Month: July 2007

No Dice

by digby

For the final installment of our day long Independence Day tribute to President Bush’s commitment to truth, justice and the American way, I direct you to Hilzoy at Obsidian Wings:

So I asked myself: self, if George W. Bush is so worried about excessive sentences, how has he acted in previous cases in which a sentence might seem excessive? Herewith, some examples, which I’ll put below the fold. Here’s the short version: Serving twelve years for a rape that DNA testing shows you didn’t commit does not get you a pardon. Being represented by a lawyer who slept through large chunks of the trial does not get you a pardon. Being convicted of murder in proceedings that a court-appointed special master describes as “”a breakdown of the adversarial process” caused by the incompetence of your lawyer does not get you a pardon, even when someone else confesses on tape to the murder you were convicted of. Likewise, when someone else confesses to the murder you were convicted of and you ask for a stay of execution in order to conduct tests that will establish your innocence, no dice. And when you are unquestionably incompetent to assist in your own defense but no one seems to take that fact into account, or tells the jury, that’s just too bad. None of these sentences are in any way excessive, as far as George W. Bush is concerned.

Do read the whole thing and then wipe away your tears of joy at being led by a man who lives by the credo, “all men are equal under the law …. except those who might testify against me.”

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Excessive

by digby

In another installment of our day long fourth of July tribute to the depth and quality of the president’s dedication to justice and mercy, here’s yet another example for us to ponder. And this one touches on yet another scandal — the US Attorney purge:

Thursday, June 28, 2007; A07

Paul K. Charlton, one of nine U.S. attorneys fired last year, told members of Congress yesterday that Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales has been overzealous in ordering federal prosecutors to seek the death penalty, including in an Arizona murder case in which no body had been recovered.

Justice Department officials had branded Charlton, the former U.S. attorney in Phoenix, disloyal because he opposed the death penalty in that case. But Charlton testified yesterday that Gonzales has been so eager to expand the use of capital punishment that the attorney general has been inattentive to the quality of evidence in some cases — or the views of the prosecutors most familiar with them.

“No decision is more important for a prosecutor than whether or not to . . . deliberately and methodically take a life,” Charlton said. “And that holds true for the attorney general.”

His testimony before a Senate Judiciary subcommittee reviewing the use of the federal death penalty provided the most detailed account to date of Charlton’s interactions with Gonzales’s aides about the murder case that contributed to his dismissal. It also was one of the most pointed critiques of Gonzales by any of the fired federal prosecutors, whose removal touched off a furor on Capitol Hill.

Justice Department data presented at the hearing demonstrated that the administration’s death penalty dispute with Charlton was not unique. The Bush administration has so far overruled prosecutors’ recommendations against its use more frequently than the Clinton administration did. The pace of overrulings picked up under Gonzales’s predecessor, Attorney General John D. Ashcroft, and spiked in 2006, when the number of times Gonzales ordered prosecutors to seek the death penalty against their advice jumped to 21, from three in 2005.

Barry M. Sabin, deputy assistant attorney general for the department’s criminal division, testified, “I don’t know and haven’t evaluated the circumstances of the numbers.” He added: “There should be great respect for those who are most familiar with the facts of the case, the co-defendants and the local community.” But by law, the attorney general has final say over whether capital charges are filed.

According to Charlton, the case on which he clashed with Gonzales involved a methamphetamine dealer named Jose Rios Rico, who was charged with slaying his drug supplier. Charlton said he believed the case, which has not yet gone to trial, did not warrant the death penalty because police and prosecutors lacked forensic evidence — including a gun, DNA or the victim’s body. He said that the body was evidently buried in a landfill and that he asked Justice Department officials to pay $500,000 to $1 million for its exhumation.

The department refused, Charlton said. And without such evidence, he testified, the risk of putting the wrong person to death was too high.

