you missed the Rush Limbaugh show this morning, you missed quite the lolapalooza. He's become positively unglued vis a vis the Plame/Rove affair. And it was a hoot!

Cunningham To Step Down At End Of Term

POSTED: 3:01 pm PDT July 14, 2005

UPDATED: 4:49 pm PDT July 14, 2005

WASHINGTON, D.C. -- U.S. Rep. Randy "Duke" Cunningham, under federal investigation for his dealings with a defense contractor, announced Thursday that he will not seek re-election.

Cunningham made the announcement after calling a hastily arranged afternoon news conference. The eight-term San Diego-area Republican read a brief written statement and did not take questions before ducking back into a library on the California State University, San Marcos campus.

U.S. Still Spends More on Health Care than Any Other Country

Researchers Rule out Supply Constraints and Litigation as Cause

The United States continues to spend significantly more on health care than any country in the world. In 2002, Americans spent 53 percent per capita more than the next highest country, Switzerland, and 140 percent above the median industrialized country, according to new research from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. The study authors analyzed whether two possible reasons—supply constraints and malpractice litigation—could explain the difference in health care costs. They found that neither factor accounted for a large portion of the U.S. spending differential. The study is featured in the July/August 2005 issue of the journal Health Affairs.

Timing of poverty in childhood critical to later outcomes

It is well known that children who live in poverty have more trouble in school and more problems socially than other children. Now investigators funded by the National Institute of Child Health and Development (NICHD) find that while children who live in chronic poverty from birth through age 9 score lowest on tests of school readiness and social competence, poverty at any time during early childhood is detrimental.

The researchers from the NICHD Early Child Care Research Network report their findings in the July/August 2005 issue of the journal Child Development. They represent the universities of Arkansas (Little Rock), California (Irvine, Riverside and San Diego), London, Michigan, North Carolina (at Chapel Hill and Greensboro), Pittsburgh, Texas (Austin and Dallas), Virginia, Washington, and Wisconsin (Madison), and Harvard University, the NICHD, the Research Triangle Institute, Temple University, and Wellesley College.

Opposition to a politician creates stronger opinions

Any opinion can be formed in two ways. You can support someone because you like them or because you don't like their opponent. A new study published in the latest issue of Political Psychology examines this concept to find that people are less likely to change their preference when they cast their vote against the candidate they do not like rather than for the one they do. Previous research has shown that negative information is often more powerful than positive information in creating attitudes, i.e. which political candidate to vote for. And the study's authors George Y. Bizer and Richard E. Petty find that leading people to think in terms of whom they oppose was enough to make them more resistant to a persuasive message

Lawmakers Agree to Renew Patriot Act

By ERIC LICHTBLAU and CARL HULSE

Published: July 14, 2005

WASHINGTON, July 13 - Lawmakers on three separate Congressional committees moved Wednesday to impose restrictions on some of the more controversial elements of the law known as the USA Patriot Act, suggesting continued resistance in Congress to the idea of giving the government unchecked authority to fight terrorism.

Initiative Opposes Military Recruiting on Campus

By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

Published: July 13, 2005

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) - Hoping to build on the American public's growing frustration with the war in Iraq, antiwar activists in San Francisco on Monday submitted a local ballot measure that would put the city on record as opposing the presence of military recruiters in colleges and public high schools.

If it qualifies for the November ballot and is approved, the nonbinding initiative, "College Not Combat," would not ban the armed forces from seeking recruits on campuses, an action that puts schools at risk of losing federal money.

Senators Propose Curbs on Patriot Act

Specter-Feinstein Bill Would Limit Warrants, Wiretaps in Terror Probes

By Dan Eggen and Charles Babington

Washington Post Staff Writers
Thursday, July 14, 2005; Page A23

Two senior members of the Senate Judiciary Committee introduced legislation yesterday that would lead to more restrictions on the government's powers under the USA Patriot Act, setting the stage for a protracted legislative battle in coming months over the controversial anti-terrorism law.

The proposal by Sens. Arlen Specter (R-Pa.) and Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) would scale back a law that the administration seeks to keep largely intact. But it also attracted immediate criticism from civil liberties advocates who say it does not adequately rein in the government's activities.

Panel Finds Misinformation in White House Web Site on Teenagers

Negative Messages About Gays, Sex, Single Parents Criticized, as Well as Lack of Information on Alcohol

By Ceci Connolly

Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, July 14, 2005; Page A23

A government Web site intended to help parents and teenagers make "smart choices about their health and future" includes inaccurate or misleading information that may alienate some families or prompt riskier behavior, according to a team of medical experts who reviewed the material.

The Productivity Problem

Jonathan Tasini

July 14, 2005

Jonathan Tasini is president of the Economic Future Group and writes his "Working In America" columns for TomPaine.com on an occasional basis.

