NYT: Impeach Gonzales
Not that he should be fired. The Times editorial in tomorrow's paper says he should be impeached if Paul Clement, who for a complicated set of reasons is acting AG in this matter, doesn't appoint a special prosecutor to investigate Gonzales' numerous and increasingly overlapping bad acts.
Leave it to President Bush to take us down so many unexplored and untrodden cul-de-sacs and byways of the US Constitution. Judges have been impeached with relative frequency, if we consider the two-plus centuries of history under the US Constitution. And this makes sense since there are quite a few federal judges, no one can fire them, and they have lifetime tenure; they can only be impeached.
In practice we've impeached three presidents, though technically Nixon wasn't impeached because his resignation short-circuited the process which had already commenced.
But to the best of my knowledge only one cabinet secretary has ever been impeached, Secretary of War William Belknap in 1876. And what is highly relevant for the present discussion is that this was after Belknap had resigned from office. According to the historian of the senate, "Belknap, tipped off in advance that a House committee had unearthed information implicating him in the acceptance of bribes in return for lucrative Indian trading posts, rushed to the White House and tearfully begged President Ulysses Grant to accept his resignation at ten o'clock on the morning of March 2, 1876. Around three o'clock that afternoon, representatives, furious at both the president and Belknap for thwarting them, impeached Belknap by voice vote anyway."
So this means that in almost 220 years of history under the constitution, the impeachment power has never been used to remove a cabinet secretary from office. Not once. And that's really saying something. But the reason isn't that hard to figure given the structure of our government. The normal course when a cabinet secretary has been implicated in grave wrongdoing or has lost the confidence of the overwhelming number of senators (which I think he clearly has, though partisan loyalty has kept many Republicans from saying it) is for him or her to resign. And if they won't see fit to resign the president fires them since if nothing else the person can't fulfill the responsibilities of office under those debilitating circumstances.
But then there is the big 'unless'.
Unless the president is party to the wrongdoing that placed the cabinet secretary in jeopardy. And that is clearly the case we have here, which explains the historical anomaly that the possibility of Gonzales' impeachment is even a topic of serious conversation.
Of course, here, as we've noted before, there is an extra wrinkle. Gonzales isn't any cabinet secretary -- not the Secretary of State or Interior. He's the Attorney General, which means that he's the one that can and is bottling up numerous investigations into the president and his appointees. Because the senate will never give the president another Gonzales, the man is literally irreplaceable.
--Josh Marshall
Data Mining
As you can see, we now have the first hint of what was at the center of the Ashcroft hospital room showdown. According to the New York Times, what the White House calls the 'terrorist surveillance [i.e., warrantless wiretap] program' originally included some sort of largescale data mining.
I don't doubt that this is true as far as it goes. But this must only scratch the surface because, frankly, at least as presented, this just doesn't account for the depth of the controversy or the fact that so many law-and-order DOJ types were willing to resign over what was happening. Something's missing.
Of course, 'data mining' can mean virtually anything. What kind of data and whose you're looking at makes all the difference in the world. Suggestively, the Times article includes this cryptic passage: "Some of the officials said the 2004 dispute involved other issues in addition to the data mining, but would not provide details. They would not say whether the differences were over how the databases were searched or how the resulting information was used."
To put this into perspective, remember that the White House has been willing to go to the public and make a positive argument for certain surveillance procedures (notably evasion of the FISA Court strictures) which appear to be illegal on their face. This must be much more serious and apparently something all but the most ravenous Bush authoritarians would never accept. It is supposedly no longer even happening and hasn't been for a few years. So disclosing it could not jeopardize a program. The only reason that suggests itself is that the political and legal consequences of disclosure are too grave to allow.
Late Update: The Post has a follow story on the data mining issue. It covers most of the same ground but hints a little more directly about possible interception of emails and phone calls. The article suggests that examination of "metadata" was the issue here. But, again, it doesn't fit. The intensity of the covering up doesn't match the alleged secret.
--Josh Marshall
In the 1980s, the Reagan administration sold fighter jets to Saudi Arabia, sparking a considerable controversy about Israel and a regional arms build-up.
In 2007, just as we're learning about the aid Saudi Arabia is giving to Sunni militias in Iraq, the Bush administration is planning a large arms deal with the president's long-time allies.
The Bush administration is preparing to ask Congress to approve an arms sale package for Saudi Arabia and its neighbors that is expected to eventually total $20 billion at a time when some United States officials contend that the Saudis are playing a counterproductive role in Iraq.
The proposed deal, which includes advanced weaponry for Saudi Arabia, has raised eyebrows, but administration officials hope to resolve concerns by promising Israel $30.4 billion in military aid over the next decade, which would represent a significant increase over the assistance Israel received over the last 10 years.
But the amusing part of the news is this: "The Saudis had requested that Congress be told about the planned sale, the officials said, in an effort to avoid the kind of bruising fight on Capitol Hill that occurred in the 1980s over proposed arms sales to the kingdom."
In other words, what does it take to get the Bush administration to communicate with a Democratic Congress about matters of foreign policy? Directives from the Saudis.
Good to know.
--Steve Benen
Conflating all our enemies into one
In reviewing Ian Shapiro's new book, Containment: Rebuilding a Strategy Against Global Terror, Samantha Powers emphasizes a point that has been completely lost on Republican presidential candidates (and the man they hope to replace):
Shapiro is at his most persuasive when he argues against lumping Islamic radical threats together. He points out that at the time of the cold war, George Kennan, the formulator of the containment policy, warned against treating Communism as a monolith. Policy makers, Kennan said, ought to emphasize the differences among and within Communist groups and "contribute to the widening of these rifts without assuming responsibility." The Bush administration, by contrast, has grouped together a hugely diverse band of violent actors as terrorists, failing to employ divide-and-conquer tactics.
Although it is tempting to feel overwhelmed by the diversity of the threats aligned against the United States, Shapiro says that very diversity presents us with opportunities, since it "creates tensions among our adversaries’ agendas, as well as openings for competition among them." To pry apart violent Islamic radicals, the United States has to become knowledgeable about internal cleavages and be patient in exploiting them. Arguably, this is what American forces in Iraq are doing belatedly -- and perilously -- as they undertake the high-risk approach of turning Sunni ex-Baathists against Qaeda forces.
