The Post has a run-down on the latest reports that the firing of US Attorney John McKay may have been tied to what Main Justice apparently believed was his over-zealous investigation of the assassination of Tom Wales, a federal prosecutor in McKay's office who was a big proponent of gun control laws.
DOJ spokesman Brian Roehrkasse explains why the DOJ failed to release documents that show that yet more of Attorney General Alberto Gonzales's testimony to Congress was false.
It was, said Roehrkasse, an "inadvertent mistake."
--Josh Marshall
Sally Quinn: I am impressed by Obama because here's a black guy who's finally overcome blackness.
Late Update: Quinn's larger point is that: "We [i.e., frivolous Washington insiders who haven't read the numerous articles about who Obama's advisors are] don't know who he is. Who are his people? Whom does he surround himself with? Whom does he listen to? Who gives him advice?"
Late Update: TPM Reader AN on Quinn ...
Quinn seems to vaguely argue that its appropriate to ask who does Obama surround himself with because of his lack of experience. I don't buy that's the reason for her question but in either case the genuine question I have is this: Was Quinn asking the same question in 1999 when George W. Bush was running for President? I mean heck, aside from being a governor of a state where governors have less actual power compared to most states Bush had no other relevant political experience. Obama, on the other hand, was in the Illinois Senate for approximately 7 years prior to being elected to the US Senate.
The answer, I suspect, is no. But AN doesn't realize that by virtue of family Bush was presumptively surrounded by good people.
--Josh Marshall
A nice illustration of Mr. Giuliani's cowardice -- can't handle being criticized -- and some boneheaded AP media coverage to boot. A nice weekend twofer.
--Josh Marshall
Memo to media and pundits: The public wants Dems to be confrontational with Bush and the GOP.
--Greg Sargent
I guess it's been years since I watched ABC's 20/20 and John Stossel. Here he is tonight busting the 'myth' that gun control can prevent crime and showing the apparently abundant evidence that the more people are carrying guns the safer you are.
--Josh Marshall
This should provide no end of entertainment. Some right-wingers apparently think Youtube is biased against them. So a crew of them have created Qubetv, a right-wing only Youtube, basically like a digital innertube for folks who can't hack it out on the actual internet.
--Josh Marshall
Not sure how many folks saw this but tucked into last night's McClatchy piece on Rep. Doolittle (R-CA) was this passage ...
Doolittle said he had information from sources he wouldn't name that federal agents had executed search warrants recently against two other members of Congress - a Republican and a Democrat - in raids that hadn't become public yet. He said he thought that those raids were related to the Abramoff probe.
Important to keep in mind, of course, that Doolittle is a serial bamboozler of the most egregious sort. And perhaps he's arguing that FBI raids are actually a new congressional fad like frisbees or the Macarena. But I'm curious whether he knows something here or just more blowing smoke.
Late Update: TPM Reader DG flags this passage from a Post piece from before the fall when Doolittle was covering DeLay's back ...
A DeLay ally, Rep. John T. Doolittle (R-Calif.), said Republicans "are going to have to respond in kind" by filing ethics charges against key Democrats. From now on, he said in an interview, it's a matter of "you kill my dog, I'll kill your cat." Doolittle said he plans to file ethics charges against a prominent Democrat but would not name the target.
Of course, Doolittle never did anything. No idea if the FBI has raided your cat's scratch post.
--Josh Marshall
There's an interesting proposal floating around among House Democrats that would allow Dems to keep standing up to the White House on Iraq.
But it may not get very far in the Senate, however.
--Greg Sargent
As the storm broke (from Bloomberg) ...
A former U.S. Justice Department official and central figure in the firing of eight U.S. attorneys tearfully told a colleague two months ago her government career probably was over as the matter was about to erupt into a political storm, according to closed-door congressional testimony.Monica Goodling, at the time an aide to Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, sobbed for 45 minutes in the office of career Justice Department official David Margolis on March 8 as she related her fears that she would have to quit, according to congressional aides briefed on Margolis's private testimony to House and Senate investigators. The aides spoke on condition of anonymity.
