More evidence about "what was going on" with the U.S. Attorney firings

I know I said my next post would be about Kyle Sampson's experience, but I just saw something I think takes priority.

Check out this post by Kevin Drum concerning the politicizing of the Department of Justice.

Some quick notes about Sampson's testimony

I have been watching some of the testimony of Kyle Sampson, and I wanted to note some things that really surprised me.

File? We don't need no stinking file!

In response to questioning from Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-Rhode Island), Sampson conceded that he was in charge of the program to review and replace USAs, and then Whitehouse asked Sampson whether he maintained a file on this project. Sampson said "no." He only had a "drop file" in the bottom right hand drawer of his desk, and he did not keep or maintain a formal file for the project, and to his knowledge no one at DoJ did. That is absolutely shocking. Sampson also testified that this project had been going on for about two years. And there was no formal file? If Sampson is telling the truth, this shows that the process was haphazard and likely based solely on political considerations.

And who knows if he is telling the truth? If there was a formal file, it would certainly be subject to disclosure (per the House Judiciary Committee's requests), and I'm guessing that the Bush administration would do everything possible to keep from turning over that file. Just look at how the document dump has proceeded and what the Bush administration has said about that (and by the way, there was another dump yesterday).

Sampson's experience

Whitehouse also questioned Sampson about his experience. It turns out that Sampson has tried one--and only one--criminal case. When asked if he had tried any civil cases, Sampson responded that he was an associate at a firm in Salt Lake City and sat as second chair (meaning he was not the lead lawyer) on some civil trials. Let me tell ya, folks, that is very little experience in general, and is damn sure woefully little experience for someone who was in charge of determining whether USAs should be fired.

Let me try to put the previous sentence in perspective. The position of U.S. Attorney is extraordinarily demanding and difficult. The administrative and political demands alone are unlike any other job in the lawyer world. There is no way that someone who has tried only one criminal case and sat second chair for a few civil trials can have any idea what the job of USA fully entails, and that means there is no way someone with Sampson's level of experience should be in charge of evaluating the performance and future of USAs.

I'll have more on Sampson's experience in the next post.

So, what's the big deal about the firing of U.S. Attorneys?

[NOTE: This post will not include all the evidence and citation to sources it should, but I wanted to get it published before Kyle Sampson testifies before Congress today. I might add in more facts and citations at a later time.]

I answered this question in part in my first post on this matter on March 15, and this post will expand on that answer. Here's a preview: 1) the firings are not as important as the hirings; 2) several complaints about the firings, when considered separately and alone, are not a big deal; 3) when those complaints are viewed as a whole, it is clear that the Bush administration was trying to turn DoJ into a tool to carry out a political agenda rather than enforce the law; 4) the Bush administration is trying to establish a system by which all forms of oversight and checks and balances are circumvented.

The fact that the firings were partisan and political in nature is not a big deal. There is no question that the U.S. Attorneys (USAs) were forced out because of political reasons. Need proof? Go to Talking Points Memo and TPM Muckraker and start reading the posts on this matter from February 28, 2007, forward. I think those are bullshit reasons, but, in the overall scheme of things (speaking broadly), standing alone, they present no reason for outrage or scandal. U.S. Attorneys are part of the Department of Justice (DoJ), which means that although they work in the judicial system, they are part of the Executive Branch. Thus, they are appointed by the President, and, as we have heard repeatedly, they serve at the pleasure of the President. There is no law which requires a President to keep U.S Attorneys that were appointed or served in previous administrations. Moreover, it is understandable that any President would want people in the Executive Branch that share his views and positions. Indeed, such a move further makes some sense in that the DoJ is responsible for helping to enforce the law (more on that later). If there are certain existing laws which the President wants to emphasize or new laws the President seeks to create, it is not unreasonable that he would want the people who enforce those laws to be in agreement with him. And again, there is no law against cleaning house and putting in his own people.

See, if the Bush administration had just said "We fired these USAs for strictly partisan reasons because we did not like their politics and we wanted people that agree with us politically," there still would have been a big negative reaction, but there would have been no basis for a scandal. However, the Bush administration did not say that the firings were for partisan or political reasons. Instead, the Bush administration claimed that the firings were performance related, as in those that were fired were doing a poor job.

To make a long story short, that rationale has been debunked. The facts have shown that the USAs were fired because they did not pursue investigations and indictments against Democrats and/or did aggressively investigate and/or pursued indictments against Republicans. Believe it or not, that fact, standing alone, does not comprise a big deal for me. Although I think those are also bullshit reasons, I do not see them as a basis for a scandal for the reasons discussed above.

Now, basically lying about the reasons for the firings approaches being a big deal, but it leads me to ask further questions. Why lie in the first place? If the reasons for the firings were objectionable but nonetheless understandable (for instance, for purely partisan political reasons), why not just come out and say that and take the usual Bush position of telling everyone to just shut up and take it? Ah, there are answers to those questions, so read on...

I assume that since the Bush administration has not been truthful about the reasons for the firings and has not simply said they were done for strictly partisan reasons, they are trying to get away with something that is highly objectionable and dangerous.

And now we are getting closer to what is really going on...On March 15 I said the following:

This whole scheme was designed to turn DoJ into Bush's political hit squad. In other words, the U.S. Attorney (USA) offices across the nation would be occupied by Bush political operatives, working almost solely to achieve political ends. This would be a way to consolidate power in the White House while reducing the power and oversight of the Congress so that the Bush administration could achieve through alternative means what could not be done directly through Congress.

We now know from the document dump that the DoJ was rating USAs on the basis of whether they were "loyal Bushies" and that one objective was to replace the fired attorneys with "loyal Bushies." Again, standing alone, this is not a big deal. However, start putting the pieces together, and the result affirms what I said on March 15.

One piece concerns the appointment of USAs. They are appointed by the President and then subject to confirmation by the Senate. However, there was a provision in the Patriot Act that allowed the Attorney General to appoint interim USAs for indefinite terms without consulting with or getting the approval of the Senate.

So here is what was going on...USAs were being fired for going after Republicans and not going after Democrats. There was also a ratings process underway based entirely on political loyalty to Bush, not competence. The Bush administration was trying to replace the "non Bushies" with "loyal Bushies." The Bush administration wanted to use these new USAs to go after Democrats and keep the law away from Republicans. And the Bush administration wanted to do this for every U.S. Attorney. In other words, the reason these new USAs would be put in office would be to be a political hit squad. And all of this would be carried out with no oversight by Congress, which would be a major change.

The final piece of this puzzle is the Mission Statement of the DoJ:

To enforce the law and defend the interests of the United States according to the law; to ensure public safety against threats foreign and domestic; to provide federal leadership in preventing and controlling crime; to seek just punishment for those guilty of unlawful behavior; and to ensure fair and impartial administration of justice for all Americans.

Nowhere does it state that the mission of the DoJ is to carry out the political agenda of a given President or party. And by "political agenda" I mean going after your enemies in order to drive them out of or keep them from power while making sure your friends do not have to face any sanction for their conduct, thus helping them stay in power. That has nothing to do with enforcing the law in a fair and impartial way for all Americans. That has nothing to do with defending the interests of the United States. To the contrary, that is how things are done in authoritarian regimes, folks.

That is a big deal. And that is why this whole matter of the firing of the USAs is important.

Some insight and opinion on the "document dump" in the U.S. Attorney scandal

Overview

Part of the response by the Bush administration to the growing scandal over the firing of the U.S. Attorneys has been to provide a large number of documents (including many emails). On the surface, such document disclosure might seem very cooperative and like a sincere effort to be open. Based on my experiences in 19 years of practicing law, I have a different take. My take is that the document dump was an attempt to conceal information. I know that seems counterintuitive, but just keep reading. The attempt has not really succeeded, and so the Bush administration has had to keep releasing documentation.

