Dan Froomkin has a piece on Laura Bush’s speech yesterday about the deadly cyclone that hit Burma last weekend. Not exactly a compassionate speech.

Dan Eggen writes in The Washington Post: “Laura Bush condemned the military government in Burma yesterday for its ‘inept’ response to a deadly weekend cyclone, marking an unusual foray by the president’s spouse into a high-profile foreign policy crisis.

I’ll state the obvious here. She’s married to the idiot who had an ‘inept’ response to a deadly day on our Gulf Coast. She’s married to the idiot who had an ‘inept’ response to planes crashing into the twin towers on 911. She’s married to the idiot who told parents of dead soldiers “now don’t go selling this on ebay” when he presented them with presidential coins. I could go on and on……but do I have to?

Read Froomkin’s piece here.

(Cartoon by Mike Keefe, 2/15/08)

In the past two weeks, the Bush administration has finally admitted to torturing prisoners. We’ve seen artful dodges from Attorney General Mukasey and shameless and vile hackdom from many other Bush allies. Some exceptional news articles and commentary have been produced, but sadly and unsurprisingly, they have yet to be rewarded with congressional action.

Torture, due process, intelligence and related issues will continue to play a prominent role in politics for the rest of the year. This piece is intended as a resource in those essential (and tragically, necessary) battles. This is a long post because of all the links and excerpts; it’s essentially several posts in one. Please feel free to skim over sections as needed.

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By Dan Froomkin
from The Washington Post

I’m used to my readers ascribing all sorts of convoluted motivations to White House political mastermind Karl Rove. But now several upstanding mainstream media outlets are raising the possibility that Rove’s attacks on Hillary Clinton are a colossal head fake.

Ever since he announced his resignation in the Wall Street Journal last week, President Bush’s close adviser has been attacking Clinton, the leading Democratic presidential candidate, right and left. She’s a “fatally flawed candidate,” Rove told Journal editorial-page editor Paul A. Gigot. She’s weak on national security, he told Rush Limbaugh. She carries too much baggage from her husband’s White House years, he told Steve Holland of Reuters.

But taking Rove at face value has often proved to be a big mistake. And on Sunday morning, just before Rove set off on a round of television interviews, Peter Wallsten of the Los Angeles Times kicked off a round of informed MSM conspiracy-theorizing.

“Why did Rove, who often stays in the background, step forward to deliver such public attacks — especially when the Democrats haven’t begun to choose their presidential candidate for 2008 and when the general election is more than a year away?

“The answer might seem obvious: Rove saw Clinton as a formidable opponent and wanted to get his licks in early.

read more HERE

For those that don’t make Dan Froomkin’s online weekday column White House Watch a staple of their reading, here’s several key recent columns.

“Cheney’s Secret Escalation Plan?” (Friday, 8/10/07) considers Cheney’s latest plotting.

Meanwhile, Froomkin provides a great round-up on the other key force in the Bush administration, Karl Rove, in “Rove’s Dismal Legacy” (Monday, 8/13/07), “Post-Rovian Thinking” (Tuesday, 8/14/07) and “Rove’s Dilemma” (Wednesday, 8/15/07). I’d quote them, but there’s so much good stuff it’s better to just read them yourself. Many of the pieces Froomkin links deserve to be read in their entirety as well.

Finally, today Froomkin asks “Whose Report Is It, Anyway?” He considers the LA Times piece, much discussed in the liberal blogosphere, that confirms sensible suspicions about the impending Petraeus “surge” report:

“Despite Bush’s repeated statements that the report will reflect evaluations by Petraeus and Ryan Crocker, the U.S. ambassador to Iraq, administration officials said it would actually be written by the White House, with inputs from officials throughout the government.”

(Cross-posted at Vagabond Scholar)

By Dan Froomkin

The presidential aide who acts with such impunity now has the ultimate protection: absolute immunity from congressional oversight, at least in the judgment of White House Counsel Fred Fielding.