Kevin Drum notes that this is "the serious side of dumb gaffes from people like Rudy Giuliani, who seem unable to distinguish between even simple divisions like Sunni and Shia." That's absolutely true, but it's not just Giuliani who's confused about the basics.
For example, in the first Republican presidential candidates' debate in May, Mitt Romney tried to explain how he perceives threats to the U.S. from the Middle East: "This is about Shi'a and Sunni. This is about Hezbollah and Hamas and al Qaeda and the Muslim Brotherhood. This is the worldwide jihadist effort to try and cause the collapse of all moderate Islamic governments and replace them with a caliphate. They also probably want to bring down the United States of America."
It seemed to impress the Republican faithful, but it didn't make a lot of sense. Muslim Brotherhood and al Qaeda, for example, have nothing to do with one another. The latter is a terrorist organization; the prior has renounced violent jihad and, in some countries, participated in elections.
At a subsequent debate, Wolf Blitzer asked Mike Huckabee whether he has confidence in Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki. Huckabee responded with a semi-coherent argument about the Taliban in Afghanistan. The connection to Maliki was unclear.
Giuliani, running on a foreign-policy platform, has been more confused than anyone, conflating every possible rival in the Middle East as one dangerous entity. At a recent debate, he connected Iran to the Fort Dix plot for no apparent reason. Around the same time, he gave up appreciating the nuances of Middle East politics altogether, concluding that the region is filled with those who "have a similar objective, in their anger at the modern world." In other words, Giuliani said, they all hate America.
Maybe we should chip in and buy a copy of Shapiro's book for the GOP candidates. It sounds like they could use a refresher.
--Steve Benen
In a new poll, 42% of respondents agree -- versus 34% who disagree -- with Obama's declaration that he would meet with leaders of hostile nations without preconditions. That and other political news of the day in today's Election Central Saturday Roundup.
--Greg Sargent
Part of Gen. David Petraeus' job in Iraq is pressuring Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki. Apparently, heads of state don't care for marching orders from generals from other countries, so it's caused a little bit of a strain on their professional relationship.
OK, more than a little.
A key aide says Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's relations with U.S. commander Gen. David Petraeus are so poor the Iraqi leader may ask Washington the withdraw the well-regarded U.S. military leader from duty here.
The Iraqi foreign minister calls the relationship "difficult." ... U.S. Ambassador Ryan Crocker, who meets together with al-Maliki and Petraeus at least weekly, concedes "sometimes there are sporty exchanges."
Al-Maliki has spoken sharply -- not of Petraeus or Crocker personally -- but about their tactic of welcoming Sunni militants into the fight against al-Qaida forces in Anbar and Diyalah provinces.
First, if the U.S. policy of arming Sunni militias is exacerbating the strained relations, Maliki probably won't like the fact that the administration has decided to do more of this, not less.
Second, if the relationship has deteriorated as poorly as the article suggests, would the White House seriously pull Petraeus from Iraq? After basing most of the existing policy on Bush's confidence in the general?
--Steve Benen
It's not a 'coup'
A couple of days ago, Sen. Arlen Specter (R-Pa.), the ranking Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee, raised a few eyebrows when he announced his intention to review confirmation-hearing testimony from Supreme Court Justices John Roberts and Samuel Alito.
Specter said he wants to "determine if their reversal of several long-standing opinions conflicts with promises they made to senators to win confirmation." The implication wasn't subtle -- the Republican senator was suggesting that the justices were less than candid so they could dupe senators into supporting their confirmation.
In a similar vein, Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), also a Judiciary Committee member, said yesterday that he wants lawmakers to be far less accommodating, should Bush have another chance to nominate a high court justice.
"We should reverse the presumption of confirmation," Schumer told the American Constitution Society convention in Washington. "The Supreme Court is dangerously out of balance. We cannot afford to see Justice Stevens replaced by another Roberts, or Justice Ginsburg by another Alito." [...]
Senators were too quick to accept the nominees' word that they would respect legal precedents, and "too easily impressed with the charm of Roberts and the erudition of Alito," Schumer said.
"There is no doubt that we were hoodwinked," said Schumer, who sits on the Senate Judiciary Committee and heads the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee.
One can certainly debate whether Schumer and other Democratic senators were aggressive enough with Roberts and Alito, but given recent history, Schumer's approach hardly seems radical. He wants to reverse the burden of proof on an untrustworthy White House -- instead of starting with an assumption that the nominee deserves to be confirmed, Schumer is recommending a more intense skepticism.
John Hinderaker suggests that Democrats are engaged in an "unconstitutional usurpation of power." Schumer, Hinderaker adds, is advocating a "coup" and a "change in the Constitution."
Alas, he did not appear to be kidding.
--Steve Benen
Stampeding Elephants - Redux
Team Romney explains why their candidate won't attend a nationally-televised debate in arguably the nation's biggest swing state, sponsored by the Republican Party of Florida:
Mr. Madden said the Romney campaign's decision not to participate was "not a question of format, it's a question of our travel schedule."
Still, Mr. Madden said, "a lot of Americans would wonder whether we should be answering questions from a cartoon."
That's persuasive, isn't it? The YouTube format is irrelevant, and by the way, we find the format offensive and frivolous.
The fun part now is trying to figure out what these Republican presidential hopefuls are so afraid of. There are a variety of competing theories.
* The Bubble must be protected -- Josh wondered if "the current Bush Republican party is so beholden to a worldview based on denial and suppression of evidence that exposure to unpredictable questions presents too great a danger."
* The GOP base is scary, even to the GOP -- Tim F. noted that the Dems' debate featured questions from the liberal base, but the far-right base is much scarier. "The idea of stringing up liberals, war critics, apostate Republicans as traitors seeps into every forum. They love torture, they hate civil rights and long ago the right's mainstream leaders declared the entire religion of Islam a free-fire zone. Better still, six years of holding government in a headlock has left these guys with a sense that they're entitled to say all this without apology or self-consciousness." If they're asking the questions, maybe the candidates don't want to be there to hear them.