The House Judiciary Committee requested documents via a letter to the Department of Justice on March 8, 2007, and a letter to the White House on March 9, 2007. The requests are similar and contain specific categories of documents. The letters also contain definitions for "document" and "communication."

All the documents that have been released are available on the House Judiciary Committee's website. The document dump began on March 13, 2007, when the Department of Justice (DoJ) released some documents which were given to Congress. The total number of pages in this release was (assuming my calculations are correct) 144. The document dump continued six days later when DoJ released what has been referred to as 3000 more pages of documents. However, by my calculation, the number of pages was 2709. Despite this discrepancy, I will generally refer to the March 19 release as "the 3000 page dump." More documents were released on March 20, and that release contained 3571 pages. Each set of documents has been posted in enumerated portions. For instance, the 3000 pages have been posted in 56 sets: 1-1 through 1-11, 2-1 through 2-9, 3-1 through 3-6, and so on through set 12. The March 19 release (the so-called "3000 pages") contained a gap, as there were only two documents from the time period of November 15-December 4, a most crucial time given that the firings occurred on December 7. If you want to see an analysis of what was in the 3000 pages, go here. I will mention some of that analysis later.

Approximately 280 more pages were released on March 23, and some of those documents fill in the gap and cause serious problems for Attorney General Alberto Gonzales and the White House, as will be discussed later.

In the interest of disclosure, I state that I have not looked through all the pages in the document dump, nor do I plan to.

In order to fully explain my opinions on the document dump, I will have to explain some things about what is known as "discovery" in the litigation process, and I am warning the reader right now that a case of tired head might be in your near future as a result.

The document dump as described by the Bush administration

On March 13, 2007, Bush's counselor, Dan Bartlett, held a press briefing, and said that

So this is not a situation we were sitting on information and just not sharing it. In fact, the fact that I'm standing up here and we've made -- I think now documents are posted on the websites up on Capitol Hill -- demonstrates that we have nothing to hide. And we want to make sure that all this information is understood and in complete context. But it doesn't change the underlying fact, and that is that this was a proper decision.

Next up came Tony Snow, who, on March 19, 2007, said the following:

Well, Jim, the Department of Justice also has been busy trying to do document production, and frankly, on a lot of that stuff I'll direct you to the Department of Justice for fuller answers. But let me just note that they're going to be producing documents that they think are going to be fully responsive to the requests and needs of people on Capitol Hill. I think you do that as a first step. And, again, they've made a very generous offer, in terms of making people available for the committees.

I think it fits into that general -- what you want to make sure that you do is that you have your materials ready so that rather than sort of searching piecemeal through it, you put everything together and make it possible to have a fruitful discussion.

*******

And while we know that there are some questions that people have, the Department of Justice, which conducted the review, has offered to make available all documents and individuals. That seems to me to be a pretty forthcoming offer.

It certainly seemed like Snow was trying to put all of this on DoJ, as in he was trying to say that the White House had little information or knowledge of this whole matter. Indeed, one reporter pointed this out to Snow.

Q: You seem to be trying to insulate the White House. You keep saying the Justice Department is making people available, but White House people have been implicated in these emails, as well. So it's one thing to put up Justice officials. What about the White House?

MR. SNOW: Well, again, the White House made available those emails.

So, after trying to make it seem like the White House was not involved, Snow conceded that indeed the White House did have relevant information, and he implied that the White House was being completely open and up front--even though the question asked about making people available for questioning and Snow only talked about emails. And here's another thing. Snow was talking like there is some meaningful distinction between the White House and DoJ. Let's review: the White House controls the entire Executive Branch; the DoJ is part of the Executive Branch; the Attorney General is appointed by the President and the President is the AG's immediate boss; therefore, any attempt to claim that the White House has no control over or connection to the DoJ has a high degree of bullshit.

The next day, Snow started off the press gaggle with this statement:

A few notes to start with: As many of you already know, but I'll repeat, the President placed a 7:15 a.m. call this morning to the Attorney General to reaffirm his support for the Attorney General.

This comes in the wake of the Justice Department's release yesterday of 3,000 pages of emails that give a pretty extensive view of the deliberations that led to the decision to replace eight U.S. attorneys. The Attorney General thinks it's important that Congress and the public get a full opportunity to see what went into those deliberations. And the department also has been extremely forthcoming with Congress not only in terms of providing documents that are responsive to the request, including, incidentally, documents that reflect communications between the Justice Department and the White House, but also to make available to investigators or to members of the Hill officials at the Justice Department who were involved that the Hill may want to hear from, and on an on-the-record basis.

(emphasis added). A little bit later, Snow said

Now there's an opportunity for people to take a look at 3,000 pages of emails. We were a little disappointed over the weekend when politicians decided to try to draw conclusions about what went on without having seen the evidence. And the Department of Justice has been very forthcoming. This is extraordinary, in providing the internal documents and making available for on-the-record questioning the people who were involved in this. So the Attorney General is being as cooperative as possible, having full confidence that the facts are going to support him.

(emphasis added). As we will see, the Bush administration has not been exactly forthcoming. Also, note that the White House's official position was that providing the 3000 pages was extraordinary and that Gonzales was being just ultra cooperative. What a bunch of a crap.

When asked why the 3000 pages had not been made available earlier, here was Snow's response:

Because they weren't available earlier. This is not the sort of thing where you snap your fingers and everything is available. The Department of Justice is at all hands on deck for the last five or six days, going through to look as carefully as they can to produce all the emails that are responsive to the requests. They wanted to be careful about it.

Oh, they were being careful, all right--careful to keep some emails out, as will be shown later.

For now, the point of the quotes from Snow and Bartlett is to show that the Bush administration was claiming that the document dump was proof that there was nothing to hide and that all the relevant information had been disclosed.

The discovery process in litigation

And now it is time to put the "document production" in perspective. To do that, I need to explain some litigation procedure and history. Granted, what is going on with this scandal is not litigation per se, but there are parallels.

Part of the litigation process is something called "discovery." Discovery is the process by which facts and evidence are acquired by the parties. Discovery includes oral and written depositions, written questions called "interrogatories," requests for admissions, and document production (providing each side with documents which are responsive to written requests). This is the part of the litigation process you never see on the TV shows, and it is the part of the process where the real battles take place, to put it mildly. For my entire career, discovery abuse has been at the forefront of the practice of law.

Discovery abuse comes in many forms. It would take way too long to discuss them all, but I need to discuss some of them that are relevant to this post. Discovery requests can be abusive. They can be vague and overbroad to the point of being oppressive and unreasonable. Consequently, there are rules which require a degree of specificity. Such rules present a variation on the "you don't get what you don't ask for" adage. In discovery, the responding party does not have to give any more than what is asked for, but if the request does not have some specificity, the requesting party might not get anything. At the same time, the response has to have some specificity or it could be deemed nonresponsive (and possibly abusive). The response also has to be complete. In the context of document production, this means that the responding party cannot provide only some of the responsive documents but must provide all of them. Of course, the responding party can object to turning over some document because some privilege (like attorney-client) might apply, but generally the responding party must state the objection and provide some description of the documents.

Got a headache yet? Welcome to my world.