One of the enduring myths of the American Dream is that if you just work hard, you will eventually reap your economic reward and get ahead. Corporate leaders, helped by politicians, still try to make that rhetorical argument as a way of hiding what they are really up to (Darwinian globalization, for example). But a startling, relatively ignored, shift has taken place that bears the seeds of an economic and political earthquake.

Saving Karl Rove

Paul Waldman

July 14, 2005

Paul Waldman is a senior fellow with Media Matters for America and a senior contributor to The Gadflyer.

Every administration has its share of scandals to deal with, and every one handles them in a slightly different way (of course, it helps if your party controls both houses of Congress, so there will be no pesky Congressional investigations to deal with). But the Bush administration’s furious effort to save Karl Rove and justify the outing of a covert CIA operative is a remarkable case study in misdirection, a campaign whose scaffolding of spin is plain for all to see.

It is an insult to the dead to deny the link with Iraq

Tony Blair put his own people at risk in the service of a foreign power

Seumas Milne
Thursday July 14, 2005
The Guardian

In the grim days since last week's bombing of London, the bulk of Britain's political class and media has distinguished itself by a wilful and dangerous refusal to face up to reality. Just as it was branded unpatriotic in the US after the 2001 attacks on New York and Washington to talk about the link with American policy in the Middle East, so those who have raised the evident connection between the London atrocities and Britain's role in Iraq and Afghanistan have been denounced as traitors. And anyone who has questioned Tony Blair's echo of George Bush's fateful words on September 11 that this was an assault on freedom and our way of life has been treated as an apologist for terror.

Knight Ridder's Baghdad Chief Replies to Criticism From Back Home

Early this week, Mark Yost, an editorial writer at Knight Ridder's St. Paul Pioneer Press, wrote a column that sharply criticized Iraq war coverage as "bad" for focusing on the negative. Today, another Knight Ridder writer who may actually know what's going on in Iraq, penned a reply.

By Greg Mitchell

(July 13, 2005) -- On Tuesday, Mark Yost, an editorial writer at the St. Paul Pioneer Press wrote a column that sharply criticized Iraq war coverage as "bad," for focusing on the negative aspects when there's so much progress to report.

Yost, of course, is welcome to his opinion, but some of his colleagues in the press quickly counter-attacked, in letters to Romenesko and others, pointing out that, ironically, Iraq coverage by the company he works for, Knight Ridder, had been hailed by many (including E&P) for often running a step or two ahead of all others.

Korea Moves

How did we finally get back to the negotiating table?
By Fred Kaplan
Posted Wednesday, July 13, 2005, at 3:52 PM PT

After a 13-month hiatus, the six-party talks on North Korea's nuclear arsenal are set to resume the week after next. Why are they starting up now, as opposed to a year ago? What pushed or lured Washington and Pyongyang—the key but most resistant parties—back to the negotiating table?

The short answer is that they both found a face-saving way out of their deadlock—perhaps because they realized it was about to morph into a suicidal game of highway chicken.

Abu Ghraib Tactics Were First Used at Guantanamo

By Josh White

Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, July 14, 2005; Page A01

Interrogators at the U.S. detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, forced a stubborn detainee to wear women's underwear on his head, confronted him with snarling military working dogs and attached a leash to his chains, according to a newly released military investigation that shows the tactics were employed there months before military police used them on detainees at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq.

Billmon - July 13, 2005

Spock With a Beard

The GOP's propaganda technicians are filling in some of the details of the mirror universe they're trying to create -- the one in which Turdblossom is the noble whistleblower and Joe Wilson and his wife are the sleazy insiders spreading lies and disinformation. And since everything has to be ass backwards in the Republican reality, we're now being told that Wilson, not Rove, is the "leaker" and Dick Cheney, not Valerie Plame, the dedicated public servant damaged by the leak.

Slime and Defend

It took a few days, but the GOP panzers have finally clanked into action, and they're zeroing in on a familar target: former ambassador Joe Wilson. This appears to be prong one of a two-prong offensive designed to paint Wilson and his wife as the real traitors, and Karl Rove as the patriotic whistleblower who fingered them to the press.

Spin Dry

It looks like the wing nuts are emptying the kitchen cabinets, the closets and the attic looking for silly arguments that can be used on Karl Rove's behalf.

You've probably seen or heard some of this dreck -- like John Podhoretz's argument that Wilson outed his own wife by putting her name on his corporate web page (which, as Greg Saunders Tom Tomorrow at This Modern World notes, Fox News quickly morphed into the complete lie that he posted her CIA affilation as well.)

The Daily Howler - July 13, 2005

JOE WILSON’S CREDIBILITY! Wilson has been a wreck from the start. But libs only want to be dumb: // link // print // previous // next //

WEDNESDAY, JULY 13, 2005

WOODWARD AND REHM PLAY THE RUBES: It’s hard to believe, but yes, he said it. Here was Tom Friedman, speaking to Imus about the Plame investigation:

FRIEDMAN (7/12/05): You know, there’s something just to me, you know, nutty about the fact that my colleague, Judy Miller, is the only person in jail right now—and she didn’t even write a story! And for the life of me, I just can’t quite figure that out.

