Thompson's client, Part II
On the one side, we have six people and documented evidence that Fred Thompson lobbied for the pro-choice National Family Planning and Reproductive Health Assn. On the other side we have the Thompson campaign, which insists the lobbying, for which Thompson was paid handsomely, never happened.
Any comment, senator?
Thompson gave an oblique response when asked about the matter, first reported by the Los Angeles Times.
"I'd just say the flies get bigger in the summertime. I guess the flies are buzzing," said Thompson, who is considering running for president as a social conservative. He refused comment on whether he recalled doing the work.
That ought to clear things up.
--Steve Benen
Virginia is for lovers
As recently as 2000, Virginia was a reliably "red" state. Virginia had a Republican governor, a Republican lieutenant governor, a Republican attorney general, and two Republican U.S. senators. Of the state's 11-member delegation to the U.S. House, eight were Republicans. At the presidential level, George W. Bush had just cruised to an easy victory over Al Gore, the eighth consecutive victory for Republican presidential candidates in the Commonwealth.
By all indications, Virginia, like its southern brethren, was going to be increasingly uncompetitive for the foreseeable future. But a funny thing happened on the way to the Permanent Republican Majority.
Virginia, usually a reliably Republican state in presidential elections, may become a key battleground in the 2008 election as broadly negative views among independents of President Bush and the war in Iraq have altered the presidential race.
Mirroring the national mood, Virginians' approval of Bush and support for U.S. policies in Iraq have eroded as the war has dragged on. Bush is the worst of the past nine presidents, say Virginia's independent voters, who helped him win in 2004 but now say they are more likely to prefer that a Democrat rather than a Republican be the next president. [...]
[M]ore than a year before the general election, this poll shows that four in 10 voters prefer that a Democrat be elected to the White House in 2008, compared with 33 percent who said they favor a Republican.
The Washington Post, the Kaiser Family Foundation, and Harvard conducted a fairly extensive poll of Virginians and found a surprisingly competitive state. In fact, if anything, Virginia is suddenly leaning blue -- more than half of the state's residents have an unfavorable view of the national Republican Party, while more than half of Virginians have a favorable impression of national Democrats.
Like Yglesias, I think Mark Warner deserves quite a bit of the credit for making Virginia "bluer." Following Jim Gilmore's almost comically hopeless term as governor, the state was willing to take a chance on a Democrat. Warner won, governed very well, and enjoyed stunning popularity statewide (he left office with an approval rating over 70%).
But reading over the results of the Post poll, Bush really is the gift that keeps on giving. Warner may have made Democrats palatable to otherwise GOP-leaning Virginians, but the president sealed the deal.
Randall Austin, who lives in conservative southwestern Virginia, said, "I think most of the United States and the majority of people I talk to are kind of negative towards the Republican Party. With the war, the economy, with everything, including fuel pricing, I have a feeling everyone wants a change." Austin, of course, voted for Bush.
--Steve Benen
Taylor testimony
Nearly two weeks ago, in the midst of claiming executive privilege on documents relating to the U.S. Attorney purge, the Bush White House also told Congress that lawmakers would not be permitted to see documents relating to former political director Sara Taylor's work on the matter. It was obviously disappointing (though not unexpected), especially given the Bush gang's rhetoric about their willingness to cooperate.
But at least Taylor agreed to honor a subpoena and will testify to the Senate Judiciary Committee about what she knows of the scandal, right? Wrong. Her appearance, which was scheduled for Wednesday, is now off -- Taylor's lawyer doesn't think the White House is willing to let her talk the committee.
From the letter Taylor's attorney delivered to Senate Judiciary Chairman Pat Leahy:
Ms. Taylor expects to receive a letter from [White House Counsel Fred] Fielding on behalf of the President directing her not to comply with the Senate’s subpoena. These contrary directions undoubtedly create a monumental clash between the executive and legislative branches of government. This clash may ultimately be resolved by the judicial branch. [...]
Absent the direction from the White House, Ms. Taylor would testify without hesitation before the Senate Judiciary Committee. She has participated in no wrongdoing. She will assert no personal privileges.
[Taylor] faces two untenable choices. She can follow the President’s direction and face the possibility of a contempt sanction by the Senate, with enforcement through the criminal courts, an action that regardless of the outcome, will follow her for life. Or, she can attempt to work out an accommodation with the Senate, which will put her at odds with the President, a person whom she admires and for whom she has worked tirelessly for years.
Chairman Leahy responded, "The White House continues to try to have it both ways -- to block Congress from talking with witnesses and accessing documents and other evidence while saying nothing improper occurred."