The specificity requirements need to be explained further in the context of document production. Discovery requests also include definitions of terms, such as "document" and "communication." These definitions are typically very broad. Basically, anything that has been recorded in any possible way is a "document," and the typical definition for "communication" is just as expansive. The definitions of these terms in the letters from the House Judiciary Committee prove this point. Given these definitions, and the requirement to turn over all responsive documents, responding parties will usually turn over lots and lots of documents in order to avoid an accusation of being nonresponsive or engaging in discovery abuse. However, the responding party cannot simply say "Here is a huge stack of documents which satisfies all the requests." Instead, the responding has to provide some explanation and guidance. For instance, say a responding party has 3000 pages of documents. The responding has some obligation to either group those documents together in ways that respond to specific requests and/or to provide some sort of description and method by which the requesting party can locate the documents which are responsive to specific requests.

I have been on all sides of a document dump (requesting party, responding party, plaintiff, and defendant). My experience has been that when a responding party engages in a document dump without the specificity I have described, that party is trying to hide something.

I hope that the following historical story about discovery abuse will help.

Ford Motor Company's reading room

The Ford Motor Company utilized (and in some ways still uses) a particular form of discovery abuse. When sued and confronted with specific and lengthy requests for document production, Ford would employ what came to be called the "reading room." Ford would basically say "We have this big-ass warehouse full of all the documents you could ever want. We'll set up a room in the warehouse where you can read the documents. Have fun." What made this practice abusive is that Ford would not say anything as to what documents would be responsive to specific requests and would not do anything to give any indication where responsive documents could be found. Also, a large portion of the documents would be completely irrelevant, but the plaintiff would have to go through all the documents to find out. There would be no way a plaintiff could find what it needed without years of going through documents. Such a tactic had several objectives, including bogging down the whole process, making the plaintiff give up (because the plaintiff would run out of time and money), hiding damaging evidence, and concealing evidence.

The last two objectives need a little more explanation. Ford could bury damaging evidence in some obscure location in the warehouse so that the chances of it being found would be slim or none, yet they could still claim that it provided everything and it was the plaintiff's fault for not finding it. Also, Ford could remove damaging evidence and later claim that there was no way they left out anything by pointing to the amazing amount of documents they offered without restriction.

The document dump was an attempted "reading room" ploy.

Now let's compare the "reading room" ploy to the Bush administration's document dump. Review what Bartlett and Snow said about the document dump--that it was on the up and up, there was nothing to hide, that all the evidence was available so people can put it in context, that the Bush administration was being fully cooperative, etc. The facts indicate otherwise.

I will give Snow the benefit of the doubt on his explanation as to why the 3000 pages had not been released earlier. His explanation seems reasonable. However, that is the only matter on which I will give him or the rest of the Bush administration such deference.

I am going to focus on the "3000-page" dump. Gosh, 3000 pages sure sounds like a lot of information. However, as any lawyer with litigation experience can tell you, appearances can be deceiving in the case of a big stack of paper. For example, if you look through the sets, you will find lots of blank pages or pages with little or no information. I am not saying that the inclusion of such pages is nonresponsive, but I am saying that their inclusion certainly reduces the true impact of saying "we disclosed 3000 pages of documents." In other words, in this case 3000 does not necessarily equal 3000.

Regarding the 3000 page portion of the dump, the link I provided above is a post on TPM Muckraker which contains comments and analysis from the readers of the site. One comment illustrates one of the objectives I listed for the reading room ploy:

[T]hese documents seem to be a bunch of smoke and mirrors. Tons of irrelevant junk intended to divert our attention.

While there are some interesting documents there, it seems that many may still be being withheld.

Evidence of such irrelevance is found in the following comments:

2-8

Pages 15-16 are Tim Griffin's resume (!).

Pages 11-48 are all resumes.

*******

2-9 -- all resumes. Brett Tolman's resume is at the end.

Resumes seem completely irrelevant to reasons why the attorneys were fired. You can see these oh so vital and pertinent documents here and here. Set 3-4 has 24 pages of biographical profiles of various members of the House, and I fail to see how those pages are relevant. Again, this means that 3000 does not equal 3000.

There does not appear to be any structure to the document dump. Look through the sets and you will see that in portions the documents are put in something resembling chronological order. And then there will be documents from up to a year or two years previous. I have not seen any way in which the documents have been grouped together, nor have I seen any explanation or guide to the documents. This is getting very close to discovery abuse as I explained it above.

Now let's get back to the reading room ploy. The Bush administration dumps a massive amount of paper on it critics, then claims that the volume of documentation shows that such disclosure has been complete and sincere. And yet it did not take long for this position to be dispelled. Recall that I mentioned that there was a gap in the documents released on March 13 and 19. More specifically, with one or two exceptions, there were no documents from the 18-day period of November 15-December 4. As reported by Mike Allen and John Bresnahan on March 21, this gap "was a critical period as the White House and Justice Department reviewed, then approved, which U.S. attorneys would be fired while also developing a political and communications strategy for countering any fallout from the firings." When asked about this gap on March 21, Tony Snow claimed he had no knowledge about it and that all questions should be directed to DoJ. I'll get to DoJ's response in a moment.

But before that, let's look at the timing. Documents were released on March 13. That day Bartlett said those documents had been publicly posted and that that proved the Bush administration had nothing to hide. Then almost 3000 pages of documents were released on March 19, and on that day, Tony Snow said that DoJ was being extremely forthcoming. By 2:19 a.m. on March 20--just a few hours after the almost 3000 pages were released--one of TPM Muckraker's readers spotted the gap and, via the wide world interweb, so did the rest of the world. As shown above, on March 21 Tony Snow was questioned about the gap, and then two days later DoJ released more documents, some of which were from the gap.

Now let's look at DoJ's response about the gap. As reported by the New York Times on March 22,

Brian Roehrkasse, a spokesman for the Justice Department, said, “The department has provided or made available to Congress all the documents responsive to Congress’s requests over the time period in question.” He added, “To the extent there was a lull in communications concerning the U.S. attorney issues, it reflects the fact that we have found no responsive documents from that time period, which included the Thanksgiving holiday.”

So, there was a "lull" in communications and that meant there were no responsive documents. Is that what Roehrkasse was saying? Notice that he did not say that the search for documents was ongoing and that there might be some more found. No, instead he said that all responsive documents had been provided. So how was it that the next day DoJ magically found documents from the gap period? It sure seems to me that Roehrkasse was full of crap when he said DoJ had provided all responsive documents.

Instead, DoJ dumped over 6000 pages of material that was not well organized and provided no guidance as to what was contained in that material. Based on the facts and my experience in document dumps, it sure seems to me that DoJ and the White House tried to hide something. Their behavior reflects all of the things I described as objectives of the reading room ploy. That opinion is strengthened by the fact that once the gap became an issue that was not going to go away, more documents "turned up" in the March 23 dump.

And as I said, some of those latest documents are damaging. For instance, Set 3 of the March 23 dump contains an email thread from December 4, 2006, in which the "US Atty plan" was discussed. One of the participants in that discussion was William K. Kelley, who happens to be Deputy Counsel to the President. In that thread, Kelley sent an email to Kyle Sampson which said the following:

We're a go for the US Atty plan. WH leg, political, and communications have signed off and have acknowledged that we have to be committed to following through once the pressure comes.

(See pp. 29-30 of Set 3). This shows that the White House not only knew what was going on ahead of time but approved it. So much for Bush, Rove, etc. not being involved. No wonder this had been left out of the previous document dumps.

Pages 31-33 of Set 3 has the plan itself. I found this passage to be significant:

STEP 3

Prepare to Withstand Political Upheaval: U.S. Attorneys desiring to save their jobs (aided by their allies in the political arena as well as the Justice Department community), likely will make efforts to preserve themselves in office. We should expect these efforts to be strenuous...Recipients of such "appeals" must respond identically:

*******

Who decided? The Administration made the determination to seek the resignations (not any specific person at the White House or the Department of Justice).