Can anyone take this man seriously?

Digby - July 13, 2005

Connecting The Dots With Invisible Ink

It will come as no surprise to regular readers of this blog to find that I'm more than a little glad to finally see General Geoffrey Miller finally exposed for the sadistic incompetent that he is --- even a little bit. Apparently, he might be "reprimanded" for his sadistic tactics at Gitmo. But maybe not. I sure hope it doesn't go that far because I'm sure it would really, really hurt his feelings.

Firing Offense #456

Matt Coopers lawyer said today:

For the last year or so, Matt has been a subpoenaed witness in a grand jury investigation.I advised him and he accepted the advice that he should not have private conversations with other people who may be witnesses in the grand jury proceeding. I was concerned about the perception. I was concerned about what Mr. Fitzgerald might think. And so it was on my advice that he did not personally contact his source.

Mehlman on Matthews

I think the RNC has made a mistake in going back into the original Wilson smear. Chris Matthews just showed footage of Cheney on Press The Meat. He was talking about how he'd personally been interested in the Niger story. It seems to back up Wilson. And the last thing they want is to have Cheney's mug all over this story.

"It Turns Out Little Wifey Did It"

If anyone would like to see the full manifestation of the Rove smear against Plame and her pathetic, henpecked husband in all it's glory, you only need to watch the video (via Crooks and Liars) of John Gibson's insane rant yesterday.

Wild In Beantown

Does anyone find it at all ironic that Rick Santorum is blaming Boston for the priest molestation scandal? Has he ever heard the phrase "banned in Boston?" Does he know where it comes from?

Judy, Judy, Judy

Gene Lyons writes in to point out this little tid-bit about our good friend Judith Miller. One of the things missed in all the paeans to Judy's martyrdom to the confidential source is that the Jeanne D'arc of the Gray Lady had been known to burn her sources without a second thought if it suits her.

Clearing The Cobwebs

A friend of mine asked me to give her a synopsis of Rovegate in easy to understand, non-insider language. Perhaps you will find it interesting too:

In his op-ed on July 6th,2003, Wilson gave a straighforward account of who he is and why he went on this fact-finding trip to Niger. He says "I was informed by officials at the Central Intelligence Agency that Vice President Dick Cheney's office had questions about a particular intelligence report." He does not say that Cheney had sent him personally on the mission. He reports that he found no evidence that Saddam had tried to buy uranium from Niger.

Juan Cole - July 13, 2005

Breaks in the London Bomb Case

British police on Tuesday began revealing the contours of their investigation of the London Underground bombings of July 7. The details were heart-wrenching. It appears that the foot soldiers for the operation, at least, were 4 British citizens of South Asian Muslim heritage from the city of Leeds, aged from 19 to 30. Police sent a SWAT team into a house there, after evacuating 500 neighbors, to look for explosives; apparently that was where the bombs were assembled, that were used in the attack. The British police believe that the operational cell would have had a control above it, which still may be operative. They detained one man, apparently a relative of one of the bombers.

Talk of Foreign Troop Withdrawals as Bombs strike Kirkuk, Tal Afar

Prime Minister Ibrahim Jaafari said on Tuesday that some Iraqi cities were secure enough so that US and Coalition troops could withdraw from them soon. He defended, however, a US military presence in the short term, and opposed a precise timetable for US withdrawal.

Daily Kos Must Diaries

Daily Kos's Mike Pridmore has started an informed and enlightening discussion of Kramer's attack on Middle East Studies professors in the US.

Arthur Silber - July 12, 2005

OEDIPUS, CALL YOUR FATHER (WITH AN ASSIST FROM TOM LEHRER)

July 12th, 2005

Larry Johnson:

The misinformation being spread in the media about the Plame affair is alarming and damaging to the longterm security interests of the United States. Republicans’ talking points are trying to savage Joe Wilson and, by implication, his wife, Valerie Plame as liars. That is the truly big lie.

For starters, Valerie Plame was an undercover operations officer until outed in the press by Robert Novak. Novak’s column was not an isolated attack. It was in fact part of a coordinated, orchestrated smear that we now know includes at least Karl Rove.

NEXT STOP FOR THE WAR EXPRESS

July 12th, 2005

The signs become clearer—it’s Iran:

Iran could be behind the suicide attack at a shopping mall in Israel that killed at least four and injured dozens, US Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld said.

“I wouldn’t want to suggest that I know about the attack today, but clearly that’s been one of the stated and continuous purposes of Iran, to harm Israel,” said Rumsfeld, speaking at a press conference with his Italian counterpart Antonio Martino.

WHY THE QUESTION?