If I didn't know better, I might get the impression that the White House has something to hide.
--Steve Benen
Impeachment polls
All of a sudden, pollsters think enough of the impeachment question to start putting the question in the field. The latest comes by way of Rasmussen Reports.
Thirty-nine percent (39%) of Americans now believe that President Bush should be impeached and removed from office. A Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey found that 49% disagree while 12% are not sure.
Those figures reflect a slight increase in support for impeachment over the past year-and-a-half. In December 2005, 32% believed that President George W. Bush should be impeached and removed from office. Fifty-eight percent (58%) took the opposite view at that time.
A majority of Democrats (56%) now believe the President should be impeached.... Republicans, by an 80% to 16% margin, say that the President should not be impeached.... Among those not affiliated with either major party, 40% now favor impeachment while 45% are opposed.
This is the third poll I've seen on this in the last two months, and the results are similar enough to bolster their collective reliability. An American Research Group poll released this week showed that among all U.S. adults, 45% support the House initiating impeachment proceedings against Bush (the percentage was 54% in relation to Cheney impeachment). And an InsiderAdvantage/Majority Opinion poll taken in early May showed 39% of American favor impeachment.
First, for a "fringe" idea that "serious" people are supposed to reject out of hand, 40% of the electorate sounds like a fairly substantial number of people.
Second, more Americans support impeaching Bush now than supported impeaching Clinton when he was actually being impeached.
And third, I think Matt Yglesias is right about the larger political dialog: [I]nsofar as Bush appears determined to use his constitutionally granted authority to shield his subordinates from the consequences of breaking the law, I would say that removing him from the office which grants that authority is something that should be discussed."
Are there 67 votes in the Senate for removing Bush from office? Almost certainly not, a fact that seems unlikely to change anytime soon. For that matter, the prospect of a President Cheney is, shall we say, disconcerting.
But given the circumstances, there's no reason to dismiss the notion as some radical flight of fancy. Reasonable people, debating in good faith, can disagree about the utility, implications, and grounds for impeachment, but as Yglesias put it, the concept should probably "enter the mainstream conversation."
--Steve Benen
Graham on Iraq
The discord among Republicans on the Hill over Iraq may be palpable, but Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) just returned from Baghdad, and wouldn't you know it, he agrees wholeheartedly with Bush, Cheney, McCain, and Lieberman.
In contrast with the stalled political progress, Graham said, the surge -- the dispatch of 30,000 more U.S. troops that Bush began in January -- is yielding clear results.
"The military part of the surge is working beyond my expectations," Graham said. "We literally have the enemy on the run. The Sunni part of Iraq has really rejected al Qaida all over the country. We're getting more information about al Qaida operations than we've ever received."
Of course, there's war supporters' reality, and then there's the reality for the rest of us.
Three months into the new U.S. military strategy that has sent tens of thousands of additional troops into Iraq, overall levels of violence in the country have not decreased, as attacks have shifted away from Baghdad and Anbar, where American forces are concentrated, only to rise in most other provinces, according to a Pentagon report released [three weeks ago]....
Iraq's government, for its part, has proven "uneven" in delivering on its commitments under the strategy, the report said, stating that public pledges by Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki have in many cases produced no concrete results. Iraqi leaders have made "little progress" on the overarching political goals that the stepped-up security operations are intended to help advance, the report said, calling reconciliation between Shiite, Kurdish and Sunni factions "a serious unfulfilled objective."
For that matter, a week ago marked the end of the deadliest quarter for U.S. troops in Iraq since the March 2003 invasion. And July is proving to be no less discouraging.
A suicide truck bomber blasted a Shiite town north of Baghdad on Saturday, killing more than 100 people, police said, in a sign Sunni insurgents are pulling away from a U.S. offensive around the capital to attack where security is thinner.
The marketplace devastation underlined a hard reality in Iraq: There are not enough forces to protect everywhere. U.S. troops, already increased by 28,000 this year, are focused on bringing calm to Baghdad, while the Iraqi military and police remain overstretched and undertrained.
The U.S. military on Saturday also reported that eight American service members were killed in fighting in Baghdad and western Anbar province over two days, reflecting the increased U.S. casualties that have come with the new offensives.
But don't worry, Lindsey Graham sees progress. And since his track record on the war has been sterling to date, we should all take his word for it.
--Steve Benen
Bush's detached-from-reality radio address
The president decided to lambaste the Democratic congressional majority this morning in his weekly radio address, accusing lawmakers of failing to do their duty when it comes to annual spending bills.