Margolis's description of the emotional scene in his office sheds new light on divisions that were developing in the Justice Department's Washington headquarters as the Democratic-controlled Congress was demanding documents that might show White House involvement in the dismissals.
Another key passage ...
Margolis testified in private that he tried to console Goodling and listened to her discuss her personal life, a congressional aide said. He recalled telling a colleague that he was concerned about Goodling's emotional state, the aide said....
Three hours before Goodling visited his fourth-floor office, Margolis told House and Senate investigators that Sampson dropped by to say he had information Margolis needed to know, one congressional aide said.
Margolis recounted that Sampson read his e-mail exchanges with White House aides that showed the decisions on firing the prosecutors were closely coordinated with members of the president's staff, the aide said.
Margolis recalled that he was stunned to learn the extent of White House involvement in the dismissals, congressional aides said. Margolis testified that preparation for McNulty's Senate testimony -- which took place more than a month before his meetings with Goodling and Sampson -- was based on the assumption that the White House only became involved at the end of the firing process, the aide said.
That must have been quite a conversation. The clique around Gonzales has tried to portray Margolis, a career DOJ lawyer, as tightly involved in the firing decisions. But that story was slowly abandoned as more evidence came out.
Late Update: TPM Reader JM has a really good question ...
I'm a long-time reader, and I enjoy your digging immensely. Here's a question, though: Did the e-mails that Sampson read to Margolis, detailing some of the White House connections to the firing decisions, appear in any of the DoJ's document dumps? Or can we look forward to these being "newly found" and released in a future dump (now that the committee is aware of their existence)?
--Josh Marshall
It's the accountability, stupid!
We've just learned that the House Dem Caucus is planning a series of periodic oversight and accountability reports designed to keep you up to speed on what Dems are doing oversight-wise in Congress. We've got an advance look at their first installment.
--Greg Sargent
As we noted last night, fired US Attorney John McKay appeared on KCTS Connects, a public affairs TV show on Seattle public television last night. We're going to bring you some clips from it on Monday. But here's a preview. McKay telling how it felt getting threatened not to talk about his firing and whether he thinks Alberto Gonzales told the truth in his testimony before the senate ...
Thanks to TPM Readers HL and JL for getting us a copy of the video.
--Josh Marshall
Join us as we try, by process of elimination, to find a single Justice Department official who's willing to take responsibility for the U.S. attorney firings.
--Paul Kiel
Things are getting nasty all around, it seems. Today Rep. Henry Waxman (D-CA) said that a State Department official had tried to block investigators' access to a State Department analyst who'd raised alarms about the bogus Niger evidence before the State of the Union in 2003.
And Waxman has politely asked Secretary Rice not to impede the committee's investigation of her.
--Paul Kiel
The Bush administration hands the wingers yet another defeat in their losing battle against U.S. diplomatic engagement with Syria and Iran.
--Greg Sargent
Republicans are corrupt, Democrats aren't.
That's the fairly straightfoward message of a new Web video just released by the DCCC. No mention of Rep. Jefferson (D-LA) and frozen bricks of cash. But altogether a pretty fair characterization of the length of the GOP's current rap sheet. Take a look.
--Greg Sargent
Today's Must Read: it gets worse and worse. A major revelation in the case of Debra Wong Yang, the U.S. Attorney for Los Angeles who was investigating Rep. Jerry Lewis (R-CA), and who left somewhat abruptly right before the firings occurred.
Adam Cohen, writing in The New York Times, reveals that Harriet Miers wanted Yang gone -- and told Kyle Sampson this just a month before Yang stepped down.
--Paul Kiel
A prosecutor from Washington state weighs in on today's Comey testimony ...
I've read TPM for years, and appreciate your work. I email you because I read something today about the firing of John McKay that finally put me over the edge.Apparently during Comey's testimony today he said that one of the reasons McKay got himself in hot water with the DOJ heavyweights was because he was pushing for additional resources to investigate the murder of Tom Wales, who was an Assistant US Attorney in Seattle. Tom Wales was shot and killed in 2001. What nobody has talked about, and what you may not be aware of, is the fact that Tom Wales was extremely active in attempting to get tighter gun control laws passed here in Washington.