I guess a death sentence based on zero forensic evidence, even a body, isn’t excessive. Life in prison was just too good for this guy. And after they refused to release the money to dig up the evidence that would at least prove a murder took place, they claimed the prosecutor was soft because he didn’t think it was right to take a chance on executing the wrong man. (That’s called respectin’ the culture ‘o life.)

But then, this person wasn’t a member in good standing of “The Village” where all the quality people can attest to the fact that felonious behavior is simply unbelievable coming from one of their friends. It’s just not like him.

To the Bush administration, an excessive sentence is one that upsets rich people.

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Mole Rat

by digby

Hollywood Fred the TV prosecutor is always in the front lines helping out his crooked Republican friends:

The day before Senate Watergate Committee minority counsel Fred Thompson made the inquiry that launched him into the national spotlight — asking an aide to President Nixon whether there was a White House taping system — he telephoned Nixon’s lawyer.

Thompson tipped off the White House that the committee knew about the taping system and would be making the information public. In his all-but-forgotten Watergate memoir, “At That Point in Time,” Thompson said he acted with “no authority” in divulging the committee’s knowledge of the tapes, which provided the evidence that led to Nixon’s resignation. It was one of many Thompson leaks to the Nixon team, according to a former investigator for Democrats on the committee, Scott Armstrong , who remains upset at Thompson’s actions.

“Thompson was a mole for the White House,” Armstrong said in an interview. “Fred was working hammer and tong to defeat the investigation of finding out what happened to authorize Watergate and find out what the role of the president was.”

Asked about the matter this week, Thompson — who is preparing to run for the 2008 Republican presidential nomination — responded via e-mail without addressing the specific charge of being a Nixon mole: “I’m glad all of this has finally caused someone to read my Watergate book, even though it’s taken them over thirty years.”

The view of Thompson as a Nixon mole is strikingly at odds with the former Tennessee senator’s longtime image as an independent-minded prosecutor who helped bring down the president he admired. Indeed, the website of Thompson’s presidential exploratory committee boasts that he “gained national attention for leading the line of inquiry that revealed the audio-taping system in the White House Oval Office.” It is an image that has been solidified by Thompson’s portrayal of a tough-talking prosecutor in the television series “Law and Order.”

But the story of his role in the Nixon case helps put in perspective Thompson’s recent stance as one of the most outspoken proponents of pardoning I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby, the former chief of staff to Vice President Dick Cheney. Just as Thompson once staunchly defended Nixon, Thompson urged a pardon for Libby, who was convicted in March of obstructing justice in the investigation into who leaked a CIA operative’s name.

Thompson declared in a June 6 radio commentary that Libby’s conviction was a “shocking injustice . . . created and enabled by federal officials.” Bush on Monday commuted Libby’s 30-month sentence, stopping short of a pardon.

The intensity of Thompson’s remarks about Libby is reminiscent of how he initially felt about Nixon. Few Republicans were stronger believers in Nixon during the early days of Watergate.

Thompson, in his 1975 memoir, wrote that he believed “there would be nothing incriminating” about Nixon on the tapes, a theory he said “proved totally wrong.”

“In retrospect it is apparent that I was subconsciously looking for a way to justify my faith in the leader of my country and my party, a man who was undergoing a violent attack from the news media, which I thought had never given him fair treatment in the past,” Thompson wrote. “I was looking for a reason to believe that Richard M. Nixon, President of the United States, was not a crook.”

Good thing Nixon was such a paranoid egomaniac that he taped himself committing crimes, otherwise Thompson — the tough, shrewd “law ‘n order” prosecutor — wouldn’t have been able to see past his “subconscious” desire to defend his president no matter what the massive amounts of evidence already showed.

On the other hand, it probably makes more sense that Thompson knew very well that Nixon was a criminal (and liked him all the more for it) but jumped off the sinking ship like the rat he is after the tapes surfaced and nobody in public life could defend him anymore without appearing to be brainwashed or insane.

This guy is the perfect successor to George W. Bush and Dick Cheney. I’m just shocked they didn’t anoint him earlier.