July 12th, 2005

I’m somewhat surprised that Eric Alterman asks this question, apparently in all seriousness:

Just one question about Karl Rove: Where is the conservative outrage? After all, the man outed an undercover CIA agent, blew numerous operations, cost the country millions of dollars and quite possibly endangered national security and could conceivably have cost lives. (For all we know, he did.) And he did it all for pure political advantage. There was a reason that law was passed. And it was to prevent people from doing stuff like this. Whether what Rove did was within the law strikes me as beside the point. What is the president doing keeping a man in his job who treats the national security of the nation and the lives of its dedicated public servants as pawns in his political chess-match? And what are CNN and The Washington Post doing keeping his cowardly accomplice? Isn’t that the kind of thing about which patriotic conservatives profess to care? Or are we liberals and those folks at the CIA who demanded this investigation—because it surely would have died without them—the only true patriots anymore?

GEORGE W. BUSH, TRAITOR — PART II
July 12th, 2005

I hope everyone who voted for Bush in the last election is deeply happy to have indisputable confirmation that a loathsome and vile traitor is President of the United States. In terms of his repudiation of the fundamental principles underlying this nation, we have known this for some time. That matter concerned gay marriage and the despicable Federal Marriage Amendment. As a result, many people who are now deeply upset by Bush’s behavior didn’t get that exercised earlier. So what if queers can’t get married?

Arthur Silber - July 13, 2005

TERRORISM: BUSH’S BEST FRIEND

July 13th, 2005

A post under that title by yours truly over at Crooks and Liars.

As I mention in the P.S., here’s a related post: The Destroyed Capacity for Thought.

Posted in Foreign Policy, U.S. Politics, Iraq | No Comments »

KARL ROVE ENDANGERED AMERICA

July 13th, 2005

Echoing the major theme of my posts on Rove (here, here, here, here, and here), Evan Derkacz writes:

Okay, keep your eye on the ball: Karl Rove endangered America.

But, you’ve been keeping up, reading, watching TV, and you’ve undoubtedly heard (or will hear) that Karl Rove didn’t say the words “Valerie Plame,” or he didn’t mean to blow her cover—or was her cover too threadbare to even matter?—or Joe Wilson’s claims weren’t true, or else he was trying to save a reporter from printing a false story, or….

...Hey, look over there: MoveOn.org is unpatriotic!

I WANT WHAT THEY’RE SMOKING, OR WHY I LOVE KARL ROVE

July 13th, 2005

So many lies in so little space:

Democrats and most of the Beltway press corps are baying for Karl Rove’s head over his role in exposing a case of CIA nepotism involving Joe Wilson and his wife, Valerie Plame. On the contrary, we’d say the White House political guru deserves a prize—perhaps the next iteration of the “Truth-Telling” award that The Nation magazine bestowed upon Mr. Wilson before the Senate Intelligence Committee exposed him as a fraud.

The Mahablog: On the Other Hand ...

Last week, Robert Kuttner wondered why Bob Novak wasn't facing jail, and whether prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald was conducting an honest investigation.

This week, Kuttner has second thoughts.

Here's what we've learned:

First, Fitzgerald is playing it straight. Novak has apparently testified -- otherwise he'd be in jail with Miller. Fitzgerald has extensively investigated Bush officials. Karl Rove has likely testified, too.

I reasoned that Fitzgerald needn't subpoena other reporters because Novak could tell all. But after doing more reporting, I've learned that the reality is far more complicated.

The Mahablog: Rightie Required Reading

If righties could read, I'd ask them to read this.

The lies by people like Victoria Toensing, Representative Peter King, and P. J. O'Rourke insist that Valerie was nothing, just a desk jockey. Yet, until Robert Novak betrayed her she was still undercover and the company that was her front was still a secret to the world. When Novak outed Valerie he also compromised her company and every individual overseas who had been in contact with that company and with her.

This is by Larry Johnson, a former CIA colleague of Valerie Plame's. The wingnuts insist Plame had already been "outed" because her name and her marriage to Joe Wilson were public knowledge. However, her role with the CIA was not public knowledge until The Reptile published it. If righties could read perhaps they could get this straight.

The Mahablog: Middle Ground

I have to give credit to Stephen Green of Vodka Pundit, a long-time Bush supporter. Mr. Green at least recognizes that Karl Rove did something ethically questionable, if not illegal, regarding the outing of Valerie Plame. Eventually, Patrick Fitzgerald may decide the same thing, and Stephen Green may turn out to be correct. In any event, Mr. Green appears to be keeping an open mind.

The Mahablog: The Sentence, Plus and Minus

While we wait for the next revelation, I want to go back to one ancient artifact of the Traitorgate Saga--the Sixteen Words. You'll remember the Sixteen Words from Bush's 2003 State of the Union speech, which were:

The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa. [2003 State of the Union Address]

These words were dropped into the speech to show the urgent need to go to war with Iraq. We've learned since that the evidence was forged and the National Security Office had been told by the CIA that the claim was unsupported.