Think about that for a second. A pro-gun control federal prosecutor was shot and killed. John McKay was agitating for more resources to bring his killer to justice. That pissed off DOJ, who apparently thought that McKay should spend his time going after bogus voter fraud prosecutions rather than solve the murder of a guy who was in favor of gun control. If you don't think the fact that Tom Wales' political views weren't taken into consideration by the higher ups at DOJ when they decided to punish McKay for fighting to find his killer, you haven't been paying attention to the way these guys have operated for the last 6 years. Every single thing they do is about politics, and the political views of those they help or hurt.
The bottom line of this whole McKay firing could be summed up in this way: try to catch killers, you get fired. File BS charges of voter fraud, you keep your job.
It's a slap in the face to every prosecutor in the country. It's our job to seek justice for those that aren't able to seek it for themselves. None of us should give a damn what the political views are of the victims we try to protect. It's beyond reprehensible for them to punish McKay for doing this. But for this administration, it's par for the course.
One quick note: the point about Wales was actually brought up first by Rep. Mel Watt (D-NC) while Watt was questioning Comey.
The rest of the reader's comments, I think, speak for themselves.
--Josh Marshall
I think you could conclude Deputy AG Paul McNulty doesn't want to be standing on the tracks for this freight train (from McClatchy) ...
According to a congressional aide, McNulty said he attended a White House meeting with Karl Rove, President Bush's top political adviser, and other officials on March 5, the day before McNulty's deputy William Moschella was to testify to Congress about the firings.White House officials told the Justice Department group that they needed to agree on clear reasons why each prosecutor was fired and explain them to Congress, McNulty said, according to the aide, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the transcript of McNulty's interview hasn't been made public.
McNulty said that White House officials never revealed during the meeting that they'd been discussing plans to replace some prosecutors with Gonzales aides, the congressional aide said.
McNulty recalled feeling disturbed and concerned when he found out days later that the White House had been involved, the congressional aide said. McNulty considered the extent of White House coordination to be "extremely problematic."
Remind me. Why do you need to 'agree on clear reasons why each prosecutor was fired' if the reasons were actually clear when you did the firing and if the reasons can be stated publicly? Think about it. Why do Rove and the other heavies from the White House need to tell these guys how important it is to get their stories straight? If I fire someone, I know why I fired them. I don't need to get my story straight unless the real reason can't be stated and I need to come up with a defensible and plausible alternative explanation.
But look what McNulty told Carol Lam when she called him to ask why she was being fired.
From Lam's written responses to questions from congressional staff investigators ...
He responded that he wanted some time to think about how to answer that question because he didn’t want to give me an answer “that would lead” me down the wrong route. He added that he knew I had personally taken on a long trial and he had great respect for me. Mr. McNulty never responded to my question.
I do not think it is too much to infer from McNulty's response that he was either unaware of the 'immigration enforcement' storyline for Lam's firing or was unwilling to say it to her face. (For my part, I strongly suspect it was the former.) And if Lam is faithfully portraying the tenor of the conversation it sounds very much like McNulty knew the answer to the question was not a good one.
This is the key to remember. On its own this might all be a tempest in a teapot. Why was she fired? Maybe someone didn't like her attitude or her haircut or whatever. But it's not on its own. Lam was in the midst of an historic public corruption investigation targetting White House allies on Capitol Hill, White House appointees at the CIA and -- though it's seldom been discussed publicly and the evidence remains murky -- I suspect, appointees at the Department of Defense.
The mere fact that DOJ officials can apparently point to no discussions, thought process or paper trail of any deliberations about how Lam's firing would affect these cases speaks volumes. And when you look at the whole picture you see that everything about Lam's firing comes down to corruption cases stemming out of the Cunningham investigation.
