There have been hints — some subtle, some not — that Republicans may soon turn their rhetorical guns on special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald. As those hints get less restrained, I think we can safely predict where these guys are going. It started two weeks ago, when House Judiciary Committee Chairman James Sensenbrenner (R-Wis.) started complaining […]
The New York Times’ Douglas Jehl had what can only be described as a complicated story about the Plame scandal today, but, after reading it twice, I think there are some key details in it. Specifically, the number of leakers who spread classified information about an undercover CIA agent seems to be growing. Whereas the […]
Sometimes, when political figures are in trouble — having to testify before a grand jury about a criminal matter, for example — they refer questions to their attorneys. In former White House Press Secretary Ari Fleischer’s case, that won’t work — he won’t tell anyone who his attorney is. I hear that the former White […]
I haven’t dealt much with the Central American Free Trade Agreement, leaving the heavy lifting to those who know more about trade policy than I do, but last night’s vote was interesting for reasons that go beyond what was obviously a bad piece of legislation. The House, as it always does, set a 15-minute time […]
After all that Tom DeLay has done to bring unwanted attention to himself, one might assume the House Majority Leader would go out of his way to steer clear of improprieties. But when there’s a scenario involving billions of dollars, the oil industry, Halliburton, and his home town, DeLay just can’t help himself. The Republicans’ […]
(Editor’s Note: The Carpetbagger Report, as regular readers know, has joined the Coalition for Darfur, a bi-partisan online initiative created to raise awareness and resources to address the crisis. This is the latest in a series of posts from the Coalition.) Two weeks ago, the Center for American Progress and the Genocide Intervention Fund launched […]
Slowly but surely, the silent treatment has been working. For two weeks, the White House has refused to say a word about any aspect of the Plame scandal. Initially, this only seemed to annoy the press corps during Scott McClellan’s briefings and they continued to upbraid the press secretary. But as time wore on, and […]
I’m probably a couple of days behind on this one, but the editorial in the latest issue of The New Republic, headlined “Revisiting Wilson,” raises an important point that’s worth emphasizing. When the Bush gang and their cohorts go after Joseph Wilson, they tend to underscore two points — that Wilson had claimed that Dick […]
It’s helpful, from time to time, to take a moment to appreciate just how hopeless Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist really is. Yesterday, the Senate was in the process of debating a massive defense appropriations bill. Considering that we’re in the midst of a costly war, you’d think Frist would offer lawmakers time to consider, […]
Once the national media re-discovered the Plame scandal, coincidentally right around the time Matt Cooper and Judith Miller ran out of appeals, I’ve been keeping an eye out for newspaper editorials on the subject, particularly from the major dailies. Once Karl Rove was implicated, I more or less expected to see a flood of editorials […]