Category Archives: Politics: The Party of Sleaze

Thoughts on the Libby Bombshell

Posted on April 6, 2006 by Michael Froomkin

This is a time when no amount of cynicism is too much. This is a time for Informed Comment.

The admnistration’s current line of defense is when the President does it, it’s not illegal.

Atrios has the perfect rejoinder:

It’s probably reasonable that the president can declassify whatever he wants, or at least I haven’t really seen an especially strong argument to the contrary, but that doesn’t mean that the president can declassify stuff, show it to Judy Miller, and then turn around claim the stuff is still classified. That’s where this argument falls apart.

The Carpetbagger Report: All of a sudden it’s a scandal again shows how completely the administration’s latest spin conflicts with the previous spin.

I wonder how long before the defense becomes, ‘Cheney said Bush authorized the leak, but in fact he was mistaken on that point.’ Nixon threw Agnew to the wolves. But it didn’t work.

(Here’s the full text of the Special Prosecutor’s filing)

Bonus: David Neiwert challenges the media.

Posted in Politics: The Party of Sleaze, Politics: US: GW Bush Scandals | 1 Comment

Libby Fingers Bush, Cheney as Ordering Plame Leak

Posted on April 6, 2006 by Michael Froomkin

Why do I have to read news like this in my brother’s blog rather than major media? Read today’s column — scroll down to “Fitzgerald lets loose”.

[The NY Sun’s Josh] Gerstein writes that according to [special prosecutor Patrick J. Fitzgerald’s latest] filing, Libby “testified to a grand jury that he gave information from a closely-guarded ‘National Intelligence Estimate’ on Iraq to a New York Times reporter in 2003 with the specific permission of President Bush.”

…

That reporter, of course, was Judith Miller.

Here’s an excerpt from Fitzgerald’s filing: “Defendant testified that he was specifically authorized in advance of the meeting to disclose the key judgments of the classified NIE to Miller on that occasion because it was thought that the NIE was ‘pretty definitive’ against what Ambassador Wilson had said and that the vice president thought that it was ‘very important’ for the key judgments of the NIE to come out.”

Gerstein writes: “Mr. Libby is said to have testified that ‘at first’ he rebuffed Mr. Cheney’s suggestion to release the information because the estimate was classified. However, according to the vice presidential aide, Mr. Cheney subsequently said he got permission for the release directly from Mr. Bush. ‘Defendant testified that the vice president later advised him that the president had authorized defendant to disclose the relevant portions of the NIE,’ the prosecution filing said.”

That is, as my brother says “a shocker”.

Yet, he writes, “In fact, as of this writing, none of the major news outlets has published a word on the subject.”

(Although, I see that since he wrote that, at 12:35 the Associate Press has moved the story.)

Posted in Dan Froomkin, Politics: The Party of Sleaze, Politics: US: GW Bush Scandals, The Media | 5 Comments

Profile in Caution: Senator Bill Nelson

Posted on April 4, 2006 by Michael Froomkin

Back on March 13, I contacted Senator Bill Nelson to urge him to support the Feingold censure proposal.

Looks like it took his office a while to decide its position, but today — more than three weeks later — I got an emailed reply (so he can’t blame the postal service for the delay). And here is Senator Nelson’s very considered reply:

Thank you for contacting me regarding Senator Russ Feingold’s proposal to censure President Bush. A number of members of Congress and other groups, including the American Bar Association, have raised serious concerns about the legality of the President’s domestic wiretapping program. I share these concerns, but I want to hear the outcome of congressional investigations into this program before judging the appropriateness of any action such as censuring the president.

Please do not hesitate to contact me in the future with your thoughts on this or any other topic.

Three weeks to get around to saying that? In an election year?

Posted in Politics: The Party of Sleaze | 2 Comments

Always Release the Sleazy News Friday

Posted on March 24, 2006 by Michael Froomkin

Everyone knows that the fewest people watch TV Friday night, and the Saturday papers have the lowest circulation. So media-savvy pols release bad news on Friday around 5pm.

And, regular as clockwork, here’s this week’s,

FEMA Abandons Pledge on 4 No-Bid Contracts : FEMA has broken its promise to reopen four multimillion-dollar no-bid contracts for Hurricane Katrina work, including three that federal auditors say wasted significant amounts of money.
…

Acting FEMA Director R. David Paulison pledged last fall to rebid the contracts, which were awarded to Shaw Group Inc., Bechtel Corp., CH2M Hill Inc. and Fluor Corp. Later, the agency acknowledged the rebidding wouldn’t happen until February.

This week, FEMA said the contracts wouldn’t be rebid after all. In fact, they have been extended,

It really is just a giant kleptocracy, isn’t it?

Posted in Politics: The Party of Sleaze | Comments Off on Always Release the Sleazy News Friday

More Like 30 Seconds

Posted on March 13, 2006 by Michael Froomkin

Over at Daily Kos, they estimate it’s a five minute job,

Daily Kos: 5 Minutes, For Democracy’s Sake: Five minutes is all it takes, really.  Less, if you’re not that chatty. In five minutes, you can speak up for the rule of the law. In five minutes, you can put your own footprint in history, as one of the mass of millions who advocated for the censure of a President who broke the law.  Years from now, no matter what the outcome, you can look back and say you stood up when Congress stood down, you pushed your party forward no matter how much it wanted to cower back in the shadows.  Are you ready?

Today, I ask each of you to take a few minutes and contact your Senator and ask them to sign on as a co-sponsor to Senator Russ Feingold’s censure resolution.  You can find your Democratic Senator’s full contact info, including fax and local numbers, here.

So I called Bill Nelson’s office in DC, not that there’s much hope for the shrinking violet to stick out his neck the week he will likely lose his patsy opponent and maybe collect a real one. But what the heck, I called his office anyway.

I got about 30 seconds. They didn’t even want my name and address, just my zip code, and whether I’m for or against. (On the very rare occasions I’ve called legislators in the past, they’ve always asked for contact info so they could write me a polite brush-off letter later.)

Either they’re not listening, or they’re getting a lot of calls. Or both.

Bonus Kos link: CNN Reporter claims Feingold has his facts wrong, ends up with egg on face.

Posted in Civil Liberties, Politics: The Party of Sleaze | 7 Comments

Beyond Parody

Posted on March 10, 2006 by Michael Froomkin

Please reassure me that the person responsible for this campaign commercial has no chance at all of being elected dog catcher, much less to the House of Representatives,

This is isn’t a joke or a parody commercial. It’s just insane. Robinson is running for Congress in North Carolina and he uses the Twilight Zone theme to attack gays, judges, African Americans and just about anything or anyone else you can think of.

Video-WMP Video-QT

(spotted at Crooks & Liars).

Posted in Politics: The Party of Sleaze | 1 Comment