Palau

“Our Patience Will Achieve More Than Our Force.”*

CNN report no indictments today. Bah.

At least it rachets up the pressure on Rove, Libby et al – though I doubt Rove is even capable of feeeling tension, he really thinks will walk away. He still might, if Billmon is right:

Josh Marshall wonders what it might mean for the special prosecutor’s case now that U.S. Attorney Paul McNulty has been nominated for the number-two job at the Justice Department. I suspect the short answer is: nothing good.

McNulty, U.S. Attorney for the very high-profile eastern district of Virginia, is the substitute for Tim Flanigan, the Abramoff-tainted nominee who withdrew his name earlier this month.

[…]

Before Bush appointed him to the eastern Va. post (he took office three days after 9/11) McNulty was one of John Ashcroft’s political flunkies at DoJ. Before that he headed the Bush transition team for the department. Before that he was chief counsel for Dick Armey, the former GOP House Majority Leader. Before that he was chief counsel and “communictions director” for the House Judiciary Committee. While in this position — according to an alumni profile from his alma mater Grove City College — he also:

directed house Republican media relations for the Clinton impeachment process.

Other than that, of course, his impartiality is beyond question.

[…]

Going back a little further, we also find that McNulty has been willing to bend the law to Orwellian extremes in order to shield the Cheney administration’s claims of executive branch power from judicial challenge. He was in the thick of both the Padilla and Hamdi cases — staunchly defending the president’s right to lock U.S. citizens up in a military brig and throw away the key. In Hamdi’s case, McNulty made the rather Kafkaesque argument that a federal magistrate erred in appointing a public defender to challenge the prisoner’s denial of access to the courts, since Hamdi clearly had not requested the appointment — because he was denied access to the courts.

It is, of course, no surprise that a U.S. Attorney would strenuously argue the government’s case, but in my review of McNulty’s filings, I found his positions more extreme than any I’ve come across before, with the exception of John Yoo and Christian torture enthusiast Mary Walker. Whether that reflects the top-down influence of Yoo, then the deputy assistant AG in charge of developing the new Fuhrerprinzep, or McNulty’s own zealotry, I don’t know. But it shows the mark of the true organization man, if not an actual cabalist.

[…]

In any case, it’s clear that whatever his other qualities, McNulty is a far more typical partisan specimen of the species Prosecutori Federalus that the distressingly independent Fitzgerald. But what his elevation to Deputy AG will mean in practical terms I don’t know. Presumably, when McNulty is confirmed (and given his GOP bones, I’m sure it’s a when not an if) the acting AG power with respect to the Plame investigation that his predecessor signed over to career DOJ official David Margolis will devolve back to him.

But what he’ll be able to do with that power is another matter. For the Bushaviks, McNulty’s appointment may be too little, too late. By the time he takes office, Fitzgerald will have either handed down indictments or gone home. On the other hand, if charges are brought, a long, drawn-out prosecution presumably will present plenty of opportunities for the Justice Department to make its influence felt.

The left is holding its breath for these indictments, but how many are giving any thought to what comes after? The rot won’t crumble away suddenly and reveal a new, pink and shiny, improved government. The corruption’s gone too deep, tendrils are everywhere. The terrible legislation they’ve passed won’t roll back, the 100,000 Iraqi dead won’t rise again, the Arctic won’t refreeze and Katrina will still have happened, as would the bankruptcy laws, as would the cuts to Medicare and Medicaid.

Poor people, average people, anyone who’s not white, American, male and middle class in the US (and because of US-led globalisation, the rest of the world) is still fucked, even if as some bloggers appear to hope, McCain becomes VP. Can you really see McCain purging the party, or rolling back tax-cuts for the rich? He wouldn’t last five minutes.

And does anyone really think that they won’t drag this out as long as possible? Yes, there’ll be some personnel changes as a result of all this; but they’re still the same people – people like the oleaginous Norm Coleman, he of the Gary Busey grin and child-molester sweaty forehead– they’ll just shuffle the deck a bit. Meet the new boss…

The Right won’t go away- far from it -but it will have some martyrs. The same revisionists hailing Joe McCarthy now will be describing the WHIG as ‘visionary’ within 5 years. And for every corrupt Republican indicted there are many more only too keen to step in.

So, we’re still going to have to show some fortitude: celebrate the victories, but keep plugging away.

Limbaugh: “We gotta get rid of Rove…..Bush is a wandering, aimless, brain-dead human being who has no clue what he’s doing.”