* Democracy, schmocracy -- Andrew Sullivan suggested that the GOP is "a party uncomfortable with the culture and uncomfortable with democracy," so a debate with questions from regular people doesn't suit the party's worldview.
* Shameless elitism -- Steve M. argued that the GOP wants to avoid the riff-raff. "The questioners in the Democratic YouTube debate were sometimes a bit insolent and not always properly groomed. A true modern Republican leader can't tolerate being sassed at by a person like that; it would be like the Generalissimo of a banana republic allowing a peasant to mock his epaulets and riding crop. Giuliani and Romney, in particular, are trying to project an aura of contempt for the scum who disagree with them."
For what it's worth, several prominent Republican bloggers have started Savethedebate.com, hoping to persuade the party's candidates to participate in the event. Of course, if the presidential hopefuls are anxious to avoid questions from regular folks, it stands to reason they won't much care about a petition drive, either.
--Steve Benen
A 'progressive' resurgence?
In every national poll in recent memory, "liberal" always polls below "moderate" and "conservative." It's reinforced the notion that center-right politics have been in ascendance for quite some time.
But Rasmussen Reports had an interesting survey this week, which showed that when "liberal" is replaced with "progressive," the broader dynamic changes significantly. According to the poll, 35% consider "progressive" a positive description of a candidate, whereas 32% consider "conservative" a positive label. In other words, the left's label is now more popular than the right's.
It stands to reason, then, that conservatives, after having tarnished "liberal," are going to have to take on the newer, more popular, label for the left. As Kevin Drum noted, NRO's Yuval Levin got the ball rolling.
Progressivism, after all, has a very mixed history in American politics, which takes in not only efforts to reform labor laws, bust trusts, and create national parks but also some serious doses of racism, social Darwinism, eugenics, and a very strange mix of authoritarianism and out of control populism.
The Atlantic's Ross Douthat is also getting in on the fun.
I take Matt's point that "Progressive" is basically just a useful umbrella term for a left-of-center coalition. On the other hand, I'm not so sure that it's a coincidence that the revival of progressivism as a political label has coincided with a more strident secularism/atheism, a greater obsession with the supposed right-wing threat to "science" (read: left-wing policy preferences on stem cell research, cloning, genetic engineering, etc.), and a greater sympathy for Darwinism-as-a-universal-theory among thinkers associated with the political left.
Yes, Ross really did put "science" in quotation marks.
I suppose the left should consider all of this a warning shot -- "progressive" is poised to get a far-right work-over.
--Steve Benen
If You Build it, They Won't Come ...
Notes from the abyss, from the Times ...
Iraq’s national government is refusing to take possession of thousands of American-financed reconstruction projects, forcing the United States either to hand them over to local Iraqis, who often lack the proper training and resources to keep the projects running, or commit new money to an effort that has already consumed billions of taxpayer dollars.The conclusions, detailed in a report released Friday by the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction, a federal oversight agency, include the finding that of 2,797 completed projects costing $5.8 billion, Iraq’s national government had, by the spring of this year, accepted only 435 projects valued at $501 million.
...
The United States often promotes the number of rebuilding projects, like power plants and hospitals, that have been completed in Iraq, citing them as signs of progress in a nation otherwise fraught with violence and political stalemate. But closer examination by the inspector general’s office, headed by Stuart W. Bowen Jr., has found that a number of individual projects are crumbling, abandoned or otherwise inoperative only months after the United States declared that they had been successfully completed. The United States always intended to hand over projects to the Iraqi government when they were completed.
...
The process of transferring projects to Iraq “worked for a while,” Mr. Bowen said. But then the new government took over and installed its finance minister, Bayan Jabr, who has been a continuing center of controversy in his various government posts and is formally in charge of the transfers.
...
In one of the most recent cases, a $90 million project to overhaul two giant turbines at the Dora power plant in Baghdad failed after completion because employees at the plant did not know how to operate the turbines properly and the wrong fuel was used. The additional power is critically needed in Baghdad, where residents often have only a few hours of electricity a day.
--Josh Marshall
Biden whips out white glove, challenges Rudy to a debate over his "Dems are the party of losers" comment. That and other political news of the day in today's Election Central Happy Hour Roundup.
--Greg Sargent
Will They or Won't They?
Hindu organizations are asking presidential candidates and senators to denounce the protestors who disrupted the first ever Hindu opening prayer that was delivered in the senate earlier this month.
If you don't remember, it was the shameful moment captured in this video.
--Josh Marshall
Provided for Your Bamboozlement
Think FBI Chief Robert Mueller contradicted Alberto Gonzales yesterday on Capitol Hill?
Au Contraire! Says Tony Snow ...
--Josh Marshall
McCain -- like Romney -- sides with Clinton in dispute with Obama. That and other political news of the day in today's Election Central Morning Roundup.
--Greg Sargent
Today's Must Read
Was Pat Tillman murdered by his fellow soldiers in Afghanistan in 2004? New revelations make it appear an awful possibility.
--Spencer Ackerman
Stampeding Elephants
A few more clues on the GOP stampede from the Youtube/CNN debate. Apparently, of all the GOP candidates, only McCain and Ron Paul have signed on. Should be quite an evening.
--Josh Marshall
Running Scared?
Is this the reason Rudy is trying to deep-six the GOP YouTube debate? From TPM Reader KB ...
You realize why Rudy doesn't like the YouTube debate format, right? He doesn't want the NY fire fighter's to get a clean shot at him on national TV. Maybe Newt was right. Maybe pygmies is the perfect word...
Meanwhile TPM Reader MM has a different take. And while I think MM may be guilty of little insular thinking, I think he's also on to something. There's something very tooth and claw about where the GOP base is at the moment. And a lot of the signature GOP issues at the moment are ones that appear a lot more presentable in the talking head retelling than they do in the activist vernacular ...