White House political mastermind Karl Rove had been subpoenaed to testify this morning before the Senate Judiciary Committee as part of the investigation into last year’s still-unexplained firings of nine U.S. attorneys.

No one actually expected Rove to show up. But Fielding’s assertion of executive privilege yesterday to block his testimony was nevertheless surprising in its breadth.

From Fielding’s letter to Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy: “Based upon the advice of the Department of Justice, the President . . . has requested that I advise and inform you that Mr. Rove, as an immediate presidential advisor, is immune from compelled congressional testimony about matters that arose during his tenure and that relate to his official duties in that capacity. Accordingly, Mr. Rove is not required to appear in response to the Judiciary Committee subpoena to testify about such matters, and he has been directed not to appear.”

In support of his position, Fielding attached a letter from principal deputy attorney general Steven G. Bradbury, who bases his argument for Rove’s immunity on a Nixon-era memo by then-assistant attorney general William H. Rehnquist. Rehnquist wrote in 1971: “The President and his immediate advisers — that is, those who customarily meet with the President on a regular or frequent basis — should be deemed absolutely immune from testimonial compulsion by a congressional committee. They not only may not be examined with respect to their official duties, but they may not even be compelled to appear before a congressional committee.”

read more of the BS HERE

Froomkin has a 5 page article up at the WP. Go read it, you’ll be glad you did.

An excerpt:

It’s true that the Constitution grants the president unlimited clemency and pardon power. But presidents have generally used that power to show mercy or, in rare cases, make political amends — not to protect themselves from exposure.

The Framers, ever sensitive to the need for checks and balances, recognized the potential for abuse of the pardon power. According to a Judiciary Committee report drafted in the aftermath of the Watergate crisis: “In the [Constitutional] convention George Mason argued that the President might use his pardoning power to ‘pardon crimes which were advised by himself’ or, before indictment or conviction, ‘to stop inquiry and prevent detection.’ James Madison responded:

“[I]f the President be connected, in any suspicious manner, with any person, and there be grounds [to] believe he will shelter him, the House of Representatives can impeach him; they can remove him if found guilty. . . .

“Madison went on to [say] contrary to his position in the Philadelphia convention, that the President could be suspended when suspected, and his powers would devolve on the Vice President, who could likewise be suspended until impeached and convicted, if he were also suspected.”

The Washington Post’s superb “Angler” series on Dick Cheney and a post I’m writing on torture made me want to re-visit some sections of Ron Suskind’s book The One Percent Doctrine: Deep Inside America’s Pursuit of its Enemies Since 9/11.

Most news junkies should be familiar with its most explosive, damning account: Bush telling the briefer flown out to Crawford to warn him about bin Laden attacking the U.S., “All right, you’ve covered your ass now.” (Barton Gellman’s review in The Washington Post covers many of the key passages in the book, including the Crawford briefing and some of the material I’ll be excerpting below. This earlier post also provides some context on the bin Laden revisionism by the Bush administration.) I’ve also previously quoted passages from The One Percent Doctrine on the infamous sixteen words in Bush’s 2003 State of the Union speech and a section on Bush’s general immaturity and naiveté.

All quotations come from the edition linked above, the first hardcover edition printed by Simon & Shuster, New York, 2006.

Suskind offers several interesting passages about Abu Zubaydah, a member of al Qaeda captured by the U.S. in March 2002:
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By Dan Froomkin
Special to washingtonpost.com

Why, in 2003, did Vice President Cheney suddenly become so dead’set against reporting how his office handled government secrets?

Cheney’s refusal to abide by reporting requirements that apply to everyone else in the Bush administration — and the audacity of his excuse, that because he is also president of the Senate, his office is not really within the executive branch — led to a bunch of unflattering front-page headlines this morning.