"Democrats in Congress are also behind schedule passing the individual spending bills needed to keep the Federal government running. At their current pace, I will not see a single one of the 12 must-pass bills before Congress leaves Washington for the month-long August recess. The fiscal year ends September 30th. By failing to do the work necessary to pass these important bills by the end of the fiscal year, Democrats are failing in their responsibility to make tough decisions and spend the people's money wisely.
This moment is a test... Democrats have a chance to prove they are for open and transparent government by working to complete each spending bill independently and on time."
Yes, it's outrageous when Congress fails to pass each spending bill on time, isn't it? Indeed, it seems like just last year that a Republican House, Republican Senate, and Republican White House were so dysfunctional, that they failed to pass hardly any of the necessary spending bills. Oh wait, that was just last year.
Republicans intend to conclude the 109th Congress this week and leave Democrats stuck with the tab in the form of unfinished spending bills as the days of Republican rule draw to a close on Capitol Hill.
Congressional leaders said election losses had sapped Republican enthusiasm for trying to finish nine spending measures that were due Oct. 1. Congress will instead pass a stopgap measure to keep the government running until mid-February, leaving the fiscal tangle for the new Democratic majority to sort out next year.
Following Bush's reasoning, Republicans failed in their responsibility to make tough decisions and spend the people's money wisely. I wonder why he didn't complain about this a year ago?
Post Script: The AP headline on the story on Bush's radio address reads, "Bush rips Democratic lawmakers' failures." Apparently, the AP was short on time, so the editors just let Karl Rove write the headline for them.
--Steve Benen
Election Central Saturday Roundup
Hillary Clinton isn't just ahead in the national polls; she's also solidifying her reputation as the establishment candidate by leading the Democratic field in congressional endorsements. That and other political news of the day in today's Election Central Saturday Roundup.
--Steve Benen
Now that's Hardball.
A month ago, Fouad Ajami, a prominent neocon at Johns Hopkins, wrote a bizarre op-ed for the Wall Street Journal in Scooter Libby's defense. "In 'The Soldier's Creed,'" Ajami wrote, "there is a particularly compelling principle: 'I will never leave a fallen comrade.' ... [Libby] can't be left behind as a casualty of a war our country had once proudly claimed as its own."
Yesterday, David Shuster, guest hosting MSNBC's Hardball, took Ajami to task for comparing Libby to American troops.
Ideally, this should be routine. A marginal neocon appeared on MSNBC to talk about a column he wrote a month ago. A professional broadcaster, who knew what he was talking about, pointed out the guest's errors of fact and judgment for the benefit of the television audience. At the risk of sounding ridiculous, this is what TV shows are supposed to do.
But exchanges like the one between Shuster and Ajami are so rare, that some of us see them and can barely contain our excitement. What should be routine has become extraordinary. Digby said the segment made her "almost feel like the world is setting itself back on its axis -- at least for today."
I suspect that conservatives would find all of this rather odd. Far-right TV personalities spout off conservative ideas on the air every day; why would the left get so excited about one on-air smackdown?
It's because we're left with a media environment in which segments like Shuster's are the exception to the rule. The "no liberals on the teevee" directive is usually pretty unshakable.
--Steve Benen
Meme spreads some more
The hits just keep on coming.
The fourth example of the far-right Meme of the Week comes by way of the National Review's Iain Murray:
The socialization of medicine in the UK is responsible for a lot of problems. The importation of terrorists is just one of them.
For those keeping score at home, Fox News was first, followed by MSNBC, and then the New York Sun.
Update: Reader J.S. points out that the National Review's Stanley Kurtz started hinting at the connection on Tuesday morning.
--Steve Benen
Thompson's pro-choice client
Following up on Josh's item about Fred Thompson lobbying for pro-choice policies on behalf of a family-planning group, the story represents a double threat to the nascent presidential hopeful.
First, this is a major new challenge for Thompson, who has struggled a bit to prove his anti-abortion bona fides, to prove to the far-right GOP base that he's sufficiently right-wing.
Taking up the defense for Thompson, however, is John Hinderaker, who makes a passionate case that a lobbyist should not necessarily be judged by his or her clients. Lobbyists, like lawyers, may take on patrons with whom they disagree.
But the story here is not just that Thompson lobbied for a pro-choice cause, but that he's vociferously denying it now.
Thompson spokesman Mark Corallo adamantly denied that Thompson worked for the family planning group. "Fred Thompson did not lobby for this group, period," he said in an e-mail.