Everyone knew there would be "political upheaval" and yet the plan was that the Bush administration would not say that any specific person was responsible for the decision. There's an indication that the Bush administration is trying to hide something.

Pages 7 and 46 of Set 6 and page 7 of Set 9 show that there was a meeting on November 27, 2006, regarding "U.S. Attorney Appointments" and that one of the participants was Monica Goodling, who was--and for the moment still is--the DoJ liaison to the White House. Again, this indicates that the White House was involved in this whole affair. [NOTE: I originally said that Goodling was the White House liaison to DoJ.]

Moreover, the latest document dump reveals that Gonzales his ownself was at that November 27 meeting and approved the firings. Oops. Given that Alberto previously told Congress that he had no involvement in the firings, I'd say he now has a problem. (These documents might be in Set 8 or 10 of the March 23 dump, but the links for those sets are not currently working.) And he still has not given a plausible explanation of his role or non-role. For proof, go the main page for "Countdown" and click on "What's Gonzales' Game?" (I will try to keep this link updated, but likely I will replace it with a link to the transcript).

The existence and delayed disclosure of these documents, along with the previous claim that all responsive documents had been produced, further indicate that the document dump was an attempted reading room ploy. It seems to me that the White House and DoJ released the over 6000 pages in the way they did (rather disorganized and with irrelevant material) as part of a gambit that no one would take the time to slog through all the documents and try to piece things together. Another part of the ploy was to claim--several times--that every responsive document had been disclosed. And how could such a claim seem credible? By pointing out that over 6000 pages had been released. Surely that would be prima facie proof that "there was nothing to hide." And then, once the flaws in the document dump were found, more documents were released, but still in a rather disorganzied manner, and once again the claim was made that everything had been produced. Also, look through the March 23 documents and notice that the damaging items comprise a small amount of the total and that one has to go through everything page by page to find them. Again, this exemplifies a reading room ploy.

And my opinion is that this reading room ploy is just one way in which the Bush administration is trying to conceal information about this whole affair.

I will close with a few more observations. The document dump represents little more than gamesmanship by the Bush administration. In the world of civil litigation, this sort of behavior is expected and even tolerated to a degree, but such behavior is subject to review and possible penalties. This U.S. Attorney scandal is not, however, civil litigation. I do not know of any direct penalties to which the Bush administration can be subjected. More importantly, what is involved and at stake here goes beyond civil litigation. This matter involves the public interest and the public trust. I will discuss that in a subsequent post, but for now I will say that for me that fact means that the Bush administration should comply with a higher standard than that used in discover abuse issues in civil litigation. Sadly, it seems that the Bush administration thinks otherwise.

Iraq: Four years and counting

In looking at the totality of the Iraq war (the march to war, the case for war, the "reasons" for the war, the lack of planning for the aftermath, the effects the war has had on this country, the effects on the war on terror, the way the Iraq war has been managed, and on and on), my opinion can be stated in one simple phrase. Before stating that phrase, I want to make two things clear. First, the target of my scorn is the Bush administration and Congress (and that includes all the Democrats who were spineless and/or complicit regarding the war). Thanks to the stupidity and incompetence of those folks, our military has been put in a damn near impossible situation. Secondly, although I don't always temper my language, I try to keep from spewing cuss words even though I often want to use them. However, there are times when use of such language is needed to fully convey context and meaning. This is one of those times.

So with that in mind, here is what I think about the Iraq war as it heads into year #5:

Dumbest fucking thing this country has done in my lifetime, and possibly in our entire history.

Objective of this blog reiterated

From February 10, 2006:

As I stated back in November 2004, this site is not really a blog--at least in the ways that used to characterize blogs. I also said that "I want people to use my posts as a resource. I want to provide a package that compiles and analyzes information in a way that is useful not just for now, but in the future...I'm just trying to offer something in addition to what is already out here." In other words, I started this site in part to provide a research and information resource for others.

Of course, as I explained in November 2004, I also started this site to express my views, but I could do that without citing any facts or sources. One of my undergraduate degrees is in History (and the other is in Political Science--B.S., of course). When it it comes to writing about political matters, not only do I want to provide a research and information source for now and in the future, but I also want to try to provide something that can be a historical record--or at least a part thereof.

Posts to come...

Over the past weekend, I had intended to write more about the U.S. Attorney scandal and Valerie Plame's testimony before Congress, but a few things kept me from doing that. First and foremost, I was hit with a major case of March Madness. This is my favorite sports-related time of the year. For me, there is nothing better than the NCAA tournament. A close second is the Stanley Cup playoffs, and those will start as the tournament ends. The second reason has continued even as March Madness has been temporarily dormant.

I have been overcome with mental and emotional exhaustion in trying to write about these latest episodes of utter and complete bullshit from the Bush administration and their protectors in the previously Republican-controlled Congress. I make an effort to document my sources of information. I make an effort to support my claims and opinions with facts. My nature in general is to take that approach, and years of lawyering make it difficult for me to do things any other way. That all takes considerable effort, and usually I can make myself put forth that effort. However, the Bush administration has almost beaten me down to the point where I wonder "what's the use?" From time to time, I just have to take a break, which is what I have done for the last week. However, I feel it is once again time to "make the effort."

I am going to try to address why the U.S Attorney scandal is significant and examine some of the stonewalling that is going on. I will also briefly address the anniversary of the Iraq war. I want to get into Plame's testimony, but that is down the list.

The U.S. Attorney scandal

Maybe this weekend I will get around to writing more about this, but until then, I strongly suggest that everyone go to Talking Points Memo for all the details. Be sure to check the recent archives as well as the main page. Josh Marshall and the rest of his staff have been all over this matter. Indeed, Josh has been covering the roots of the whole scandal for a long time.

Here are some quick thoughts:

• There is no freaking way that Gonzales did not know everything that was going on. More on that in a moment.
• This whole scheme was designed to turn DoJ into Bush's political hit squad. In other words, the U.S. Attorney (USA) offices across the nation would be occupied by Bush political operatives, working almost solely to achieve political ends. This would be a way to consolidate power in the White House while reducing the power and oversight of the Congress so that the Bush administration could achieve through alternative means what could not be done directly through Congress. Let me tell ya, folks, this is what happened in Texas via the judicial system. That's a long story, but I can tell you that a good bit of it happened when ol' George was governor and Gonzales was in one of his several appointed positions.
• Given that this was a scheme devised in the White House, Gonzales was given the assignment of carrying it out. No one else in the Bush administration was in a position to do so. The point man had to be Gonzales. That's why there is no freaking way that Gonzales did not know everything that was going on.
• One of the ways the wingers and members of the Bush administration are trying to justify all of this is by claiming that Clinton did the same thing. They have spent years and untold millions of dollars claiming that Clinton was an evil, amoral SOB that almost single-handedly destroyed all that was good and right in America, and NOW they're saying that Bush administration's conduct is O.K. because Clinton did the same thing. WTF????
  

And one more thing...I have been saying for a long time and repeatedly that the Bush administration is more concerned about power than policy, more interested in appearances than substance, more interested in keeping power and control than actually doing something constructive. In short, I have claimed (and I am far, far, far from being alone) that the Bush administration does not give a damn about what is good for the country, but instead only cares about playing politics. And there is something in this scandal to support my view.

On September 17, 2006, the current fall guy, Gonzales's former chief of staff Kyle Sampson, sent an email to then White House counsel Harriet Miers which said among other things the following:

I am only in favor of executing on a plan to push some USAs out if we really are ready and willing to put in the time necessary to select candidates and get them appointed -- It will be counterproductive to DOJ operations if we push USAs out and then don't have replacements ready to roll immediately. In addition, I strongly recommend that as a matter of administration, we utilize the new statutory provisions that authorize the AG to make USA appointments.... we can give far less deference to home state senators and thereby get 1.) our preferred person appointed and 2.) do it far faster and more efficiently at less political costs to the White House.