One of the thoughts that occurred to me with regards to the Democratic Youtube debate was how weird the questions for the GOP candidates could potentially be. For the Democratic debates, most of the issues that are on the table are pretty mainstream, like healthcare and Iraq and poverty and global warming, and thus its pretty difficult for the standard rank-and-file member of the democratic base to ask them in an amusing viral format like Youtube and still come out as looking too bizarre (unless they happen to be a talking snowman). As far as issues like illegal immigration and "coercive interrogation techniques" go, how does one ask questions like this in a Youtube format in an amusing way? The differences between the GOP base and the political mainstream can seem less extreme when asked by someone like Wolf Blitzer, but if presented from the standard GOP rank-and-file member of the base, it seemed like a great way to show how unhinged the GOP has become on some of these issues. Personally, I'm surprised the GOP ever got close to agreeing to this format, and once the Democratic debate happened and showed the format in action, I didn't see how it could have been pulled off by the GOP.
--Josh Marshall
GOP: Youtube Too Scary for Us
It's looking like there might not be a GOP CNN/Youtube debate. Rudy appears to be opting out and Mitt Romney doesn't seem far behind. And GOP party functionary Hugh Hewitt is already laying down a line of covering fire for the retreat, arguing that CNN and Youtube are biased against Republicans.
"Liberal Bias", whatever else it once was, now appears to be the new Republican code word for any venue or events not controlled by Republican commisars like Hugh Hewitt along the lines of President Bush's notorious Social Security townhalls in which only certified flunkies who swore to a Bush loyalty oath were let into the room.
As I said here on the night of the debate, the CNN/Youtube debate wasn't perfect. And there were for my tastes a bit too many questions based on a rather cliched sort of viral video silliness. All told though I found it surprisingly successful in getting fresh questions into the mix and edging at least somewhat more candor out of the candidates than the usual fare.
I'm not sure whether the resistance is rooted is the profound feebleness of the current GOP field or the fact that the current Bush Republican party is so beholden to a worldview based on denial and suppression of evidence that exposure to unpredictable questions presents too great a danger. But if they can't face Youtube how can they defeat the terrorists?
--Josh Marshall
Program X
What a day. It's been hard to keep up. Between the Dems calling for a special prosecutor to investigate the attorney general this morning to Sen. Lisa Murkowski abandoning her riverfront property on the Kenai River (thanks to a little outfit called TPMmuckraker, which her staff claimed not to have heard of before now) to FBI Director Robert Mueller's testimony this afternoon, which was devastating to Alberto Gonzales.
But with all that going on, we wanted to dig a little deeper into Gonzales' statements about the Terrorist Surveillance Program which have plunged him into even deeper hot water with the Senate Judiciary Committee.
So Paul Kiel and Spencer Ackerman have put together a detailed post on the history of the NSA surveillance program and what precisely the Administration has said about it and what Gonzales' obfuscations may really be about. Call it a grand unified theory of the Gonzales perjury crisis and the warrantless surveillance program.
Go take a look.
--David Kurtz
TPM to MSM: Come On In! The Water Feels Fine!
It's been pretty clear for a while that Attorney General Alberto Gonzales has repeatedly lied to investigative committees on Capitol Hill. But yesterday he took that fateful step of making a false statement about an event in which there are multiple fact witnesses available to contradict him. Indeed, the falsehood was apparently so great that even fellow members of the administration like FBI Chief Robert Mueller felt bound to contradict him publicly.
Actually, there's even a little more to add: that is, yesterday was Gonzales' chance to revise what were actually past false statements. And he did not. He took the plunge again, fibbing -- even with a certain perverted consistency and honor -- right in the congressional lion's maw.
In any case, this is all being reported on very closely at TPMmuckraker. But I was curious to see that some major news outlets were at last coming around and pretty much telling this one how it is in their headlines. Some dragged kicking and screaming, I grant you. But at least a few glimmers of recognition.
So I thought I'd show some examples. And when you see others please send them in.
NYT: FBI Chief Challenges Gonzales' Testimony.
Interestingly, the article itself uses the more full-throated "contradicted" instead of the more anemic "challenged". But apparently the Times' editors want to ease folks into it.
The Post, at least on the front page, appears not to be covering the Mueller/Gonzales story, though I'm confident Fred Hiatt is working busily on a "Questions over Mueller's Credibility Mount" editorial. So we'll keep an eye out. (ed.note: 9:19 PM, The Post's up now and it's pretty good -- jmm)
CNN meanwhile appears to be going for a sort of editorial rope-a-dope with "FBI head apparently contradicts Gonzales".
Wow, okay. Gonzoles is in serious trouble. Sure it's buried down on the front page but Fox News, party organ of GOP bamboozlement, has "FBI Chief Contradicts Gonzales' Sworn Testimony." Frankly that's the hardest headline I've see so far. Alas, on the story page itself it's the quasi-bamboozling "FBI Chief Muddles Gonzales Sworn Testimony to Congress." But, hey, it's Fox. The frontpage headline may have been automated off the AP wire.
USAToday gets a little narrative action going with "Mueller contradicts Gonzales; Dems request special counsel."
Late Update: WaPo's got their piece up. And it's a dive right in the lake: "FBI Director Contradicts Gonzales Testimony"
--Josh Marshall
Rudy explains what makes him different from the Dem Presidential candidates on Iraq: "I'm for victory." That and other political news of the day in today's Election Central Happy Hour Roundup.
--Greg Sargent
Murkowski to Sell Back Riverfront Lot
The Anchorage Daily News is reporting that Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) plans to sell the Kenai River lot she purchased from politically connected developer Bob Penney back to Penney. The purchase was originally reported by TPMmuckraker's Laura McGann last week.
The Anchorage paper reports:
Murkowski announced the give back a day after a Washington watchdog group filed a 15-page Senate ethics complaint against her, alleging that Penney sold the property well below market value. The transaction amounted to an illegal gift worth between $70,000 and $170,000, depending on how the property was valued, according to the complaint by the National Legal and Policy Center.Murkowski told reporters in her Capitol office this morning that Penney, a real estate developer who does business in Alaska and Outside, has agreed to buy back the property for the $179,400 purchase price she and husband Verne Martell paid Dec. 22, 2006.
We have the full rundown on the Murkowski deal at TPMtv and a compilation of Laura McGann's reporting at TPMmuckraker.
--David Kurtz
Mueller Testifies
FBI Director Robert Mueller is testifying this afternoon before the House Judiciary Committee. Spencer Ackerman is providing updates at TPMmuckraker. Among other things, Mueller is being asked about that late night meeting at John Ashcroft's hospital bedside. We'll have more on that soon.