And look what Lam was told by McNulty's nominal deputy (see this post for McNulty's apparent power at DOJ) Michael Elston when she asked for a brief reprieve to deal with these highly sensitive cases. He made clear she was to be gone in "weeks, not months" and that the order for her firing was "coming from the very highest levels of the government."
Those, again, are Lam's words from her written responses to congressional interrogatories. If they're accurate, what do you think 'very highest levels of the government' means? And if this is all about disagreements over immigration enforcement policy, why the rush?
The US Attorney Purge story is many things. But the focal point has always been the Lam firing. And White House orders notwithstanding, the cover stories have just never cut it.
Late Update: TPM Reader AG points us to this article in Newsweek where Isikoff shares more details of the March 5th meeting with Rove and those DOJ officials.
--Josh Marshall
Fired US Attorney John McKay is to appear tonight at 7 PM Pacific on KCTS Connects, a public affairs TV show on public TV in Seattle. If you're in that media market, take a look and send us a report.
(ed.note: Thanks to TPM Reader MF for the catch.)
--Josh Marshall
Apparently the GOP candidates debating in Los Angeles tonight will have company.
An antiwar group is planning to fly two circling planes tonight in the skies above the debate, complete with banners mocking Bush's "Mission Accomplished" moment.
--Greg Sargent
Monica Goodling's lawyer hits back at the Justice Department, saying that the announcement yesterday that she's under investigation "smacks of retribution and intimidation."
--Paul Kiel
As you know, the Justice Department is now 
investigating whether former DOJ employee Monica Goodling broke the law by screening DOJ job applicants for party affiliation. Let's not forget that two weeks ago TPMmuckraker's Paul Kiel ran an article on Bradley Schlozman in which a former DOJ employee said on the record that Schlozman had asked him a potential job applicants party affiliation before deciding whether to grant him an interview. That sounds like pretty much exactly the same thing.
Schlozman, remember, is a former top official at the DOJ's Civil Rights Division who served as the Patriot Act-appointed US Attorney from Kansas City until last month when he returned to Main Justice to work at the Executive Office of US Attorneys.
Investigating Schlozman won't shortcircuit a congressional grant of immunity to compel testimony (little inside Purge coverage humor there) but maybe he should be investigated too?
--Josh Marshall
So what do the major GOP Presidential candidates have to accomplish at the debate tonight?
Here are some thoughts from the veteran GOP consultant who ran Bob Dole's Presidential campaign in 1996.
--Greg Sargent
Alberto Gonzales and others at the Justice Department keep claiming that the department has pursued public corruption investigations regardless of the subject's political affiliation. Now we'll see if that's borne out by the numbers.
--Paul Kiel
Here's the new antiwar ad that Oliver Stone directed for MoveOn as a response to Bush's veto of the Iraq withdrawal bill.
--Greg Sargent
You may have noticed that President Bush has been changing the standard of success in Iraq in recent days, clarifying the 'acceptable level of violence'. We decided to take a look in today's episode of TPMtv ...
Late Update: For a summary of today's episode, click here.
--Josh Marshall
This morning former Deputy Attorney General James Comey said ...
In case you aren't able to watch the clip, Comey basically says that whatever might look suspicious in the context of the larger US Attorney scandal, he thinks Milwaukee US Attorney Steven Biskupic is absolutely a straight shooter and would never bring a prosecution or hold up a prosecution for political reasons.
Now, we've written a good bit about Biskupic. He's the one who didn't find the Democratic 'vote fraud' conspiracy Republican operatives wanted him to find. And that apparently landed him on the DOJ US Attorney firing list.
But then he got pulled off the list. That's made people take a second look at his prosecution of a bureaucrat in Wisconsin's Democratic governor's administration. That conviction got overturned by an appeals court last month. And not just overturned, but judged "beyond thin" and "preposterous" and sent back for a directed acquital.
That raised the question: Did Biskupic get in trouble with the failure to pursue bogus 'vote fraud' cases and then save his job by bringing a bogus corruption case?