But let’s assume there’s a method to his madness. Perhaps Cheney is rejecting this oversight because he doesn’t want people to know what he and his aides have been doing with classified information. Or perhaps he believes in principle that he shouldn’t be subject to constraints that apply to others in the executive branch. Maybe both. I’m betting on both.

Cheney’s particular sensitivity to releasing information about his handling of government secrets is not exactly surprising. And while he apparently had no problem filing reports in 2001 and 2002, he stopped doing so in 2003 — a game-changing year in a lot of ways.

As I wrote in my March 31, 2006, column, investigative reporter Murray Waas has developed a compelling case that the use and abuse of classified information has been key to the White House’s success not only in contriving a bogus case for war in Iraq, but in keeping charges of deception from becoming a major issue in the 2004 election — and, arguably, to this day. Time and time again, in a strategy that most likely owes its existence to Cheney, the White House has selectively leaked or declassified secret intelligence findings that served its political agenda — while aggressively asserting the need to keep secret the information that would tend to discredit it.

Also, starting in early 2003, Bush granted Cheney broad new powers to personally classify and declassify material, as I wrote in my Feb. 17, 2006 column. Bush’s move, ironically, came in the very same order that Cheney is now in part resisting.

read more at The Washington Post

“The president feels terribly for Scooter, his wife and their young children, and all that they’re going through.”

Isn’t that nice. The president feels terribly for Scooter, and his wife, and their young children! Awwwww how sweet. He feels sorry for the treasonous, lying sack of shit who outed a COVERT CIA agent. Gee, I wonder if he feels sorry for that COVERT CIA agent…..and her husband…..and her young children. I wonder if he feels sorry that Scooter Boy and Big Dick ruined her career. Nawwww…..he wouldn’t, because they didn’t serve His Heinyness well!!

From the Washington Post:

By Dan Froomkin

The White House has officially ruled out the possibility of a presidential pardon for Scooter Libby until he exhausts the appeals process — a timetable that is all but certain to lead to significant prison time for the former top aide to Vice President Cheney.

U.S. District Court Judge Reggie Walton yesterday ordered Libby to start serving his 30-month sentence in a matter of weeks. Libby’s appeal will presumably take months if not years.

Libby can avoid prison time only if one of two things happens soon: A special panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit overrules Walton and allows Libby to remain free pending appeal; or Bush goes back on his word and grants a pardon while the appeal is still pending. Both are highly unlikely.

White House officials yesterday amplified earlier assertions that Bush is holding off on any action for the foreseeable future.

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By Dan Froomkin

Scooter Libby today expressed no remorse, and Judge Reggie B. Walton showed no mercy.

The former vice presidential chief of staff spoke only briefly at his sentencing hearing in federal court today, thanking courtroom personnel for their kindness during his trial and saying: “It is respectfully my hope that the court will consider along with the jury verdict my whole life. Thank you your honor.”

Libby’s defense team had asked for probation. But Walton sentenced Libby to two and a half years in prison and fined him $250,000. Libby was found guilty in March of obstruction of justice for lying to a federal grand jury and the FBI about his disclosure of former CIA agent Valerie Plame’s identity to reporters.

Walton put off another important decision, however. Saying he was not inclined to grant the defense’s request that Libby be allowed to remain free on appeal, Walton nevertheless put off his decision until a June 14 hearing.

Ever since Libby was convicted, his supporters have been urging President Bush to grant him a pardon. If Libby remains free on appeal, Bush would probably postpone such a hugely controversial decision, potentially until his last days in office. If Libby is sent to prison, however, that would likely spark an immediate and furious internecine battle within his administration.

Continue reading at the Washington Post

Like Bat says, you can’t get enough Froomkin……

By Dan Froomkin
Special to washingtonpost.com
Thursday, May 31, 2007; 12:52 PM

The White House, long irritated by the frequent use of Vietnam as a metaphor for Iraq, embraced its own analogy yesterday: South Korea.

