Monday’s Mini-Report

January 8, 2007

Today’s edition of quick hits.

* Nancy Pelosi seems supportive of a “special committee in the House to deal with climate change and global warming.” Sounds like a good idea to me.

* The White House was reluctant to cooperate with a congressional review of the Hurricane Katrina panel last year, but Dems are prepared to revisit the issue, and are prepared to take advantage of their new-found subpoena power. One thing Dems would like to see: a still-secret videoconference shortly after Katrina hit New Orleans in which Michael Brown allegedly warned presidential aides that 90% of the city was being “displaced,” but was greeted with “deafening silence.”

* Like Digby, I thought this week’s “conventional-wisdom watch” in Newsweek kind of baffling. It notes that Bush’s plan for Iraq will fail, and gives him an up arrow. It notes Nancy Pelosi is the first woman Speaker and enjoyed a great swearing-in ceremony, then gives her a down arrow. Harriet Miers, fired from her job for being weak, gets an up arrow. Did Newsweek get the arrows backwards?

* No matter what, Bush has always been able to count on the people of Utah to give him their unswerving support, no matter how badly he failed. Now, even Utahns are slowly turning on the guy. The latest Salt Lake Tribune poll found that 41% of people in Utah approve of Bush’s handling of the war in Iraq, and 44% support a troop escalation. Both numbers are down considerably from previous months.

* Let me get this straight — the Bush administration can expose Valerie Plame’s status as an undercover CIA agent, but Plame herself isn’t even allowed to mention that she worked for the CIA in her own book? After everyone already knows she served as a “nonofficial cover” officer? That just doesn’t make any sense.

* TP is keeping track of whether lawmakers support escalation or not. It should be a useful resource.

* It’s mean and caustic, but Matt Taibbi wrote a funny piece for Rolling Stone trashing the NYT’s Thomas Friedman. Come to think of it, Taibbi took a few pointed shots at Friedman’s fans, too.

* Power Line, the high-profile far-right blog, was apparently not the victim of a scurrilous attack at the hands of liberal hackers.

* Glenn Greenwald has a good piece today explaining why eligible conservatives who support the war in Iraq need to consider signing up for military service sooner rather than later.

* It was only a matter of time before religious right groups started making a concerted effort to change divorce laws. (thanks to Unholy Moses for the tip)

* On Fox News, obstructionism is great, just so long as it’s GOP obstructionism.

* The smell in NYC today seems to have gone away.

* And, finally, people in Ligonier Township, Pa., beware — Dick Cheney is in town and he’s armed. The VP will be “hunting at the Rolling Rock Club in Ligonier Township, a White House spokeswoman said…. He will join unidentified hunting companions.” Best of luck to all of them. (thanks to Rege for the tip)

If none of these particular items are of interest, consider this an end-of-the-day open thread.

Well, apparently Newsweek did screw up, all of the arrows are now pointing the right way. They really got me on that one…..

  • “* It’s mean and caustic, but Matt Taibbi wrote a funny piece for Rolling Stone trashing the NYT’s Thomas Friedman. Come to think of it, Taibbi took a few pointed shots at Friedman’s fans, too.”

    It was a great article about the ultimate Flat Head, Friedman. I would have used quite a bit more angry and foul mouthed language in a less articulate fashion. Good for Matt Taibbi.

  • Climate change and global warming should be issue one. Our kids and their kids need us all to remember that.

    Thank goodness the idiot Inhofe is gone.

  • Perhaps Newsweek is trying to hop on the “Identify Foley as a Democrat/mix up Osama & Obama” band-wagon.

    It was only a matter of time before religious right groups started making a concerted effort to change divorce laws.

    YES! Oh there IS a God and He does have a sense of humour. I have been saying for years that the best way to kill the “Protect Marriage” [bowel] movement was to attach restrictions on divorce to all of the crap about not allowing gays and lesbians to marry.

    If this catches on listen for the sound of Das Base running away in droves. And it would be fun to watch the McCainiac sweat.

  • he’s the great master of the filibuster, among other things. The president has great tools — the veto, executive orders, recess appointments and so on.

    I think the key thing here, Democrats can get things that Bush agrees with them on, like the minimum wage, but if he’s against it like tax increases, they’re just not going to succeed.

    Could Fred Barnes possibly do more to publicly demonstrate how much he suffers from Cranial-Rectal Adhesion Syndrome???

    Mitch McConnell is “the great master of the filibuster”??? Since when??? McConnell hasn’t got a clue about what to do in the Senate, and if he tries his crap,. Harry Reid will clean his clock. McConnell is merely an example of the fact you have to be an World Class Asshole to be a surgeon.