Since we first reported on this issue, I've spoken to a number of people familiar with Biskupic and his record. This is a standard stage in reporting in a case like this. And the results of such conversations are usually very revealing. Often -- particularly in the US Attorney Purge case -- a few such conversations quickly reveal patterns of questionable conduct about the person in question. The smoke rapidly reveals fire.
Not in this case though. Having raised the questions about Biskupic noted above, I feel compelled to note that in subsequent conversations with others who I believe come with as much credibility as Comey has -- which is a great deal -- I've been told pretty much the equivalent of what Comey said today. These people don't necessarily know the specifics of the case in question. But they know Biskupic. And they vouch for the guy's character and reputation. They say they know him and he just would never do something like that.
That doesn't mean Biskupic couldn't have gamed the system to save his job. Sometimes people don't know someone as well as they think. What we know about the Gonzales DOJ inevitably casts a shadow of suspicion over the timing of events I noted above. Indeed, it's certainly possible that the corruption prosecution did get Biskupic off the list even though he didn't know he was any jeopardy and the prosecution was brought in good faith. But given what I've heard and given the highly circumstantial nature of the case, I'm inclined to believe, until I hear more evidence to the contrary, that Biskupic himself has clean hands in all this.
If I see evidence to the contrary, I'll tell you. If you have some, let me know. But that's where my thinking is right now. And I thought you should know.
--Josh Marshall
More from the hearing this morning with former deputy attorney general James Comey. Comey served to provide a stark contrast with the current leadership in the department.
Here's Comey responding to Kyle Sampson's emphasis on "loyalty" in U.S. attorneys.
Here he is describing how he'd fired two U.S. attorneys while he'd been there -- what that process was and the reasons why.
Here, just for chuckles, is the ranking Republican on the committee, Rep. Chris Cannon (R-UT), claiming that the Justice Department had a "thoughtful, competent process" for firing the eight U.S. attorneys.
Update: And here is an email from Comey to one of the fired U.S. attorneys explaining why he felt compelled to speak out about the firings. "I will not sit by and watch good people smeared."
--Paul Kiel
Did Congressional Dems already "back down" and offer to take the withdrawal timetables out of their Iraq spending bill?
That's what The Washington Post says in a front page story today. But Pelosi and Reid's offices are now saying that the story's false.
--Greg Sargent
James Comey, the former deputy attorney general, is testifying before the House today. We'll be bringing you updates on his testimony.
First up, Comey testified that he did make recommendations about firing certain U.S. attorneys to fire in early 2005, but that it was completely different from a list Kyle Sampson drew up at around the same time. Wonder why.
--Paul Kiel
Today's Must Read: all the details you can handle about the Justice Department's internal investigation of Monica Goodling -- and a look at whether this will put a kibosh on Congress' offer of immunity to Goodling for her testimony.
--Paul Kiel
The question of why Carol Lam was fired is still hanging out there as the evidentiary big enchilada of the US Attorney Purge story. So I want to come back to a story we ran yesterday at TPMmuckraker.com based on new documents released yesterday by the House Judiciary Committee. One of the big problem with the administration's claim that they fired Lam for not following administration policy on immigration enforcement is that they never once mentioned to her that they had any concerns about how she was dealing with immigration matters in her office. Never once. And to us that makes the claim dubious at best since if you're going to go as far as firing someone for refusing to follow administration policy it makes sense that you'd at least once ask them to do something different.
That much you already know.
But someting interesting came out of the documents released yesterday from House Judiciary. These were the writtens answers from the fired US Attorneys in response to queries from committee staff.
According to Lam, after her dismissal she contacted Deputy Attorney General McNulty to ask him why she was fired. According to Lam ...
He responded that he wanted some time to think about how to answer that question because he didn’t want to give me an answer “that would lead” me down the wrong route. He added that he knew I had personally taken on a long trial and he had great respect for me. Mr. McNulty never responded to my question.