Talking Points Memo - July 13, 2005

July 13, 2005 -- 08:20 PM EDT // link // print)

Okay, we're getting pretty amazing reports about veritable bamboozlement typhoons sweeping across several of the evening chat shows. We hear that Hardball was probably the worst, with a series of ridiculous claims by Ken Mehlman and later Ed Rogers. If you watched, please let us know what you saw and heard. We've set up this special discussion thread to chronicle the bamboozlement on this evening's show.

July 13, 2005 -- 08:05 PM EDT // link // print)

Ouch! The AP gets reeled in after chomping down hard on the GOP bamboozle bait. We join the unfortunate moment in progress (emphasis added) ...

Still, Charles Black, a longtime GOP strategist, predicts Rove will survive.

"It's good fodder for a feeding frenzy. And Democrats are pouncing on Karl because they fear and hate him. But, based on what we know that Karl did, there's nothing wrong with that," Black said.

(July 13, 2005 -- 04:13 PM EDT // link // print)

Fox News runs with new bamboozlement line ...

Cooper's e-mail said Rove warned him away from the idea that Wilson's trip had been authorized by CIA Director George Tenet or Vice President Dick Cheney.

"He gave proper guidance to a reporter who got disinformation in a leak" meant to assign responsibility to Cheney, former Bush aide Ed Rogers told FOX News.

Karl Rove, anti-leak warrior.

-- Josh Marshall

(July 13, 2005 -- 03:55 PM EDT // link // print)

A TPM Reader frames it very nicely: Is the president going to stand by his word or stand by his man?

-- Josh Marshall

(July 13, 2005 -- 03:45 PM EDT // link // print)

Emerging Bamboozlement Alert!

Newt throws lifeline to Rove and W.! Katie Couric mans the deck!

In his appearance this morning on the Today Show Newt Gingrich said: "The president's been pretty clear: if somebody's broken the law they will be fired. The question is whether or not, uh, what karl did was in any way breaking the law."

(July 13, 2005 -- 02:54 PM EDT // link // print)

John Kerry responds to Rick Santorum's claim that Massachusetts liberalism is the cause of pedophilia and priest abuse of minors ...

"The families of Massachusetts soldiers who have given their lives for their country in Iraq know more about the mainstream American values of Massachusetts than Rick Santorum ever will.

Late Update: Okay, I have nothing to add. But Sen. Kennedy does.

(July 13, 2005 -- 01:19 PM EDT // link // print)

Sen. Norm Coleman (R-WH) speaks out!

"My Democratic friends would be doing the nation a great service if they spent half as much time getting legislation passed that will benefit the country as they do in attacking Karl Rove. When you're out of ideas and lack vision, you are left with nothing but personal attacks and negativity. We have enough to do in the Senate in minding our own business than to be sticking our noses into someone else's business. Everyone needs to cool the rhetoric, focus on the business of the people, and allow the investigation to run its course."

Late Update: This clip from an April 2005 article in The Forward suggests Norm Coleman knows who his daddy is ..."In 2001, Rove disrupted Pawlenty's plans to run for the Senate against the late Democratic Sen. Paul Wellstone. Rove was backing Norm Coleman, who was elected in 2002, and Pawlenty ran for governor instead."

Even Later Update: Another golden oldie from Sen. Coleman (R-WH), this one from October 1st, 2003: "What we're hearing is a little rank political hypocrisy when it comes to claims about a special prosecutor, and I also want to note, the president of the United States has been very, very, very clear. If someone in his administration leaked information or did something that is illegal, they will be held accountable."

-- Josh Marshall

(July 13, 2005 -- 12:24 PM EDT // link // print)

Too much hilarity!

Yesterday, Karl Rove protege and RNC chairman Ken Mehlman sent out an anti-Joe Wilson smear sheet in an effort to throw a lifeline to his mentor.

As we've now mentioned several times, one of his claims is that Wilson was caught lying when he claimed Cheney had sent him to Niger -- something which, of course, he never said.

(July 13, 2005 -- 10:53 AM EDT // link // print)

You too can be part of the rough and tumble with the GOP slime and spin machine!

On show after show this week, Republican bamboozlers like Newt Gingrich, Ken Mehlman and others are going on the air and spouting the most ridiculous lies. But in most cases their talking head interlocutors don't call them on it. One example among many is the GOP claim that Wilson lied when he claimed Cheney had either sent him to Africa or 'authorized' his trip. Of course, as we noted below, Wilson never said any such thing. It's just one more made up story.

(July 13, 2005 -- 10:45 AM EDT // link // print)

Gingrich enlisted in the lie and smear campaign! The Old Bulls suit up to spout the Mehlman bull! More soon!

A TPM T-Shirt to the first person who can find me a transcript of Gingrich on the Today show this morning!

-- Josh Marshall

(July 13, 2005 -- 10:37 AM EDT // link // print)

Another TPM Reader checks in ...