(emphasis added). The italicized portion highlights the political aspects of this scheme--and supports what I said above about reducing the power and oversight of Congress.

However, it is the bold faced portion that just knocked me over when I first read it. When it comes to pushing U.S. Attorneys out of power to achieve purely political objectives, the Bush administration was aware of the need to have a plan in place for the aftermath. And yet, when it came to pushing a dictator out of power through military invasion, the Bush administration saw no need to have--and indeed did not have--a plan in place for the aftermath.

Having a plan to achieve political gains was seen as crucial, while having a post-war plan was not. Can anyone explain why a comparatively petty political matter was considered more important that doing something that could have saved the lives of Americans in Iraq and innocent Iraqis?

If I run for President, here is my entire platform...

Not too long ago, as I was lamenting about the 2008 election, I told someone that maybe I will run for President, and if I do I will run on one issue and one issue alone...my dog.

Her name is Gypsy. She is an Australian Kelpie and is three years old.

My dog would be the answer to every question and the basis for all of my policies. She is highly intelligent and--I think--psychic. She loves everyone and everything (except squirrels and the north wind). She has a potential flaw which could actually turn out to be her biggest asset as a public official. She thinks that all living creatures (except squirrels) are on the planet for the purpose of playing with her. Her enthusiasm and love are so great that she could get anyone to play and have fun, and that could come in mighty handy in many situations.

She has other qualities that would make her a great public servant. She is honest and loyal. She is not easily rattled. Nothing scares her--not other dogs, not vacuum cleaners, not lawn mowers, not thunderstorms. She doesn't even flinch, whine, or howl when sirens go off. Also, Kelpies are major herding dogs. That means that Gypsy is always alert and watchful, as well as very quick and nimble. The herding instinct is so strong she could round up just about any group and keep them together, which could help counter all the partisanship in Congress.

In short, I have yet to see or hear anything from any of the declared candidates that gets me excited, and I think at this point I could offer just as much to the country by presenting my dog.

I'm just hoping that either some more candidates get in the race or the current candidates give me something to work with. If that doesn't happen, I'm thinking about the following for campaign slogans:

• You might not like me, but you'll love my dog.
• Washington's already going to the dogs, so how 'bout a dog going to Washington?

I have a few others in mind, but I'm saving them for later...

Consequences for Coultergeist?

Coultergeist's "joke" in calling John Edwards a "faggot" at the CPAC convention predictably brought a swift and emphatic reaction from what the right wing would consider the usual suspects. However, there have been negative reactions from other sources.

I have to tip my hat to Greg Sargent of The Horse's Mouth. His posts on this matter provided me with a lot of the material in this post.

The blogosphere reacts

One week ago, conservative blogger Sean Hackbarth of The American Mind posted "An Open Letter to CPAC Sponsors and Organizers Regarding Ann Coulter." In that letter, Hackbarth provides good support for his opinion that Coultergeist no longers serves a useful purpose for conservatives. The entire letter is worth reading, but I quote the last two paragraphs:

One of the points of CPAC is the opportunity it gives college students to meet other young conservatives and learn from our leaders. Unlike on their campuses—where they often feel alone [PERSONAL NOTE: Hackbarth obviously did not go to my alma mater, but that is another subject for another time.]—at CPAC they know they are part of a vibrant political movement. What example is set when one highlight of the conference is finding out what shocking phrase will emerge from Ann Coulter’s mouth? How can we teach young conservatives to fight for their principles with civility and respect when Ann Coulter is allowed to address the conference? Coulter’s invective is a sign of weak thinking and unprincipled politicking.

CPAC sponsors, the Age of Ann has passed. We, the undersigned, request that CPAC speaking invitations no longer be extended to Ann Coulter. Her words and attitude simply do too much damage.

(emphasis added). Hackbarth has a partial list of other right wing bloggers who have signed this letter, and I salute Hackbarth for taking a stand on this matter. I also salute all the other signatories to the letter. For several reasons, however, I also say that I wish something like this had happened long before now. I will discuss this point further in a separate post, but I want to state now that my satisfaction that this is happening now far outweighs my dismay that it did not happen earlier.

Again, the entire letter is worth a read. Also, following some of the links to other postson this Coultergeist matter. There is some pretty good reading in them as well.

Newspapers

Coultergeist is a syndicated columnist, and there are many papers across the nation that print her "musings." However, the total number of such newspapers is decreasing.

The first paper to ditch Coultergeist was the Lancaster New Era in Pennsylvania. Then came the Oakland Press of Michigan and the Mountain Press of Sevierville, Tenn. Next were American Press of Lake Charles, Louisiana, and The Times of Shreveport, Louisiana. Two more papers, the Sanford Herald of North Carolina and the Daily Chronicle of DeKalb, Illinois, then decided to dump Coultergeist.

Corporate sponsors

Coultergeist's website has been losing advertisers rapidly. It started with Verizon, Sallie Mae (nation's leading provider of student loans), and NetBank (a major online banking service). Then, as reported by Editor & Publisher, AT&T pulled its ads. And the list has grown to include the following companies: Washington Mutual Bank, USA TODAY, Mitsubishi, BellSouth, ING Financial, Dollar Rent-A-Car, Edmunds.com, Dogpile.com, Novica.com (in conjuction with National Geographic), SmileTrain.org, University of Phoenix, LasikPlus, Power Chord Academy, 1-800-CONTACTS, Gulf Shores.com/Alabama Gulf Coast Convention and Visitors Bureau, Ulta.com, Yellow Pages.com, Classmates.com (subsidiary of United Online), and Wireless Foundation.

Also, ValueClick, one of the major players in the online ad placement industry, has removed Coultergeist's website from their network.

What (I hope) this means--and what it does not mean

Let's get something out of the way right now. If there are any wingers out there that 1) are upset in any way over the reaction to Coultergeist calling Edwards a faggot, and 2) criticized Edwards in any way over language used by his former-employee bloggers, then you are hypocrites and should shut the hell up.

And before anyone tries to label me a hypocrite on this matter, I am on record as saying that hiring those bloggers was a bad idea and that "I do not regularly read either Marcotte or McEwan because, while I have at times agreed with their viewpoint in what I have read, it has seemed to me that their primary objective lies not as much in the substantive content as in being provocative and combative in their use of language." In other words, regardless of whether the source is left wing, right wing, liberal, conservative, Republican, Democrat, or anything else, I don't care for language that is provocative simply to be provocative. Invective without substance, ad hominem attacks with no basis in fact, and childish or boorish language are all things I do not favor because those things do not contribute to a meaningful, substantive discussion.

And that brings us right back to Coultergeist and the long overdue backlash against her.

Hackbarth's open letter (discussed above) shows what some right wing bloggers think about Coultergeist, but, just for grins, let's take a look at what some of the newspapers and advertisers mentioned herein have to say about her.

Editorial board of the Lancaster New Era

Coulter's use of name-calling, sarcasm and overstatement in her columns too often detracts from the arguments she seeks to make. Her writing leads her political opponents to respond with name-calling and vitriol.

The quality of public discussion falls below that which Lancaster County residents expect in the opinion pages of their daily newspaper.

Lancaster County residents of whatever political view - conservative, moderate or liberals - deserve intelligent discussion of issues. Ann Coulter no longer provides that.

Ernie Schreiber, editor of the Lancaster New Era

[Coulter] was hurting our credibility. Our community is largely conservative and Republican. They expect insightful discussion of issues. Ann Coulter wasn't giving us that. We have lots of conservative columnists who do...

