Friday’s Mini-Report

July 13, 2007

Today’s edition of quick hits.

* TPMM: “The Republican National Committee has been slapped with a subpoena from a House Judiciary subcommittee demanding e-mail messages that could shed some light on Karl Rove’s involvement in the firing of nine US attorneys. The subpoena is online here. The RNC’s custodian of records has until Tuesday at 10 a.m. to give the subcommittee the e-mails it wants.”

* On a related note, Dems on the House Judiciary Committee also let Harriet Miers’ attorney know that blowing off a subpoena is a no-no: “Federal law makes it very clear that recipients of a congressional subpoena must appear — regardless of whether or not they intend to assert privilege once the arrive…. This letter is to formally notify you that we must insist on compliance with the subpoena.” Miers’ lawyer has until 5 pm Tuesday to respond in writing as to whether Miers will comply.

* AP: “Two prominent Senate Republicans have drafted legislation that would require President Bush to come up with a plan by mid-October to dramatically narrow the mission of U.S. troops in Iraq. The legislation, which represents a sharp challenge to Bush, was put forward Friday by Sens. John Warner and Richard Lugar, and it came as the Pentagon acknowledged that a decreasing number of Iraqi army battalions are able to operate independently of U.S. troops.” More on this tomorrow.

* The House voted 223-201 yesterday to begin U.S troop withdrawal from Iraq in April. A grand total of four Republicans broke ranks, up from two the last time. (At this rate, we’ll have a veto-proof majority by 2011.)

* U.S. District Judge Reggie B. Walton is not at all pleased with the president commuting the prison sentence he gave Scooter Libby. “In his first public comments on the matter, U.S. District Judge Reggie B. Walton… defended the sentence, saying that he followed established legal precedents as well as a strict interpretation of federal sentencing guidelines that has been supported by Bush’s own administration.”

* It’s one thing to be so craven as to let Neil Cavuto onto Fox News. It’s another to make him the anchor of his own right-wing business channel.

* On a related note, the Wall Street Journal’s editorial board, perhaps the most intellectually dishonest in print journalism, has managed to reach a new low. Prof. DeLong calls it the “Most Dishonest Wall Street Journal Editorial Ever.” He’s right.

* The latest in Keith Olbermann’s series of “special comments” was devoted to Michael Chertoff’s “gut feeling” about domestic terrorism this summer. Keith doesn’t hold back.

* Slate’s John Dickerson explains exactly why Bush’s take on the Libby scandal yesterday was such a ridiculous joke.

* Joe Lieberman thinks historians will think highly of George W. Bush. What an embarrassment.

* Sen. Barbara Boxer thinks impeachment “should be on the table.”

* The Senate voted 87 to 1 today to boost the reward on Osama bin Laden’s head to $50 million. The measure also requires the White House to report on the efforts to try and capture him. The lone vote of opposition came from Sen. Jim Bunning (R-Ky.), who seriously argued that he wants to capture bin Laden in Iraq. Or something. The man’s not all there.

* James Holsinger, Bush’s nominee for surgeon general, told a Senate panel yesterday that he doesn’t hate gay people, and won’t let his office be politicized by White House hacks. (Those are my words, not his.)

* On a related note, Michael Feldman had an amusing item today, based on former Surgeon General Richard Carmona’s explanation that he was forced to mention the president’s name three times on every page of his speeches. It’s called “The New Hippocratic Oath.”

* And in still more Surgeon General news, Henry Waxman is introducing legislation that would prevent political interference with the Surgeon General’s office.

* Bob Novak doesn’t like bloggers. What a relief.

* And finally, in the latest Nixon news, the disgraced president apparently had an idea as to how to deal with John Kerry’s anti-war activism: convince Kerry to join the Republican Party. In response, Kerry told the WaPo, “I experimented with a number of things in college. Being a Republican wasn’t one of them.” Apparently, Nixon thought Kerry’s background as a Yale grad might make him GOP material. Responded Kerry, “[G]oing to Yale doesn’t make you a Republican. Going to Bob Jones University makes you a Republican.”

Anything to add? Consider this an end-of-the-day open thread.

Sen. Jim Bunning (R-Ky.). . . he wants to capture bin Laden in Iraq.

You go right ahead, Jim. The plane is warming up the tarmac, you can be in the Sunni Triangle tomorrow looking high and low. Nice knowing ya.

  • Judge Reggie B. Walton is not at all pleased with the president commuting the prison sentence he gave Scooter Libby.

    actually he was unamused by the justification Bush cooked up

  • * And in still more Surgeon General news, Henry Waxman is introducing legislation that would prevent political interference with the Surgeon General’s office.

    Which legislation, I’m sure, the Repubs will support entirely. Since the next Surgeon General won’t be one of theirs and they wouldn’t want Dems to be politicizing the office.

  • The fact that the Iraqi ‘government’ is now apparently going to take off for vacation the month of August, I suppose that presents a perfect reason for the Bush Administration to say, “you have to give us more time, as the Iraqi Government was not here to implement plans to meet our goals,” or similar.

    Nice how that works out, yes? Especially since we all know who these Iraqi politicians take their orders from.

  • The RNC’s custodian of records has until Tuesday at 10 a.m. to give the subcommittee the e-mails it wants.