    And let Bush veto whatever he wants. Let him demonstrate clearly to the country what his agenda is. Thank you Republicans, for giving us our 2008 campaign: “They Don’t Want You To Have What You Need.”

  • FWIW, I second Mr. Carpetbagger’s (and Former Dan’s) recommendation to read Matt Taibbi’s piece in The Rolling Stone. It’s quite good and relatively short.

  • ***Could Fred Barnes possibly do more to publicly demonstrate how much he suffers from Cranial-Rectal Adhesion Syndrome???***
    ————————————————————————————-Tom Cleaver

    Sort of like herding fiscal conservatives and theocratic reactionaries to form the great Bushian Unification Bubble….

  • Watch the conservative pundits laying traps. They want to know when the Democrats are going to appropriate more money for New Orleans because of Katrina. We’ve appropriated enough! The problem is delays and corruption in spending it. The conservatives are trying to tar us with that brush by getting us to spend more!

    Investigate First! Find the missing money and get it back. Make the Army Corps of Engineers build the levies right! Don’t fall into the trap (or the defunding trap either).

  • The Powerline “we’ve been hacked!” incident is a classic. When part of their site went down they claimed it was the vast left wing conspiracy out to get them. Turns out one of their own just screwed up. Anyone wonder if they’ve overplayed the great Muslim crisis as well?

  • Rolling stone is right – Thomas Friedman is a certified butthole

    but, let’s talk about John Edwards

    Make no mistake, the Iraq war is a disaster

    A disaster from day one.

    The only question now, is how much will it cost

    Those that lost a loved one, or a serviceman who lost a limb, already have their answer – the rest of us are still calculating

    The responsibility to declare war, is given to congress, and congrerss alone via the constitution from our founding fathers

    yet, this power was transfered to a known drunk driver, G Bush

    Who gave the keys of war, a change of policy to first strike, delegated to an extreme concentration of power to an unworthy ‘decider’ G Bush?

    Well, one of the co-sponsors of the Iraq war resolution, was none other than John Edwards – he of course, voted for it also

    Now, he tells us he admits it was a mistake

    Think about it – if YOU gave your keys to a drunk driver 10 years ago in north carolina, and many people got killed and injured, and you admitted you made a mistake

    would john edwards have advocated you get a big promotion?

    or would he have taken you to the cleaners?

  • Time is reporting the Fred F. Fielding has been tapped to replace Harriet Miers as White House council. Fielding served as Associate White House Council in the Nixon White House under John Dean from 1970 to 1972. After Dean was fired he became Deputy White House Council and served in that position until Nixon resigned in 1974, at which time he went into private practice. He returned to government in 1981 as Reagan’s White House Council, a position he held until 1986. He was not scathed by either Watergate-Dean kept him out of the loop for the most part-or Iran-Contra-it occurred after he left the Reagan White House.

    There is a lengthy interview with Fielding in January 2001 Washington Lawyer in which he discuss both Watergate and Iran-Contra. The following exchange is of interest with respect to what sort of council he will be to Junior who is know not like being told no.

    TWL: Were there any lessons that you took from seeing Dean’s career unravel to your job as counsel to the president?

    FFF: I learned a lot from living through and surviving Watergate. It certainly made me a better lawyer and a more effective counsel to the president. I was not afraid to tell people no. I was not concerned about any potential political fallout when I had to stop any problems that I saw coming.

    The whole thing is worth a read.

    Another thing to note is that Fielding is not a member of the Federalist Society or at least he doesn’t list membership on his webpage at his law firm. He is however an active member of the ABA . Here is the service to the ABA which he lists on his webpage.
    * Director, American Bar Association, Central and East European Law Initiative (2002-Present).
    * Member, American Bar Association, Standing Committee on Federal Judiciary (1996-2002).
    * Former Director, Bar Association of the District of Columbia.
    This suggest to me that he is not an ideologue. Further, he is neither a member of Junior’s inner circle or on Daddy’s retainer. However, he did serve in the Reagan White House along side Chief of Staff James Baker. Hence the possibility exists that Daddy has subtly begun the process of bailing Junior out one more time.

    A final thing to note is that Fielding is known as a negotiator rather than for his work before appeals courts. Here is how he describe his practice in the 2001 interview with Washington Lawyer.

    TWL: What have you been working on lately?

    FFF: Part of my time in the past five years has been consumed by my assignment as a member of the ABA Standing Committee on the Federal Judiciary. My practice and clientele are very eclectic and interesting. I have some arbitration cases. I do a significant amount of white-collar and crisis management work, and I do a lot of strategic counseling, negotiating, and large-scale problem solving.