In a telephone interview, he added: "There's no documents to prove it, there's no billing records, and Thompson says he has no recollection of it, says it didn't happen." In a separate interview, John H. Sununu, the White House official whom the family planning group wanted to contact, said he had no memory of the lobbying and doubted it took place.
The response is ... odd. The National Family Planning and Reproductive Health Assn. produced the minutes of a 1991 board meeting that say the group hired Thompson to lobby on the group's behalf. Judith DeSarno, who was president of the family planning association at the time, said Thompson lobbied for the group for several months, and noted the multiple meetings and conversations she had with Thompson about his progress in lobbying for her cause. What's more, the LA Times spoke to "three other people [who] recalled Thompson lobbying against the rule on behalf of the family planning association."
Former Rep. Michael D. Barnes (D-Md.), Thompson's former law-firm colleague, helped connect Thompson to the family-planning group in the first place, and said it was "absolutely bizarre" for Thompson to deny his lobbying work.
"I talked to him while he was doing it, and I talked to [DeSarno] about the fact that she was very pleased with the work that he was doing for her organization," Barnes said. "I have strong, total recollection of that. This is not something I dreamed up or she dreamed up. This is fact."
If Thompson wanted to make the Hinderaker-like argument that he took on a client with which he disagreed, he could try to make the case and hope the Dobson crowd bought it. But it's far more peculiar for Thompson to simply deny the work outright.
Getting away with lobbying for a pro-choice client is an awkward hurdle. Getting caught lying about it can dog a presidential campaign for quite a while.
--Steve Benen
Eleanor Clift points to the 'tell' that still hasn't gotten enough attention ...
Fitzgerald said he wasn’t able to uncover the conspiracy because of all the sand thrown in his eyes by Libby to obstruct the investigation. Looking back at the trial, it was as inevitable as night following day that President Bush would find a way to get Libby off the hook. The fix was in when Libby’s high-priced legal team mounted a curiously passive defense. After pointing to Vice President Cheney as an instigator in the Plame naming, hinting they might even call the veep to testify, they abruptly backed off, slow-walking Libby toward conviction with no alibi for his lies other than that he didn’t remember. As legal eagles, they didn’t impress, but they did preserve the pardon option.
There was a promise: you'll never do a day in jail.
And metaphorically at least, as the trial got underway, he got it in writing.
--Josh Marshall
Bye, Fred ...
(From the LAT ... )
Fred D. Thompson, who is campaigning for president as an antiabortion Republican, accepted an assignment from a family-planning group to lobby the first Bush White House to ease a controversial abortion restriction, according to a 1991 document and several people familiar with the matter.A spokesman for the former Tennessee senator denied that Thompson did the lobbying work. But the minutes of a 1991 board meeting of the National Family Planning and Reproductive Health Assn. say that the group hired Thompson that year.
His task was to urge the administration of President George H. W. Bush to withdraw or relax a rule that barred abortion counseling at clinics that received federal money, according to the records and to people who worked on the matter.
--Josh Marshall
The meme spreads! New York Sun picks up on the universal healthcare/terrorism link.
--Josh Marshall
Poll finds 45% of adults support initiating impeachment proceedings against George W. Bush, 54% support pursuing impeachment of Cheney.
--Paul Kiel
Beautiful. The nutball meme spreads.
Now from MSNBC: Terrorism one of the "unintended consequences of universal healthcare."
First heard on Fox yesterday.
Late Update: It's one of the features of our age that there's a very fine line separating ideas that are too silly to even take note of and ones that quickly began to have a real effect on the public policy debate. Here we have one that clearly should be in the former category but is more likely in the latter. So if you see this line of reasoning popping up on the web or on tv, please let us know.
--Josh Marshall
Sen. Chuck Hagel (R-NE) offers the extremely rare criticism from a GOPer of Bush's commutation of Libby's sentence, calling it "unfortunate."
--Paul Kiel
There's a pretty high bar on posts that note dishonest links on Drudge's website. But TPM Reader DP correctly notes that the top headline "Hillary Clinton's Former Campaign Finance Director Indicted ..." is to a story that ran in 2005.
By the way: President Resigns!
--Josh Marshall
Conservative appeals judge dismisses the ACLU's suit based on the plaintiffs' ground to sue.
Update: We originally mistakenly attributed the dissenting opinion, which found the president's Terrorist Surveillance Program to be illegal, to the majority opinion.
--Paul Kiel
The McCain campaign continues to downsize. That and other political news of the day in today's Election Central Morning Roundup.
--Paul Kiel
Today's Must Read: the White House bemoans its fate of being subject to Congressional oversight.
--Paul Kiel
Jim Sleeper offers a timely takedown of Time Magazine's "apologia-cum-hagiography on Rupert Murdoch."