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Quaint

by digby

“But where says some is the King of America? I’ll tell you Friend, he reigns above, and doth not make havoc of mankind like the Royal Brute of Britain. Yet that we may not appear to be defective even in earthly honors, let a day be solemnly set apart for proclaiming the charter; let it be brought forth placed on the divine law, the word of God; let a crown be placed thereon, by which the world may know, that so far as we approve as monarchy, that in America THE LAW IS KING. For as in absolute governments the King is law, so in free countries the law ought to be King; and there ought to be no other. But lest any ill use should afterwards arise, let the crown at the conclusion of the ceremony be demolished, and scattered among the people whose right it is.”

What a nice thought.

Enjoy your Independence Day everyone.

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Digging Deeply

by digby

This is a very touching story about Bush’s many weeks of agonized deliberation and careful thought about whether he should pardon Libby or commute his sentence. It is a portrait of a man wracked by the weight of presidential responsibility. It was, after all, among the most important decisions a leader ever makes. A man’s life was at stake.

Because the deliberations were so closely held, those who spoke about them agreed to do so only anonymously. But by several different accounts, Mr. Bush spent weeks thinking about the case against Mr. Libby and consulting closely with senior officials, including Joshua B. Bolten, the White House chief of staff; Fred F. Fielding, the White House counsel; and Dan Bartlett, Mr. Bush’s departing counselor. “They were digging deeply into the substance of the charges against him, and the defense for him,” one of the Republicans close to the White House said.

That’s truly moving. The president dug deeply into the substance and consulted with many people to determine what the right and just thing to do would be. It’s a tribute to his seriousness and his integrityBut it is just a teensy bit odd considering this

During Bush’s six years as governor 150 men and two women were executed in Texas—a record unmatched by any other governor in modern American history. Each time a person was sentenced to death, Bush received from his legal counsel a document summarizing the facts of the case, usually on the morning of the day scheduled for the execution, and was then briefed on those facts by his counsel; based on this information Bush allowed the execution to proceed in all cases but one. The first fifty-seven of these summaries were prepared by Gonzales, a Harvard-educated lawyer who went on to become the Texas secretary of state and a justice on the Texas supreme court. He is now the White House counsel. […] Gonzales’s summaries were Bush’s primary source of information in deciding whether someone would live or die. Each is only three to seven pages long and generally consists of little more than a brief description of the crime, a paragraph or two on the defendant’s personal background, and a condensed legal history. Although the summaries rarely make a recommendation for or against execution, many have a clear prosecutorial bias, and all seem to assume that if an appeals court rejected one or another of a defendant’s claims, there is no conceivable rationale for the governor to revisit that claim. This assumption ignores one of the most basic reasons for clemency: the fact that the justice system makes mistakes. A close examination of the Gonzales memoranda suggests that Governor Bush frequently approved executions based on only the most cursory briefings on the issues in dispute. In fact, in these documents Gonzales repeatedly failed to apprise the governor of crucial issues in the cases at hand: ineffective counsel, conflict of interest, mitigating evidence, even actual evidence of innocence.

Like so many Republicans, Bush apparently lacks the capacity to think in the abstract. He only found the sentencing guideline “harsh” when it was someone he knew personally. The 152 people whose death warrants he gave a cursory glance to before signing off on the day of their execution weren’t exactly members of his social circle, so why bother?

On the other hand, isn’t it far more likely that what he spent weeks worrying about was how to keep skittish little Scooter from spilling his guts if he failed to beat the rap — and the NY Times just regurgitated a huge bucket of spin? Yeah, I thought so too.

