Call It A Comeback
He said the inquiry into his conduct “has the potential to do greater long-term damage to the institution than the alleged underlying ethics issue that was, in point of fact, put to rest over a year ago.”
No matter how much a Bushie screws up, they threaten impending doom for those who dare oppose them.
“He lifted his head off the pillow and in very strong terms expressed his view of the matter, rich in both substance and fact, which stunned me,” Comey said. Then, he said, Ashcroft added: “But that doesn’t matter, because I’m not the attorney general. There is the attorney general,” and pointed at Comey, who was appointed acting attorney general when Ashcroft fell ill.
I believe this is where I have sympathy for the devil. More seriously, that Ashcroft was willing to resign along with Mueller is stunning. And yet, the current AG was the enforcer to try and get a heavily sedated man to approve a plan.
If there was ever clear evidence of a position being created to scapegoat someone, this is it.
Hysterical–executive privilege extends to the Republican National Committee.
The documents led to demands from Democrats for testimony from Mr. Rove and others; the White House agreed only to off-the-record interviews, and Democrats responded by threatening subpoenas.
Now that Democrats are also demanding access to the political e-mail, the White House took steps on Thursday to use those latest demands as leverage to force Democrats to accept the White House’s conditions for making Mr. Rove and the others available.
In a letter to Mr. Leahy and Representative John Conyers Jr., chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, Mr. Fielding, the White House counsel, said the administration was prepared to produce e-mail from the national committee, but only as part of a “carefully and thoughtfully considered package of accommodations” — in other words, only as part of the offer for Mr. Rove and the others to appear in private.
Mr. Conyers, a Michigan Democrat, issued a tart reply: “The White House position seems to be that executive privilege not only applies in the Oval Office, but to the R.N.C. as well. There is absolutely no basis in law or fact for such a claim.”
This literally takes them past Nixon’s claims on Executive Privilege and makes him look restrained. Executive privilege is a very limited concept only including direct communication with the President under usual circumstances. To try and extend it to an illegal e-mail system (government business was discussed on a private system in contravention of the law) run by a political party is not just laughable, but beyond parody.
John Cole has been calling it the most corrupt administration in history which has become clearly true, but the truly amazing aspect of this is they have no shame and are even using Fred Fielding to make ludicrous arguments.
If the press wasn’t filled with poodles in DC, they might point this out.
Kyle Sampson considered sacking Fitzgerald. Why didn’t he? Because of the Plame investigation is the insinuation.
[kml_flashembed movie="http://www.youtube.com/v/mZmJsLCzVIU" width="425" height="350" wmode="transparent" /]
Of course, the demonstrates the problem the Administration has more than alleviating concerns. Why in the hell would anyone think of firing Patrick Fitzgerald as US Attorney? It’s not just that he was the special prosecutor for the Plame case, he has been a remarkably successful prosecutor on public corruption, corporate corruption, terrorism foreign and domestic, and the mob.
Durbin did a great job pinning him down on it too though the point is somewhat lost in discussion. Why was Patrick Fitzgerald’s name thrown out there? To see what kind of reaction it got.
Now, if you are going through some sort of systemic process to determine who is doing a good job and who is doing a bad job, wouldn’t the only names thrown out there be those that have some objective measure of performance problems?
If someone wants to claim Fitzgerald fit some objective performance criteria for firing–what are those criteria?
If they cannot answer the question, the entire process is a sham. Sampson couldn’t and so far no one else has even gotten close to addressing that question.
The irony is if you go back to the 2000 election we were given glowing stories on Bush’s great role as a manager and he’d be the MBA in chief and run the government like a good business.
As some of us pointed out at the time, Bush failed at every business venture other than the one that depended upon public subsidy. We got exactly what we should have expected.
“It’s a major concession from the President’s initial offer to Congress, which was that they go fuck themselves.”
When the Daily Show is doing the job of the major news organizations. Not universally true as you can watch this hysterical exchange between Tony Snow and Harry Smith. Smith at the end is priceless.
The Daily Show Bit.
Yeah, any sense of reasonableness goes out the window when they start saying this garbage:
The executive branch is under no compulsion to testify to Congress, because Congress in fact doesn’t have oversight ability. So what we’ve said is we’re going to reach out to you – we’ll give you every communication between the White House, the Justice Department, the Congress, anybody on the outside, any kind of communication that would indicate any kind of activity outside, and at the same time, we’ll make available to you any of the officiels you want to talk to …knowing full well that anything they said is still subject to legal scrutiny, and the members of Congress know that.