--David Kurtz
'Jelly Roll' Gonzales
Seattle Times: "Attorney General Alberto Gonzales portrays himself as the piano player in the bordello, unaware of what is going on around him." [Via the KC Star, which has a cute cartoon.]
--David Kurtz
Big Fish
Having a hard time understanding all the details about how Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) paid half price for a prime plot of land on one of Alaska fishing rivers from Bob Penney, the same Alaska wheeler-dealer who's tied to the investigation of Sen. Stevens (R-AK)? We know it's hard to keep up. So we've got all the details here for you in today's epsidoe of TPMtv ...
Late Update: Wouldn't you know it, turns out Murkowski had to catch and release.
--Josh Marshall
Rove Subpoenaed
The Senate Judiciary has issued a subpoena to Karl Rove for him to testify regarding his role in the U.S. Attorneys purge. Obviously, the White House will cite executive privilege and refuse to make Rove available, so we're not going to see Rove under the kleig lights anytime soon. But it's another step toward a long overdue confrontation in the courts on the true scope of executive privilege.
--David Kurtz
Scared of Our Own Shadow
I hate to do a third post on "block cheese," but this is just absurd.
The AP is running a story in which security experts praise the Transportation Security Administration for sending out a bulletin about suspicious items found in passenger luggage even though some of the alleged "incidents" were incorrectly reported by TSA:
Security experts and politicians--even longtime critics--praised the Transportation Security Administration’s warning that terrorists might be testing whether innocent-looking bomb components can be smuggled onto an airplane. . . .The experts agreed that this judgment holds true even if the four incidents that triggered the warning turn out to have innocent explanations, as two of them – in San Diego and Baltimore – appeared to on Wednesday.
Say what?
First off, the San Diego incident didn't just turn out to have an innocent explanation. In fact, a reasonable person might conclude that there wasn't really any incident at all. The inspectors mistook an ice pack that was leaking for a ice pack stuffed with a clay-like substance similar to the consistency of plastic explosives--a mistake that was recognized on the spot after further inspection.
But even if you live in a perpetual state of paranoia and think that a 60-year-old lady with a leaking ice pack in her luggage constitutes an "incident," how can you possibly praise the TSA for issuing a bulletin about the incident that gets all the facts wrong?
As the San Diego Union-Tribune discovered yesterday when it looked further into the so-called incident, the TSA bulletin said the ice packs were covered in duct tape and had clay inside of them, but local law enforcement said they weren't covered in duct tape and didn't have clay inside of them. “It is a little bit off,” a local official told the paper.
I'm all for TSA being proactive about security (up to a point), but this is just incompetence masquerading as hyper-vigilance. Getting facts wrong, mistaking utterly innocent behavior for threatening behavior, and over-reacting to perceived threats may be worse than doing nothing. It diverts and wastes limited resources and contributes to a panicky atmosphere that skews judgments.
We have to start being smart about security and counterterrorism and stop being so fearful.
--David Kurtz
Senate Democrats are calling for a special prosecutor to probe Alberto Gonzales . . . more soon.
Update: We have video up at TPMmuckraker of some of this morning's press conference held by Senate Democrats.
--David Kurtz
Rothenberg: Al Franken can knock off Norm Coleman. That and other political news of the day in today's Election Central Morning Roundup.
--Greg Sargent
As Bad As Bush
(ed.note: This is a post I was working on a few days ago but had set aside. But with attention fixing again today on the Post's editorial page's egregious record of distortions on Iraq, I thought I'd pull it out of Movable Type oblivion.)
The Iraq fiasco provides few opportunities for mirth. But one is watching Fred Hiatt, czar of the Washington Post editorial page, try to kick up enough dust to wriggle out of his own position on the war.
A necessary preliminary to this discussion is to realize that there is probably no editorial page in the United States that has advocated more influentially on behalf of the Iraq catastrophe at every stage in the unfolding disaster -- from the Iraq Liberation Act, the the WMD and al Qaeda bamboozlement, to the lauching of the war, to the longstanding denial of what was happening on the ground to the continuing refusal to brook any real change of course in policy. Other papers have been more hawkish, certainly. But because of its location in the nation's capital and even more because of its reputation as a non-conservative paper, the Post's fatuous and frequently mendacious editorializing has without doubt had a greater role in pushing the public debate into the war camp than any other editorial page in the nation.
Which brings us to the unsigned editorial that ran in the paper on Saturday, July 21st. According to the editorial, there's an prevailing consensus in favor of a major change of course in Iraq. And all that is holding it up is the Democrats' insistence on polarizing the debate for political gain. According the Post, most senators from both parties, the Baker-Hamilton commissioners and even the president are all part of the same broad consensus.
A large majority of senators from both parties favor a shift in the U.S. mission that would involve substantially reducing the number of American forces over the next year or so and rededicating those remaining to training the Iraqi army, protecting Iraq's borders and fighting al-Qaeda. President Bush and his senior aides and generals also support this broad strategy, which was formulated by the bipartisan Baker-Hamilton commission. Mr. Bush recently said that "it's a position I'd like to see us in."
The problem is insistence on "Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (Nev.) to deny[ing] rather than nourish[ing] a bipartisan agreement." And this is so dangerous because we need to be discussing now what we do after September when we learn that the president's 'new way forward' has failed.
The country will desperately need a strategy for Iraq that can count on broad bipartisan support, one aimed at carrying the U.S. mission through the end of the Bush administration and beyond. There are serious issues still to resolve, such as whether a drawdown should begin this fall or next year, how closely it should be tied to Iraqi progress, how fast it can proceed and how the remaining forces should be deployed.
Here we get down to the stem of a whole world turned inside out. 'Serious issues still to resolve' -- like when to leave, whether to condition leaving on things getting better, how fast to leave and how many should stay and what we should have them do. I would say that covers quite a bit of the debate, doesn't it? Indeed, that's the entire debate, which is to say there's little consensus on anything.
The Iraq debate now turns on two related questions: 1) the importance of Iraq to US national security and 2) whether we want to leave and will do so so long as various conditions in Iraq are met or whether we've decided that it is in our interests to leave and will begin to do so now without waiting for conditions to be met. All of the different permutations of the debate can be explained in terms of different answers to those two questions.