There’s an undeniable attraction to holding up America’s military presence in South Korea as a model for Iraq: Our soldiers stationed there aren’t dying in large numbers every month.

But in other ways, the analogy is troubling. And flawed. And dangerous. And telling.

It’s troubling because American troops have been in South Korea for more than 50 years — while polls show the American public wants them out of Iraq within a year.

It’s flawed because in South Korea, unlike Iraq, there’s something concrete to defend (the border with North Korea); and because Iraq, unlike South Korea, happens to be in a state of violent civil war.

It’s dangerous because the specter of a permanent military presence in Iraq is widely considered to be one of the most inflammatory incitements to Iraq’s ever-growing anti-American insurgency, and may even be destabilizing to the entire region.

And it’s telling because it gives credence to persistent suspicions that establishing a long-term strategic presence in the Middle East was a primary motivation for this misbegotten war in the first place.

Continue reading at the Washington Post

(Cross-posted at Vagabond Scholar)

“The most essential gift for a good writer is a built-in, shock-proof, bullshit detector.”
- Ernest Hemingway

What’s the difference between a lie, a false statement, a misrepresentation, spin, or simply calling it wrong?

Why are the press so reluctant to say someone’s lied?

Why are the press so reluctant to call “bullshit“?

On lying, I suspect the press are reluctant because it ascribes motive and someone’s inner thoughts, which generally aren-t verifiable. There may also be legal issues regarding libel and slander for “lie.” In any case, we often get “false statement,” “misrepresentation” and other careful formulations.

In his 6/1/06 column “Bush’s Lie” Dan Froomkin observed:

Lying is probably the one word mainstream journalists are the most averse to using when recounting what the president said — even when they know he’s not telling the truth. The act of lying requires not just the presentation of false information, but an intention to deceive. Reporters — and, particularly editors — are notoriously resistant to ascribe such volition without ironclad evidence.

But there’s really no other way to describe what Bush said Thursday. Press secretary Tony Snow’s widely-quoted explanation that Bush’s statement [about the future of Treasury Secretary John Snow] was in some way “artfully worded” is just plain wrong.

It may not have been an important lie. And there are some mitigating factors: It was, after all, a personnel matter and there was some possibly legitimate concern about the financial markets. But it couldn’t be more clear that Bush was being intentionally deceptive.

The bigger issue is not the word choice of the reporters in question. It’s that, as Froomkin noted, “Several White House correspondents dutifully reported Snow’s explanation — but neglected to note that it doesn’t wash.” He goes on to consider:

How hard is it for reporters to call what Bush says a lie? Consider Dana Milbank’s near-legendary front-page Washington Post story from October 2002, headlined: “For Bush, Facts Are Malleable.”

Milbank wrote that some of Bush’s statements “were dubious, if not wrong”; that Bush’s “rhetoric has taken some flights of fancy”; that he was guilty of “distortions and exaggerations”; that he had “taken some liberties,” “omitted qualifiers,” and made assertions that “simply outpace the facts.”

But you won’t find the word lie in there anywhere. It just won’t get by the editors.

Read more »

As Karen DeYoung reports for The Washington Post, the biggest news on the Iran front is that:

Marine Gen. Peter Pace, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said yesterday that he has no information indicating Iran’s government is directing the supply of lethal weapons to Shiite insurgent groups in Iraq.

“We know that the explosively formed projectiles are manufactured in Iran,” Pace told Voice of America during a visit to Australia. “What I would not say is that the Iranian government, per se, knows about this.”

“It is clear that Iranians are involved, and it’s clear that materials from Iran are involved,” he continued, “but I would not say by what I know that the Iranian government clearly knows or is complicit.”

Pace’s comments came a day after U.S. military officials in Baghdad alleged that the “highest levels” of the Iranian government have directed use of weapons that are killing U.S. troops in Iraq. No information was provided to substantiate the charge. Administration officials yesterday deflected requests for more details, even as they repeatedly implied Tehran’s involvement.