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The Libby Motion

by digby

This is rich:

Perhaps inadvertently, Mr. Bush’s decision to grant a commutation rather than an outright pardon has started a national conversation about sentencing generally.“By saying that the sentence was excessive, I wonder if he understood the ramifications of saying that,” said Ellen S. Podgor, who teaches criminal law at Stetson University in St. Petersburg, Fla. “This is opening up a can of worms about federal sentencing.”The Libby clemency will be the basis for many legal arguments, said Susan James, an Alabama lawyer representing Don E. Siegelman, the state’s former governor, who is appealing a sentence he received last week of 88 months for obstruction of justice and other offenses. “It’s far more important than if he’d just pardoned Libby,” Ms. James said, as forgiving a given offense as an act of executive grace would have had only political repercussions. “What you’re going to see is people like me quoting President Bush in every pleading that comes across every federal judge’s desk.”Indeed, Mr. Bush’s decision may have given birth to a new sort of legal document. “I anticipate that we’re going to get a new motion called ‘the Libby motion,’ ” Professor Podgor said. “It will basically say, ‘My client should have got what Libby got, and here’s why.’ ”

Perhaps Bush will leave a positive legal legacy after all.

Update: There’s more on this here. I particularly like this part:

That Bush chose to make an exception for a political ally is galling to many career Justice Department prosecutors and other legal experts. Federal prosecutors said Tuesday the action would make it harder for them to persuade judges to deliver appropriate sentences.

The critics included some Republicans who said Bush’s decision did not square with an administration that had been ardently pro law-and-order. “It denigrates the significance of perjury prosecutions,” John S. Martin Jr., a former U.S. attorney and federal judge in New York, said of the commutation.

[…]

Several federal prosecutors interviewed by The Times also said they were concerned that Bush’s decision would send the wrong message to judges, giving them reason to lighten sentences and undermining the goal of a more uniform justice system.

“Consistency and fidelity to the law are extraordinarily important. We have expended a lot of credibility to get judges to buy off on this,” said one senior federal prosecutor who requested anonymity because he was not authorized to speak publicly about the issue.

“I don’t know how I am going to advise my people,” the prosecutor said. “I cannot tell you how depressed and disgusted people are around here with this decision. It really undercuts law enforcement.”

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Impeachment

by digby

Has there ever been a president who deserved it more? I don’t think so. Looking at this as someone who believes that until we hold them accountable for their crimes, these zombie crooks will keep doing this over and over again until our country is unrecognizable, my instinct is to scream it from the rafters. But I’m still not convinced that the Democrats should try to impeach. The problem for me is threefold and it has nothing to do with the merits of the case or the desirability of doing it. It’s about the political landscape.

First, I’ve never seen specific high crimes that could get voted out of the House (Elizabeth Holzman is dreaming if she thinks her charges could ever get a majority vote — the national security questions are going nowhere without a lot more information which we won’t get while Bush is in office, and the torture question was rendered pretty much moot by that “bi-partisan” military commissions act travesty.)

Second, time is not on our side. The executive privilege claims are going to take forever to litigate. And, of course, the conservative judiciary is likely to back them, if only by helping them run out the clock. During Watergate, the judiciary committee had the work of the Washington Post to go on —- and then John Dean and the tapes — in an easily understood narrative. Ken Starr gave Henry Hyde a nice little case about dirty sex all wrapped up in a pretty little pornographic package. Nobody had to do any investigation. The job of the congress, in both cases, was pretty much just seeing if impeachment applied to acts that had already been revealed. Things moved quickly.

This requires much more original investigation, particularly on those national security issues, which are going to be very touchy subjects and nearly impossible to get evidence or testimony on. (I think the national security stuff is going to have to be investigated in a different way, a la the Church committee, after Bush is out of office.)

Finally, there is the most important and indisputable fact that Bush and Cheney will never be convicted in the Senate. This isn’t the GOP of 1974 and they will never cross over in enough numbers. They won’t do it even if video tapes of Bush personally giving hush money to Scooter Libby turn up. Let’s not kid ourselves about that reality. The fact is that impeachment will probably bring their caucus together.

But even so, that’s not necessarily a good enough reason not to do it. It could be useful, if only to tie the administration up in knots until they leave the scene. But the risks are high that if you don’t have a specific (and somewhat simple) crime to point to and a good chance of at least getting a quick impeachment vote in the House, that it could blow back pretty hard on the Dems. This is not because people like Bush and don’t want him out of office. It’s because they see that the presidential campaign is in full swing and know that Bush will be out of office soon anyway. That means many of them will likely be susceptible to the inevitable GOP screeching that the petty Democrats are playing politics, going for payback, wasting time etc. And the media will be thrilled to help the Republicans make that case.