So what you have in the Post's editorial is Mr. Hiatt's desire to take a nominal and meaningless, a purely semantic point of agreement -- that everyone would like to have most US troops withdrawn from Iraq -- and stretch it so thin that it can cover most members of the senate, the president and even the Baker-Hamilton report that the president dumped in the trash last winter. Meanwhile the key questions that are the meat of the debate become points of detail that the members of the grand consensus still need to hash out if malefactors won't keep on cynically injecting politics into the proceedings.
It is truly the world we are living in through the looking glass. And I think the reason for this outlandish contortion is not hard to see. Hiatt and the Post editorial crew can see the writing on the wall as well as anyone and the direction which public opinion is inevitably taking us. But they want to twist and distort and most of all stretch the terms of the debate so far as to appear to come out on the prevailing side of the public debate even as they never actually change their position, which has been a consistent and bullheaded advocacy of the position the entire country is now abandoning. So when troops come out of Iraq -- due to the votes of the evil polarizers -- Hiatt can say, yes, that was our position and it would have come sooner if Harry Reid would have just butted out of things.
Until then, of course, it's full speed ahead with the surge.
--Josh Marshall
Today's Must Read
Can a March 10, 2004 White House meeting on the Terrorist Surveillance Program magically transform into a March 10, 2004 White House meeting on some other intelligence program? If Alberto Gonzales wants to avoid perjury charges, he'd better hope so.
--Spencer Ackerman
Impeachment?
As regular readers of this site know, I've always been against the movement to impeach President Bush. I take this position not because he hasn't done plenty to merit it. My reasons are practical. Minor reasons are that it's late in the president's term and that I think impeachment itself is toxic to our political system -- though it can be less toxic than the high officials thrown from office. My key reason, though, is that Congress at present can't even get to the relatively low threshold of votes required to force the president's hand on Iraq. So to use an analogy which for whatever reason springs readily to my mind at this point in my life, coming out for impeachment under present circumstances is like being so frustrated that you can't crawl that you come out for walking. In various ways it seems to elevate psychic satisfactions above progress on changing a series of policies that are doing daily and almost vast damage to our country. Find me seventeen Republican senators who are going to convict President Bush in a senate trial.
On balance, this is still my position. But in recent days, for the first time I think, I've seen new facts that make me wonder whether the calculus has changed. Or to put it another way, to question whether my position is still justifiable in the face of what's happening in front of our eyes.
Most of those facts I'm referring to stem from the on-going Gonzales controversy (farce?) and the various running battles over executive privilege. In fact, the exchange I noted yesterday between Gonzales and Sen. Schumer (D-NY) stands out in my mind.
This was the exchange in which Gonzales simply refused to answer one of Sen. Schumer's questions -- didn't say he didn't remember, didn't invoke a privilege, just said, No. Not going to discuss that with you. Move on to the next question.
It's not that this one incident is a matter of such consequence in and of itself -- though I would say it's pretty consequential. But it captures pretty fully and in one small nugget the terrain the White House is now dragging us on to.
As I explained in that post, testifying before Congress is like testifying in a court of law. The questions aren't voluntary. You have to answer every one. You can invoke a privilege and the court's will decide whether the argument has merit. But no one can simply decline to answer a question. And yet this is exactly what Gonzales did.
[ed.note: TPM Reader GK suggests that with a closer viewing of the testimony Gonzales actually does implicitly invoke executive privilege. After several times refusing to answer to the question and having Schumer state his understanding that no privilege has been invoked, Gonzales says that the question "relates to his time at the White House" and thus he won't answer. This is significant; I won't deny that. But I don't think it changes the thrust of what I said in the post. It is too casual, flippant and implicit. I think it amounts to the same thing. They're really not even going through the motions of invoking the privilege. It's just, no. To evaluate the ins and outs of this, you can watch the relevant segment here.]
The difference between invoking a flimsy claim of privilege and simply refusing to answer has little immediate practical difference, but it's constitutional implications are profound.
Though other events in recent months and years have had graver consequences in themselves, I'm not sure I've seen a more open, casual or brazen display of the attitude that the body of rules which our whole system is built on just don't apply to this White House.
Without going into all the specifics, I think we are now moving into a situation where the White House, on various fronts, is openly ignoring the constitution, acting as though not just the law but the constitution itself, which is the fundamental law from which all the statutes gain their force and legitimacy, doesn't apply to them.
If that is allowed to continue, the defiance will congeal into precedent. And the whole structure of our system of government will be permanently changed.
Whether because of prudence and pragmatism or mere intellectual inertia, I still have the same opinion on the big question: impeachment. But I think we're moving on to dangerous ground right now, more so than some of us realize. And I'm less sure now under these circumstances that operating by rules of 'normal politics' is justifiable or acquits us of our duty to our country.
--Josh Marshall
Mutual Contempt
Just in case it wasn't crystal clear that the contempt goes both ways, Tony Snow gave a memorable performance in this afternoon's press briefing.
--Ben Craw
Shakeups continue in McCain and Thompson camps. That and other political news of the day in today's Election Central Happy Hour Roundup.
--Greg Sargent
About That Cheese
This morning I noted, somewhat sarcastically, that the Transportation Security Administration had put out a bulletin warning that terrorists may be conducting dry runs for future attacks using airlines. The bulletin was based on the discovery of odd contents of passenger luggage around the country, including "block cheese."
But it wasn't just cheese. One incident involved mysteriously altered ice packs:
San Diego, July 7. A U.S. person - either a citizen or a foreigner legally here - checked baggage containing two ice packs covered in duct tape. The ice packs had clay inside them rather than the normal blue gel.
Or so it seemed. Now it turns out the ice packs didn't contain clay, as initially reported, but rather they had leaked and the gel had congealed. False alarm.
The San Diego Union-Tribune sniffs out what really happened:
San Diego Harbor Police Chief Kirk Sanfilippo said the incident involved a bag checked by a woman in her 60s flying out of Lindbergh Field.Sanfilippo said a routine swab test of the bag indicated the presence of a chemical that is sometimes used in explosives or medications. Inside the luggage, inspectors found cold packs, wrapped in clear packing tape, that were old and leaking.