Meanwhile, Dan Froomkin continues to be on top of all Iran developments. In his column today, Tuesday 2/13/07, “Bush Puzzled by Doubters,” he reports:

President Bush yesterday sounded perplexed that anyone would think he is preparing to attack Iran — going so far as to make a sour face and lower his voice in a mocking imitation of his critics.

“I guess my reaction to all the noise about, you know, ‘He wants to go to war’ is, first of all, I don’t understand the tactics, and I guess I would say it’s political,” Bush told C-SPAN’s Steve Scully yesterday.

“On the other hand, I hope that the members of Congress, particularly in the opposition party, understand the grave danger of Iran having a nuclear weapon. Therefore, we all need to work together to solve the problem.”

Here’s the text and video of the interview. Thinkprogress has a video clip of Bush’s sour-faced cynic-imitation.

So where is all that “noise” coming from? Why might anyone be doubting Bush’s stated intentions?

Well, it could be that when it comes to the Middle East, the war in Iraq has so damaged Bush’s credibility that even some of his natural allies don’t believe what he has to say anymore — even his pro forma denials of hostile intentions toward Iran.

And then there’s the fact that those sour-faced, unhappy’sounding critics Bush was mocking have, time and again, been proved right.

Froomkin also provides a good round-up of more reactions to the deep background briefing, most of it skeptical. He also quotes at length from the DeYoung article linked above, remarking:

I love journalistic transparency — and DeYoung today takes readers through her fruitless quest for evidence to back up the allegation that the “highest levels” of the Iranian government have directed use of weapons that are killing U.S. troops in Iraq.

DeYoung does indeed do a great job of this, providing a great model for how to deal with a less-than-forthcoming administration. I was tempted to post the entire section in question, but the article’s short enough you might as well read the whole thing yourself, and check out Froomkin’s other items.

(crossposted at Vagabond Scholar)

Another Froomkin item spurs me to post! What can I say, the guy is good!

In his Wednesday, 2/7/07 column, “Cheney Doesn-t Share,” he ponders:

No Cheney Cross?

With so many new questions emerging about Cheney’s conduct — and the unique experience of watching him be cross-examined in federal court having been dangled in front of the press corps for months — it comes as a grave disappointment that Cheney may end up not testifying after all.

But Matt Apuzzo writes for the Associated Press: “Attorneys for former White House aide I. Lewis ‘Scooter’ Libby are backtracking on their plans to call Vice President Dick Cheney and Libby himself to testify in the CIA leak trial.

“Libby’s atorneys seemed certain in December when they announced that Cheney would testify at his former aide’s perjury and obstruction trial.

“But with prosecutors close to resting their case, attorneys are quietly backing away from that claim.

“In documents filed in federal court this week, Libby’s attorneys said Cheney was ‘potentially’ a witness.”

This gives me the perfect excuse to muse about Cheney on the stand. Would he lie if he was reasonably sure he could get away with it? Would he tell the truth? (How sad that the answer’s legitimately in doubt.) Cheney may well have the worst judgment of any major public official in decades, but he is smart about covering his tracks. But think about it. He’s shown he doesn-t care about his image. He doesn-t care about lying, not only to the public, but even to high-ranking members of his own administration! He doesn-t give a damn about the rule of law, due process or the Constitution. He’s ferociously in favor of torture. He doesn-t care what the intelligence says. He doesn-t care what any data says. He doesn-t care about the financial well-being of our country. (Beyond Halliburton’s no-bid contracts, Paul O-Neill relates the tale that Cheney said that “Reagan proved deficits don-t matter. [These further taxes for the rich] are our due.”) Cheney has repeatedly shown he doesn-t value transparency, yet alone any check on his power. He regularly insults his critics in extremely degrading terms (and with straw men aplenty). Most disastrously, he has consistently shown he doesn-t give a damn about learning from any of his avalanche of mistakes and misjudgments. (The Froomkin column linked above has some great tidbits on Cheney.)