--Andrew Golis
The Business: Rupert Murdoch succeeds in $5 billion bid for Dow Jones. Via The Guardian.
--Paul Kiel
Who's Jerry Bowyer?
Can anyone tell me more about Jerry Bowyer from National Review Online? He's the guy in the video below who went on Fox today and chatted with Neil Cavuto about how having a single payer health care system will make us more vulnerable to terrorism. Where do they find these guys? Did I just not watch Fox closely enough in the past?
Is he on these shows a lot? Has anyone heard this argument before?
Late Update: Hmmm. Seems someone's already done some digging.
--Josh Marshall
Andrew Sullivan's got a really quite hilarious post flagging the latest tripe from Marty Peretz about the Libby GOOJFC -- Get Out of Jail Free Card (TM). Peretz says from start to finish the case was politically motivated. And certainly he has plenty of company on the right with ridiculousness.
Says Peretz ...
the appointment of the special prosecutor, the prosecutor's own obsessions, the case itself with the doubtful and understandably doubtful but diverse memories of many witnesses, including the defendant, the especially harsh sentence pronounced by the judge, the refusal of the appellate court to continue Libby on bail - all of these were politically motivated.
This actually puts a finger on the key point in this whole drama. The case had profound political overtones. And certainly there are no end of people in the country who became deeply invested in this case who normally wouldn't get overly bent out of shape about a run-of-the-mill perjury and obstruction case -- which, at least narrowly speaking, this is.
But Libby never found his fate in one of those people's hands. Not once. There's just no getting around that point.
Go down the list.
1. Attorney General John Ashcroft. Decided a special prosecutor was needed and then recused himself from the decision because of his proximity to the probable targets of the investigation.
2. James Comey. Yes, he's the darling of the Dems now because he spilled the beans about the hospital stand-off. But Comey is, dare we say it, a REPUBLICAN. And not just any Republican but a pretty tough law-and-order type who only months earlier had been appointed Deputy Attorney General by President Bush. He had it in for Scooter? He let his partisanship get in the way?
3. Patrick Fitzgerald. Again, a darling of the Dems now for obvious reasons. But anyone who knows the guy's history knows that while this registered independent may not lean ideologically right (in the way movement whacks might recognize) he certainly doesn't lean to the left. It's no accident that his appointments have come under Republicans.
4. Judge Reggie Walton. Let's start with this: He was appointed by George W. Bush. And if that doesn't do it for you, he was appointed to previous judicial appointments by Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush.
A mere calling of the roll like this puts into a razor-sharp relief just how silly these claims are. At every step in the process Libby's fate was in the hands of someone who was either himself a staunch Republican or had been repeatedly appointed by staunch Republicans. The only thing is that no one ever passed him off into the hands a Bush loyalist. And that's the key. Alberto Gonzales never got the hand-off. Whatever else you can claim about this case, it's about as clear as it can be that partisan politics played no role in Libby's fate.
Now, one other point on a somewhat related matter. In a strange sort of way Rich Lowry and I now appear to agree that President Bush's commutation is without any rationale whatsoever. Needless to say, he now says it should have been a full pardon. But we're on the same wavelength to the degree that we agree that the commutation makes no sense.
As I wrote just after the news broke, there would at least be a logic, though I think a very poor one, for a pardon. You just say, it's all about politics. The whole case is illegitimate. And I the president am exercising my constitutional power to wipe the judicial slate clean. Period. I think it's a bogus argument. But it is not an illogical argument.
But President Bush says the prosecution, the prosecutor, the judge and the juries verdict are all legitimate. He doesn't second guess any of them. He just thinks Libby shouldn't go to jail, even though that's the normal punishment for the crime. There's no way of understanding this other than to conclude either that the president simply likes Scooter Libby and -- as many of us would -- doesn't want to see him have to go to prison or that Libby could provide testimony incriminating people in the White House, including the president, and that that is a risk President Bush is not willing to take.
Wipe all the chatter away and there's only one argument for what happened here.
He's our guy; we've got the power; so go f--k yourself.
That's the argument.
--Josh Marshall
The indictment can't be far off: Doolittle wants US troops out of combat in Iraq.
--Josh Marshall
Ahhh, I guess it was only a matter of time.
Fox News goofball Neil Cavuto explains why universal health care programs are a leading source of terrorism.
Private health care seems to be the right prescription for a secure homeland.
--Josh Marshall
I think Tony Snow and the president need some help. Snow is out there saying that President Clinton has chutzpah for criticizing President Bush's commutation of Scooter Libby.