    And The Shrub will declare the RNC is covered by Executive Privilege in 5…4…3…

    I don’t know about the rest of you but I think this is pretty damn exciting.

  • $25 mil wasn’t enough to get some poor schlub herding goats along the the pakistani-afghani border to bust obl, so let’s raise it to $50 mil.
    yeah, that’ll do it.

  • RE Barbara Boxer:

    What exactly would Bush have to do to get impeached? Voiding the Constitution in several strategic ways doesn’t seem to be enough. Lying is what we’ve come to expect from Presidents, no thanks to our last Democratic President. I honestly can’t imagine him engaging in any kind of sex. There’s not enough Viagra being manufactured to help him. So what act would cause the Congress and American people to rise up and rebel? The only thing I can come up with is money. Has anyone checked his gifts? Does he have a secret bank account? If he’s stealing, then maybe we can send him back to Texas for good.

  • Why can’t the Democrats simply refuse to fund any more Iraq war? With the 100 Billion they just bent over for the troops ought to be able to wind things up and come home in time for Thanksgiving. Maybe even toss in a few benefits here and there.

    Best part of this n0-action plan is that there’s nothing Bush could do about it. You can’t veto a non-vote, and the decision to not vote finds could “pass” (if that’s the word) with only 40 votes in agreement to stall.

    Oops, that would presume that we have 40 honorable Democratic Senators. Sorry for being so silly. Back to the bread and circuses.

  • “Two prominent Senate Republicans have drafted legislation that would require President Bush to come up with a plan by mid-October …”

    Let’s see, run out the clock to mid-October, he responds then that he’ll have a new plan in maybe mid-February, he’ll publish the plan in some Friday afternoon then, the plan will require a logistical plan period for a few months, that plan to be published on a Friday a month after that until…ding!–a Dems in the White House. And that yellow sucker can be the one too beat a retreat from the glorious war that a Rethug woulda won!

    Who says Dear Leader doesn’t have already have a plan?

  • Living less than 5 miles from Bob Jones University (man, I hate calling them a university, but they did finally get accredited a few of years ago), I can confirm that attending BJU almost always makes one an absolutely nutty republican. However, there are a handful of young people who balk at the indoctrination, and take a sharp turn to the left.

  • OT

    There are some old cliches of punk rock, subjects and even titles of songs that are used over and over again by bands. Some of these are kind of tradition and somewhat expected (“unity songs”) and others I think are topics that kids who are into punk just keep stumbling into singing about over and over again. For some reason I was thinking of these and listing them in my head the other day, I think to send an old friend a joke e-mail suggesting we start a band, stating that I had some ideas for songs, and then listing some un-original sounding song-titles as the “proof.”

    Vitter’s fiasco reminds me of one I didn’t recall: the ubiquitous song decrying some “hypocrite” the punk rock kid knows. Nascent punk rock bands take note: perfect inspiration for screeching about how some guy is a hypocrite over and over.

  • a joke e-mail . . . listing some un-original sounding song-titles as the “proof.”

    It’s funny because it sounds like a really uninteresting band to be in. It’s sort of making fun of people asking you to join bands, and making fun of punk rock.

  • “I’m sure –I’m certain that I’m not the only American that was incredibly appalled at the fact that Bill Clinton is more credible as a clown than he is as a president.” – Jeri Kehn on Bill O’Reilly’s show, March 19, 1999

    Kehn is fair game.

  • Miers’ lawyer has until 5 pm Tuesday to respond in writing as to whether Miers will comply.

    And then what happens?
    After Congress gets stonewalled and emptychaired yet again…
    What happens?
    Miers lawyer will have until….
    And so on…

    What we are witnessing is that people that follow the rule of law (Congress) have little ability to reign in those who break the law (Executive branch).

    Miers, Rove, Cheney, Bush, Gonzales et al…..
    That whole stinking zoo of lawbreakers….
    Are running out the clock on a system that simply can’t and won’t move fast enough to hold any of them accountable.

    And all that is possible because Bush and his troop have taken Executive malfeasance to an entirely new level.

    Which is to say:

    The Constitution really IS a piece of tissue.
    But what made our nation great was that once upon a time our leaders never dared to treat it like tissue.
    They were always men enough to hold the line…
    To pretend to greatness so as to become great.

    Bush has ended this tradition.
    He has honked his phlegm into the tissue.
    He does this gleefully…

    But even so…
    Remember: Bush is merely a product of the times.
    He is representative of what is happening across America.
    Ours is an era of decaying courtesies…
    Decaying expectations…
    Decaying abilities…
    Empty promises.
    Contempt and…
    Lies.

    Cheney’s “Go fuck yourself” really IS the spirit of our times.
    Like a white collar rap artist, Dick captured our zeitgeist perfectly in that moment…

    It is who we are as a people.
    What we are as a people.
    I have my own theories as to how we got to this damned place…
    But this in neither the time or place.
    Instead suffice it for me to finish with this observation:

    We derserve to have a bully occupy the Bully pulpit.
    We derserve to have a mumble-jumble moron scold us about the importance of the “rule of law” in mock-serious academic style…
    We deserve Bush… because we are Bush.
    He is our lowest and most common denominator.
    He is the face and the mind and the ethics of Ameica.
    It is only fitting that this brute should blow his nose into our constitution!

    Gesundheit America!
    Gesundheit!

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