…and this is the treatment you should expect: Despite rolling over for Dubya on his formerly-illegal wiretaps, the Senate still put up a show of outrage after Karl Rove simply skips a Senate hearing on the persecuted prosecutors scandal. (Citing executive privilege once again, Dubya instead dispatched a lower-level flunkie, Scott Jennings, to the meet.) “The privilege claim can be challenged in court. But Specter has said the courts would be unlikely to resolve any challenge before Bush leaves office.“
Tag: Republicans
A New Day in Washington?
“‘We have kept our promise to drain the swamp that is Washington, D.C.,’ Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said, adding that the legislation is ‘historic.’” “‘These are big-time fundamental reforms,’ said Fred Wertheimer, president of the open-government group Democracy 21.” Noted Common Cause president Bob Edgar: ” If there is a positive side to Jack Abramoff and the wave of congressional scandal, this is it.“
Yes, this could be big. In the wake of the broiling Stevens scandal, the House votes 411-8 to pass a comprehensive new ethics bill: “Secret ‘holds’ in the Senate, which allow a single senator to block action without disclosing his or her tactics, would end. Members of Congress would no longer be allowed to attend lavish convention parties thrown in their honor. Gifts, meals and travel funded by lobbyists would be banned, and travel on corporate jets would be restricted.” In addition, “bundles” — small campaign contributions packaged together — will now have to be disclosed, along with political contributions by lobbyists and the identities of the lobbyists themselves.
Of course, the bill still has to pass the Senate, where some conservatives are threatening to force a filibuster vote (in part due to the weakening of earmark rules, which is admittedly rather annoying.) But that was before Stevens’ unfortunate run-in with the FBI, so we’ll see. Right now, I’m cautiously optimistic that the right-wing will have to fall in line. As Meredith McGehee of the Campaign Legal Center put it: “It may not be a grand slam, but it’s a home run…There is no credible excuse to oppose this legislation.“
Now will we will touch the bottom of this swamp.
“With respect to the U.S. Attorneys, there has been, I think, a bit of a witch hunt on Capitol Hill as they keep rolling over rocks hoping they can find something,” In an interview with Larry King, Cheney calls the persecuted prosecutor probe a “witch hunt,” and defends loyal capo Alberto Gonzales as “a good man, a good friend, on a difficult assignment.” (In another interview yesterday, he also claimed the Libby jury was wrong.) I doubt anyone really needs a credibility check at this point, but just in case: Cheney is also the guy who told us “we’d be greeted as liberators,” the Iraq insurgency “is in the last throes,” that “there is no doubt that Saddam Hussein has weapons of mass destruction” and is amassing them to use against” us, that the administration is learning “more and more“ about pre-9/11 connections between Iraq and Al Qaeda, and that the evidence of said connections is “overwhelming.” Simply put, Dick Cheney is an inveterate teller of untruths, and I wouldn’t trust him to walk Berkeley at this point, much less run the country. Impeach him already. (Cheney pic via this post.)
But is he truthy?
“‘He’s a slippery fellow, and I think so intentionally,’ said Richard L. Schott, a professor at the University of Texas’s Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs. ‘He’s trying to keep the president’s secrets and to be a team player, even if it means prevaricating or forgetting convenient things.‘” In a front-page story, the WP surveys Alberto Gonzales’ decade-long history of evasions and forgetfulness at the service of Dubya: “Whether Gonzales has deliberately told untruths or is merely hampered by his memory has been the subject of intense debate among members of Congress, legal scholars and others who have watched him over the years. Some regard his verbal difficulties as a strategic ploy on behalf of a president to whom he owes his career; others see a public official overwhelmed by the magnitude of his responsibilities.” So, liar or idiot…take your pick. (My money’s on liar.)
Stevens Hawking his Vote?
Is the longest-serving Republican in Senate history going the way of Casino Jack? FBI and IRS agents raid the home of Sen. Ted Stevens (R-AK), he of the “Bridge to Nowhere,” the “series of tubes” (remix), and the Inuit-Bolivian connection. (The Senator’s son, a former Alaskan state senator, is already implicated in the probe.) “Stevens…is under scrutiny from the Justice Department for his ties to an Alaska energy services company, VECO, whose CEO pleaded guilty in early May to a bribery scheme involving state lawmakers. Contractors have told a federal grand jury that in 2000, VECO executives oversaw a lavish remodeling of Stevens’ home.”
We Ain’t Seen Nothing Yet?
“‘We’re sitting on the doorstep of a definitional moment,’ said Rep. Rahm Emanuel (Ill.), chairman of the House Democratic Caucus.” Faced with their own low poll numbers, the Democratic Congress readies a flurry of late-term legislation involving homeland security (implementing most of the 9/11 commission recommendations), ethics (gift bans and increased disclosure requirements), and child health care (expanding insurance coverage for children of the working poor.) “Republican leaders plan to stand in the way…But against such philosophical stands, there is a stark political problem: How many Republicans are really going to oppose legislation expanding insurance coverage for children, tightening ethics rules and bolstering homeland security?” More than one might think, I’d wager.
Lonely at the Bottom.
“The historic depth of Bush’s public standing has whipsawed his White House, sapped his clout, drained his advisers, encouraged his enemies and jeopardized his legacy. Around the White House, aides make gallows-humor jokes about how they can alienate their remaining supporters — at least those aides not heading for the door.” Round the decay of that colossal wreck, nothing beside remains: The WP contextualizes Dubya’s dismal presidential approval ratings. “The emerging strategy is to play off a Congress that is also deeply unpopular and to look strong by vetoing spending bills.“
No Choice at All.
“‘Democrats are reasonably comfortable with the range of choices. The Democratic attitude is that three or four of these guys would be fine,’ David Redlawsk, a University of Iowa political scientist. ‘The Republicans don’t have that; particularly among the conservatives there’s a real split. They just don’t see candidates who reflect their interests and who they also view as viable.’” Currently leading the Republican race for President: “none of the above.” I wholeheartedly agree.
McCain ain’t able?
“‘The campaign is imploding,’ said one McCain staffer, echoing a word used by others.” With his campaign leadership resigning en masse, some serious funding problems looming on the horizon, and a possible mobile phone slip-up that might prove illegal, is John McCain’s 2008 bid already derailed? Slate‘s John Dickerson surveys the wreckage. “Those who remain are trying to argue that McCain is showing leadership by holding his top brass accountable, but the episode looks more like the last scene in Hamlet — a stack of bodies piled up just before the curtain.” Update: McCain circles the wagons.
Shields Up.
“‘This is a further shift by the Bush administration into Nixonian stonewalling and more evidence of their disdain for our system of checks and balances,’ said Patrick J. Leahy (D-Vt.), chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee. ‘Increasingly, the president and vice president feel they are above the law.'” The Dubya administration invokes executive privilege to thwart the recently-issued congressional subpoenas for info pertaining to the persecuted prosecutor scandal. Instead, Dubya has offered Miers and Taylor for untranscribed private interviews (not under oath), an offer Spineless Specter, among others, thinks the Dems should take. “[C]onstitutional scholars cautioned that this area of law is so unsettled that it is impossible to predict the outcome if the matter ends up in court.”