If Lam's account is accurate it seems that McNulty was not altogether comfortable with explaining what had happened. But what seems pretty clear is that McNulty himself, the #2 guy at DOJ, wasn't yet aware of the 'immigration enforcement' explanation either. We're supposed to believe that everybody knew of Justice's dissatisfaction with Lam's recalcitrance on immigration matters. And yet the guy's whose job it is to actually run the Department of Justice on a day to day basis (the DAG is something like a COO) didn't seem to have heard about it.
Like in Animal House, the reason for Lam's dismissal seems to have had double-secret status even within DOJ.
--Josh Marshall
There was a flurry of new developments in the US Attorney Purge on Wednesday. In addition to the new documents released by the House Judiciary Committee, we have the revelation that Monica Goodling is now being investigated for screening 
new prosecutors for proper party affiliation.
As part of her job, Goodling signed off on applications for entry-level prosecutor positions in offices run by interim (read: Patriot Act) US Attorney's Offices. And she is now being investigated by the DOJ itself for allegedly screening applicants for proper party affiliation.
But this raises a weird possibility: the fact that the DOJ is investigating Goodling could put a roadblock in the way of the investigating committees' efforts to give her immunity and force her to testify on Capitol Hill. So Goodling's new alleged wrongdoing could have the perverse effect of preventing her from being forced to go up to Capitol Hill and reveal what she knows about what happened in the Purge.
Go figure.
--Josh Marshall
So what's the next step for Congressional Dems on Iraq?
Here are some thoughts from a savvy House Democratic aide we know on the pros and cons of the possible Dem strategies.
--Greg Sargent
Only Republicans need apply.
The Justice Department inspector general is investigating whether Monica Goodling was considering political affiliation when hiring entry-level assistant U.S. attorneys across the country.
--Paul Kiel
Don't miss it: Rudy Giuliani's two minute rant about ... ferrets. Yes, Ferrets. Quoted in full.
--Greg Sargent
Oh surprise, surprise. After Carol Lam was fired last December, she had a conversation with DOJ official Michael Elston. When Lam asked to be able to stay on briefly to oversee certain key cases. Elston told her she had to be gone in "weeks, not months" and that the order for her firing was "coming from the very highest levels of the government."
'Very highest levels of the government'. I don't think Monica Goodling or Kyle Sampson count in that category, do they?
Also of interest, given the DOJ's cover story for Lam's firing, Lam called Deputy AG McNulty and asked why she was being fired. According to Lam: "He responded that he wanted some time to think about how to answer that question because he didn’t want to give me an answer 'that would lead' me down the wrong route. He added that he knew I had personally taken on a long trial and he had great respect for me. Mr. McNulty never responded to my question."
I guess no one had clued McNulty in on the 'immigration enforcement' talking points.
--Josh Marshall
DOJ official to fired US Attorney Bud Cummins: circumventing the senate was the "White House plan."
--Josh Marshall
Fired U.S. Attorney says the Justice Department offered him a "quid pro quo": stay silent about your firing and we will too.
--Paul Kiel
Here's a first look at a new ad being aired by John Edwards demanding that Congress continue standing up to the White House on Iraq. It's a good one.
--Greg Sargent
New US Attorney Purge revelations just out at TPMmuckraker.com.
The House Judiciary Committee has just released its correspondence with the fired US Attorneys. And we've got the documents and new revelations they contain. First up, Deputy AG McNulty told the Senat Judiciary Committee that Nevada USA Daniel Bogden had been let go for "performance related" reasons. But McNulty apparently told Bogden just the opposite in a phone call in December.
More revelations coming shortly.
--Josh Marshall
In today's episode of TPMtv, why President Bush can't fire Alberto Gonzales ...
Update: For a summary of today's episode, click here.
--Josh Marshall
Thomas Sowell in the National Review: From my ivory tower, things look so bad that it may be time for a military coup in the United States.
--Josh Marshall
Exclusive: John Kerry launches national fundraising drive designed to pressure GOP Senators and get them to break ranks with Bush on Iraq.
