McClellan: Hunt the Whistleblowers.

Arlen Specter, who has clearly given up on his oversight and impeachment talk of a few short weeks ago, tries at least to bring future NSA wiretap inquiries before the FISA court. Meanwhile, the White House nixes a call by 18 House Dems to appoint an independent counsel to delve into the NSA matter, opting instead for more of their patented Shoot-the-Messenger defense: “‘I think that where these Democrats who are calling for this ought to spend their time is on what was the source of the unauthorized disclosure of this vital, incredible program in the war on terrorism,’ White House spokesman Scott McClellan said. ‘I really don’t think there is any basis for a special counsel. … But the fact that this information was disclosed about the existence of this program has given the enemy some of our playbook.’“

Bribery a la Carte.

Unbelievable. Nothing if not brazen, former GOP official Randy “Duke” Cunningham, who recently pled guilty to several bribery and fraud charges, actually kept a “bribe menu” with the varying prices it took to buy him off. “The card shows an escalating scale for bribes, starting at $140,000 and a luxury yacht for a $16 million Defense Department contract. Each additional $1 million in contract value required a $50,000 bribe. The rate dropped to $25,000 per additional million once the contract went above $20 million.” $140,000? Who do you think you are, Boss DeLay? C’mon, Duke, I could get a Ney or two Frists for that.

Audit to Silence.

“‘This audit was political retaliation by Tom DeLay’s cronies to intimidate us for blowing the whistle on DeLay’s abuses,’ McDonald said. ‘Enlisting the IRS to intimidate critics is a dirty trick reminiscent of Richard Nixon…It is not a crime to report a crime, as we did with DeLay.’” Texans for Public Justice, a non-profit organization critical of the DeLay ring’s hold over their home state, has been cleared of any wrongdoing in an IRS audit — one seemingly triggered, it was discovered after a FOIA request, by Boss DeLay’s minions. “The [instigating] lawmaker, House Ways and Means Committee member Sam Johnson (R-Tex.), was in turn responding to a complaint about the group…from Barnaby W. Zall, a Washington lawyer close to DeLay and his fundraising apparatus, according to IRS documents.“

When you play with fire…

“A behind-the-scenes reconstruction of the ports deal’s rapid evolution from obscurity to uproar shows how Bush was blindsided by the same emotion-laden politics of terrorism that he used to win elections in 2002 and 2004. It also raises anew questions of why the White House message machine, so sharply effective in the first term, seemingly has gone dull in the second.” As the Dubai Port World deal goes under 45-day review, the Post assesses the Dubya administration’s dismal PR performance during Dubaigate.

Dubai Deal Delayed, Dubya Dumbfounded.

“There are many, many problems that we face in maritime security — and they’re not the United Arab Emirates.” Dubaigate continues to have legs, with both parties in an uproar and the port takeover now on hold so Dubya can convince Congress it’s a good idea (or at the very least get his story straight.) Well, as Dan Froomkin noted, inasmuch as this story draws attention to the broader issues of outsourcing, port security, and questionable White House decisionmaking, I’m all for it. But, given all the shadiness this administration has been up to of late, I’m a bit surprised that this relatively innocuous UAE deal has blown up as it has. (I mean, when Dubya recently decided he’d eviscerate our constitutional system of checks and balances, the Senate just rolled over.) Well, don’t look a gift horse in the mouth, I suppose.

Win one for the Scooter.

The wagons are a-circlin’: “A Who’s Who of Republican heavy hitters and Bush administration supporters are lending their names to help raise $5 million for the defense of Vice President Cheney’s former top aide in his criminal trial.”

“Axis” & Allies.

“The bigger problem is that U.S. funding will discredit the very people we seek to encourage. Many Iranians, perhaps even a majority, despise their rulers. They yearn for democracy. To a degree unmatched in any other Middle Eastern nation besides Israel, they even like the United States. However, as anyone who knows anything about Iran’s history would emphasize, these same Iranians deeply distrust outsiders — including American ones — who try to interfere in their domestic affairs…By openly calling for regime change and backing it up with money (however trifling a sum), the Bush administration is playing into Ahmadinejad’s hands.” Slate‘s Fred Kaplan assesses the Dubya administration’s new Iran strategy, and finds that they’re repeating the same amateurish tone-deafness that helped propel Ahmadinejad into office in the first place. (Perhaps Dubya might get it if someone reminded him of the Guardian‘s experiment in Ohio in 2004.)

Whitewash at the Archives.

“The stuff they pulled should never have been removed…Some of it is mundane, and some of it is outright ridiculous.” As recently uncovered by intelligence historian Matthew Aid, the National Archives has been re-classifying thousands of once publicly available documents at the behest of unknown (re: still-classified) government agencies since 1999. “While some of the choices made by the security reviewers at the archives are baffling, others seem guided by an old bureaucratic reflex: to cover up embarrassments, even if they occurred a half-century ago. One reclassified document in Mr. Aid’s files, for instance, gives the C.I.A.’s assessment on Oct. 12, 1950, that Chinese intervention in the Korean War was ‘not probable in 1950.’ Just two weeks later, on Oct. 27, some 300,000 Chinese troops crossed into Korea.” Aid posted his account of the sordid tale today at the National Security Archive.

The Dems Redeploy.

According to the Globe, the Dems are beginning to coalesce around a plan of “strategic redeployment” in Iraq. According to the plan, co-authored by Reagan assistant Defense secretary Lawrence Korb, “all reservists and National Guard members would come home this year. Most of the other troops would be redeployed to other key areas — Afghanistan, Southeast Asia, and the Horn of Africa — with large, quick-strike forces placed in Kuwait, where they could respond to crises in neighboring Iraq.“

Hard to Port.

Members of both parties, including now the GOP governors of New York and Maryland, question government approval of the sale of a British port security firm (which operates six major U.S. ports) to Dubai Ports World, a company based in the United Arab Emirates. “Dubai Ports will not ‘own’ the U.S. facilities, but will inherit the P&O’s contracts to run them, with no changes in the dockside personnel or the U.S. government security operations that currently apply to them.” Hmm. The transaction should be looked at carefully, sure, but, as the TIME article notes, the fact that this company is based in Dubai is much less important than the broader issue of port security standards. Update: Strange bedfellows: Carter backs Dubya, Frist doesn’t. Update 2: Port security link via Medley.