The TSA bulletin said the ice packs were covered in duct tape and had clay inside of them.
Sanfilippo said they weren't covered in duct tape and didn't have clay inside of them. “It is a little bit off,” he said of the bulletin.
The chief said a Harbor Police officer found what appeared to be hardened old gel that had seeped out of the ice packs and dried, leaving a clay-like substance around the outside edge of the pack.
. . .
In all, it took about three hours for the woman's luggage to be cleared by security officials.
After the packs were cleared, the woman told authorities she didn't want to keep them and they were thrown away, Sanfilippo said.
Sanfilippo said he first heard the San Diego incident was being highlighted in the TSA bulletin early Wednesday morning on the TV news.
Still no word on whether TSA got the "block cheese" reports wrong, too, but the money quote comes from the local TSA official in San Diego: “We get these [bulletins] all the time,” he told the Union-Tribune. “Almost all the time they prove false.”
--David Kurtz
John Sweeney: Is the Party Finally Over?
God, I'd almost forgotten we don't have former Rep. John Sweeney (R-NY) to kick around any more. But I'm willing to make an exception. Sweeney was an Abramoff crony and the ringleader of the GOP "Brooks Brothers Riot" that helped shutdown the recount down in Florida in November 2000.
Sweeney, you'll remember, was defeated last year in a very close and hard-fought race against Kirsten Gillibrand. Just before the election a police report surfaced describing a 911 call Sweeney's wife had placed to police in the district after the congressman had apparently manhandled her during a domestic blow-up in their home. Sweeney rather unconvincingly challenged the authenticity of the report, calling it "fabricated" and "concocted" by the Gillibrand campaign. He later admitted something had happened. But he and his wife both refused to discuss details. Then they said they would authorize the police to release the report and then failed to do so.
The other big Sweeney story last year of course was that crazy night in April when a visibly drunk Sweeney stumbled out of a bar near a Union College frat house and joined throngs of youthful constituents for some extremely inebriated merriment.
In any case, Sweeney's career swirled down the tubes on election day. And that was pretty much the last we'd heard.
Until just this last week.
Even though Sweeney gave his wife an illegal 10% cut of his fundraising take, the bloom is now officially off the Sweeney marriage. On Sunday, Gayle Sweeney, John's now estranged wife told the Albany Times-Union that he frequently verbally abused her, sometimes physically abused her and "coerced" her into issueing the denial she made with him just befor election day. In fact, if the phyiscal abuse was only occasional it was apparently pretty extreme because Gayle Sweeney says she is now in hiding, staying in undisclosed locations, because she fears for her life.
But Sweeney himself is at least figuratively fighting back. According to a follow-up story that ran in the Times-Union yesterday, Sweeney claims that it was actually Gayle Sweeney who physically abused him. Her abuse was "pretty extreme," said Sweeney. And he is afraid of her.
Indeed, in the original 911 incident in which Gayle Sweeney called 911 and told police her husband was "knocking her around" and asked for help, it turns out it was actually Gayle beating up John. Not the other way around. At least that's now his story.
Sweeney also now concedes that he lied in his pre-election press conference but that he did it to protect his wife. "I had to make a choice about whether my marriage was going to survive or I was staying in Congress. If I stood up and told exactly what happened, I would have lost my marriage." I'm a little unclear on this point. Sounds like he decided to keep the marriage and the congressional seat. But upstate New York is a different place. So I won't pass judgment.
For the moment, aside from denying his wife's claims of abuse, Sweeney is staying quiet on the advice of counsel. He says he still hasn't decided whether he'll run for elective office again.
--Josh Marshall
The President's Standard
In March, President Bush offered his support for his embattled attorney general, but admitted that Alberto Gonzales "has some work to do" up on Capitol Hill:
[A]nytime anybody goes up to Capitol Hill, they've got to make sure they fully understand the facts, and how they characterize the issue to members of Congress. And the fact that both Republicans and Democrats feel like that there was not straightforward communication troubles me, and it troubles the Attorney General, so he took action. And he needs to continue to take action.
Perhaps someone can ask the President if he's still troubled, since every time Gonzales has gone back to the Hill since March members of both parties have still felt "that there was not straightforward communication." Or maybe the better question is, how is the attorney general's "work" coming along up on the Hill?
Update: As of today, the official party line is still: Gonzales stays.
--David Kurtz
Great Moments in Oversight
Scenes from the House Judiciary Committee hearing this morning, where Republicans opposed citing Miers and Bolten with contempt. Their mind-bending rationale? Opposing the White House's claim of immunity from Congressional investigations might eventually create an "imperial" presidency.
--Paul Kiel
The FBI's Domestic Spying
Justin Rood reports:
The FBI is taking cues from the CIA to recruit thousands of covert informants in the United States as part of a sprawling effort to boost its intelligence capabilities.According to a recent unclassified report to Congress, the FBI expects its informants to provide secrets about possible terrorists and foreign spies, although some may also be expected to aid with criminal investigations, in the tradition of law enforcement confidential informants. The FBI did not respond to requests for comment on this story.
The FBI said the push was driven by a 2004 directive from President Bush ordering the bureau to improve its counterterrorism efforts by boosting its human intelligence capabilities.
The aggressive push for more secret informants appears to be part of a new effort to grow its intelligence and counterterrorism efforts. Other recent proposals include expanding its collection and analysis of data on U.S. persons, retaining years' worth of Americans' phone records and even increasing so-called "black bag" secret entry operations.
Just the sort of thing you would want Alberto Gonzales ultimately in charge of.
--David Kurtz
TPM Reader JJ makes an interesting observation about Alberto Gonzales' latest account of his visit to the hospital bedside of then-Attorney General John Ashcroft:
I realize that there is a virtual treasure trove of obfuscation to wade through from [Gonzales’] appearance, but here’s a point that I haven’t seen addressed yet. AG trotted out a shiny new excuse for his visit to Ashcroft in the hospital. The so-called gang of eight had just met and were so concerned that the illegal wiretapping (or whatever) wouldn’t be approved by Comey that they all agreed that it should continue anyway. This was a bombshell that AG felt Ashcroft must know about immediately. Yet when asked by Schumer whether classified information was discussed in the hospital setting with Mrs. Ashcroft present, who wasn’t cleared for such info, AG responded that it had been Ashcroft who had done all of the talking and in an attempt at being cute, AG said that he didn’t think that Ashcroft had let loose with any classified into during his monologue. How does that jibe with the stated reason for the visit, which was for AG to tell Ashcroft about the gang of eight meeting?