--Greg Sargent
Today's Must Read: when doesn't a U.S. attorney's performance matter? When he's a senior official at the Justice Department, of course.
--Paul Kiel
Blair: "Within the next few weeks I won't be Prime Minister of this country. In all probability, a Scot will become Prime Minister of the United Kingdom."
--Josh Marshall
For Turkophiles and all close observers of Turkey, another key development. The country's constitutional court has effectively blocked the presidential candidacy of the Justice and Development (PK) party's Abdullah Gul, who is currently the foreign minister, likely forcing early elections and a new showdown between the country's secularists and the soft Islamism of the PK.
--Josh Marshall
For all the endless debate about strategy and tactics, past and present about Iraq, it is astonishing how little the public debate in this country entertains the idea that the occupation itself is the cause of the unrest and violence in the country.
This isn't an original and unheard of concept. I know that. Indeed, it's common sense. But in our public debate it is what we might call the logic that dare not speak its name.
The point occurred to me when looking at the discussion going on at PostGlobal.
Of course, the bitter irony is that it doesn't have to be one or the other. As I wrote a couple years ago, the really awful thing about the situation we've gotten ourselves into is that we're both the glue holding Iraq together and the solvent tearing it apart. And neither is this to say that there aren't all sorts of hatreds and social pathologies helping Iraq rip itself apart on its own. Iraq's Sunni minority had its heel on the neck of the Shi'a majority long before the US become the dominant power in the region -- for many centuries, by some measures. But like a wound that is not allowed to heal and thus becomes infected again and again it is folly to assume that Iraq can set itself right as long as the occupation lasts. Particularly because it is one that fundamentally lacks legitimacy, which has always been the heart of the matter.
Late Update: TPM Reader WG responds ...
You write that "the occupation itself is the cause of the unrest and violence in the country." I think that's partially true, but more importantly, the occupation is preventing any resolution of the conflict. Civil wars end when one side knows it has lost. As long as we are in Iraq the insurgency will not know it has lost. Both Republicans and Democrats say they want the U.S. leave -- Iraqis realize that the occupation isn't forever. Until the U.S. has left, hope will still live in the hearts of the Sunni fighters. The Iraqi government, already cheated of sovereign legitimacy, will not be able to establish credibility of force.It's Catch-22, Iraqi-style. The U.S. can’t leave Iraq until its government can stand by itself. The Iraqi government can’t stand by itself while the U.S. is propping it up.
I think I basically agree with this, though I don't think the reality of occupation is merely an after the fact aspect of the problem in Iraq. Imperialism casts a long shadow in the region. And we fall under it.
--Josh Marshall
A Pittsburgh lawyer asks a good question ...
The Bush administration's efforts to use an obscure provision of the Patriot Act to replace U.S. attorneys it deemed too vigorous in investigating Republican officials, too slow in indicting Democratic public officials or too reluctant to investigate "voter fraud" -- a euphemism for attempting to suppress the minority vote -- caused me to re-think my opinion of the fairness of Western Pennsylvania's U.S. attorney, Mary Beth Buchanan. I began to wonder why all of the recent public-corruption investigations in our region have been of Democrats.
--Josh Marshall
It's catchy, ain't it.
A short time ago, the Washington Post's David Broder wrote that Sen. Harry Reid (D-NV) was the Democrats' Gonzales. Today the Daily News' Tom DeFrank does pretty much the same thing, calling Bush and Reid "peas in a puzzled pod."
Writes DeFrank ...
As the Iraq war becomes ever more divisive and heartbreaking, the lame-duck President and Senate majority leader pursue a high-stakes game of "Amateur Hour" from opposite ends of Pennsylvania Ave. Even their friends know it.In a town where genuine bipartisanship in the national interest seems to have died with Gerald Ford's presidency three decades ago, the two main protagonists have managed to achieve the impossible - all of political Washington shaking their heads in collective distress.
I have a higher opinion of DeFrank than Broder. But the pattern is pretty clear: DC's elderly wise men reporters seem to be falling over themselves to compare Reid to an incredibly unpopular president and an unprecedentedly disgraced Attorney General.