*******

I can't defend her antics, and I don't want the New Era associated with them.

*******

My primary objection to Coulter's antics are that they distract attention from the issues that are important -- the war in Iraq, immigration policy, spending policy, health care. Her schoolyard taunt of John Edwards is just so irrelevant to American life. I resent having to spend a moment dealing with it.

(emphasis added). Wingers please take note that the Lancaster New Era is not part of the omnipresent "liberal media."

Alan English, executive editor of The Times of Shreveport

Today we move past the rhetoric and unproductive dialogue offered by Ann Coulter. The Times is dropping her column effective immediately.

It is her recent “joke” about John Edwards being considered a “faggot” that is the back-breaking straw for a decision we've openly discussed for some time. We had a dialogue with readers last year regarding whether Coulter was a responsible commentator and journalist.

Her repeated use of hyperbole in the call for the death of some journalists and politicians was beyond the pale. And while we all believe she was “just kidding,” her "shock-jock'' writing style is no different from Howard Stern's practical jokes and bathroom humor that aims to draw a school-yard snicker but falls well short of reasonable, thought-provoking journalism. Unlike the work of a Thomas Sowell or a Kathleen Parker, two thoughtful conservatives, does a Coulter column raise the level of discourse?

The answer: rarely.

No doubt some conservatives will lament the loss of their beloved Coulter, someone who made the joke they are too polite to make. Objections are expected, but please do not miss the continuation of outstanding conservative commentary by Cal Thomas and Jonah Goldberg that continues on our pages. Sure Michelle Malkin sometimes approaches a Coulter-style rant, but we don't recall any homicidal zingers.

We are committed to providing a balance in commentary, so Coulter will be replaced by another conservative voice. Our many local conservative voices from the community also will continual to be welcome on our pages. With Coulter's departure, we're not demanding commentary all dressed up in delicate finery. Forceful, direct, even bare-knuckled writers are welcome as long as they are tackling ideas or stances rather than making profane personal attacks.

(emphasis added). On a personal note, readers of this blog should already know that I have a low opinion of Jonah Goldberg ( and I did not used to), but I do not believe I have previously expressed an opinion on Malkin, so here it is: she is oh so close to being as loathsome as Coultergeist. I do read Cal Thomas's columns semi-regularly even though I rarely agree with him--and I will continue to read his columns.

ValueClick

A spokesman for ValueClick said that since the controversy erupted, Coulter's site has been removed from their network. ValueClick reviews sites on its network on a case-by-case basis, and AnnCoulter.com was deemed too close to "hate speech" to be kept onboard.

AT&T

Many of our ad placements -- particularly on the Internet -- are secured in bulk with placements made by third-party buyers with a goal of trying to reach the broadest audiences possible. We ask our media buyers to avoid sites that might generally be seen as offensive or polarizing to the public, which appears to be the case with this political Web site. Our ads have been withdrawn.

There's more, but I think the foregoing gets some points across.

The initial point is that Coultergeist's baseless bullshit does not lend anything meaningful to any discussion about any topic and is in fact a detriment to efforts to have a meaningful discourse.

A larger point is that people who support and like Coulter need to recognize that it is way past time for them to start talking substance rather engaging in propaganda and name-calling.

Another larger point is that everyone else needs to come to the same recognition and act accordingly.

The issues facing us today are serious, and they are not going to be resolved through some sort of game in which the only objective is to get and keep power. These issues will not be resolved through name calling and bullying. They require examining what is best for our nation, not what is best for one political party or the other. They require thoughtful consideration and discourse.

That's what this backlash is about. It is not about protecting Coultergeist's freedom of speech. She can still keep spouting the same crap if she wants. However, she does not have some inalienable right to have people pay her to do so, nor does she have some entitlement to be provided a forum. See, while there is freedom of speech, there is also freedom to choose--choose what to listen to or read, choose what to support or not support, choose what to pay for and/or sponsor. The backlash now confronting Coultergeist is about that freedom to choose. It is not about restricting her freedom of speech.

Study the topic of the First Amendment and free speech, and you will come across this term: "the marketplace of ideas." The theory is that in a true marketplace with little or no regulation, all ideas can be considered, and those that have merit will win out. Though there can be much debate as to whether and to what extent such a marketplace of ideas exists in our country today, it seems that in the marketplace the "ideas" of Ann Coulter and her ilk are being seen and accepted for what they are--worthless and detrimental.

At least I hope that is what all this means.

More on Scooter Libby

The wingers are so worked up these days that I almost thought that Bill Clinton must still be in the White House. And all the fuss is over the Scooter Libby verdict. Now the wingers are all saying that since there never was an underlying case for outing Valerie Plame Libby never should have been prosecuted, that Fitzgerald abused his authority because he knew that disclosing Plame's identity was not a crime, that this was nothing more than a political witch hunt, and lots more abject whining.

To all you wingers: eat a big steaming bowl of "shut the hell up."

[NOTE: In the following paragraph, I use the terms "agent" and "operative" as synonymous. However, I think these terms have distinct meanings in the CIA context, but I do not know those distinctions.]

Let's assume for a moment that there never was a criminal act committed by the disclosure of Valerie Plame Wilson's status as a covert CIA operative. Does that mean it was--or ever is--all right to destroy the cover of an undercover agent who is working to prevent nuclear proliferation? Is it ever all right to reveal the covert status of someone who is working on matters that could help prevent a terrorist attack on our country? Is it ever all right to simply throw away years and years of work on such matters? Is it ever all right to put the life of a covert agent at grave risk? Is it ever all right to put at risk the lives of everyone who ever worked with that agent? All of those things happened because of the disclosure of Valerie Plame Wilson's identity and job. And until you wingers answer the foregoing questions, you have no damn business claiming that you are all about fighting terrorism and making sure that we don't suffer a nook-u-lur attack.

And have you forgotten what good ol' George his ownself initially said about an investigation into the leaking of Plame's identity?

And if there is a leak out of my administration, I want to know who it is. And if the person has violated law, the person will be taken care of.

And so I welcome the investigation. I -- I'm absolutely confident that the Justice Department will do a very good job. There's a special division of career Justice Department officials who are tasked with doing this kind of work; they have done this kind of work before in Washington this year. I have told our administration, people in my administration to be fully cooperative.

I want to know the truth. If anybody has got any information inside our administration or outside our administration, it would be helpful if they came forward with the information so we can find out whether or not these allegations are true and get on about the business.

And then Attorney General Ashcroft recused himself, which led to the appointment of Fitzgerald as special prosecutor on December 30, 2003, by Deputy Attorney General James Comey. Comey had just recently been appointed by Bush to be Deputy Attorney General. Bush spokesman Trent Duffy had this to say on December 30, 2003, about Ashcroft's recusal and the appointment of Fitzgerald:

MR. DUFFY: The President was informed of the decision by staff near noon today. His reaction is the same today as it was yesterday, that he wants to get to the bottom of this. He said in September that he welcomes this investigation and has absolute confidence in the ability of the Justice Department to do a good job. He has directed the people of his administration, as he said on September 30th, to cooperate fully with the investigation. And no one more than the President of the United States wants to get to the bottom of this.

Q: Do you know whether he asked Ashcroft to do this, or whether he pre-approved it?

MR. DUFFY: The Justice Department made its decision independently, which is exactly the way it should be. As the Deputy Attorney General mentioned, the Justice Department, as a courtesy, informed the White House this morning. The White House was not consulted on the decision, which, again, is exactly the way it should be.

