Let’s see. Where are we in the Republican defense of Rove? Meme roll call: First: “The White House had nothing to do with the leak of classified information.” Second: “Okay, maybe the White House did have something to do with the leak, but nobody identified Valerie Plame by her actual name.” Second and a half: “By the way, Plame had … Read More
Bush, Roberts and Government Secrecy
The Bush White House is once again play hide-and-seek, this time with memos written by Supreme Court nominee John Roberts. While they are turning over some documents from Roberts’ past, they are refusing to turn over documents from 1989 to 1993, when Roberts was deputy solicitor general. The stated reason? Attorney-client privilege. A-C privilege is a sticky wicket, but it … Read More
Kerry Was Right; Bush Was Wrong
. . . about the “war on terror” "I will use our military when necessary, but it is not primarily a military operation. It’s an intelligence-gathering, law-enforcement, public-diplomacy effort. And we’re putting far more money into the war on the battlefield than we are into the war of ideas. We need to get it straight." — John Kerry, April 13, … Read More
Bush Pulls Access To Classified Info
Not pulled from Rove, but from certain members of Congress. The date was 10/5/01, and here’s the executive order in which he does it. What prompted such an action? Well, apparently, some lawmakers had told the Washington Post that they had been informed that more terrorist attacks were likely, a conjecture derived from intelligence documents. Bush couldn’t have things like … Read More
Liberation?
It looks like the women of Iraq will have LESS freedoms now than they did under Saddam. Speaking about Iraq’s new constitution, the AP writes: Most worrying for women’s groups has been the section on civil rights, which some believe would significantly roll back women’s rights under a 1959 civil law enacted by a secular regime. You would think that … Read More
Lying As A Natural Habit
So Scottie sez that Supreme Court nominee John Roberts “doesn’t recall ever paying dues or being a member” of the conservative Federalist Society. But John Roberts himself said that participatws in Federalist Society events and gave speeches for the organization. And the Washington Post reported Monday that it had obtained from a liberal group a 1997-98 Federalist Society leadership directory … Read More
Quote Of The Day
By mid-June, the Iraqi forces had been given 306 million rounds of ammunition, roughly 12 bullets for each of Iraq’s 25 million people. But when one senior American officer involved was asked whether the Americans might end up arming the Iraqis for a civil war, he paused for a moment, then nodded. “Maybe,” he said. But you really should read … Read More
The 12 Hour Gap
People are asking good questions: What did White House Chief of Staff Andrew Card learn from Alberto Gonzales and when did he learn it…and what did he do with that knowledge? . . . Alberto Gonzales admitted that he called Andrew Card right after he was notified that the Justice Department had opened its investigation of the Plame leak…even though … Read More
The Voice of the Iraqi People (or “The Voice of the Iraqi People”)
Talk about echo chambers. Someone at CNN noted that the U.S. military is apparently recycling quotes attributed to the Iraqi people. For example, when a car bomb went off yesterday in Baghdad (killing 25 liberated Iraqis), the U.S. military released a news statement which contained this passage: “‘The terrorists are attacking the infrastructure, the ISF and all of Iraq. They … Read More
Former CIA Officers Blast GOP Talking Points
In case you missed it, Josh Marshall has the letter (PDF format) in which eleven former intelligence officers reduce the GOP Plame talking points (e.g., “she wasn’t covert because she had a desk job") to mincemeat.
The Truth About John Roberts
He was “Otto”, the inflatable co-pilot in “Airplane”! [Hat tip: Crooks and Liars]
White House Purges?
It seems that some of the press gaggles archived on the White House website have, um, gone missing. For example, you can no longer access the press gaggle where Ari Fleischer says: But there’s a bigger picture here, and this is what’s fundamental—the case for war against Iraq was based on the threat that Saddam Hussein posed because of his … Read More
Heh Photo
This photo was taken in 2003. Rove and Novak. Rove’s button says—I’m not making this up—“I’m a source, not a target”. “O, Arturo, prince of irony . . .”
For The Last Time, Plame Was Covert
A classified State Department memorandum central to a federal leak investigation contained information about CIA officer Valerie Plame in a paragraph marked “(S)” for secret, a clear indication that any Bush administration official who read it should have been aware the information was classified, according to current and former government officials. *** The paragraph identifying her as the wife of … Read More
Another R.I.P.
TV Dinner Inventor Gerry Thomas Dies Gerry Thomas, credited with inventing the TV dinner more than a half-century ago and giving it its singular name, has died at the age of 83. Thomas died Monday, Terry Crowley at Messinger Mortuary said Wednesday. He had a long bout with cancer, relatives told The Arizona Republic. Thomas was a salesman for Omaha, … Read More