It's well enough to knock these guys around. I've done my share of it with Broder. But it's worth taking a moment to recognize the deeper pattern. For these guys the adoration of bipartisanship for its own sake always trumps efforts to grapple with key public questions. You either think we're fundamentally on the right track or the wrong track in the occupation of Iraq. If you think it's the latter bipartisanship is an empty vessel since the president is unwilling to change any core point of his policy and the great majority of Republican members of Congress -- for now at least -- are unwilling to oppose him. That means that trying to force the president to change policy is the only honorable option available. It's really as simple as that.
Both DeFrank and Broder zero in on Reid's 'war is lost' comment. I won't go into the ins and outs of the different versions of what he said. But the simple fact is that a clear majority of the people in the country agree. They think the war was a mistake and that as the president wants to fight it it's not winnable.
Reid's real sin in their eyes isn't verbal clumsiness or political obtuseness, though that's what they want to pass it off as. Their beef with him is that he's thrown down the gauntlet on this key issue. And that is an unforgiveable breach of decorum, notwithstanding the merits of the issue at hand.
Reid is in trouble with these guys for saying what most people consider the unvarnished truth. And to these guys that's unforgiveable.
--Josh Marshall
Sen. Webb (D-VA) on the president's veto: "We won this war four years ago. The question is when we end the occupation."
--Josh Marshall
Shock of the Day: Bush Interior Department appointee resigns rather than face an oversight committee hearing next week. It's Julie MacDonald, deputy assistant secretary for fish, wildlife and parks at Interior. For your reference, she's the one who, in addition to sharing government reports with industry lobbyists, also shared confidential Interior Department documents with a "virtual friend" she met on an internet chat site. MacDonald reportedly commisserated with said "virtual friend" whose opinions she trusted over those of government scientists.
--Josh Marshall
Oh, good. Alberto Gonzales is due to have another congressional hearing next week.
Here are a couple more questions he probably won't answer.
--Paul Kiel
The bill crafted by Congressional Dems to end the Iraq War is now on its way to the President.
--Greg Sargent
"You can't veto the truth."
A new TV ad hammering Bush is already on its way to national cable channels and will begin running the moment Bush vetoes the Iraq withdrawal bill. Take a look.
--Greg Sargent
Did the FBI ever really investigate the Niger/Uranium forgeries? That's our topic in today's episode of TPMtv ...
Update: For a summary of today's episode, click here.
--Josh Marshall
If there's an example of a model U.S. attorney for this administration, it's Bradley Schlozman, who was until recently the interim U.S. Attorney for Kansas City.
Schlozman indicted a handful of ACORN voter registration workers right before Election Day last year. And the more you look at that case, the more obvious it is that he rushed those cases to land just in time.
--Paul Kiel
Joe Lieberman's reality: Public is equally fed up with both Dems and Republicans.
--Greg Sargent
Does America want politicians who promise puppy dogs, unicorns and chocolate sprinkles? Todd Gitlin sure hopes not.
--Andrew Golis
How did the Times cover Mission Accomplished four years ago? Greg Mitchell takes a look.
--Josh Marshall
Check out this oped in The Hill about the Sunlight Foundation's Open House Project to make Capitol Hill accessible and transparent to bloggers and online journalists.
--Josh Marshall
Today's Must Read: even more evidence of who's really in charge at the Justice Department.
--Paul Kiel
More evidence that Alberto Gonzales was working to make the Justice Department a mere appendage of the White House, courtesy of Murray Waas.
--Paul Kiel
Former CIA analyst Ray McGovern went on Tucker Carlson's show this afternoon and pretty directly accused Vice President Dick Cheney of being behind the Niger forgeries. The reasons for suspicion are plenty. But having reported on this story in minute detail I've yet to find any direct evidence to substantiate that charge. But McGovern says he has evidence ...
--Josh Marshall
In an interview, David Broder stands by his column attacking Harry Reid as an inept loser.
--Greg Sargent