But this really isn't that complicated.
Setting aside whether Scooter Libby should spend 0 days in jail for what most people spend from 1 to 3 years in jail, the key here is that it's inappropriate for the president to pardon or commute a sentence in a case in which he (i.e., the president) is a party to the same underlying crime. Because it amounts to obstruction of justice.
It's really not that complicated.
--Josh Marshall
Giuliani spreads his campaign to more states. That and other political news of the day in today's Election Central Happy Hour Roundup.
--Paul Kiel
John Solomon and WaPo's editors mislead their readers in order to portray interview with Edwards' hair stylist as "news."
--Greg Sargent
What are they actually going to do? Sen. Harry Reid (D-NV) wants to know too.
--Paul Kiel
Domenici the latest to bail out on President Bush's Iraq policy.
Late Update: Atrios makes a good point on this. Like Lugar, Voinovich, et al., what's he actually going to do? This will come down to very polarized votes about forcing the president's hand. That's when we'll know how serious these folks are. For my part, I was expecting his new policy idea to be that he wanted to send David Iglesias there to see if he could work things out. But apparently he didn't propose that.
--Josh Marshall
Waxman ramps up congressional scrutiny of construction of U.S. embassy in Baghdad.
--Paul Kiel
As was no doubt intended, some of the conversation and controversy over the Libby commutation (perhaps it would be more euphonious to just say the Libby get-out-of-jail-free card) was overtaken by the July 4th celebrations. So for today's episode of TPMtv we went back and found some of the choicer moments of right-wing praise-the-lording over President Bush's decision to save Scooter from the slammer.
My favorite moment actually comes at about 50 seconds in where CNN's Candy Crowley explains that this was the president splitting the difference and how no one on either side was really satisfied with the decision.
I've been sworn to secrecy on this. But between us, among insiders it's well known that Crowley's on-air commentary is controlled by a subcutaneous implant which receives radio waves from a type script to brain wave conversion device located in Karl Rove's top left hand desk drawer.
--Josh Marshall
Great moments in the rule of law. From today's press briefing ...
Question: Scott, is Scooter Libby getting more than equal justice under the law? Is he getting special treatment?Scott Stanzel: Well, I guess I don't know what you mean by equal justice under the law.
Ahhhh, that really does sum it up, don't it?
Update: More here from the briefing.
--Josh Marshall
When legal efforts are exhausted, reformers hit the streets. Mark Schmitt notes the promising shift towards "political reform with people in it."
--Andrew Golis
Another one? Sen. Pete Domenici (R-NM) to announce change in his Iraq policy.
--Paul Kiel
Tony Snow accuses Hillary Clinton of having a "gigantic case" of "chutzpah" for questioning Bush's commutation of Libby. Full transcript here.
--Paul Kiel
Details here on that House Judiciary Committee hearing planned for next week on Libby's commutation. Meanwhile, defense lawyers around the country get ready to argue that their client should get the same justice as Scooter Libby.
--Paul Kiel
Hmmmm. Nixon had his own Deep Throat. And it turns out it was none other than Fred Thompson, who was minority counsel on the Watergate investigations committee and it seems repeatedly gave Nixon's lawyers advance notice on the committee's actions.
No wonder the Bushies are so into him.
--Josh Marshall
Today's Must Read: Gov. Schwarzenegger erases the last doubt that he's a bona fide American politician by arranging for a nonprofit to pay for his luxurious travel.
--Paul Kiel
Fred Thompson's glorious past as mole for the Nixon White House on the Senate Watergate Committee. That and other political news of the day in today's Election Central Morning Roundup.
--Paul Kiel
Mitt Romney comes down from the mountaintop of his primordial phoneyhood to reveal himself as an abysmal hypocrite.
Romney says the Libby commutation was "reasonable" but ...
As governor, Romney twice rejected a pardon for Anthony Circosta, who at age 13 was convicted of assault for shooting another boy in the arm with a BB gun - a shot that didn't break the skin. Circosta worked his way through college, joined the Army National Guard and led a platoon of 20 soldiers in Iraq's deadly Sunni triangle.In 2005, as he was serving in Iraq, he sought a pardon to fulfill his dream of becoming a police officer.
In his presidential bid, Romney often proudly points out that he was the first governor in modern Massachusetts history to deny every request for a pardon or commutation during his four years in office. He says he refused pardons because he didn't want to overturn a jury.
During the four years Romney was in office, 100 requests for commutations and 172 requests for pardons were filed in the state. All were denied.