You're overlooking something HUGE in Novak's quote

Re-read the following quote: "I didn't dig it out, it was given to me. They thought it was significant, they gave me the name and I used it."

And then compare that with the Rove testimony (and right-wing noise machine) claiming that Rove, at least, did not supply Plame's name to Cooper et al.

(July 13, 2005 -- 09:30 AM EDT // link // print)

The comedy still doesn't end!

Wall Street Journal headline: "Karl Rove, Whistleblower."

On the other hand, can you blame them? Most of the kids there want White House jobs or other GOP-based promotions.

-- Josh Marshall

(July 13, 2005 -- 12:51 AM EDT // link // print)

Larry Johnson is a retired CIA officer who was a classmate of Valerie Plame's when both entered the CIA in the mid-1980s. Johnson just did a guest post over at TPMCafe in which he explains the damage that was done when administration officials revealed Plame's identity, who's lying and who's not.

Check it out.

-- Josh Marshall

Mr. Rove and the Access of Evil

Greg Palast, on CommonDreams.org:

The only thing more evil, small-minded and treacherous than the Bush Administration's jailing Judith Miller for a crime the Bush Administration committed, is Judith Miller covering up her Bush Administration "source."

Judy, Karl Rove ain't no "source." A confidential source -- and I've worked with many -- is an insider ready to put himself on the line to blow the whistle on an official lie or hidden danger. I would protect a source's name with my life and fortune as would any journalist who's not a craven jerk (the Managing Editor of Time Magazine comes to mind).

But the weasel who whispered "Valerie Plame" in Miller's ear was no source.

Digby - July 12, 2005

No Good Deed Goes Unpunished

It was that rat bastard Cooper:

"By any definition, he burned Karl Rove," Luskin said of Cooper. "If you read what Karl said to him and read how Cooper characterizes it in the article, he really spins it in a pretty ugly fashion to make it seem like people in the White House were affirmatively reaching out to reporters to try to get them to them to report negative information about Plame."

Oooh. That's dangerous stuff there. It may not be the smartest thing in the world for Karl Rove's lawyer to be disparaging Matt Cooper on the day before he testifies, do you think? They only know what one e-mail says and they have no idea what Cooper is going to say. Bizarre.

Call Me Talk Radio

...only in print.

Atrios says that certain people remain concerned that corporate entities or politicans will infiltrate the web and pour big money into it to influence politics. As if the amount of money that MSNBC is flushing down the toilet each night on Tucker Carlson isn't pouring big money into television to influence politics. What, is Tucker an unbiased "journalist?"

Beat Me Hurt Me

For all those who are still breathless with appreciation at the White House press corpses performance yesterday, a commenter reminded me of this incident as an illustration of how the White House and the Press Corps normally interact. I remember writing about it at the time:

Focus

For the last couple of days I've been saying that the GOP's new excuse is that Karl Rove was just setting the record straight about that lyin' Joe Wilson. Deborah Orrin prattled about it last night on Hardball. Here are the official RNC talking points and my suggested answers::

My Bad

Bob Somerby takes John Aravosis and me to task today for some good reasons. He says:

Liberals and Dems simply can’t afford to play the dim games of the kooky-con right. But all across the liberal web, we find the virus spreading—a virus in which every bit of reasoning, no matter how daft, is accepted as seminal brilliance as long as it “proves” King Karl’s guilt. Yesterday, we were amazed when the sagacious Digby praised this post from John Aravosis:

"A" Game

In the same NY Times article refenced below, there's this:

"Knowing Rove, he's still having eight different policy meetings and sticking to his game plan," said one veteran Republican strategist in Washington who often works with the White House. "But this issue now is looming, and as they peel away another layer of the onion, there's a lot of consternation. Rove needs to be on his A game now, not huddled with lawyers and press people."

Dumb Defense #236

In today's NY Times piece, there's this, which I've heard bandied about quite a bit in the right blogosphere:

There has been some dispute, moreover, about just how secret a secret agent Ms. Wilson was.

"She had a desk job in Langley," said Ms. Toensing, who also signed the supporting brief in the appeals court, referring to the C.I.A.'s headquarters. "When you want someone in deep cover, they don't go back and forth to Langley."

It is highly doubtful that the special prosecutor would convene a grand jury and investigate the White House for two years without first determining whether there was any potential crime to investigate since determining her status was the easiest element of the case --- finding out who did it and whether they knew she was undercover, which is obviously what he's been doing, is the difficult part.

Cursor's Media Patrol - July 12, 2005

As many as 39,000 Iraqis have died as a result of the conflict in Iraq from May 2003 to October 2004, according to a Geneva-based organization's annual small-arms survey. A Reuters report on the survey cites Iraq Body Count's estimate of between 22,787 and 25,814 civilians killed since the March 2003 invasion.

Banned In Baghdad? Juan Cole's Web site is reportedly being blocked at various U.S. military installations in Iraq.