From todays broadcast transcript.:

We gotta get rid of Rove. But, see, the left doesn’t want to get rid of Rove to make things better. The left doesn’t want to get rid of Rove to improve the administration. I don’t hear any Republicans talking about getting rid of Rove. I’m now hearing some Republicans saying this Card guy is a problem. But I think this is all just talk, and it’s all founded in the notion that Bush is a wandering, aimless, brain-dead human being who has no clue what he’s doing. I know that that’s not the case. I know as well as I can know it, anyway, not being in those buildings, that that’s not the case. But if Karl Rove is summarily dispatched, if Karl Rove quits, and whether there’s an indictment or not, if he resigns, all you’re going to see is a call for Scooter Libby to go, and then it will be time for Dick Cheney to go, and then it will be time for Rumsfeld to go. If you think Karl Rove resigning, retiring, offering himself as a sacrificial lamb is going to silence critics and is going to straighten out the administration and make for smooth sailing, you are sadly mistaken. The way to fight this is to not give the left one shred of what they want. When are we going to learn this? Screw them!

Have I taken his words out of context? Yes. Does he really think Bush is brain-dead? He says not, but that description came to him pretty easily…

But to paraphrase Rushbo himself, the way to fight this is to not give the Right one shred of what they want.

When are we going to learn this?

Screw them!

If Rove Goes Down The Kitten Gets It

Tbogg anticipating trouble?

[…]

The little secret about most of “Left Blogistan” is that we’re not that far left: actually most of the folks I read are moderates or moderate liberals. Need an example? Atrios will do, not to mention the brilliant Digby. In truth, many of us in “Left Blogistan” don’t have much patience with radicalism, socialism, revolution, class analyses. As for social mores, few of us live the frisky, often reckless, lives enjoyed by so many rightwing priests and GOP bigwigs. It is an indication of just how far right the discourse has become that Kristof is considered a thoughtful left-wing commentator and that Krugman – a pro-globalization Reagan official – is dubbed a radical leftist.

Now back when moderate liberals were actually provided regular access to the mass media, there would have been no problem labelling treasonable behavior as exactly that. Today, since no one “reasonable” can use that word -unless you’re on the right, of course- the moral outrage all Americans should feel about this exposure never happens. And so it goes.

[…]

Since we are dealing with scoundrels of the highest order and they will never resign, they nevertheless must be brought to trial on whatever legally admissible evidence, if any, Fitzgerald has. A constitutional crisis might result, but that is not Fitzgerald’s doing. That is what these traitors have been spoiling for since the 2000 election fiasco; that’s what Schiavo was about, what the torture condoning was about, what the filibuster rule change was about. Such a crisis would be as wracking to this country’s psyche as Katrina was to its citizens. But they have made it all but unavoidable.

There is absolutely nothing to be gained by a constitutional crisis and no sane opponent of the Bush administration should welcome one. But there is no longer anything to be gained by appeasement, either, and much to lose. Traitors simply cannot be permitted to continue to serve at the highest levels of goverment. And that is a principle worth defending, no matter what it takes.

I think a consitutional crisis would be no bad thing, but then the US was a country born of revolution, and I am a radical leftist, so I would say that. But I can see why one might want to take pre-emptive action against the smears and attacks of a party who have shown they will stop at absolutely nothing to hold on to power.

There have been many veiled and not so veiled threats against the liberal wing of America already, so perhaps it’s wise. No joke: David Sirota points to past Repub behaviour:

In light of the GOP’s recent behavior, let’s not forget the history of the conservative movement’s willingness to threaten people. The DeLay threats and the White House dissent suppression are only the latest in a long line of intimidating outbursts.
For instance, Sen. Jesse Helms (R-NC) essentially threatened the President of the United States in 1994 when he said, “Mr. Clinton better watch out if he comes down here. He’d better have a bodyguard.”

And the Associated Press reported on 4/25/95 how that comment was commonplace on the right. “A senator says the president had better not visit his state without a bodyguard,” the newsservice wrote. “An anti-abortion leader describes shooting abortion doctors as ‘justifiable homicide.’ A radio talk-show host advises listeners to shoot at the head if attacked by federal agents wearing bulletproof vests.” It’s all part of the conservative movement’s belief that physically threatening and intimidating its political opposition is OK. I’d wager to guess most Americans disagree

Tony, You’re Next.

It’s handy that Mr. Tony Blair is married to a QC – he may need one, given what’s coming out from the CIA/Plame case about the Niger forgeries.

