Month: October 2005

Pure As The Driven Snow

Reminder:

Karl Rove’s animus toward Wilson was so intense that curiosity arose within the White House about it. When asked about this, Rove reportedly said, “He’s a Democrat.”

Reminder:

Rove insisted, he had only circulated information about Plame after it had appeared in Novak’s column. He also told the FBI, the same sources said, that circulating the information was a legitimate means to counter what he claimed was politically motivated criticism of the Bush administration by Plame’s husband, former Ambassador Joseph Wilson.

Rove and other White House officials described to the FBI what sources characterized as an aggressive campaign to discredit Wilson through the leaking and disseminating of derogatory information regarding him and his wife to the press, utilizing proxies such as conservative interest groups and the Republican National Committee to achieve those ends, and distributing talking points to allies of the administration on Capitol Hill and elsewhere. Rove is said to have named at least six other administration officials who were involved in the effort to discredit Wilson.

Reminder:

In my administration, we will ask not only what is legal, but also what is right – not just what the lawyers allow, but what the public deserves.

In my administration we will make it clear there is the controlling authority of conscience. We will make people proud again – so that Americans who love their country can once again respect their government.

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Rove Roll

Jeralyn at Talk Left has been right over and over again on Plamegate. This makes sense, since she is a criminal defense lawyer and knows how to read between the lines of these things.

She has been convinced for some time that Karl Rove cut a deal. She still thinks so:

As I noted earlier, the news reports on Rove are conflicting. But this statement by one “non-legal” member of his team, who I assume is the P.R. specialist Mark Carballo who signed on to Rove’s team the other day, leads me to believe Rove took a deal and Fitzgerald has agreed not to announce it immediately

It would be prefectly in keeping with Rove’s PR style to have portrayed himself these last few days as fighting the charges with everything he’s got while he’s actually rolling on Libby.

Everything Rove does from now on must be seen through the prism of spin.

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Standards Of Official Conduct

Memorandum
January 20, 2001

MEMORANDUM FOR THE HEADS OF EXECUTIVE DEPARTMENTS AND AGENCIES

SUBJECT: Standards of Official Conduct

Everyone who enters into public service for the United States has a duty to the American people to maintain the highest standards of integrity in Government. I ask you to ensure that all personnel within your departments and agencies are familiar with, and faithfully observe, applicable ethics laws and regulations, including the following general principles from the Standards of Ethical Conduct for Employees of the Executive Branch:

(1) Public service is a public trust, requiring employees to place loyalty to the Constitution, the laws, and ethical principles above private gain.

(7) Employees shall not use public office for private gain.

(11) Employees shall disclose waste, fraud, abuse, and corruption to appropriate authorities.

(12) Employees shall satisfy in good faith their obligations as citizens, including all just financial obligations, especially those — such as Federal, State, or local taxes — that are imposed by law.

(14) Employees shall endeavor to avoid any actions creating the appearance that they are violating applicable law or the ethical standards in applicable regulations.

Please thank the personnel of your departments and agencies for their commitment to maintain the highest standards of integrity in Government as we serve the American people.

GEORGE W. BUSH

Via Mike Liddell

More Fearsome than Al Qaeda

Ok, we’ll just have to be patient and wait until two o’clock, it seems. Meanwhile, I learned something very, very disturbing.

There is a group operating freely in the United States that strikes so much terror in the hearts of Americans, they fear them more than al Qaeda. Who could they be? Saddamists? A coalition of renegades from Peru’s Shining Path and the Tamil Tigers? And my God, what are they planning?!??! Will they attack tomorrow and blow up Mt. Rushmore or Las Vegas or Boca Raton? Is anyone safe from these Mega-Terrorists????

Learn the facts here, if you can stand the truth. We must all be forewarned against them.

Death By A Thousand Cuts

To anyone who thinks either Bush or the GOP are wounded and no longer able to concentrate on their agenda to wreck the government – oh, I’m sorry, I meant reduce the role of government – think again:

House Republicans voted to cut student loan subsidies, child support enforcement and aid to firms hurt by unfair trade practices as various committees scrambled to piece together $50 billion in budget cuts.

More politically difficult votes [!!!!!!] — to cut Medicaid, food stamps and farm subsidies — are on tap Thursday as more panels weigh in on the bill.

It was originally intended to cut $35 billion in spending over five years, but after pressure from conservatives, GOP leaders directed committees to cut another $15 billion to help pay the cost of hurricane recovery.