Still, it still might be worth it if we could be sure that all this stuff is publicly aired and the Republicans are exposed for the crooks they are. For that we need a narrowly focused investigation on a specific act. To that end, I’d certainly be for holding hearings into whether this commutation constitutes a cover up of Bush and Cheney’s crimes, with the explicit purpose of seeing if it leads to impeachment. (See Marcy Wheeler’s article in The Guardian, here.) There is a certain symbolic simplicity to this particular event, that I think might work to open up the whole argument. And this is the one Bush crime where a nice information package already exists — there have been years of investigation already into this crime and a full trial. (Perhaps Fitz might be persuaded to turn over his non-grand Jury material to the committee if they subpoenaed him nicely.)

But whatever they do, it’s important to remember that impeachment is a nuclear political act, and because it’s a nuclear political act it has to be judged on that basis with a clear view of the political playing field. The consequences of voting impeachment out of committee and failing to get a majority in the House — or if we get a vote, failing to convict in the Senate (which is inevitable) are what’s really at issue. I’m willing to consider that it’s worthwhile anyway. But regardless, everyone needs to decide this course based upon the reality that Bush will not be convicted and barring an untimely demise, will not leave office before January 20, 2009.

So the question I ask is this — is a failed impeachment going to hold them accountable? If so, then I’m for it. But if it actually ends up getting them off the hook, then not so much. It’s not such an easy call.

And then there’s the bigger question. What’s the alternative?

Any ideas?

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Bully For Him

by digby

Tim Noah says Bush did the right thing. In fact, he says “bully for him.” His reasoning is that Walton did give poor Scooter an excessive sentence and that was wrong because he, Tim Noah, believes that Clinton committed perjury and he got away with it.

That whole impeachment trial acquittal thing in the Senate and that whole guilty beyond a reasonable doubt thing in Walton’s courtroom are irrelevant because Noah just knows Clinton committed perjury over a couple of furtive blow-jobs in a hallway which means Scooter Libby and his pals should be able to lie to federal prosecutors. If not, well then, life would just. not. be. fair.

Here’s what I wonder. Noah thinks that the sentence was too harsh and Walton was irritated by all those death threats and smarmy character tributes and whatnot. Let’s say that’s correct. Is there any reason that Bush could not have let Libby serve, say 15 months — half of what he got — before commuting his sentence? How about six months? Two months? If it really was a matter of a “too harsh” sentence, is it really reasonable to say that he should not get any jail time at all?

Apparently so. You see, even though Libby was convicted in a court of law, he can’t serve even a day in jail, because Clinton was … acquitted. Noah writes:

No fair-minded person can deny that the previous president committed perjury about Monica Lewinsky while serving in the Oval Office. The country knew it, and it let him get away with it. Does that mean no government official should ever again be prosecuted for perjury? Of course not. But it does mean Walton should have wondered whether he was imposing a double standard in treating Libby more harshly because Libby worked in the White House. Is it really fair to treat White House aides more harshly than presidents?

The country backed Bill Clinton because it was obvious that he was being pursued by a shrieking band of harpies over an inconsequential, sexual indiscretion, which anyone in his right mind would have lied about in that perjury trap of a deposition for that pathetic set-up lawsuit. The reason Clinton was supported by most Americans was because most of them understood exactly what had happened and they didn’t think he merited the punishment of being forced from office. (They also didn’t like the fact that the Republicans were trying to say their votes and support for this president were irrelevant. )

The Libby matter, on the other hand, was a national security investigation in the wake of the worst terrorist attack in history. Libby lied repeatedly and blatantly to the FBI and Federal prosecutors when the stakes were very high and the entire Department of Justice was on high alert. Telling the truth about spilling the names of CIA agents could have real consequences.