Scotty McClellan followed that with similar statements on January 5, 2004:

I would remind you that the President has directed the White House to cooperate fully with the career officials who are leading this investigation. And that's exactly what he expects the White House to continue doing. We have been and we will continue to do so. I think also in the spirit of cooperating fully with the career officials who are investigating this matter, it's important that we do everything we can to preserve the integrity of the investigation and not compromise it.

*******

The President has made it very clear that the White House should cooperate fully in this investigation. The President said -- has always said that leaking classified information is a serious matter, and certainly no one wants to get to the bottom of this more than he does, so that we can find out the truth. And the President has said from early on that if anybody has information, they should come forward and share it with those who are leading this investigation.

On February 6, 2004, Comey sent Fitzgerald a letter which clarified that Fitzgerald's appointment always included the authority to

to investigate and prosecute violations of any federal criminal laws related to the underlying alleged unauthorized disclosure, as well as federal crimes committed in the course of, and with intent to interfere with, your investigation, such as perjury, obstruction of justice, destruction of evidence, and intimidation of witnesses[.]

(emphasis added). So, Bush wanted the investigation, wanted to find out the truth as soon as possible, AND wanted everyone to cooperate fully and not compromise the investigation. Fitzgerald was appointed by someone whom Bush had just appointed--meaning that no one can claim that Comey was some anti-Bush political operative. And Fitzgerald had authority to prosecute anyone for obstruction of justice and perjury. Libby, through his lies, did not cooperate and did compromise the investigation, and he was prosecuted for his lies. So why are you wingers whining?

Here's another way of putting the matter: 1) lying to the FBI is a crime; 2) lying to a grand jury is also a crime; 3) lying to the FBI and the grand jury are criminal acts even if they are done in the course of an investigation that does not reveal any other crimes; 4) Scooter Libby lied to the FBI and he lied to the grand jury; 5) Scooter Libby committed criminal acts subject to prosecution.

And why did he lie in the first place? If truly no other crime had been committed, there would have been no need to lie. Had he not lied, perhaps the investigation of the possible underlying crime would have been finished sooner.

And if you wingers still want to keep pitching a hissy fit, then maybe you should look at what one of your very own said recently about high officials committing perjury. Ol' Newtie Gingrich just explained why he decided to try to impeach Clinton for lying under oath about Monica Lewinsky by saying

even though at a purely personal level I am not rendering judgment on another human being, as a leader of the government trying to uphold the rule of law, I have no choice except to move forward and say that you cannot accept ... perjury in your highest officials.

(emphasis added). Scooter Libby was a high government official, particularly in the context of the Bush (or is that Cheney?) administration. He committed perjury. Newt says "you cannot accept perjury" from someone like Scooter Libby. So until you wingers explain why one of your own is wrong, have another heapin' helpin' of "shut the hell up."

Newt Gingrich admits past infidelity, but swears he's no hypocrite.

Newt must be getting close to declaring that his self-initiated "draft" movement has compelled him to run for President, for he is courting the Religious Right and back in the news.

According to the AP, Newt did an interview with James "Spongedob" Dobson that aired today on Dobson's radio show. By the way, remember that Dobson--who some call the most powerful man in the Religious Right--claimed about two years ago that SpongeBob Squarepants was promoting homosexuality. Anyhoo, here are the basics of the interview:

Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich was having an extramarital affair even as he led the charge against President Clinton over the Monica Lewinsky affair, he acknowledged in an interview with a conservative Christian group.

"The honest answer is yes," Gingrich, a potential 2008 Republican presidential candidate, said in an interview with Focus on the Family founder James Dobson to be aired Friday, according to a transcript provided to The Associated Press. "There are times that I have fallen short of my own standards. There's certainly times when I've fallen short of God's standards."

And now for the good part: "Gingrich argued in the interview, however, that he should not be viewed as a hypocrite for pursuing Clinton's infidelity."

Oh, really? Please do explain...

"The president of the United States got in trouble for committing a felony in front of a sitting federal judge," the former Georgia congressman said of Clinton's 1998 House impeachment on perjury and obstruction of justice charges. "I drew a line in my mind that said, 'Even though I run the risk of being deeply embarrassed, and even though at a purely personal level I am not rendering judgment on another human being, as a leader of the government trying to uphold the rule of law, I have no choice except to move forward and say that you cannot accept ... perjury in your highest officials."

(emphasis added). So Gingrich limits his claim of "no hypocrisy" to a comparison with Clinton. This is bogus, for two reasons. First, recall that Clinton tried to claim that oral sex really doesn't count as "sexual relations." However, as shown in Part 4 of "Newt Gingrich--what a swell guy!" Clinton was not the first politician to try to use that ridiculous claim. About 20 years earlier, Newt Gingrich did exactly the same thing. Second, Gingrich's hypocrisy goes way beyond a comparison to Clinton lying about Monica Lewinsky. For a detailed explanation of why Gingrich is completely full of crap, read all of Part 4 of "Newt Gingrich--what a swell guy!" Here's a quick review:

• During his marriage to wife #1 (Jackie), Newt had multiple affairs, and at least two were with women working on his campaign staff.
• In one episode during his first marriage, he went to a football game with his two young daughters to campaign. He left his daughters with his campaign treasurer and when they arrived at the house where they were to meet after the game, Newt was in a car getting a blow job from somebody's else's wife. Oh, and the campaign treasurer saw Gingrich as he walked up to the car--with Newt's daughters in tow.
• In his 1978 campaign, Gingrich attacked his female opponent for saying she would not take her family with her to Washington if she won, and then before his first term was over, he walked out on Jackie.
• Then, before the divorce was final, Jackie had surgery for uterine cancer, and Newt visited her in the hospital and insisted on talking about the terms of the divorce.
• Six months after his first divorce was final, he married wife #2, Marianne. He was having an affair with her while married to Jackie.
• During his marriage to Marianne, Newt still kept having affairs. One was long term with a sweet young thing named Callista Bisek. She became wife #3, and Newt's first sure enough trophy wife.
• Marianne went to visit her mother one weekend, and Newt called her and told her over the phone that he wanted a divorce.

And during all of this, Gingrich was saying that Democrats had no family values and that he was Mr. Family Values. That is why Gingrich is a hypocritical pile of crap.

Oh, I almost forgot...The part from the interview about high officials and perjury is discussed in the next post.

Some thoughts on the Libby verdict

One of the ways the wingerverse is trying to spin the verdict is to claim that the jury was confused, that the jury charge was confusing, that the prosecution's case was confusing, etc. Let me simplify this for the wingers. Every witness--under oath and even under cross examination--contradicted every explanation Libby put forth. End of story.

As explained in the updated version of the NBC report,

One juror who spoke to reporters outside court said the jury had 34 poster-size pages filled with information they distilled from the trial testimony. They discerned that Libby was told about Plame at least nine times, and they did not buy the argument that he had forgotten all about it.

“Even if he forgot that someone told him about Mrs. Wilson, who had told him, it seemed very unlikely he would not have remembered about Mrs. Wilson,” the juror, Denis Collins, said.

Need more proof? Consider what became one of Libby's chief claims--that he learned about Valerie Plame from NBC's Tim Russert. Russert flat out said that was not true. As reported by MSNBC, "The jury found Russert to be 'very credible,' Collins said."

As every one of Libby's bullshit explanations got shot down, his defense team settled on one last ploy--Libby was merely the fall guy for what the Bush administration was doing. The closing argument by Libby's lead attorney, Ted Wells, contained the following:

"The wheels were falling off the Bush administration" in the summer of 2003, Wells argued. How could Libby, serving Cheney as both chief of staff and national security adviser, remember Plame's job when 100,000 U.S. troops were in Iraq and hadn't found the weapons of mass destruction the administration had cited to justify the war? Wells asked.