There are other inconsistencies, to be sure. Why did Gonzales bring the re-authorization order for the secret program to the hospital with him if, as Gonzales claims, he didn't intend to press Ashcroft to sign it? Indeed, given Ashcroft's condition, why go to the hospital at all if they were not prepared to pressure Ashcroft to overrule James Comey, the acting attorney general?
It would be all laughable were it not so serious.
--David Kurtz
Alberto Gonzales: Lying Liar Edition
If you didn't get a chance to watch Alberto Gonzales' trainwreck testimony yesterday up in the senate we've got a highlight reel here of all the ugliest moments. It's really worth a look because it is very telling about where we're at right now that this joker can be caught in a series of lies and basically called a liar to his face by the top Democrat and Republican on the committee and still hold on to his job because the president needs Gonzales to keep him and his staff out of the slammer.
Take a look ...
--Josh Marshall
Conservative activists plead with Bush to start talking about leaving Iraq. That and other political news of the day in today's Election Central Morning Roundup.
--Greg Sargent
Today's Must Read
So, did Alberto Gonzales perjure himself yesterday? Take a look at our rundown of the discrepancies, inconsistencies, disputes and mysteries emerging from yesterday's epic Senate Judiciary Committee hearing.
--Spencer Ackerman
Cheese?
Via a reader in Wisconsin (of course):
Airport security officers around the nation have been alerted by federal officials to look out for terrorists practicing to carry explosive components onto aircraft, based on four curious seizures at airports since last September. . . .The seizures at airports in San Diego, Milwaukee, Houston and Baltimore included "wires, switches, pipes or tubes, cell phone components and dense clay-like substances," including block cheese, the bulletin said. . . .
"There is no credible, specific threat here," TSA spokeswoman Ellen Howe said Tuesday. "Don't panic. We do these things all the time."
NBC has more.
I suppose grated cheese, American cheese, and Cheez Whiz are safe. Just watch out for the "block cheese."
--David Kurtz
I try not to be too quick to cast aspersions when it comes to misidentifying a politician's political party. On occasion I put an (R) after a Dem's name or vice versa. And I don't think there's anything to it beyond an overworked set of hands or whatever part of my brain takes control when I'm jotting down those sorts of details on autopilot. But Fox News does seem to have this unmistakable pattern of calling any Republican who either gets caught boffing someone besides their spouse or attacks the president a Democrat.
Of course, to think about just what a joke Fox is you need do no more than remember how their star reporter Carl Cameron wrote a 'parody' (the one with a very fey John Kerry gabbing about his manicures) about then presidential candidate John Kerry about a month before the '04 election and somehow this 'parody' ending up running as a news story on Fox website. And of course the whole thing was brushed off as just good fun.
With the party ID issue, my only question is whether the folks working at Fox do it intentionally or whether they're so trapped in their biases, so used to fitting every story into the Fox News cookie cutter, that it just comes naturally, like a verbal tic, without even thinking. Like the bamboozling runs so deep that it's not even conscious.
--Josh Marshall
Gonzales to Schumer: Blow Me
A good bit of today I was busy working on some other TPM business. So I didn't get to watch a lot of the Gonzales testimony as it was happening. But I'm watching it now as we put together a highlight reel for tomorrow's episode of TPMtv. And a lot of this stuff is really unbelieveable to watch. It's a genuinely sad day when you have the chief law enforcement officer of country remaining in office after he's been publicly and repeatedly shown to be a liar.
That's not just my allegation. Even in their more delicate senator-speak the Democratic Chairman and the Republican Ranking Member of the Committee in so many words repeatedly called him a liar to his face. Indeed, late in the hearing Chairman Leahy suggested committee staff will review the Attorney General's testimony to see if his deceptions merit charges of perjury being brought against him.
We've got a slew of video clips of key exchanges in today's coverage at Muckraker. But this one stands out for me, even though in some ways it's not the most egregious case.
In this exchange Sen. Schumer (D) asks Gonzales who sent him and Andy Card to John Ashcroft's bedside. And Gonzales just refuses to answer. He keeps repeating that they went "on behalf" of the president. But he won't say if the president sent them. He just won't answer.
Schumer notes the key point: Gonzales isn't even asserting any kind of privilege. He doesn't say he can't remember. He just won't answer.
Take a look ...
It really requires stepping back in this case to take stock of this exchange. Testifying before Congress is like being called to testify in court. You have to answer every question. Every question. You can fudge and say you don't remember something and see how far you get. Or you can invoke various privileges. And it's up to the courts to decide if the invocations are valid. But it's simply not permitted to refuse to answer a question. It is quite literally contempt of Congress.
--Josh Marshall
Who's Going to Ask the Republicans?
In his testimony today, Alberto Gonzales blamed the Ashcroft hospital visit on Congress -- particularly, the so-called Gang of Eight, the top congressional leadership and the leadership of the intelligence committees. As Spencer Ackerman noted late in the day, three members of the group -- Democrats Daschle, Rockefeller and Pelosi -- said Gonzales' version of events isn't true. In an interview with NPR, Rep. Jane Harman (D-CA) said the same thing -- though she was a little ambiguous, suggesting that her ability to discuss the conversations in question were limited because they were classified.
So all four Democrats say Gonzales' story is bunk.
What about the Republicans? If memory serves, the top four at the time would have been Hastert, Frist, Roberts and Goss. Whoever the players were, what do they say? Will they vouch for Gonzales' story? True or not, the Dems are of the opposite party -- so some might say they have an interest in contradicting the AG. So what do the Republican members say?
--Josh Marshall
thought I was consigning her to the backwaters of muckdom when I told her to make Alaska one of her beats. By now she must be thanking me.