As military sources claim that a four-man Seal strike team in Afghanistan "may have come too close to one of the US-led coalition's highest-priority targets," the newly elected president of Kyrgyzstan says that "now we may begin discussing the necessity of U.S. military forces' presence."

During a Senate hearing about funding for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, Knight Ridder reports that CPB chairman Kenneth Tomlinson, "Egged on by Sen. Arlen Specter," agreed to a public debate with Bill Moyers on the issue of alleged political bias in public broadcasting. Plus: Tomlinson 'expands witch hunt' to Voice of America.

Students Hope 'Snow Job' Sways Congress

By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

Published: July 12, 2005

Filed at 4:08 p.m. ET

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Privatization foes in the Social Security debate have tried to pressure members of Congress by following them in waffle and duck costumes. Now supporters of private investment accounts are preparing a Capitol Hill snow job.

Dozens of college students who support the accounts plan to spend Wednesday afternoon lobbying members of the Senate Finance Committee -- after a news conference staged amid imported snow and ice sculptures in the summer haze hanging over the capital.

Radical Muslim youth who aspired to be UK's first suicide bombers

Last week's atrocities confirm emergence of 'home-grown terrorists' ready to die for cause

Ewen MacAskill and Vikram Dodd
Wednesday July 13, 2005
The Guardian

Britain has produced a handful of would-be suicide bombers over the last five years but, until last Thursday, only one who successfully completed a mission. That bomber was Asif Hanif, 21, from London, who walked into Mike's Bar, a blues bar on the seafront at Tel Aviv, in 2003 and blew himself up, killing two musicians and a waitress, and injuring more than 40 others.

He was acting on behalf of the the Palestinian group Hamas, responsible for most of the suicide bomb attacks on Israel.

MoveOn fires back: White House 'coverup'

RAW STORY

After Republican National Committee Chairman Ken Mehlman fired a salvo at Democrats' attacks on Karl Rove, saying they were bending to the "MoveOn" wing of the party, MoveOn responded in kind, accusing the RNC and the White House of a coverup.

Useless Mountains of Cash

Why CEOs need to stop saving and start spending.

By Daniel Gross
Posted Tuesday, July 12, 2005, at 12:46 PM PT

The popular savings-glut meme holds that the global economic imbalances exist not because Americans (and their government) spend too much, but because the rest of the world—in particular people in Asia—spends too little and saves too much.

But maybe the real problem isn't the frugal Chinese. Maybe it's frugal CEOs. It now appears that there is another savings glut right here in the U.S.A. In the past several years, instead of spending cash on hiring, new machinery, R&D, or dividends, CEOs have just been sitting on it. Huge, useless mountains of dollars, yen, euros, and pounds sterling.

Ignoring The Coming Collapse

J. Bradford DeLong

July 12, 2005

J. Bradford DeLong, professor of economics at the University of California at Berkeley, was assistant U.S. treasury secretary during the Clinton administration.

This month, the Bank for International Settlements (BIS) was the latest to worry aloud about the financial risks that the world seems to be building into its future. “[A]ll the countries hit by financial crisis...experience[d] a very sharp slowdown,” the BIS says of Mexico in 1994-5, East Asia in 1997-98, Russia in 1998, as well as Brazil, Turkey, and Argentina subsequently. It then cites “global current account imbalances,” particularly “the U.S. external deficit,” describing it as “unprecedented for a reserve currency country to have a current account deficit of such magnitude.” In short, the world has become “increasingly prone to financial turbulence.”

The BIS hints at the possibility of a financial crisis that, with the United States at its center, would dwarf all crises since 1933. The BIS issues the standard recommendations: “Deficit countries should reduce the rate of growth of domestic spending below that of domestic production. Allowing their currencies to depreciate in real terms would make their products more competitive, and also provide an incentive for production to shift out of non-tradables into tradables.”

Permanent Patriot Act Proposed

Sensenbrenner Would Extend Powers but Grant No New Ones

By Dan Eggen

Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, July 12, 2005; Page A19

The Republican chairman of the House Judiciary Committee introduced a bill yesterday that would make the controversial USA Patriot Act permanent, but he balked at including some new powers sought by the Bush administration.

The bill proposed by Rep. F. James Sensenbrenner Jr. (R-Wis.) largely gives the Justice Department what it has requested in the review of the Patriot Act antiterrorism law, which was enacted weeks after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. The proposal includes 16 provisions set to expire at the end of this year unless they are renewed or made permanent by Congress.

Billmon: Vouching for Karl

QUESTION: The Robert Novak column last week . . . has now given rise to accusations that the administration deliberatively blew the cover of an undercover CIA operative, and in so doing, violated a federal law that prohibits revealing the identity of undercover CIA operatives. Can you respond to that?

McCLELLAN: Thank you for bringing that up. That is not the way this President or this White House operates. And there is absolutely no information that has come to my attention or that I have seen that suggests that there is any truth to that suggestion. And, certainly, no one in this White House would have given authority to take such a step.

