Thursday’s Mini-Report

April 12, 2007

Today’s edition of quick hits.

* Henry Waxman directed government agencies today to “preserve e-mails received from or sent to non-governmental e-mail accounts used by White House staffers.” Good idea.

* RNC counsel Rob Kelner said today that the RNC stopped deleting all of the White House staff’s emails in response to “unspecified legal inquiries” (i.e. Pat Fitzgerald’s investigation) in August of 2004 — but Karl Rove’s emails, which are missing, were given special treatment.

* We know there are a lot of missing emails, but just how many are we talking about? According to Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington’s (CREW) new report, “Without a Trace: The Missing White House Emails and Violations of the PRA,” we’re talking about 5 million emails over a two year period.

* Democratic leaders last night accepted the president’s offer to stop by the White House next Wednesday for a chat, which the president perceives as a chance to berate Dems into submission. “We will listen to his position, but in return we will insist that he listen to concerns of the American people that his policies in Iraq have failed and we need to change course,” Pelosi and Reid said in a joint statement.

* Speaking of meetings, Sens. John McCain (R-Ariz.) and Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) met with Bush today to talk about the lawmakers’ recent trip to Baghdad. Wouldn’t you know it, the three all sounded upbeat and optimistic. What a surprise.

* As I’m sure you’ve heard by now, the Senate approved the long-overdue stem-cell research bill last night, 63 to 34, but fell short of the 67 votes needed to override an inevitable Bush veto.

* CBS has fired Don Imus.

* Glenn Greenwald has a great post documenting the frequency with which the Bush administration “loses” important documents and materials at convenient times. Just a coincidence, I’m sure.

* Bush withdrew two controversial nominees for top environmental posts, a week before their confirmation hearings were scheduled to begin. Both nominees, William Wehrum and Alex Beehler, recognized that they wouldn’t be confirmed so asked to be removed from consideration. And since Bush no longer believes the White House needs the Senate to confirm nominees anymore, he went along with their request.

* When the RNC lays out its best, most thorough, case against Nancy Pelosi, there’s just not much there.

* Bush’s Special Humanitarian Coordinator for Sudan Andrew Natsios didn’t want to acknowledge genocide in Darfur during a Senate hearing today. Since Bush already has accepted the description, I don’t know what Natsios’ problem is.

* Sen. Carl Levin (D-Mich.) seems surprised to discover Dick Cheney lying. He shouldn’t be.

* The NYT did a nice job this morning editorializing against Rudy Giuliani’s new-found interest in the Confederate Flag.

* Apparently, the FBI wants all Americans to be on the lookout for weapons of mass destruction. “We obviously don’t have the resources to be everywhere,” Jeffrey Muller, head of the FBI’s WMD countermeasures unit, says in a press release issued today. “With our outreach programs and the partnerships we’ve developed over the years, we don’t have to be.” I feel safer already.

* Bob Novak really needs to get a life. His new column is still questioning whether Valerie Plame Wilson was actually covert at the CIA. This was settled quite a while ago, Bob.

* Kos wrote an item this morning about blogging, death threats, and a proposed “code of conduct.” Jessica Valenti argues that Kos’ post is off-base.

* And finally, we lost one of the all-time greats last night, when author Kurt Vonnegut died at age 84. So it goes.

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

Thanks, CB, for noting Kurt’s passing … we won’t see the brilliant likes of him again, alas.

I wish we all could, in some small way, become unstuck in time, if only in his honor. I for one would dearly love a pre-2000 time slot please, Billy P.

  • “CBS has fired Don Imus.”

    Ok, fine. So when is somebody going to fire murderous hate-speech professionals like Limbaugh, Ingraham and those people at KNBR?

    As bad as what Imus said was, that bunch makes him look like a choirboy by comparison. And yet I don’t hear any great outcry whenever they spew their poisonous bile.

  • Excellent exposition by Mr. Greenwald. I’m sure someone has commented before, here in the reality-based community, that the truth is not the truth in the bizzaro world of the criminal enterprise known as the Cheney administration. The year is indeed 1984.

  • A query about overriding vetos – does it require a hard minimum of 67 votes, or can it be 2/3 + 1 of the senators voting on an issue?

  • * Kos wrote an item this morning about blogging, death threats, and a proposed “code of conduct.” Jessica Valenti argues that Kos’ post is off-base.

    Valenti is a little harsh on Kos. He isn’t being a sexist or a misogynist like she tries to suggest. He clearly would have said the same thing if the target of the death threats was a man.

    But Kos did make a mistake about the context, which Valenti rightly points out. Kos is a political blogger. Politics is an arena where public figures are used to unhinged, threatening comments and emails such as the example he posted.

    But is the realm of programming? No, it isn’t. And it’s denizens are rightfully upset at this sort of degradation in its field.

    Unhinged idiots posting (probably) empty death threats are one thing here in the political blogosphere, where we’ve already grown thick hides for that kind of abuse and just ignore it. We’ve grown to tolerate them as meaningless here and therefore scold those who become alarmed as thin-skinned. And that’s unfair, because it’s something no one should tolerate.

    Valenti, being someone who stands up to subtle (and sometimes not-so-subtle) male oppression, knows that threats, etc should not be tolerated, and understands why. Kos, on the other hand, has learned to live with it. That’s great for him, but unfortunate for the rest of us because it doesn’t discourage that behavior but rather allows it to perpetuate.

    Bullying should not be tolerated, ever. Freedom of speech is not absolute. We have laws against things like harassment and slander for good reason. Your personal freedom ends at my nose. Cross that line and you are no longer exercising your freedom, but violating mine. And the point of the code of conduct is to convince and enlist those bloggers who permit bullies to make their threats on their sites, either out of laziness or deference to freedom of speech, to take a stand against threats and to stop them.

  • A query about overriding vetos – does it require a hard minimum of 67 votes, or can it be 2/3 + 1 of the senators voting on an issue?

    It’s 2/3 (or possibly 2/3 + 1). We didn’t always have 100 senators, or even 67. However, I’m not sure what would happen if 66 voted yea, 33 voted nay, and 1 abstained. That’s 2/3 exactly but not 2/3 + 1.

  • Ah, Vonnegut, Jr., a must read if one is to sanely discern the madness we call the American culture. We have lost a great soul, yet his is one that will transcend our nation’s history sometime in the future. -Kevo

  • The 2008 presidential elections may prove to be an unusually rich source of irony. For example, “It’s time for a change, bring honor back to the White House, vote Clinton”.

  • * As I’m sure you’ve heard by now, the Senate approved the long-overdue stem-cell research bill last night, 63 to 34, but fell short of the 67 votes needed to override an inevitable Bush veto.

    Why didn’t Dodd vote? Why didn’t Landrieu? Alternatively, why didn’t Casey and one of the Bobsey… er… Nelson twins dodge the question instead of voting “no”?

    Sigh…I really hope Tim Johnson gets better *soon*.

  • Well, without Imus it’s hard for them to make the fake argument that “liberals do it, too.” Not that Imus actually was liberal, but the right has long pretended he was. His fall will make it easier (though perhaps not easy enough) to attack Limbaugh and the rest, both by removing this talking-point and as a matter of precedent.

  • To perpetuate a bad joke, someone needs to tell Andrew Natsios that denial is not just a river in Egypt, it flows through the Sudan on its way to Egypt.

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