Deep down, Cheney must want to let loose and tell everybody off. He must want to repeat his “Go fuck yourself” line, delivered to Senator Patrick Leahy, to Patrick Fitzgerald. He must want to tell everyone to go to hell. He’s itching for a Colonel Jessup moment, just like Jack Nicholson in A Few Good Men. Can-t you see it?

FITZGERALD: Did you order Libby to leak Valerie Plame Wilson’s identity to the press?

CHENEY: You-re damn right I did! And I-d do it again! Who cares if Wilson told the truth? It made us look bad, and we had a presidential election coming up! You think junior was going to win on his merits? And who cares if I had Libby lie to that flake Judith Miller about the NIE? We had to get the message out! Russert says he doesn-t remember the conversation that way? He-ll remember whatever the hell I tell him to remember, and remember his place most of all! The Constitution clearly states I can do whatever the hell I want! I-m in charge here! Who’s going to stop me? You? You? YOU? Do any of you really got the balls to take on “Big Time” Cheney?!?

>Alas, as I mentioned above, Cheney is a smart fellow - when it comes to hiding his cards, to getting away with it, with surviving. His testimony would be completely fascinating, offering valuable information for the trial, but even more valuable insight into how the most powerful Vice President in history operates. But at this point, his testimony might hurt Libby, and if so, obviously the defense will not call him. It’s unlikely he-ll have a Colonel Jessup moment. But it doesn-t hurt to dream.

(crossposted at Vagabond Scholar)

(Hmm. Cheney’s lost a little weight, hasn’t he?)

My favorite item of the week so far comes from a “Literary Metaphor Watch” category in a Dan Froomkin column. He reports:

Nicholas Kristof asked readers to offer literary or historical parallels to the Bush administration and Iraq. He writes in his New York Times opinion column (subscription required): “A reader named Melissa S. e-mailed to say that she explains Iraq policy to her 8-year-old son in terms of Harry Potter characters: ‘Dick Cheney is Lord Voldemort. George W. Bush is Peter Pettigrew.’ Don Rumsfeld is Lucius Malfoy, while Cornelius Fudge represents administration supporters who deny that anything is wrong. And, she concludes, ‘Daily Prophet reporter Rita Skeeter is Fox News.’”

Donkey O.D. has the full text here.

On a more serious note, to match the core of Kristof’s piece, the Bush administration has shown a lethal inability to learn from history, most tragically, the costs of war and the mistakes to avoid when waging one (top of the list would be not to start a war of choice). However, as Kristof reminds us, the Bush administration and the neocons also seem to be ignorant of essential themes raised in the arts (more on this to come in a later post).

When Gorbachev was in power, not long before the break-up the Soviet Union, he arranged to see the production of Chekhov’s Uncle Vanya in repertory at the famed Moscow Art Theater. Afterwards, he called up the Artistic Director of the theater to talk about the play, saying something like, “Vanya is just like me,” and proceeded to talk about himself in relation to the play for anywhere from twenty minutes to an hour. How amazing.

Personally, I don-t care what Bush reads or sees, Shakespeare, Chekhov, Harry Potter or the Bible, I just want him to think and to truly reflect. Most accounts indicate he rarely if ever does. I would also like to see him feel, specifically, feel compassion for others and to have the imagination to consider the consequences of his frighteningly powerful actions and inactions. Bush “read three Shakespeares,” including Hamlet, last year, and if it’s true, good for him. What was really needed was to ask him what he took away from them, to discuss the works with him. I suspect reporters were wary of embarrassing Bush, but it could be done with tact and it would have been very revealing. In the meantime, if Bush is to grapple with some of the complexities of the modern world and moral quandaries, it might be a step in the right direction for him to read a little Harry Potter.

“Mr. Vice-President, if you could just stop devouring that baby for the photo - we’re trying to show your lighter side.”