(emphasis added). Finally, Scooter Libby, through his lawyer, admitted what most of us have known all along--the Bush administration was in a shambles over the war in Iraq. And poor ol' Scooter was being used as a scapegoat. And guess what? The jury believed him, but unfortunately for Libby, that was irrelevant. As juror Collins explained:

"I will say there was a tremendous amount of sympathy for Mr. Libby on the jury," said the juror, Denis Collins, a former newspaper reporter.

"It was said a number of times: 'What are we doing with this guy here? Where’s Rove? Where are these other guys?' " Collins said, referring to Deputy White House Chief of Staff Karl Rove, who was identified during the investigation as one of the senior officials who revealed the identity of the operative, Valerie Plame, to journalists.

"I’m not saying we didn’t think Mr. Libby was guilty of the things we found him guilty of," Collins said. "It seemed like he was, as Mr. Wells [Ted Wells, Libby’s attorney] put it, he was the fall guy."

In fact, Collins said, the focus on Libby frustrated the jurors, who had hoped to get a crack at the larger issues.

"What we’re in court deciding seems to be a level or two down from what, before we went into the jury, we supposed the trial was about, or had been initially about, which was who leaked" Plame’s identity.

"Some jurors commented at some point: 'I wish we weren’t judging Libby...' "

But they were judging Libby, and they found that the evidence showed beyond a shadow of a doubt that he obstructed justice, lied to the FBI, and committed perjury before the grand jury.

Collins made it clear that the jury really wanted to go after those ultimately responsible for leaking Plame's identity, Libby claimed that he was being made a scapegoat, and his own lawyer said the wheels were coming off the Bush administration in the summer of 2003. Hmm...Put all of those facts together and I think there are indications of the future significance of the Libby verdict. Not only will there be continued public interest in the Valerie Plame matter, but now there is a verdict confirming that someone very high up lied in that matter, and everyone knows that that person--Libby--is not the big fish but rather that Libby was trying to protect the big fish(es). And it looks like as the trial process wore on, Libby became less and less interested in simply taking the fall. I still think it is unlikely that he is going to turn and spill his guts on Cheney and Rove and anybody else, particularly since I think a pardon will be issued if Libby loses his appeal, but I can dream, can't I?

This verdict will also spur public interest in determining just how we ended up going to war. Some have said that the Libby trial was a trial on the war, but they were and are wrong. The focus of the trial was narrow, as it should have been. The only issues addressed and decided concerned Libby's lies to the FBI and the grand jury. Some facts about the buildup to the war were introduced, but the jury was not asked any questions about that, so nothing in that regard was answered. However, this verdict does provide confirmation (as if any was needed) that the Bush administration did in fact engage in lying about something involved with the Iraq war. It shows that there was a coverup regarding an attack on someone who was critical of the claim of WMD. It shows that perhaps this is just the proverbial tip of the iceberg. The truth is that the iceberg has been exposed for a long time, but some people have refused to see it, and others keep trying to keep it hidden. This verdict is going to make both those tasks more difficult.

BTW, the possibility of a pardon is being discussed in the comments to the previous post.

Scooter Libby: Guilty

This just in:

Jury convicts Libby on four charges
Verdict in CIA leak case reached on 10th day of deliberations
BREAKING NEWS
NBC News and news services
Updated: 11:56 a.m. CT March 6, 2007

WASHINGTON - Former White House aide I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby was convicted Tuesday of obstruction, perjury and lying to the FBI in an investigation into the leak of a CIA operative's identity.

Libby, the former chief of staff to Vice President Dick Cheney, was accused of lying and obstructing the investigation into the 2003 leak of CIA operative Valerie Plame's identity to reporters.

Commentary to follow...

More on Coultergeist and Romney and a comparison to a similar event in '04

Coultergeist endorsed Romney at the conference of the Conservative Political Action Committee (CPAC). That was the same event where Coultergeist gave a speech and said the following:

I was going to have a few comments on the other Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards, but it turns out you have to go into rehab if you use the word "faggot," so I — so kind of an impasse, can’t really talk about Edwards.

At least three of the candidates distanced themselves from Coultergeist's remarks--McCain, Giuliani, and...Romney? From the New York Times:

Kevin Madden, a spokesman for Mr. Romney, said: "It was an offensive remark. Governor Romney believes all people should be treated with dignity and respect."

Wow. Strong stuff from Mitt's spokesman, eh?

This reminds me of of something from '04. Shortly before the New Hampshire primary, Wes Clark was endorsed by Michael Moore. At a rally, Moore said that the election would be between the general and the deserter. Moore was referring to Bush. Suddenly everyone was screaming like the world was going to end. Many were calling for Clark to denounce Moore and reject the endorsement. And how did Clark react? He addressed the matter on "Meet the Press" on January 25, 2004:

MR. RUSSERT: Is it appropriate to call the president of the United States a deserter?

GEN. CLARK: Well, you know, Tim, I wouldn't have used that term and I don't see the issues that way.

*******

MR. RUSSERT: But words are important, and as you well know under the Uniform Code of Military Justice, if you're a deserter, the punishment is death during war. Do you disassociate yourself from Michael Moore's comments about the president?

GEN. CLARK: Well, I can't use those words and I don't see the issues in that way. But I will tell you this: that Michael Moore has the right to speak freely. I don't screen what people say when they're going to come up and say something like that. That's his form of dissent, and I support freedom of speech in this country, and I would not have characterized the issues in that way.

*******

MR. RUSSERT: One of your major supporters uses words like that. Isn't that a distraction?

GEN. CLARK: Well, it's not distracting me, and I don't see any voters out there who are distracted by it. I've talked to people all across this state, and not one single person has mentioned that. I will tell you this about Michael Moore, though. I think he's a man of conscience. I think he's done a lot of great things for ordinary people, working people, across America. And I'm very happy to have his support. He's free to say things, whatever he wants. I'm focused on the issues in this campaign and how to take America forward.

Clark could have saved himself a lot of grief if he had rebuked Moore and completely disassociated from him, but instead Clark defended Moore's First Amendment rights while explaining he did not agree with Moore's use of the term "deserter." In other words, Clark chose to back up his proclamations that he believed in the basic rights and freedoms that are the foundation of this country. He chose not to try to impose any limitation on those freedoms as to Moore even though Moore actually did damage to Clark's interests. That choice exemplified why I supported Clark in '04.

I wonder if the media and others will make any similar demands on Romney, and if that happens, I wonder how Romney will react.

Coultergeist and Mitt Romney

A few weeks ago I was having lunch with my raging libertarian friends, and being the lone declared Democrat at the table, I was asked who I liked among the current Dem candidates for 2008. I started laughing and finally said I didn't particularly care for any of them (a topic for another time). I then noted that in some past elections there was at least one Republican candidate that I could consider voting for, but that this time I didn't see one. I thought I would look a little more closely at some of the current Republican candidates.

So I turned my attention to Mitt Romney. One thing that about him that has received attention is that he is Mormon. I don't care about that. It doesn't bother me. There are, however, some other things that bother me about Romney. Check out the following posts at Talking Points Memo for some details:

• http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/012751.php
• http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/012758.php
• http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/012759.php
• http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/012770.php

In those posts you will notice that Ann Coultergeist is mentioned several times. In fact, you find another link which explains that Coultergeist has endorsed Romney.

That's the only reason I will ever need to refuse to vote for him.

Two websites that are "full of Feith."

Via Josh Marshall, here's a website that sums up Dougie Feith and his work as the leader of the Pentagon's intelligence chop shop that helped bring us the Iraq war.

This site was a response to Feith's website which he established to try to show everyone that he was right and everyone who criticizes him is wrong.