--Josh Marshall
Election Central July 4th Roundup
John McCain's struggling presidential campaign may accept federal matching funds, but the attached strings may end up hurting his chances as much as they help. That and other political news of the day in today's Election Central July 4th Roundup.
--Steve Benen
Happy Fourth of July from everyone at TPM!
Here's our special July 4th episode of TPMtv about the 4th, America, Iraq, WMD ... well, like the title says, the big picture ...
--Josh Marshall
Fun Article: It's now the time of the year when nutso Sturgeon unpredictably jump out of the water and injure recreational boaters and jet skiers on Florida's Suwannee River.
Sign ...
Be AwareBoaters have been seriously injured from impacts with these jumping fish.
Large sturgeon jump in the river during the summer and fall months.
Reduce Speed to Reduce Risk of Impact!
Sturgeon can grow to 8 feet and weigh up to 200 pounds. They are a protected species and cannot be harvested. To report sturgeon collisions call 1-888-404-FWCC (3922).
--Josh Marshall
CNN front page headline: "Giuliani tops '08 race fundraising."
Guess they missed the Obama and HRC numbers.
--Josh Marshall
Happy News: BBC journalist Alan Johnston, held hostage in Gaza since March 12, is released.
--Josh Marshall
Dennis Kucinich to keynote a convention of political cartoonists. That and other political news of the day in today's Election Central Happy Hour Roundup.
--Andrew Golis
Today the Republican field's fundraising numbers are in for the quarter -- and Rudy Guiliani takes it with $17 million, up on Mitt Romney's $14 million.
--Paul Kiel
Ahhh, yesterday when we were young and Bush still wanted to get to the bottom of the CIA leak case, a little walk down (video) memory lane in today's episode of TPMtv. You'll want to see this one ...
--Josh Marshall
SecDef Bob Gates wants to trade with the Dem Congress: long-term presence in Iraq for a near-term troop drawdown.
--Paul Kiel
There are just too many ways to pick apart the hollowness, the transparency of President Bush's fear-based commutation of Scooter Libby's sentence. Thirty months was apparently 'excessive', despite the fact that this is what the federal sentencing guidelines recommend and numerous people are thus today sitting in prison under a similarly excessive term.
But, okay, let's say it's excessive. What would be appropriate? One year? Six months? A month? Can anyone really say that the prosecution was legitimate (which the president does) and that the verdict was legitimate (which the president does) and that probation with no jail time is the appropriate penalty?
Paris Hilton did more time than Scooter Libby.
The whole thing is just too transparent. To borrow the Army phrase, President Bush wasn't willing to let Libby make first contact with the federal prison system. There's only one argument that makes sense of this decision: no jail time. That's the argument. Scooter's price. Otherwise, he might have been tempted to go the Fitzgerald route to reduce his sentence.
--Josh Marshall
Tony Snow explains Bush's Solomonic decision -- you "need to respect the jury system," you see. It's just judges, apparently, who don't require such respect.
--Paul Kiel
From this morning's press briefing, Tony Snow says that he won't "close the door" for a possible pardon for Libby somewhere down the road.
--Paul Kiel
TPM Reader AR ...
It seems pretty clear to me that Bush would not be taking nearly as much heat if he'd waited for Libby to do some time in prison. So why the hurry? Was the hurry because Bush wanted to take no chance that Libby would start talking? I think it is likely it was. And that is the approach the Dems should take in keeping this story in the news: What is Bush so determined to keep hidden? The Dems can sound compassionate and reasonable by suggesting a commutation after some time in prison would not have been unreasonable. That there must be some good reason why Bush is willing to take so much political heat.
--Josh Marshall
The administration floats an exit strategy for closing down Guantanamo Bay. The devil's in the details.
--Paul Kiel
Another point I'm obliged to make.
Here on the Times Oped page you'll see David Brooks column claiming that the information Joe Wilson brought before the public four years ago turned out to all be a crock, a bunch of lies. And we'll let Brooks' scribble be a stand-in for what you will hear universally today from the right -- namely, that just as Scooter Libby was charged with perjury and not the underlying crime of burning an American spy, the deeper underlying offense, the lie about uranium from Africa, didn't even exist -- that at the end of the day it was revealed that Wilson's claims, which started the whole train down the tracks, were discredited as lies.
You'll even hear softer versions of this claim from mainstream media outlets not normally considered part of the rump of American conservatism.
There aren't many subjects on which I claim expertise. But this is one of them. I think I know the details of this one -- both the underlying story of the forgeries and their provenance and the epi-story of Wilson and Plame -- as well as any journalist who's written about the story. The Fitzgerald investigation is probably the part of it I know the least about, comparatively. (It is also incumbent on me to say that in the course of reporting on this story over these years I've gotten to know Joe Wilson fairly well. And I consider him a friend.)