    This appointment may signal that BushCo will be trying to deal with Congress rather than simply stonewalling. Or it may signal that there will be a power struggle extraodinaire in the White House between Cheney/Adddington and Fielding.

  • I’ve continued to look into Fielding’s background. This is one controversy I’ve been able to turn up Via Atrios from 2003.
    (The original story appeared in Newsday but the link is dead.)

    Washington – The lawyer who recommended the American Bar Association’s highest rating for controversial appellate judge candidate Miguel Estrada took part in partisan Republican activities during his term as a nonpartisan judicial nomination evaluator for the Bar, according to records and interviews.

    While serving on the ABA’s nonpartisan Standing Committee on the Federal Judiciary, veteran Washington lawyer Fred F. Fielding also worked for the Bush-Cheney Transition Team, accepted an appointment from the Bush administration and helped found a group to promote and run ads supporting Bush judicial nominees, including Estrada.

    Fielding evaluated Estrada in the month after President George W. Bush nominated him on May 9, 2001, ABA officials said. That was just weeks after Fielding vetted executive appointments for Bush’s transition team and a year before he helped start the partisan Committee for Justice, records show.

    The overlap has thrust Fielding – and his evaluation that led to the 15-member ABA Standing Committee’s unanimous vote to rate Estrada “well qualified” – into the heated political battle over Estrada’s nomination to the prestigious U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia, a stepping-stone to the Supreme Court.

    I haven’t seen any follow up on it.

  • “Glenn Greenwald has a good piece today explaining why eligible conservatives who support the war in Iraq need to consider signing up for military service sooner rather than later.”

    Why do young conservatives hate their country?

  • One more Fielding story, this one from CB.
    While Fielding served on the 9/11 commission Aberto Gonzales contacted him prior to Richard Clarke’s testimony. There is no indication that Fielding did anything wrong but it did produce the appearance of impropriety.

  • My favorite writer on things military, Fred Kaplan, has a new piece up at Slate concerning the appointment of General Petraeus and the “new strategy” in Iraq. He likes Petraeus but doesn’t give him much chance of success.

    The new commander, Lt. Gen. (soon to be promoted to simply Gen.) David Petraeus, is probably the smartest active-duty general in the U.S. Army today. Late last year, he co-authored the Army’s field manual on counterinsurgency—its first in over 20 years. During the early phase of the Iraq occupation, as commander of the 101st Airborne Division, he was one of the very few American officers who understood how to win over the populace, not just bash down their doors.[…]
    Alas, Petraeus is in much the same situation he found himself back then—loaded with enormous responsibility, the right skills, but not enough resources, either in money or, especially, in troops.

    Go read the whole piece. He explains in detail why the “New Way Forward” will likely fail.

  • This is not Cheney’s first visit to the Rolling Rock Club for a hunt. His visit back in 2003 generated quite a bit of controversy when it was revealed that domestically raised pheasants and mallard ducks were massacred in great numbers. Here is a description of that hunt.

    Vice President Dick Cheney went pheasant shooting in Pennsylvania in December 2003, but unlike most of his fellow hunters across America, he didn’t have to spend hours or even days tramping the fields and hedgerows in hopes of bagging a brace of birds for the dinner table.

    Upon his arrival at the exclusive Rolling Rock Club in Ligonier Township, gamekeepers released 500 pen-raised pheasants from nets for the benefit of him and his party. In a blaze of gunfire, the group—which included legendary Dallas Cowboys quarterback Roger Staubach and U.S. Senator John Cornyn (R-TX), along with major fundraisers for Republican candidates—killed at least 417 of the birds. According to one gamekeeper who spoke to the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, Cheney was credited with shooting more than 70 of the pen-reared fowl.

    After lunch, the group shot flocks of mallard ducks, also reared in pens and shot like so many live skeet. There’s been no report on the number of mallards the hunting party killed, but it’s likely that hundreds fell

    The story also got national attention. Here is the NYTimes version by Elisabeth Bumiller, who apparently didn’t didn’t quite have the same crush on Dead-eye as she did on Junior.

  • Surge on over to my place for Assclowns of the Week #56: How the Middle East Was Won Edition.

    On the spit this week:

    George W. Bush (natch)
    Hal Turner
    Pat Robertson
    Nancy Boyda
    Mayor Rudy
    and much, much more (including great .j[gs and the world’s most famous snuff film)!

    Yeehaw!

  • News tip from the 2006 Election celebration epilogue:

    Ken Blackwell a sore loser, barricades incoming Sec. of State Brunner from getting a look at the office, stays in the office until 12:01 AM the day after he has to vacate.

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