“I continue to hope that the Department will cooperate with the Committee’s investigation, but it is troubling that significant documents highly relevant to the Committee’s inquiry have not been produced.” On the prosecutorial front, Patrick Leahy subpoenas Karl Rove’s e-mails (or at least what’s left of them), and the Justice Department begins its own inquiry into Monica Goodling, to ascertain whether political bias played a part in her hiring decisions. The plot thickens…
Category: The Senate
Veto-Powered | Benchmarks the Benchmark.
“‘Setting a deadline for withdrawal would demoralize the Iraqi people, would encourage killers across the broader Middle East and send a signal that America will not keep its commitments. Setting a deadline for withdrawal is setting a date for failure.'” As expected, Dubya vetoed the recent Iraq spending bill passed in Congress, only the second time he’s exercised his veto power (the first being stem cells.) And, with few options at their disposal and a veto-override failing in the House 222-203, the Dems have already dropped their troop-withdrawal timetable, and now look to fashion a compromise using the language of benchmarks. “‘I believe the president is open to a discussion on benchmarks,’ said Senate Democratic Whip Richard J. Durbin…White House officials are also looking to benchmarks as an area of compromise, but they want them to be tied to rewards for achievement, not penalties for failure.” Um, what achievements would those be, and how would we evaluate them? It’s the soft bigotry of low expectations all over again. Four years after “Mission Accomplished, I don’t see how we can feasibly expect this administration to offer anything other than the same rose-scented lies about the chaos in Baghdad. They have no other setting.
Congress Steps Up.
“‘How many more suicide bombs must kill American soldiers before this president offers a timeline for our troops to come home?’ asked Rep. Patrick J. Murphy (D-Pa.), a freshman Iraq war veteran who lost nine fellow paratroopers this week in one of the deadliest attacks of the war. ‘How many more military leaders must declare the war will not be won militarily before this president demands that the Iraqis stand up and fight for their country? How many more terrorists will President Bush’s foreign policy breed before he focuses a new strategy, a real strategy? This bill says enough is enough.’” By a vote of 218-208 in the House and 51-46 in the Senate, the Democratic Congress — living up to their promise in 2006 — calls for a timetable for withdrawal in Iraq. Dubya has said several times that he’ll veto the bill, and is expected to do so in short order.
Now Dubya has a Monica problem.
Ah, I do love me that oversight. On the persecuted prosecutor front, the House Judiciary votes 32-6 to grant Gonzales aide Monica Gooding limited immunity, so that she may testify with impunity about the shady goings-on in Dubya’s Justice Department. “‘She was apparently involved in crucial discussions over a two-year period with senior White House aides, and with other senior Justice officials, in which the termination list was developed, refined and finalized,’ Conyers said.” Meanwhile, despite Dubya’s reaffirmed support of late, more Republican senators call for Gonzales’ ousting, including Norm Coleman (MN), Lamar Alexander (TN), and Susan Collins (ME).
Far Away, His Well-Lit Door.
“It was handled incompetently. The communication was atrocious. You ought to suffer the consequences that these others have suffered, and I believe that the best way to put this behind us is your resignation.” Despite having had weeks to prepare, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales has a terrible, no-good, very bad day on the Hill, one that results in even ultraconservative Tom Coburn (R-OK) demanding his dismissal. [Transcript: I, II, III.] I only got to hear twenty minutes or so of the hearings today (Feingold-Sessions-Schumer) while in a cab heading downtown, and Gonzales sounded absolutely terrible: He was at turns combative, befuddled, and amnesic. And when even a White House shill like Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL) is giving you a hard time and telling you “your ability to lead the Department of Justice is in question,” it seems pretty clear the jig is just about up.
Remember Mogadishu.
“None of those 76 senators, who include the current Republican leader and whip, acted to jeopardize the safety and security of U.S. troops in Somalia. All of them recognized that Congress had the power and the responsibility to bring our military operations in Somalia to a close, by establishing a date after which funds would be terminated.” In an editorial for Salon, Sen. Russ Feingold invokes GOP behavior on Somalia in 1993 to make the case for Congress cutting funding in Iraq. “Since President Bush has made it painfully clear that he has no intention of fixing his failed Iraq policy, it is no longer a question of if Congress will end this war; it is a question of when.”
Bring me the head of Alberto Gonzales.
As Dubya bequeaths another “heck of a job” upon his embattled attorney general, it comes to light that Alberto Gonzales apparently lied about his conducting meetings concerning the firing of federal prosecutors. Said Sen. Chuck Schumer of the revelations: “If the facts bear out that Attorney General Gonzales knew much more about the plan than he has previously admitted, then he can no longer serve as attorney general.” Update: “He has said some things that just don’t add up.” Republican Senators start to pile on, among them Hagel, Graham, and Specter.
The House: Get Out.
By a vote of 218-212 and with only two Republicans joining the majority, the House votes on a timetable for withdrawal from Iraq: “The bill would establish strict standards for resting, training and equipping combat troops before their deployment and lay down binding benchmarks for the Iraqi government, such as assuming control of security operations, quelling sectarian violence and more equitably distributing oil revenue. If progress is not made toward those benchmarks, some troops would be required to come home as early as July. In any event, troop withdrawals would have to begin in March 2008, with all combat forces out by Aug. 31, 2008.” For now, and as with the persecuted prosecutors, Dubya is trying to play the partisanship card, and, in any case, the bill has a tough road to hoe in the Senate, where similar legislation received only 48 votes last time around. But, give them credit: While navigating a few defections on either side of the issue, Speaker Pelosi & co. put money where their mouths were last election season. Indeed, the WP deems the bill “one of the toughest antiwar measures ever to pass a house of Congress during combat operations.”
Nuclear Subpoenas?
The plot thickens: A battle over executive privilege looms as the Senate handily rejects Dubya’s attempt to evade subpoenas for Karl Rove, Harriet Miers, and other administration officials in the persecuted prosecutors dispute. “‘The only thing they would accept is if the Senate did exactly what they told them to, which would be closed-door, limited number of people, limited agenda, no oath and no transcript, so nobody knows exactly what happened,’ Leahy said. ‘So there’s really nothing to look for for a compromise, because that is not acceptable to me.’” For their part, Spineless Specter advocated a capitulation to Dubya, as per the norm, while Republican Charles Grassley supported the Senate’s use of the subpoena power.
Commission Accomplished.
Upholding a Democratic promise from the 2006 elections, the Senate passes long-overdue legislation to implement the 9/11 commission suggestions. “In a sign of how far the politics of homeland security have shifted since the Democrats seized Congress, senators voted 60 to 38 — with 10 Republicans and no Democrats crossing ranks — to force a fresh national security confrontation with President Bush, who has threatened to veto the bill over a provision to expand the labor rights of 45,000 airport screeners.“