Clinton was impeached and he faced the music. He was tried and acquitted according to the rules of the constitution. Bush, on the other hand, just used his plenary power to commute a sentence to cover his own bad deeds and keep one of his own aides from having to pay the price for his crimes. He has used his power for this one man when he has been the stingiest president in history for pardons and commutations. When he was governor, a woman who had completely reformed in prison was mocked when she begged for her life. He had no compassion for her or any of the 152 people whose death warrants he signed without even giving more than five minutes consideration. He said those people were all guilty — no mitigating factors even entered his mind. Lord knows how many pleas for commutation and pardons he’s ignored since he’s been president.

But poor little Scooter can’t even spend a month in jail. He can’t even spend a day in jail.

And apparently, as predicted, that’s just fine with a good portion of the DC establishment. The oh-so-jaded political observers like Tim Noah see this whole thing as some sort of partisan game of tag. Let the plebes natter on about the following the rules — we’ll call the play by play and let the little people know who’s “winning.” From their perches atop the commentariat they smugly dismiss the concerns of average Americans who are enraged that these people keep cheating and getting away with things that ordinary citizens and even powerful Democrats could never dream of getting away with — they relentlessly smear their opponents with the filthiest lies, they stage partisan impeachments, they steal elections, they illegally start wars and make up novel authoritarian theories of governance — and then they use their powers to excuse their minions from the consequences of these actions if they happen to get sloppy and get caught. None of them ever pay. Ever.

Update: For a real treat, read David Brooks’ take on it. Everybody’s a clown but him — Republicans and Dick Cheney and dirty hippies alike. The only answer is to put this foolishness behind us. Again. Like always.

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Goodbye

by digby

What an awful day.

Jim Capozzola, of Rittenhouse Review, one of the earliest and most influential progressive blogs of the early days, died today. You can read Susie Madrak’s lovely tribute to him here.

Like Susie, I will also run an excerpt of Cappazola’s seminal post “Al Gore and the Alpha Girls”, but you really have to read the whole thing, if you are unfamiliar with it. He influenced all of us and helped our understanding of a phenomenon we were only beginning to grok at the time:

Watching the media’s unrelenting pig pile on Al Gore in recent weeks revived these teenage memories, many of them unpleasant, even painful. And as I thought about the matter and observed purportedly mature men — mostly men anyway — attack Gore with a ferocity I had not witnessed since I said good-bye to the Class of 1980, I thought also of “Girls Just Want to be Mean,” an article by Margaret Talbot in the February 24 issue of the New York Times Magazine.

I found Talbot’s essay spellbinding, fascinating, and extraordinarily accurate, at least with respect to my own high school years and much of what I had heard about kids today from friends and colleagues. I was surprised to see Talbot’s piece greeted in many quarters, the predictable and otherwise, with venomous hostility and transparent denial. In the article, which was based upon visits to several schools and extensive interviews with students and teachers, Talbot identifies the characteristic traits and behavioral patterns of the most selective girls’ cliques, the members of which she refers to as “Alpha Girls” and “Queen Bees.”

Alpha Girls, Talbot wrote, armed with intelligence and cunning, devote considerable time and energy to waging complicated, intricate, and highly personalized battles with other girls of similar age, the intent of which is to damage the other girls’ friendships, relationships, and reputations, all in an effort to enhance and sustain their popularity and status.

The Alphas accomplish their goals through a wide variety of means, including spreading rumors — some true or at least based on truth, others wildly false — using the power of information and the means of its distribution to assault their prey. With an uncanny ability to identify and exploit their victims’ weaknesses, their opponents’ most vulnerable Achilles’ heels, the Alphas mercilessly exclude from membership — or “merely” reduce the social standing of — those who don’t make the cut.