President Bush met with House and Senate GOP leaders and said he was pleased with the progress.

No doubt.

The Clinton Defense

I just heard a Republican mouthpiece on Matthews’ show pull out the old “how dare you compare these silly charges to the reprehensible behavior of Bill Clinton!” He went on to defend Rove and Libby by exclaiming that Clinton “wasn’t indicted!” as if the second impeachment in history was a trivial matter and nothing compared to the persecution of poor powerless Karl and Scooter.

Matthews and the Dem on the panel dropped their jaws in disbelief, but I think we should expect more of this. They will drag out their old talking points because they want to make this appear to be the same as the Lewinsky scandal — only this time they are the victims, their favorite role. Poor Karl is being tormented by an out of control jack booted thug for doing things that anyone can understand. Karl was just forgetful, he’s a busy man and he’s being strung up for just doing what any man might do in his position — he misspoke. How dare they torture this fine public servant this way?

To that end, it appears that they have been lining up some help from those who have experience in Republican witchhunts:

The presidential aide’s legal team has made contingency plans to defend him in both court and in public. They’ve consulted with former Justice Department official Mark Corallo and G-O-P strategist Ed Gillespie.

Marc Corallo is a very interesting person for the Rovians to consult on these matters. He was a major player in the impeachment:

Via Mithras

In a surprising disclosure, Baker says that shortly before the impeachment drive went to the House floor in December 1998, Republican House Speaker-elect Bob Livingston wanted to call the whole thing off.

Livingston, who would soon be forced to resign over his own marital infidelities, told an aide, Mark Corallo, “We’ve got to stop this. This is crazy. We’re about to impeach the president of the United States.”

Corallo convinced Livingston to reconsider. “Boss, we have a rapist in the White House,” he said, a reference to allegations against Mr. Clinton by a woman named Juanita Broaddrick about a 1978 incident. Broaddrick’s calims were not included in the House impeachment findings.

He went on to become Ashcroft’s spokesman at Justice. He’s a professional partisan flak with very relevant experience in scandal management. But here’s an interesting little post from The American Spectator Blog that we should all tuck into a folder for later use if he becomes a member of the team:

Attacking the Prosecutor? Bad Idea – Tuesday, October 25, 2005 @ 9:39:12 AM

Message to Republicans: Whoever is generating the “Attack Pat Fitzgerald” talking points needs to cease and desist. This veteran (and some might say “victim”) of the Impeachment in ’98, finds it highly hypocritical to hear the same attacks that the left leveled at Ken Starr now being floated by the right to discredit Pat Fitzgerald — Sen. Kay Baily Hutchison called perjury a “technicality.” What has separated US from THEM is our adherence to intellectual honesty and principle even when it costs us politically. The Ds made excuse after excuse for Slick Willie while demonizing Ken Starr. If Fitzgerald indicts anyone, not for violating any of the statutes governing the handling of classified information, but for obstruction or perjury, Republicans must refrain from trivializing the charges or defending the indicted.

All should be thoroughly mindful of the FACT that Pat Fitzgerald is arguably the best prosecutor in the country. Nobody knows more about Al Qaeda, their methods and the way they finance their operations. America is safer from terrorism because of him.

The many recent profiles extolling his blue-collar upbringing, his brilliance, his record and his unrivaled work ethic neglect one of his core character traits: he is also eminently reasonable. This is not Javert, bent on getting his man no matter the consequences or the “triviality” of the crime. This is a servant of the law who has, to his credit, a thick vein of common sense and an understanding of what motivates usually law abiding people to violate the law. He is not out to get anyone.

I know Pat. Simply put, he is a really good guy.

If we are honest about the impeachment of Mr. Clinton, then we are acutely aware that he alone, by simply telling the truth from day one (or even day 20) could have saved the country from 2 years of insanity. While the Plame imbroglio does not rise to that level of seriousness, the same can be said (assuming there are charges for perjury or obstruction) of the indicted in this case. Pat Fitzgerald, like Ken Starr, was simply doing his job with honor, integrity and from the look of it, an inordinate amount of patience.

Posted By: Mark Corallo

If anyone thinks that’s what Rove heard from Carollo yesterday, I’ve got a nice bridge to nowhere to sell you.

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“Very Serious” Indeed

To add a couple of observations to Digby’s last post…

Please recall that recently Bush described the Fitzgerald investigation as “very serious.” I took this originally to mean that Bush thought the charges were substantive and needed a “very serious” investigation, but a little bit of reflection makes it clear that’s not what he meant at all.

Bush was issuing a threat. He deems Fitzgerald’s probe to be a “very serious” danger to his presidency. We can expect him and his attack ghouls to act accordingly. They will treat the indictments as attacks on the United States, as a kind of terrorism. It is imperative, as Digby notes, for anyone who goes up against the Bush administration to be prepared for the worst. They have both the will and the power to destroy careers and lives. And they will surely do so if they believe their power is threatened. Proof? Valerie Plame Wilson.

Also, let us not forget the proximate causes for the Fitzgerald investigation, a serious suspicion which is now a terrible certainty. There existed a conspiracy at the highest levels of the Bush administration to expose the identity of an undercover CIA agent. That is a crime. That crime was covered-up. The ongoing cover-up entailed more crimes. But all these actions are more than crimes.

These people betrayed their country. Regardless of whether the evidence rises to the level of legal proof, the people who participated in this conspiracy cannot be permitted to stay. As difficult as it might be to unseat some of the worst of them, they must go. Will they? Put it this way: your physical safety may depend on it.

These sleazebags hindered and subverted the covert gathering of intelligence on weapons of mass destruction. If the damage of Plame’s outing is minimal, that is a lucky accident- not for them, but for the country. That in no way diminishes the “very serious” havoc these scoundrels were prepared to accept if Plame’s work was vital, danger far worse than that of 9/11. Had Plame’s undercover status not been transitional but still deep, there is no public evidence that any of these people would have hesitated one nano-second in their efforts to expose and destroy her, out of retribution for her husband’s actions.

Digby is right. This is going to be an ugly fight. But it is a fight that is entirely the fault of those who betrayed their country, not those who refuse to be their victims. We should make sure that it is crystal clear that this is not Fitzgerald’s fault, not the CIA’s fault, not the Democrats’ fault. It is their fault – Rove’s, Libby’s, and all who aided and abetted their multiple betrayals. They failed us and they can no longer be entrusted with our safety and governance.

We should never let the media get away with spinning this as anything trivial. Even if you haven’t done so before, after Fitzgerald’s report comes out, please consider taking a few valuable moments of your time to write letters to papers and electronic media, to your representatives both local and national, and let them know how important it is to you that these people go.

Unleashing The Furies

Kevin says:

MIERS REACTION….I fear that Mark Levin’s reaction to the Harriet Miers withdrawal might be unnervingly on the money:

It’s time for our liberals friends to worry. If the president picks a solid nominee, the base — meaning Republican Party loyalists and conservative activists — will be united, reinvigorated, and ready for battle. At least that’s the indication from my radio audience. And frankly, as an aside, there’s another event that is uniting them, and that’s their growing resentment toward Patrick Fitzgerald. Positive press profiles aside, they increasingly view him as a threat to the presidency, and are not much impressed with all the talk in the media about possible indictments for perjury or false statements over emails or memory lapses.

There’s nothing that movement conservatives like more than redemption, and if Bush chooses a God-fearing, fire-breathing conservative to replace Miers, then not only will all be forgiven, but Bush’s support from the base might well be redoubled. They’ll be primed and ready to go after Patrick Fitzgerald and the hated liberal lynch mob who are gunning for their newly repentant savior.

To which I reply, no kidding? Is there anyone on the planet who thought that the wingnuts were going to sit idly by and let the White House go down in flames without marshalling a feral response? It’s their MO about everything. Cross them and they turn into shrieking harpies swooping and swirling in inchoate fury.

Guys, this is Karl Rove we are talking about here. He made his bones more than 30 years ago destroying his Republican opponent. This is what he does. Pat Fitzgerald had better be prepared to be portrayed as a jack-booted, cross-dressing, gay Torquemada willing to do anything to please his Stalinist masters. Anyone who thought differently has not been paying attention.

This is why we shove their previous mantras about perjury and obstruction and “rule of law” in their faces. This is why we repeat the words that Bush used in the 2000 campaign about “not only doing what is legal but what is right.” This is why we always, always, bring this back to the fact that 2000 Americans are dead and tens of thousands are disabled because of a war that the administration lied about — lies that Karl Rove and Scooter Libby tried to cover up.

And when they go after Joe Wilson, we simply say every single time — “Joe Wilson was right. There were no WMD.” That is the lie that is really killing them and that is the lie that they sputter and trip over trying to explain. Democrats should never let a conversation go by in which the public is not reminded that there were no WMD. When the Dem spokesman is (inevitably) confronted by he fact that some of our leading lights voted for the war resolution, they should just say, “the Democrats took the president at his word. They won’t make that mistake again.”

This is going to be a huge battle, don’t ever think it won’t. Pat Fitzgerald is going to be destroyed as if he were a Democrat. I hope that the real Democrats who appear on television are preparing for this and are ready to respond. It won’t be pretty.

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Owned By The Base

Yesterday I wrote that the Beltway Boys were all saying that in order to weather the current storms, Bush needs to run to his base and it looks like Bush heard it. (They only listen to Fox in the White House, you know.)

I’m glad to see that the Democrats seem to be saying the obvious about the Miers nomination, which is that Bush is the right wing’s love slave. This is important because it looks as though the “base strategy” is going to be the way Bush will govern for the rest of his term as well. The LA Times has an interesting article this morning discussing the White House strategy for dealing with the scandals — push “tax reform” and “immigration.” (Oh, and he’s going to solve the Arab-Israeli conflict, too) Good luck with all that. You can run but you can’t hide.

The right wing has been empowered by this “win.” They are going to be more demanding than ever and Bush is going to have to accomodate them. This is both an opportunity and a danger for Democrats. If we frame the Republican party as being taken over by extremists who want to force average Americans to keep their 90 year old father alive on machines, then we can set ourselves up as the rational alternative. If, on the other hand, we position ourselves as simply against the “far right” it will be seen as a pissing match between the “far right and “far left,” (which is anyone to the left of Ann Coulter.)

The Dems badly need to start using real stories to explain their positions. The rhetoric has become so abstract that nobody really understands what it means to them anymore. The president’s base, the “right wing,” are people who want to outlaw birth control and interfere with your medical decisions on religious grounds. I don’t think people really realize that.

Bush is in real trouble, with his only option apparently to try to appease a base that is basically unappeasable. He’s Phyllis Schlaffly’s houseboy now. And with this taste of blood, the whole party is going to be more in the thrall of this minority than ever. But we won’t be able to take advantage of it if we don’t explain in terms people can understand why that is a problem.

The big national issues, of course, remain corruption and incompetence. But this is an issue that has salience in the congressional races where a little straight talk about the extreme right could go a long way. We need to develop some effective rhetoric for our candidates to use to illustrate the problem.

Update: Kos has an interesting tick-tock from the Hotline that suggests it really was Miers incompetence that did her in. Kos says:

It seems to me that Miers wasn’t done in from a lack of conservative cred as the wingers want to believe. Bush was convinced she was like him and would’ve fought for her all the way through. She was done in from simple incompetence. Her responses to committee questions betrayed a complete lack of understanding of constitutional law. Her meager writings were incoherent. She was unable to articulate competence in meetings with senators

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Of course, that doesn’t mean that the wingnuts don’t believe they won. We need to make sure the public believes they did. The narrative of the Miers nomination is that Bush nominated an incompetent crony that the right wing didn’t believe was enough of a religious zealot.

Update II: Perhaps we could quote this guy:

Former Republican Sen. John Danforth said Wednesday that the political influence of evangelical Christians is hurting the Republican Party and dividing the country.

[…]

“I think that the Republican Party fairly recently has been taken over by the Christian conservatives, by the Christian right,” he said in an interview. “I don’t think that this is a permanent condition, but I think this has happened, and that it’s divisive for the country.”

He also said the evangelical Christian influence would be bad for the party in the long run.

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Confidence Man

Steve Clemons reports:

The one interesting tidbit that came my way by way of an unnamed senior American journalist is this:

My sense is that the Rove team is feeling more confident today, the Libby team despondent

I would just remind everyone that Rove has a faith based belief in the psych-out. He believes that if you can influence events by acting as if you have knowledge they do not have. (See: bandwagon effect, election 2000, final swing through California.)

If he’s still negotiating with Fitzgerald, he could easily have issued an edict to his people (or even lied to them) to give a certain impression of confidence to the press. That’s the kind of thing he does.

The thing is, the bandwagon effect is bullshit and cost him 2000. If it hadn’t been for good company men on the Supreme Court, instead of having the reputation as the most brilliant political strategist the world has ever known, he would have been remembered as the man who blew the most expensive presidential race in history because of his arrogant belief that he could shape events just by acting like he knew things that nobody else knew.

Like everyone else I’m ODing on speculation, and he may very well have gotten some good news. But let’s just say that when I hear that Karl Rove is acting like a winner before the score is posted, I’m skeptical.

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