Thelonious Monk
“Lulu’s Back in Town”

By HELEN THOMAS
HEARST NEWSPAPERS

WASHINGTON — President Bush should stop worrying about his legacy. It’s already established.

By his deeds you shall know him; preemptive war, torture and wiretapping, for starters.

Nothing said in history can wipe out those flaws in his administration. And no revisionist historian down the road can diminish the importance of those acts. He has governed with threats — and by nourishing fear in the American people.

The president seems to have a hard time abiding by the law. Referring to his struggles with Congress during his first year in office, Bush joked that “a dictatorship would be heck of a lot easier.”

But it is no joke that he has found ways to circumvent the constitutional restraints of his office with signing statements and secret directives.

Bush also has been able to execute his power grab by playing the fear card — and with hardly a peep from a cowed Congress. This tactic has worked most of the time.

Now, fortunately, the administration is encountering some pushback from Capitol Hill, from those who reject the chipping away of our civil liberties and the tarnishing of our reputation in the world among those who once respected our leadership.

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Worried that they may come across as an “all white country club party”, the RNC has hired polling and focus groups to find out just how far they can go in attacking a minority or a female candidate. “Undisciplined messaging” is the term coined by the GOP for the clumsy rhetoric.

Republicans will be told to “be sensitive to tone and stick to the substance of the discussion” and that “the key is that you have to be sensitive to the fact that you are running against historic firsts,” the strategist explained.

In other words, Republicans should expect a severe backlash if they say or do anything that smacks of politicizing race or gender. They didn-t need an expensive poll to learn that lesson, however. [...]

GOP officials are certain their words will be scrutinized ever more aggressively. They anticipate a regular media barrage of accusations of intolerance - or much worse.

Seems someone forgot to send Ann Coulter the memo.

Fitting. He left the race, threw his support behind McCain, and now there’s talk he may re-enter the race:

Breaking News: Mitt Romney to rejoin GOP race?

Josh Romney, one of former Gov. Mitt Romney’s five sons, says it’s “possible” his father may rejoin the race for the White House, as a vice presidential candidate or as the Republican Party’s standard-bearer if the campaign of Sen. John McCain falters.

From WKRG:

Our family grows more and more outraged with each revelation showing that - for 8 years - my father has been targeted for political reasons -. America should never lose sight of the tragic fact that while the world is just now discovering the corrupt tactics used by the Justice Department in their pursuit of Don Siegelman, our Dad is in a Federal Prison where he has been for eight months. He has not been allowed to be free while he appeals his case and he remains unable to appeal his conviction because there is no trial transcript - even though his trial ended over 600 days ago.

The new revelations by “60 minutes” sit on top of the mountain of evidence already in existence that shows the Justice Department illegally targeted my father. Testimony before the House Judiciary Committee showed that the prosecutors in Alabama were not going to prosecute my father but were told by the Justice Department to do whatever it took to bring Dad down. Adam Zagorin at TIME Magazine reported that during the investigation, prosecutors discovered - and ignored - evidence against a Republican US Senator and Alabama’s Republican Attorney General. Most egregious in this episode is the fact that the Justice Department officials and investigators involved in that investigation continued to pursue Dad in the face of their blatant conflicts of interest that should have removed them from the case. In the Siegelman case and in other Alabama cases, affidavits and information has come to light showing that investigators threatened, intimidated, and coached witnesses to incriminate Don Siegelman. The revelations in the “60 Minutes” report cries out for an independent investigation of this case and the immediate release of my Dad.

My family’s question to the Congress is “how much evidence will be enough?”. The US Attorney apparatus in Alabama is corrupted and only an outside, independent investigation will right this grievous wrong.

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I missed this myself……. am going to watch it today.

From Scott Horton at Harpers:

Impeach…..

Two years and 142 cases have passed since Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas last spoke up at oral arguments. It is a period of unbroken silence that contrasts with the rest of the court’s unceasing inquiries.

Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas says he’d like to be known as the “listening justice.”

Hardly a case goes by without eight justices peppering lawyers with questions. Oral arguments offer justices the chance to resolve nagging doubts about a case, probe its weaknesses or make a point to their colleagues.

Left, right and center, the justices ask and they ask and they ask. Sometimes they debate each other, leaving the lawyer at the podium helpless to jump in. “I think you’re handling these questions very well,” Chief Justice John Roberts quipped to a lawyer recently in the midst of one such exchange.

Leaning back in his leather chair, often looking up at the ceiling, Thomas takes it all in, but he never joins in.

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