Membership in the group is uncompromisingly exclusive — like the all-male Augusta National Club, obvious eagerness to join is certain to result in rejection — and unquestioning loyalty to the group’s mores and agenda is required for a girl to maintain membership in good standing. Even the most petty offense — wearing the wrong clothes on the wrong day, eating the wrong food in the cafeteria or even eating in the cafeteria at all, or joining the wrong extracurricular activity, to say nothing of speaking with, or worse, dating, the wrong boy — is grounds for immediate expulsion.

Alliances, many of them temporary and fleeting, are a critical element of the Alphas’ strategy. When it suits them, Alphas will befriend a girl with whom they would not ordinarily be associated with the sole intent — not always apparent to the newly befriended girl — of inflicting revenge and retribution on their latest victim. Although Alphas can be mean and cruel, they aren’t physical; catfights aren’t their thing. Rather than engaging in physical altercations, they rely on words, insults, rumor, gossip, innuendo, and manipulation. And the Alphas use others who are not members of the clique, including girls aspiring to this lofty status, and boys, naturally the most popular boys whenever possible, in their campaigns to ruin the reputations of others they find threatening or morally, intellectually, socially, or physically superior.

That essay spoke to me as clearly as if I’d written it myself.

I never knew him personally, but he had a fascinating mind, was a wonderful writer and he led me down a few intellectual paths I’d never been before. He is missed.

I think perhaps this is also a good time to mention some other bloggers who have done great work, but are suffering with illness, with no health insurance, and living hand to mouth because of it. There are far too many people caught in this horrible bind and many others are only one terrible illness away from it. It’s a national disgrace. If you have some spare nickels, today might be a good day to spread them around to our friends, Weldon Berger of BTC News, Arthur Silber of Once Upon A Time and Gary Farber at Amygdala.

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Because He’s So Good

by digby

Just in case Bush’s Fourth of July “fuck you” to the American people wasn’t emphatic enough, here’s a double “fuck you,” with a twist:

Should White House Deputy Chief of Staff Karl Rove be privy to the nation’s most sensitive secrets? Did he break trust with President Bush and the nation when he told syndicated columnist Robert D. Novak about Valerie Plame’s classified job with the CIA? Did he further erode that trust in 2003 when he told then-White House press secretary Scott McClellan that, as McClellan put it, there was “no truth” to rumors that he played a role in the disclosure of Plame’s identity?

Rove, of course, was investigated by special prosecutor Patrick J. Fitzgerald in the CIA leak case but was never charged. His security clearance was renewed after a reinvestigation in late 2006, which has puzzled Rep . Henry A. Waxman (D-Calif.), chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee.

In a letter sent last week to White House Counsel Fred F. Fielding, Waxman alleged that Rove’s actions amounted to a violation of presidential guidelines that say “deliberate or negligent disclosure” of classified information can disqualify a staffer from future access to such material. Also being less than forthcoming, even about unintentional breaches, can be cause for revoking a security clearance.

“Under these standards, it is hard to see how Mr. Rove would qualify for renewal of his security clearance,” Waxman wrote.

White House spokesman Tony Fratto said he could not discuss details but that Rove’s “clearance was appropriately renewed as part of the regular process that occurs every five years.”

Right. Whether he was intentionally leaking Valerie Wilson’s name to Matthew Cooper, which he was, or whether you believe the noxious gas emanating from the mouths of Mr and Mrs Toensing over the last few months and Karl just “let it slip,” without knowing what he was doing (and anyway Richard Armitage did it first so nothing that happened after that can possibly be illegal) —- he has no business getting a security clearance.

In fact, I’d really like to know what the lying sack of compost is still doing on the taxpayers payroll anyway. The man is under suspicion for using the department of Justice to steal election for Republicans, for gawd’s sake. He’s the last person on the planet who should have a security clearance. Bush isn’t running again, his ratings are permanently in the toilet and Rove is radioactive with Republicans. What is doing all day?

I know Bush will probably just pardon him — and then issue him the first knighthood in American history, after the fact — but I really, really think the congress needs to nail Bush’s Brain to the wall. He may not ever pay the full price, but by gawd, somebody needs to make an example of him anyway.

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