One of the missing elements of the prosecutor purge scandal is the overwrought GOP defense. Anytime one of these scandals pop up involving the Bush White House, there’s a coordinated and aggressive defense involving Republican lawmakers on the Hill, Fox News, talk radio, and the blogs. They let conservatives know that the questions, no matter […]
It took all of a couple of minutes after Scooter Libby was found guilty of perjury and obstruction of justice for attention to shift to the possibility of a presidential pardon. The assumption is that White House critics don’t want to see one, while White House allies are practically demanding one. That’s largely accurate, but […]
Today’s installment of campaign-related news items that wouldn’t generate a post of their own, but may be of interest to political observers: * [tag]Rudy Giuliani[/tag]’s family “issues” have made his presidential campaign unacceptable to at least one high-profile religious right leader. [tag]Richard Land[/tag], head of public policy for the Southern Baptist Convention, said evangelicals believe […]
The New York Times ran an article this morning about Barack Obama and some investments the Times believes are suspicious. Since the piece ran on the front page, and it wasn’t written by John Solomon, I read it expecting to find something relatively damaging. But after going through it a couple of times, it seems, […]
The past couple of weeks haven’t been kind to John McCain’s presidential campaign. He not only was the only GOP presidential hopeful to snub the Conservative Political Action Conference, he fared poorly in the CPAC straw-poll (he came in fifth) and his name was widely booed when mentioned. This comes as McCain’s Letterman announcement was […]
Some Constitution huggers have raised concerns about the White House engaging in an unprecedented power grab that violates Americans’ privacy rights. Don’t worry, the president’s own privacy board has looked into these questions and found that everything’s just fine. (Thanks to reader W.H. for the tip.) A White House privacy board is giving its stamp […]
Further helping demonstrate the seriousness of the prosecutor purge scandal, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales has published an op-ed in USA Today, which denies nearly all of the assertions those of us who’ve been following the scandal know to be true. Gonzales calls the controversy “an overblown personnel matter,” and, once again, insists that the U.S. […]
Today’s edition of quick hits. * Ambassador Joseph Wilson responded to the Scooter Libby conviction by calling for further accountability. “Now that this trial is over,” Wilson said, “the president and the vice president owe the country a much broader explanation of their own actions.” Wilson called on them both to release the transcripts of […]
Andrew Sullivan seems to have summarized the lesson of the day quite nicely. Something is rotten in the heart of Washington; and it lies in the vice-president’s office. The salience of this case is obvious. What it is really about – what it has always been about – is whether this administration deliberately misled the […]
Following up on an item from this morning, this McClatchy article reported that Michael Elston, the chief of staff to Deputy Attorney General Paul McNulty, told one of the fired U.S. attorneys that if the purged prosecutors “continued to criticize the administration for their ousters, previously undisclosed details about the reasons they were fired might […]