Copyright Ross P Kettle 2005

It has struck me that the Plame affair is being oddly neglected by the UK press considering the huge implications for Tony Blair. It’s almost as though they’re wilfully sticking their heads in the sand, going ‘lalala, schools, lalala, smoking ban’ while not seeing the huge story, the collapse of the Bush administration and its conspiracy to start an illegal war, in which Blair was complicit.

Oh at last! The day indictments are expected, the BBC’s Washington correspondent just deigned to do a 2 minute segment, right at the end of the morning news, when no-one would hear it excpt bloggers in pyjamas like me. He’s gone Beltway native and just regurgitates WH talking points anyway – his main contact appears to be David Frum(!), but that’s a gripe for another day.

Blair’s precarious position may be ignored by UK journalists, but as usual the blogosphere is on it. Josh Marshall at Talking Points Memo has a long piece looking at British complicity in pushing the Niger forgeries:

To date the British have refused to concede that they too may have been relying on flawed or phony evidence. They stand by their claim, but refuse to disclose the source or the nature of their evidence.

Last year’s Butler Report (a rough analogue to last year’s Senate intelligence committee report) went to great lengths to insulate the British finding from the taint of the forgeries. In one passage it says that …
The forged documents were not available to the British Government at the time its assessment was made, and so the fact of the forgery does not undermine it.

Later in the Report, in a pretty telling illustration of how tied the Butler Report was to the needs of US politics, the authors went so far as to provide the president with a specific exoneration …
We conclude that, on the basis of the intelligence assessments at the time, covering both Niger and the Democratic Republic of Congo, the statements on Iraqi attempts to buy uranium from Africa in the Government?s dossier, and by the Prime Minister in the House of Commons, were well-founded. By extension, we conclude also that the statement in President Bush?s State of the Union Address of 28 January 2003 that:

The British Government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa was well-founded.

I’ll leave you to draw your own conclusions about how such a passage could have found its way into a British government inquiry. But let’s review the story. The Brits say that they had multiple pieces of evidence upon which they based their claim. And the forged documents — which they only found out about much later — were not one of them. So the discreditation of the forgeries is irrelevant to their finding. The taint, shall we say, does not attach.

My assumption, and that of many others, is that the Brits are, to put it bluntly, full of it on this one. My best guess is that they are holding on to some de minimis ‘other’ evidence as a placeholder to get out of taking their own lumps in the Niger skullduggery.

With the claims of an intelligence agency especially, proving a negative is near impossible. So I can’t prove to you that the Brits have nothing else. But I think I can make a pretty strong argument that the Butler Report was intentionally misleading on this key question.

The Butler Report wasn’t the only British government inquiry into the faulty intelligence question. There was also a parliamentary committee report published in September 2003, before the question of the forgeries and Wilson and the rest of it became so intensely politicized. And a close look at this earlier report, chaired by Labour MP Ann Taylor, shows pretty clearly, I think, that the Butler Report was willfully misleading about the Brits’ reliance on the forgeries.

I discussed this point at length in a post from July 17th, 2004. So if you’re interested in finding out more, seeing the evidence and the argument, read that post and draw your own conclusions.
— Josh Marshall

UPDATE:

Dammit, I should read the Grauniad before posting. My only excuse it’s a reformist rag… however, Jonathan Freedland redeems his profession.

The president is assailed from all sides; from Democrats over his plans to privatise the pensions system, and from conservatives who wanted a rightwing titan nominated to the supreme court – and who feel insulted by the choice of Harriet Miers, a personal lawyer to Bush who has never been a judge and whose best credential is that she once oversaw the Texas lottery.

It adds up to a moment of exceptional weakness, a “perfect storm” for Democrats plotting a comeback in next year’s congressional elections. But it’s more important than that. Now there is a chance to discredit not just Bush’s presidency but the ideology which led to the disastrous adventure in Iraq. Plamegate itself may seem arcane, but that outcome is one in which we all have a stake.

Mud, Mud, Glorious Mud

This has nothing to do with left politics and it’s not Friday, but what the hell. In honour of the various hurricanes, monsoons, typhoons, the god-awful bucketing rain outside, and the coming environmental apocalypse, I bring you

The Devil’s Frog

Mud! Mud! Glorious mud!
Nothing quite like it for cooling the blood.
So, follow me, follow, down to the hollow,
And there let us wallow in glorious mud.

Now that’s what I call an amphibian.