Scott McClellan
Press Briefing
July 22, 2003

Billmon: Cat Got His Tongue

Even if Rove somehow managed to skirt the edge of the law in his little chats with reporters about Joe Wilson's wife, and even if he did tell the grand jury the truth about those conversations (or at least, didn't commit any perjuries on which he could be caught out) there's still the question of why it took an FBI agent waiving a subpoena to finally pull the truth out of him.

I mean, it's obvious now that Rove had important and relevant information about the outing of Valerie Plame, even if he himself wasn't criminally liable. He knew that Plame worked for the CIA before Bob Novak published his column. He knew she worked on WMD issues. How did he find these things out? Who told him?

Billmon: Stupid Is As Stupid Does

Pat Lang, former Middle East expert at the Defense Intelligence Agency, receives some tactical intelligence from the field. The enemy (stupidity) is on the move:

Sir: I am in -----------. FYI -- Juan Cole's site is being blocked at Ft. ---------- and other installations by the thought police.

(Names and places deleted -- by Lang, not by me -- to protect the patriotic.)

The thought police, I'm guessing, are the same Pentagon morons who put Rush Limbaugh on armed forces radio and try to keep everyone with a brain off of it.

Billmon: The Old Stonewall

QUESTION: Does the president stand by his pledge to fire anyone involved in a leak of the name of a CIA operative?

MCCLELLAN: I appreciate your question. I think your question is being asked related to some reports that are in reference to an ongoing criminal investigation. The criminal investigation that you reference is something that continues at this point. And as I’ve previously stated, while that investigation is ongoing, the White House is not going to comment on it.

The president directed the White House to cooperate fully with the investigation. And as part of cooperating fully with the investigation, we made a decision that we weren’t going to comment on it while it is ongoing.

Scott McClellan
Press Briefing
July 11, 2005

Billmon: Silent Running

When Scotty McClellen was doing his best Ron Zeigler imitation today, he kept insisting he couldn't answer any questions about Rove -- or anything else connected to the outing of Valarie Plame -- because the prosecutors had "expressed a preference" that he not comment on an on-going investigation.

Now naturally this didn't go over too well with the press pack, which was looking forward to taking a good hard piss all over some of his previous statements on the subject -- remarks dating from the days when McClellan was much more inclined to wax eloquent on the high ethical standards of Karl Rove and the "ridiculousness" of the charges against him.

Billmon: The Devil's Flypaper

Washington Post columnist E.J. Dionne points to this nauseating -- but highly revealing -- comment from one of the White House pod people:

Appearing on "Fox News Sunday," Fran Townsend, the president's homeland security adviser, said that the war in Iraq attracts terrorists "where we have a fighting military and a coalition that can take them on and not have the sort of civilian casualties that you saw in London." (emphasis added)

This has to set some kind of new low for war hawks peddling their flypaper drivel. What exactly does Ms. Townsend think has been happening to Iraqi civilians over the past two years? Next time she's in Baghdad, she may want to drop by a mortuary. They could clue her in.

Rove's Leak Points to Bush Conspiracy

By Robert Parry
July 11, 2005

A key national security principle for dealing with top-secret information, such as the identity of undercover CIA officers, is strict compartmentalization, often called “the need to know” – which raises the question why George W. Bush’s chief political adviser Karl Rove would know anything about the identity of CIA officer Valerie Plame.

The answer to that mystery – why was Rove involved – may be more crucial to unraveling who was behind the illegal leaking of Plame’s name and the subsequent cover-up than even the identity of which Bush officials passed the information to right-wing pundit Robert Novak for his infamous column on July 14, 2003.

Daily Kos: Republican Leaders: We Support Plame's Outing

by Hunter

Tue Jul 12th, 2005 at 12:09:55 PDT

Armando has already noted Ken Mehlman and other Republican reactions, but I want to re-emphasize it, because the "spin" really is contemptible, and demonstrates just how ethically corrupt the central "core" of the Republican machine has become.

All yesterday, every Republican in Washington simply clammed up -- the AP and other news reports couldn't get anyone to go on the record condemning Karl Rove. Or defending him, for that matter. Republicans wouldn't touch the issue with a ten-foot pole. But after an intense day of Spin Camp, they're set to go, and the spin they've chosen is founded on an attempt to misdirect people from all of the basic facts of the case.

Daily Howler - July 11, 2005

FROG-MARCHING KARL! Stupidity has been a pseudo-con value. But lately, it has spread to the left: // link // print // previous // next //

MONDAY, JULY 11, 2005

SO WRONG THAT YOU JUST HAVE TO READ IT: This morning, the New York Times prints an op-ed piece that’s so wrong that you just have to read it. For the past five years, Michael Petrilli was an official in the Bush Department of Ed. Some suburban school districts are now rebelling against certain provisions of No Child Left Behind—and Petrilli doesn’t like it. He argues that NCLB forces suburban districts to help their minority kids: