Month: December 2005

The Larger Truth

by digby

ReddHedd at firedoglake highlights this passage in the WaPo story about the NY Times’ NSA story:

The paper offered no explanation to its readers about what had changed in the past year to warrant publication. It also did not disclose that the information is included in a forthcoming book, “State of War: The Secret History of the CIA and the Bush Administration,” written by James Risen, the lead reporter on yesterday’s story. The book will be published in mid-January, according to its publisher, Simon & Schuster.

It was the following that I found truly interesting however:

The decision to withhold the article caused some friction within the Times’ Washington bureau, according to people close to the paper. Some reporters and editors in New York and in the bureau, including Risen and co-writer Eric Lichtblau, had pushed for earlier publication, according to these people. One described the story’s path to publication as difficult, with much discussion about whether it could have been published earlier.

As it happens, this very same thing happened a few months ago — at the Washington Post. Only the reporter wasn’t lobbying to report the news. In fact, he tried very hard to persuade his editor to hold back the news until his book came out.

Guess who:

Downie was insistent that the paper be adequately prepared for the death of Deep Throat — whoever he was. During the past year he’d pressed Woodward to tell him the name, arguing that the current editor should know the identity of our source. Woodward had resisted.

[…]

In March Bradlee told Woodward that Downie was right; the time had come to tell the current post editor who Deep Throat was; then appropriate plans could be made to cover Felt’s death. Woodward, an assistant managing editor at the paper, consented uneasily.

[…]

Woodward told Downie that the book should come out several weeks after Felt’s death, and that the Post could run a pre-publication excerpt and break the news at that time.

In retrospect it was a ridiculously haphazard plan, given the excitement that would inevitably and imediately follow Felt’s death without a confirmation or denial from Woodward and myself. Too much speculation was already focused on Felt.

[…]

[Downie] was adamant that the Post make the disclosure immediately after receiving the news of Felt’s death. First of all, it might leak, and he didn’t want to get scooped. Second, now that he knew Deep Throat’s identity for certain, he could not foresee allowing an obituary of Felt to appear in the Post that did not include this rather vital news. The Post, Woodward, Bradlee, myself — and now Downie — would be criticized severely if Felt’s identity as Deep Throat was withheld for more than a few hours after he died.

Among other considerations, it would appear that the delay was related to a commercial proposition — the marketing of a book — and Downie declared that he would have no part in that. He would not hold news, “and this would be news,” he said. Period. Frankly, he said, he could not comprehend how Woodward could consider any delay. “You have always said that the identity of Deep Throat would be disclosed upon his death,” he said, implying strongly, and perhaps in this instance correctly, that Woodward was losing touch with the daily flow of news.

(“Watergate’s Last Chapter” Carl Bernstein, Vanity Fair October, 2005,

No kidding. As we all learned a few weeks ago, Woodward does not particularly care about whether something is news or not.

I don’t know all the facts about the NY Times, obviously; by all accounts the reason for withholding the story was because the paper capitulated to administration arguments about national security. But it looks bad. Tony Blankley used the impending book release to deride the story on Mclaughlin.

Franklin Foer and the Columbia Journalism Review seem to agree with the John Harris contention that the blogosphere’s criticism of the mainstream media is a partisan crusade on both sides. It simply isn’t. The left blogosphere doesn’t complain that the media is too conservative or Republican. We see it as being cowardly in the face of Republican thuggishness and that’s something else entirely. And it’s not just editors like John Harris or Tim Russert kow towing to Republican complaints or the reporters adherence to the ridiculous conventions of “he said/she said.” Those are just the obvious. The more insidious type of cowardice is that which takes scurrillous Republican tips and runs with them under the guise of “it’s out there” or that simply lets them stick without bothering to put resources to debunking them. It’s derisively giggling on Imus at the puerile bitchiness of GOP talking points like “earth tones” and “flip-flop” like a bunch of teen-age Heathers. It’s mainstreaming rightwing hatemongers by putting Ann Coulter on the cover of Newsweek and giving Rush Limbaugh a slot on election night coverage.

This isn’t about policy or partisanship. It’s about a press corps that takes the easier path and capitulates to the aggressive, hostile (and sometimes seductive) Republican machine or gets so lost in their arcane standards of objectivity and journalistic ethics that the truth no longer matters.

The Bernstein article goes on to describe a ridiculous tug of war that ensued when Vanity Fair broke the Felt story a few months later and Woodward insisted that the paper not confirm the story. He believed they couldn’t be sure that Felt really wanted to be released from the confidentiality agreement because he was old and couldn’t be relied upon to know his own mind. He argued that it would be dishonorable to confirm it even if the whole damned world already knew about it. Keeping the secret had become a singular virtue so important that it superceded all journalistic values.

Bernstein agreed at first and then was persuaded otherwise. He wrote:

In our conviction to uphold one fundamental principle (protecting our sources) we risked violating another — loyalty to the larger truth — and offense that would damage the reputation of all involved: The Post, felt ourselves.

It’s that — the loyalty to the larger truth — that we are looking for.

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Timely

As far as I’m concerned, this tears it. Josh Marshall says

It turns out that FISA specifically empowers the Attorney General or his designee to start wiretapping on an emergency basis even without a warrant so long as a retroactive application is made for one “as soon as practicable, but not more than 72 hours after the Attorney General authorizes such surveillance.” (see specific citation, here).

“Timliness” was stated over and over again yesterday by administration apologists as the reason that they could not take the time to apply to the FISA cout for permission. That is obviously crap. They simply do not want to have to apply for permission from FISA.

As far as I’m concerned there is only one reason for that. They do not want FISA (who has only been known to deny permission one time since its inception) to find out who they are surveilling.

Wanna guess why?

Maybe we should ask John Bolton.

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Mao Was An Islamofascist

by digby

This is the problem with a surveillance society — and makes me nervous as hell. I research this kind of stuff all the time. Can anybody explain why a student who has traveled abroad should be visited by the FBI because he requests “The Little Red Book” from the library?

A senior at UMass Dartmouth was visited by federal agents two months ago, after he requested a copy of Mao Tse-Tung’s tome on Communism called “The Little Red Book.”
Two history professors at UMass Dartmouth, Brian Glyn Williams and Robert Pontbriand, said the student told them he requested the book through the UMass Dartmouth library’s interlibrary loan program.

The student, who was completing a research paper on Communism for Professor Pontbriand’s class on fascism and totalitarianism, filled out a form for the request, leaving his name, address, phone number and Social Security number. He was later visited at his parents’ home in New Bedford by two agents of the Department of Homeland Security, the professors said.

The professors said the student was told by the agents that the book is on a “watch list,” and that his background, which included significant time abroad, triggered them to investigate the student further.

“I tell my students to go to the direct source, and so he asked for the official Peking version of the book,” Professor Pontbriand said. “Apparently, the Department of Homeland Security is monitoring inter-library loans, because that’s what triggered the visit, as I understand it.”

Although The Standard-Times knows the name of the student, he is not coming forward because he fears repercussions should his name become public. He has not spoken to The Standard-Times.

The professors had been asked to comment on a report that President Bush had authorized the National Security Agency to spy on as many as 500 people at any given time since 2002 in this country.The eavesdropping was apparently done without warrants.

The Little Red Book, is a collection of quotations and speech excerpts from Chinese leader Mao Tse-Tung. In the 1950s and ’60s, during the Cultural Revolution in China, it was required reading. Although there are abridged versions available, the student asked for a version translated directly from the original book.

The student told Professor Pontbriand and Dr. Williams that the Homeland Security agents told him the book was on a “watch list.” They brought the book with them, but did not leave it with the student, the professors said.

I keep hearing that there have been no abuses of the system, that the governemnt would never spy on people who don’t deserve it. But can there be any good reason why, in the name of protecting the country from terrorism, that Mao’s “Little Red Book” would be considered worthy of monitoring? Unless the Justice Department is using the Patriot Act to monitor citizens for Chi-Com sympathizing (which is entirely possible) I can only assume that a terrorist somewhere read the book and quoted from it, so reading it is considered a sign of terrorist activity.

If that’s the case, then I would assume that reading any revolutionary, historical or political tract that a terrorist has been known to read makes one a terrorist suspect. That’s an extremely broad brush and the only way that anyone could ensure that he or she is not going to come into the cross hairs of the government would be to not read any of those books, not criticize the government, not study terrorism, marxism, or even the American and French revolutions since a terrorist somewhere may have read about those things too.

And, in typical Bushian blowback this will result in less understanding of terrorism:

Dr. Williams said he had been planning to offer a course on terrorism next semester, but is reconsidering, because it might put his students at risk.

Update: Rick Perlstein reminds me that there is one powerful American political movement that studies Mao quite closely:

In Before the Storm, p. 396 and 31, I quote from “How To Win An Election” by Barry Goldwater’s campaign manager Steve Shadegg, who cites Mao Tse-tung’s “valuable book on the tactics of infiltration” as an inspiration for one of his specific organizing tactics for getting Barry elected. He quotes Mao: “Give me just two or three men in a village, and I will take the village.”

He also notes:

Paul Weyrich wrote, Cultural Conservatism, Theory and Practice:
“Perhaps the model for Cultural Conservatism as a political force is Chairman Mao in reverse. His theory for taking over China was to capture the countryside; isolated the cities would fall. If we think of America outside Washington as the countryside and “Inside the Beltway” as the city, his theory is right.”

Perhaps the NSA heard something dicey at one of Grover Norquist’s Wednesday meeting that prompted them to follow-up on anyone reading “The Little Red Book.”

Grover, after all, is the connection between the movement conservatives and the Taliban.

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If The President Does It It’s Not Illegal

by digby

Oh for Gawd’s sakes. Tom Brokaw is on Matthews boo-hooing that this NSA story stepped on Junior’s wonderful Iraq triumph. He explains that when you are at war you need to do things that are difficult and believes that most people in the country will agree that the administration needed to spy on Americans after 9/11. He agrees with analyst Roger Cressy (who I used to think was sane) that once the “window” of a possible impending attack closed they should have gone up to the hill and sought permission to keep spying on Americans with no judicial oversight. (I haven’t heard about this “window” before. Tom and Roger both seem to have a fantasy that the administration would not simply say that the “window” remains open as long as evil exists in the world.)

Look, the problem here, again, is not one of just spying on Americans, as repulsively totalitarian as that is. It’s that the administration adopted John Yoo’s theory of presidential infallibility. But, of course, it wasn’t really John Yoo’s theory at all; it was Dick Cheney’s muse, Richard Nixon who said, “when the President does it, that means it’s not illegal.”

This was not some off the cuff statement. It was based upon a serious constitutional theory — that the congress or the judiciary (and by inference the laws they promulgate and interpret) have no authority over an equal branch of government. The president, in the pursuit of his duties as president, is not subject to the laws. Citizens can offer their judgment of his performance every four years at the ballot box.

After the election, George W. Bush said this:

The Post: …Why hasn’t anyone been held accountable, either through firings or demotions, for what some people see as mistakes or misjudgments?

THE PRESIDENT: Well, we had an accountability moment, and that’s called the 2004 election.

He, like Nixon, believes that the president has only one “accountability moment” while he is president. His re-election. Beyond that, he has been given a blank check. And that includes breaking the law since if the president does it, it’s not illegal, the president being the executive branch which is not subject to any other branch of govenrment.

John Yoo, the former deputy attorney general who wrote many of the opinion undergirding these findings (on torture as well as spying) explains that the congress has no right to abridge the president’s warmaking powers. Its only constitutional remedy to a war with which they disagree is to deny funding; they can leave the troops on the field with no food or bullets.

I suspect that there are many more of these instances out there in which the administration has simply ignored the law. They believe that the constitution explicitly authorizes them to do so.

After 9/11 these people went crazy and convinced themselves that the country was in such mortal, exitential danger that this theory of imperial presidential perogative was a necessity. They say they are doing it to protect the citizens of this country. But one thing that American conservatives used to understand was that our system of government was forged by people who understood that too much power invested in one place is dangerous and that sometimes the people needed to be protected from their own government. That’s fundamental to our laborious process of checks and balances and a free press. (Indeed, it was that principle on which they based their absolutist stand on the second amendment.)

Now we hear conservative commentators like Ronald Kessler, who was just interviewed (alone) on FoxNews, opining that the president did nothing illegal and was completely within his rights to spy on Americans. There is no longer any question that the government would ever abuse its power by, for instance, spying on Americans for political purposes and even if it did, we’re fighting for our lives and we have to accept these infringements for our own safety. I’m quite sure he’ll agree that a President Howard Dean should be given the same level of trust, aren’t you?

I think the president said it best:

“If this were a dictatorship we’d have it a lot easier. Just so long as I’m the dictator.”

Update:

A commenter to Larry Johnson’s post over at TPM (reminding us that John Bolton was involved in some doing about NSA intercepts and American citizens) gives a nice historical view of the Yoo Doctrine:

Re: Spying on Americans and John Bolton (5.00 / 2) (#31)
by JamesW on Dec 16, 2005 — 06:23:50 PM EST

The second part of the Yoo Doctrine is critical: it’s the President, not Congress, who decides whether the country is at war or not.

In an extreme Tory argument, Yoo can just about argue that this was English 18th-century doctrine, but since Parliament rigorously controlled the purse-strings, it surely wasn’t practice after 1688. [Yoo does make this argument — ed] I doubt if English Whigs like Fox accepted the theory either, let alone American rebels.

Where Yoo surely parts company with any sane constitutional thinking since the Roman Republic is the extension that the monarch/president gets to decide what counts as a war. For George III, George Washington, Lincoln. Woodrow Wilson and FDR, war is an organised conflict between societies or social groups. Police actions against pirates, slavers, and terrorists are not war. By treating the rhetorical “war on terror”, infinitely redefinable, as a real war with war’s legal consequences, the Bush administration has entered the 1984 terrain of totalitarianism.

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Making Rove Happy

by digby

Murray Waas has a very interesting article up today that reveals that the Plame smear happened concurrently with another smear job against Francis Townsend. It’s pretty clear that the cabal around Cheney has been operating as a shadow government within the White house agitating for its own policies from the beginning. (And Scooter Libby is a real piece ‘o work.)

The senior staff in the Office of the Vice President adamantly opposed Townsend’s appointment. The staff included two of Cheney’s closest aides: Libby, then the chief of staff and national security adviser to the vice president; and David Addington, who at the time was Cheney’s counsel but who has since succeeded Libby as chief of staff.

Among other things, Libby and Addington believed that Townsend would bring a more traditional approach to combating terrorism, and feared she would not sign on to, indeed might even oppose, the OVP’s policy of advocating the use of aggressive and controversial tools against terror suspects. One of those techniques is known as “extraordinary rendition,” in which terror suspects are taken to foreign countries, where they can be interrogated without the same legal and human-rights protections afforded to those in U.S. custody, including the protection from torture.

Libby’s opposition to Townsend was so intense that he asked at least two other people in the White House to obtain her personnel records. These records showed that she had been turned down for two lesser positions in the Bush administration because of her political leanings, according to accounts provided by current and former administration officials. Libby also spoke about leaking the material to journalists or key staffers or members on Capitol Hill, to possibly undercut Townsend, according to the same accounts.

I am going to take a great speculative leap here and suggest that Rove helped Libby with the Wilson smear at least partially as a way to smooth things over after he was ordered to support Townsend. Maybe that’s what led him to take that walk down the hall and tell Scoot that he’d gotten the job done with Novak.

After all, “Official A” not only mentioned that he had spoken with Novak — he told Libby that Novak was going to write a story about it.

Libby: Junior must have blown a gasket on that Novak column about Townsend. You’re slipping old man.

(High fives Addington)

Rove: Hey, you owe me one, dude. I got him to run with the Wilson thing.

Libby: Awesome!

(high fives all around.)

There have been reports that Rove was seriously pissed that he got caught up in one of Cheney’s little bag jobs without having all the facts (for instance that Plame was a NOC.)

According to Waas, Novak and Rove corroborate each others’ version of events in the Plame matter. Novak happened to be pursuing this story on Townsend and Plame came up at the end of the conversation:

The papers on Frances Townsend that Rove had on his desk on July 9 appear to have corroborated Rove’s and Novak’s accounts to prosecutors that the principal focus of their conversation was Townsend’s appointment. But on the issue of Valerie Plame, prosecutors have been unable to determine whether in fact Novak was the one who first broached the subject, and whether Rove simply confirmed something that Novak already knew. Sources close to the investigation say this uncertainty is one of the foremost reasons Fitzgerald has not decided yet whether to bring criminal charges against Rove.

I’m not sure why that’s relevant, actually, unless Fitz has been trying to nail Rove on a conspiracy charge. As far as I know (and contrary to an earlier Waas story) Rove apparently admitted the Novak conversation from the beginning. His problems stem from his strangely vague recollection of where he got the information and repeatedly lying about the Cooper conversation, doling out the truth only in dribs and drabs as he was absolutely forced to do so.

I wouldn’t necessarily be able to prove it in a court of law, but it’s obvious to anyone who’s followed this story that there was a concerted effort to out Plame. This story today actually serves more as supplemental proof that the White house is a cauldron of intrigue and double dealing, a place in which it’s perfectly believable that outing a CIA agent for political purposes or because of interagency pique is common practice. That’s the type of people we are dealing with. But then we knew that.

But there is a little tid-bit in this article that I find very, very interesting:

Novak indicated to Rove that he was still going to write a column that would be critical of Townsend. But according to an account that Novak later provided of his conversation with Rove, he also signaled to Rove that Wilson and Plame would be the subject of one of his columns. “I think that you are going to be unhappy with something that I write,” he said to Rove, “and I think you are very much going to like something that I am about to write.”

On July 10, Novak’s column appeared in newspapers across the country, with a headline suggested by Novak’s syndicate: “Bush Sets Himself Up for Another Embarrassment.”

The column referred to Townsend as another potential “enemy within.” Novak opined that Townsend would likely prove disloyal to Bush, because she had been “an intimate adviser of Janet Reno as the Clinton administration’s attorney general,” and he pointedly noted that earlier in her career, “Townsend’s boss and patron … was [then-U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York] Jo Ann Harris, whose orientation was liberal Democratic.”

Four days later, on July 14, Novak wrote his now-famous column on Plame, in which he outed her as an “agency operative.”

According to the article, Rove had not been in favor of her appointment originally, but he’d been tasked by Bush to defend her in the press and by all accounts he followed orders and did that. If Novak’s statement is true, then the column that Novak thought Rove was going to be unhappy about was the Townsend article. That means that Novak knew that the column about Wilson was going to make Rove happy.

In order to understand why this is significant, you have to go back and look at the column in which Novak outs Plame. It quite mildly states that the Vice President didn’t send Wilson (which Wilson had never claimed) but it is not particularly critical of Wilson — the man with whom both Rove and Libby are reported to have been obsessed. In fact, it is surprisingly complimentary:

Wilson’s mission was created after an early 2002 report by the Italian intelligence service about attempted uranium purchases from Niger, derived from forged documents prepared by what the CIA calls a “con man.” This misinformation, peddled by Italian journalists, spread through the U.S. government. The White House, State Department and Pentagon, and not just Vice President Dick Cheney, asked the CIA to look into it.

That’s where Joe Wilson came in. His first public notice had come in 1991 after 15 years as a Foreign Service officer when, as U.S. charge in Baghdad, he risked his life to shelter in the embassy some 800 Americans from Saddam Hussein’s wrath. My partner Rowland Evans reported from the Iraqi capital in our column that Wilson showed “the stuff of heroism.” President George H.W. Bush the next year named him ambassador to Gabon, and President Bill Clinton put him in charge of African affairs at the National Security Council until his retirement in 1998.

Wilson never worked for the CIA, but his wife, Valerie Plame, is an Agency operative on weapons of mass destruction. Two senior administration officials told me Wilson’s wife suggested sending him to Niger to investigate the Italian report. The CIA says its counter-proliferation officials selected Wilson and asked his wife to contact him. “I will not answer any question about my wife,” Wilson told me.

If Novak told Rove that he would be happy with that column there can be only one reason —- Plame. And you can see why. After all, Rove has admitted to coordinating a campaign to circulate the information about Plame after Novak’s column was published.

Newsweek reported:

Wilson told NEWSWEEK that in the days after the Novak story appeared, he got calls from several well-connected Washington reporters. One was NBC correspondent Andrea Mitchell. She told NEWSWEEK that she said to Wilson: “I heard in the White House that people were touting the Novak column and that that was the real story.” The next day Wilson got a call from Chris Matthews, host of the MSNBC show “Hardball.”? According to a source close to Wilson, Matthews said, “?I just got off the phone with Karl Rove, who said your wife was fair game.” (Matthews told NEWSWEEK: “I am not going to talk about off-the-record conversations.”?)

You can certainly see why Rove would be “happy” that Novak had taken the bait. It gave them the hook they needed to really go after Wilson. They were running a double game with Tenet publicly falling on his sword to calm down the yellowcake story while they were prodding the press throughout to taint Wilson as a henpecked loser who needed his wife to give him something to do.

In the end the case against Rove does appear to turn on his rolling disclosures to the prosecutor about Cooper. We pretty much knew that. But the more you hear about how this all came about the more you see what a devious, paranoid atmosphere pervades this White House. I think perhaps the country would be far better off if they were all getting blow jobs from interns instead of expending all this energy plotting against their rivals and enemies, both perceived and real.

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Ain’t She Sweet

by digby

Here’s a beautiful woman, brimming with ambition, warmth and joie de vivre:

Irreverent humanitarian Anna Benson is not just another pretty face; she is a woman to be seen and heard. With countless magazine layouts hitting the stands, she balances her time between photo shoots, interviews, and charitable endeavors.

Anna will be featured on VH1’s highest rated show, the Fabulous Life, this summer. She has been featured in several publications, including FHM, Sports Illustrated, and The New Yorker. Her sharp wit and bold assertions make her a New York Post Page 6 and US Weekly favorite. And most recently, Anna has discovered a new hobby: Texas Hold’em. After a crash course on the game and only thirty days of practice, Anna competed in the 2005 World Series of Poker. Anna The Gold Digger Benson outlasted more than half the field of experienced poker players. WPT Champion Tuan Le acquiesced that, “Anna has a natural instinct for the game; I think she will develop into a great poker player.”

But this pretty poker diva donates more than mere good looks. Her namesake charity, Benson’s Battalion, is a nonprofit organization devoted to fighting terrorism in local communities. Founded in October of 2001 with her husband, New York Mets pitcher Kris Benson, the Battalion has assisted numerous police departments, fire departments, and Emergency Medical Services through funding for equipment, supplies, and education. The Battalion was created in response to September 11, 2001. After donating $50,000.00 to the United Way, Anna and Kris still wanted to do more, and the Battalion allows them to stay actively involved in the protection of their communities. Senator Melissa Hart honored Benson’s Battalion in congress in the early part of 2004.

The minimal time that Anna has left is dedicated to managing her husband’s career, raising her three children, and contributing countless hours to several local charities, such as The American Red Cross, The Salvation Army, and St. Barnabas Hospital, where she has presided over “Presents for Patients” for the past four years. However, it is The Children’s Hospital that remains particularly close to Anna’s heart because it allows her to bring joy to children who have otherwise experienced so much pain. This love for children inspires Anna’s newest endeavors, including lobbying for children’s rights on Capitol Hill. She is a true humanitarian with a heart of gold and is always trying to make life better for society.

She’s as beautiful on the inside as she is on the outside. Here are some of her humanitarian writings:

I honestly have to tell you…I hate your fucking guts. Forget about how un-American you are, how politically retarded you are, or how fat you look while slobbering your political garbage all over everyone, mainly, I despise you for the fact that you make money off of influencing the young minds of America to be Bush-haters.

You are a pariah to our nation…a fat kid that got beat up by the jocks at school, and this has formulated your hatred of America. If I didn’t know any better, I would thing George W. himself went to school with you and kicked the shit out of your pie-hole everyday for being such a candy-ass. If you are so passionate about politics, use some of your blood-making money to make it a better place instead of making movies that only benefit your fat-ass fanny-pack. No one likes to see Hollywood try to engage our minds with their ridiculous and one-sided political rants during award ceremonies. Your “movies” are just a façade for your own political agenda, which, by the way, is fucking warped.

You are a selfish, pathetic excuse for an American, and you can take your big fat ass over to Iraq and get your pig head cut off and stuck on a pig pole. Then, you can have your equally as fat wife make a documentary about how loudly you squealed while terrorists were cutting through all the blubber and chins to get that 40 pound head off of you. I dare you to go to Iraq and diarrhea all over our soldiers; they would love to strip you naked in the streets and leave you so that the terrorists can pick you up and dispose of you the way terrorists do. If you believe that Iraq and Al-Queda were not together, go over there and see for yourself.

Perhaps someone should ask for her thoughts on how the coarsening of the culture affects children the next time she testifies before congress. She’s an expert.

Link care of Tom Watson via James Wolcott.

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Tom Delay and Charlie Manson

by digby

Matthews mentioned the fact on his show today that Nixon got in trouble for saying that Charles Manson was guilty while he was still on trial. It’s true. It was a big brouhaha because it used to be considered very inappropriate for a president to weigh in on the guilt or innocence of a defendent because of the possibility he might taint the Jury Pool.

As most of you know, Rick Perlstein is currently writing a book about Nixon’s America. He tipped me to this fascinating little blast from the past. As he was exhorting the nation to respect the judicial system, here’s what Nixon said:

I noted, for example, the coverage of the Charles Manson case when I was in Los Angeles, front page every day in the papers. It usually got a couple of minutes in the evening news. Here is a man who was guilty, directly or indirectly, of eight murders without reason.

Here is a man, yet, who, as far as the coverage was concerned, appeared to be rather a glamorous figure, a glamorous figure to the young people whom he had brought into his operations and, also, another thing that was noted was the fact that two lawyers in the case–two lawyers who were, as anyone who could read any of the stories could tell, who were guilty of the most outrageous, contemptuous action in the courtroom and who were ordered to jail overnight by the judge–seem to be more the oppressed, and the judge seemed to be the villain.

The response was fierce. Here’s Ron Zeigler trying to spin his way out of it:

“The President, in his remarks to you in this room earlier, was, of course, referring to the focus of attention and the dramatics that are oftentimes put on various criminal acts, alleged criminal acts.

“Quite obviously, the President in his remarks regarding the trial now underway was referring to allegations that had been raised and are now in a court of law.

“If you take the President’s remarks in the context of what he was saying, there is no attempt to impute liability to any accused. The gist of his statement was just the contrary.

“I think when he concluded his statement in reference to the system, in concluding his remarks to you, he made it very clear that it is important that in our system, as it does exist, that individuals have the right of fair trial, although, apparently, many of you understood it to mean something other than as the President intended it in his total remarks, to suggest that he was referring to something other than the obvious, and that is the fact that he was referring to the allegations against Mr. Manson and the others on trial in Los Angeles.”

You can see why the Republicans later decided to simply go ahead and make a robot the press secretary.

Yesterday, Bush said he unequivocally believed that Tom Delay was innocent. Now one could make a case that a president should always go with a presumption of innocence. But he didn’t do that with Duke Cunningham who he said should be condemned if he did the things he is accused of. When asked about DeLay, Bush’s jaw just clenches and he says outright that he thinks he’s is innocent.

Here’s the tape at Crooks and Liars You have to see how he looked when he said it to appreciate how bizarre it was. He looks as though he’s just been goosed with an electric cattle prod. (I think perhaps the best explanation for Bush’s inappropriate jury tampering is that old Hot Tub Tom has some fond memories (and pictures) of Junior during his pre-Jesus years.)

Of course, the conservative base has intensely rallied around Delay from the beginning:

Morton Blackwell, Republican National Committee member from Virginia and a member of ACU’s board, said Republicans are being told support for Mr. DeLay is mandatory if they want future support from conservatives.

“Conservative leaders across the country are working now to make sure that any politician who hopes to have conservative support in the future had better be in the forefront as we attack those who attack Tom DeLay,” he said.

And then we all know that the christian right has, for reasons that are unclear, decided that a man named “the hammer” is a quasi-religious figure. Karl is desperate to keep the conservative evangelicals in the republican column, so supporting this criminal, power mad thug could also be seen as a small battle in the War on Christmas.

Still, it is a little bit unusual for a president to utter such unequivocal support for someone under indictment and in the crosshairs of a very serious justice department probe. But then if he didn’t he wouldn’t have any friends or supporters at all, would he. Remember this presidential pal and criminal defendent?

Soon heading to trial, the former Enron CEO implores — before a wealthy crowd — company employees to “stand up” for him.

While most people accused of corporate crimes keep a low profile before going to trial, former Enron CEO Kenneth Lay defended himself in the court of public opinion on Dec. 13 at a luncheon in Houston. Lay portrayed himself as a martyr persecuted by overzealous federal prosecutors more intent on getting a conviction than seeking the truth. He said prosecutors were engaged in a “wave of terror,” intimidating potential witnesses who could clear his name and prove that Enron “was a real company, a substantial company, an honest company.”

Lay pointed the finger of blame at Andrew Fastow, Enron’s former chief financial officer, who pleaded guilty to conspiracy and securities fraud last year. Fastow is expected to testify against Lay and two other former Enron executives, Jeffrey Skilling and Richard Causey, when the three are tried together for various corporate crimes next month. Lay said he was guilty only of being “too trusting” of Fastow. He said it was the “stench” of Fastow’s misconduct that led the investing public to lose confidence in Enron.

UNUSUAL VENUE. And Enron’s fall? Lay argued that it was “public hysteria” that doomed the company rather than its business fundamentals. “Enron’s bankruptcy was caused by liquidity problems, not by solvency problems. The company’s on- and off-balance-sheet assets exceeded its liabilities by billions of dollars,” he said. Indeed, he claimed that Enron would still be a going concern if investors hadn’t panicked.

Lay chose to argue his case before the Houston Forum, a well-heeled group that engages prominent speakers like Senator John McCain (R-Ariz.) and former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger. It certainly was an unusual venue. Others charged with corporate crimes like, Tyco’s (TYC ) Dennis Koslowski and ImClone’s (IMCL ) Samuel Waksal, stood stoically behind their lawyers in public and couldn’t be brought to utter even “no comment.”

Says Houston attorney, David Berg, who defends white-collar criminals and follows the Enron case: “I’d never let a client make a speech like that because his words can and will be used against him.”

“AGAINST THE WALL.” It reminded Berg of Skilling’s testimony during congressional hearings in 2002: “It’s the ultimate in hubris for these guys to spout off like that,” Berg says, adding that for Lay to deliver his speech before a wealthy crowd in a ballroom at an expensive hotel didn’t help him, either.

Lay’s attorney Mike Ramsey says the speech wasn’t intended to influence jurors, which have already been selected, since the people attending the luncheon “are too smart to get on a jury that’s going to last six months.” Rather, Ramsey says, “Our backs are against the wall” in getting witnesses to help with Lay’s defense. “We’re trying to get Enron employees to speak out.”

I guess down there in texas juries like being called stupid. Interesting defense tactic.

Bush doesn’t defend Lay, of course. He just denies that he ever knew him. The bubble gets smaller and smaller.

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Losing His Woody

ReddHedd at Firedoglake noticed something in the Novak story this morning that I missed. It says:

Woodward, a Washington Post editor, recently disclosed that he, too, had been told by an administration figure about Plame’s secret identity — probably, he said, by the same source who told Novak.

ReddHedd explains:

This passage was a little mystical for me, so I confirmed with Rob Christenson that, indeed, that was what was intended, and was told that “Novak made the comment in his speech — referring to earlier remarks by Woodward.”

I haven’t heard that before either. If that’s true, we can assume that the prosecutor had already spoken with Woodward’s source since it’s clear that Novak named his sources. And if that’s so then it’s clear that this source (who Novak described as “not a partisan gunslinger”) was not forthcoming with the prosecutor.

I have thought that it was possible that Woodward could have actually heard this as gossip if it came from Armitage at the end of a conversation. But if this source (whether Armitage or someone else) told more than one reporter, then that’s obviously ridiculous. Woodward and Novak have both simply refused to admit that they were spun like tops.

Woodward has behaved as if Fitzgerald was a Ken Starr zealot trying to frame innocent administration officials and dig willy nilly into reporters’ address books so they could charge whistleblowers with a crime. Now, I don’t know where he got that impression, but it certainly wasn’t from prosecution leaks. Other reporters had testified under the waivers and none of them had complained that the prosecutor was out of line in his questioning. Woodward was one of the very few, even among the press and the strong defenders of the reporter’s privilege in the Miller/Cooper case, who seemed to think that Fitzgerald personally was some sort of zealot.

Therefore, Woodward must have been talking to people who thought it was in their best interest to give that impression to good old Bob, the faithful transcriber. People who had something to gain by making Bob Woodward think that Fitzgerald was out of control. People who knew that Bob Woodward was writing the official history of the White house during this period.

And Bob dutifully believed those people. He believed they were just gossiping, not leaking. And he believed that Fitzgerald was a junkyard dog going way beyond his mandate seeking any reason he could to indict members of the administration and jailing reporters for refusing to spill every secret they hold.

Woodward now says that he was very surprised that the prosecutor wasn’t searching madly for any possible crime with which he could charge the administration. In fact, he was quite professional and respected the reporters’ privilege, keeping narrowly to the area of questions they’d agreed to discuss. One can only hope that Woodward has had his eyes opened a little bit about how he has been played for a fool by this administration (although I doubt it.)

Novak is just mad that the administration didn’t shut down this silly investigation. He knew what was going on from the get. Woodward actually seems to have thought his sources always tell him the truth.

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Breaking News

by digby

CNN is reporting live at a motor vehicle accident in Los Angeles. Fire trucks and ambulences are on the scene. The whole nation must be riveted.

In other breaking national news, a reservoir broke in Lesterville, Missouri. One home was flooded and five people are in the hospital. So far the Dam is holding.

Oh, and the terrorists are still trying to take over the world.

Gotta go. The governor of Missouri is speaking live.

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Run For Your Lives!

by digby

I don’t know why he’s never told us this before, but the president just said that the terrorists are trying to expell the US from the middle east so that they can establish an Islamic Empire that stretches from Spain to Indonesia! And then they want to use Iraq as a base from which to launch attacks against America!

The terrorists are trying to take over the world!

If ever there was a time for the 101st Fighting Keyboarders to suit up and g-o, it is now. The American way of life is at stake.

(Alternatively, you could just keep buying cheap useless shit. That’s another good way to sacrifice.)

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