And with that knowledge, I have to say that the claim that Wilson's charges have been discredited, disproved or even meaningfully challenged is simply false. What he said on day one is all true. It's really as simple as that.
There's a tendency, even among too many people of good faith and good politics, to shy away from asserting and admitting this simple fact because Wilson has either gone on too many TV shows or preened too much in some photo shoot. But that is disreputable and shameful. The entire record of this story has been under a systematic, unfettered and, sadly, largely unresisted attack from the right for four years. Key facts have been buried under an avalanche of misinformation. The then-chairman of the senate intelligence committee made his committee an appendage of the White House and himself the president's bawd and issued a report built on intentional falsehood and misdirection.
No one is perfect. The key dividing line is who's telling the truth and who's lying. Wilson is on the former side, his critics the latter. Everything else is triviality.
From day one this story has been about official lies -- corrupt power buttressed by fraud. Along the way it became a story about the president's hireling commentators who lost their honor by becoming part of the fraud. What Wilson said was true. His attackers are all parties to the same lie. Don't forget that.
--Josh Marshall
Hillary campaigns with Bill in Iowa. That and other political news of the day in today's Election Central Morning Roundup.
--Paul Kiel
Today's Must Read: the donors to Libby's defense trust ($5 million strong) rejoice!
--Paul Kiel
Many others will note this but I feel obliged to do so for the record. The real offense here is not so much or not simply that the president has spared Scooter Libby the punishment that anyone else would have gotten for this crime (for what it's worth, I actually find the commutation more outrageous than a full pardon). The deeper offense is that the president has used his pardon power to shortcircuit the investigation of a crime to which he himself was quite likely a party, and to which, his vice president, who controls him, certainly was.
The president's power to pardon is full and unchecked, one of the few such powers given the president in the constitution. Yet here the president has used it to further obstruct justice. In a sense, perhaps we should thank the president for bringing the matter full circle. Began with criminality, ends with it.
--Josh Marshall
Sheesh, even the right-wing Post oped page thinks the commutation was "not defensible." Talk about over-shooting your audience.
--Josh Marshall
Bummer for this dude (USAToday, June 21, 2007) ...
The Supreme Court made it harder Thursday for most defendants to challenge their federal prison sentences.Appeals courts that review prison terms imposed by trial judges may deem them reasonable if they fall within federal sentencing guidelines adopted in the mid-1980s, the high court said.
The justices upheld a 33-month sentence given to Victor Rita for perjury and making false statements. Rita is a 25-year military veteran and former civilian federal employee.
The prison term falls within the guidelines range and was upheld by the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, posing the question of whether sentences within the guidelines ordinarily will be considered reasonable.
From ABC: "Rita had sought a sentence lower than 33 months, based on his physical condition -- he has diabetes and other illnesses -- his likely vulnerability in prison and his military service in Vietnam and in Operation Desert Storm."
--Josh Marshall
I hate to rain on the all Libby all the time parade, but there's something else you should know about, something which might be no less important.
In various posts over the last couple years I've pointed to the as-yet-too-little-investigated Pentagon dimension of the Duke Cunningham 
scandal. In brief, the Cunningham case appears to tie directly to efforts by top ranking Pentagon appointees, around and including Stephen Cambone, to set up their own domestic surveillance and spying operations. Key contracts for the CIFA (Counterintelligence Field Activity) program went to Cunningham's bribers. And there is good reason to believe that politicals at the DOD choose to ignore Duke's crimes in exchange for help running their programs outside of the safeguards in place in the rest of the intelligence community, and quite likely well outside the bounds of American law. In short, a big part of the scam may have been that Duke and his crooked pals got big bucks in exchange for helping Bush-appointees at the DOD spy on American citizens.
Now, one of these DOD programs was something called TALON (Threat and Local Observation Notice), a program to collect information on Americans involved in anti-war protests. This evening I saw this post from Emptywheel which discusses the recently release Pentagon IG report on the program (released June 27th).
There's quite a lot of interest contained in the report. But emptywheel immediately fixes on the key finding, or rather impediment to findings. In the report's words, "all TALON reports were deleted from their database in June 2006 with no archives."
In other words, right about the time the Cunningham prosecutors started seriously looking into this dimension of the case, and around the time information was starting to come out about the DOD's domestic 'surveillance' operations, somehow the entire record of the TALON program, every report that had been collected, was scrubbed.
--Josh Marshall