In 1792, the House conducted a major investigation by appointing a committee
to inquire into the heavy military losses suffered by the troops of Maj. Gen. Arthur St. Clair to Indian tribes. The committee was empowered “to call for such persons, papers, and records, as may be necessary to assist their inquiries.” According to the account of Thomas Jefferson, President Washington convened his Cabinet to consider the House request. The Cabinet considered and agreed,first, that the House was an inquest, and therefore might institute inquiries. Second, that it might call for papers generally. Third, that the Executive ought to communicate such papers as the public good would permit, and ought to refuse those, the disclosure of which would injure the public: consequently were to exercise a discretion. Fourth, that neither the committee nor the House had a right to call on the Head of a Department, who and whose papers were under the President alone; but that the committee should instruct their chairman to move the House to address the President.
The Cabinet concluded that “there was not a paper which might not be properly
produced.” The House committee examined papers furnished by the executive
branch, listened to explanations from department heads and other witnesses, and received a written statement from General St. Clair. The general principle of executive privilege had been established because the President could refuse papers “the disclosure of which would injure the public.” The injury had to be to the public, not to the President or his associates.
This administration has consistently flaunted the law and conflated its interest with the nations.
As the principle has stood, communication between Gonzalez and the President is probably covered under executive privilege, but none of the discussions between subordinates.
Typically this has been a tension not between parties, but between branches. How perverted the system has become over the last 6 years is exemplified by the notion this is a partisan issue. The damage to the Republic is great when the executive assumes he is the sovereign and not a portion of the sovereign.
…But this presumptive privilege must be considered in light of our historic commitment to the rule of law. This is nowhere more profoundly manifest than in our view that “the twofold aim [of criminal justice] is that guilt shall not escape or innocence suffer.”…The need to develop all relevant facts in the adversary system is both fundamental and comprehensive. The ends of criminal justice would be defeated if judgments were to be founded on a partial or speculative presentation of the facts…. To ensure that justice is done, it is imperative to the function of courts that compulsory process be available for the production of evidence needed either by the prosecution or by the defense. …The [evidentiary] privileges are designed to protect weighty and legitimate competing interests… [and] are not lightly created nor expansively construed for they are in derogation of the search for truth.
Never an administration to keep kooks out of the bureaucracy or to allow reality intrude upon programs, the Bush administration had a Phonics only moron heading up the Reading First program and they made it so the scientifically supported programs were essentially all programs from private companies. There’s a reason for this–whole language often requires teachers that are better trained to improvise. Because teacher quality especially in urban districts varies, phonics programs requiring heavily paced programs tend to be easier to demonstrate as working. And so the private companies do better, but Districts doing well with whole language or whole language/phonics fusions are being pushed away from such programs.
It’s been clear for some time that neither program is the best for all students and most progressive educators have blended the approaches to provide different students the tools to succeed. The administration hired a faith based believer in phonics to spread the one true gospel, however, and now everyone else is paying for it.
Is calling for a withdrawal from Iraq
Essentially it’s very similar to what he proposed in 2005 and even closer to 2006 with a couple notable differences.
First, it doesn’t allow combat troops to remain in the north as he previously would have allowed–and something a President should have flexibility for in a perfect world. Unfortunately, the delusional nature of the Bush administration precludes any sort of daylight on the issue.
Second, it shortens the time frame from his previous plans, but only a little bit. Pulling out quicker would likely be dangerous to our own troops and his estimates are approximately consistent with US military doctrine from what I’ve read.
I’ve been arguing this is the correct strategy for a relatively short time, largely because as Duncan at Eschaton has pointed out, the point isn’t to come up with a magical pony plan, but to change the debate from one of ‘in some magical world where we weren’t ruled by children’ plan to get the fuck out plan. This is a get the fuck out plan.
From the Republican Talking Points:
Many companies only allow their employees to choose their health care plan once a year during open enrollment. Meanwhile, if consumers want to buy a cell phone, they get options every day . The President believes our health care system should be as responsive to individual needs as our other consumer marketplaces.
Seriously, do the people who write these not understand that getting out of a cell phone contract can be a huge pain in the ass? It’s almost identical to the yearly contract at a minimum and often a 2 year contract.
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