Month: July 2007

Novak: Sen. Minority Leader McConnell Criticized for ‘Dereliction of Duty’ on Immigration

Jon Ponder

For high Republican officials, it is bad when Robert Novak, “douchebag of liberty” and GOP tool, calls you out:

“It is difficult to exaggerate the pessimism about the immediate political future voiced by Republicans in Congress when not on the record.”
— Novak

I asked one of the few conservative Republican senators who stuck with President Bush on immigration to assess how Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell handled the issue. Asking not to be quoted by name, he replied: “If this were a war, Sen. McConnell should be relieved of command for dereliction of duty.” Not only did the minority leader end up voting against an immigration bill that he said was better than the 2006 version he supported, he abandoned his post, staying off the floor during final stages of the debate.

Novak does add this cheerful note:

It is difficult to exaggerate the pessimism about the immediate political future voiced by Republicans in Congress when not on the record. With an unpopular president waging an unpopular war, they foresee electoral catastrophe in 2008, with Democratic gains in both the House and Senate and Hillary Clinton in the White House. That’s the atmosphere in which these lachrymose lawmakers have for several months faced an increasingly hysterical onslaught from constituents demanding the death of the “amnesty” for immigrants they heard vilified on talk radio.

His lips to God’s ears, as they say.

Fred Thompson Voted ‘Guilty’ on Clinton Obstruction Charges, Now Supports Libby’s Half-Pardon

Jon Ponder

Longtime K Street lobbyist Fred Thompson was serving in the U.S. Senate during the Clinton impeachment in 1999. He voted “not guilty” on the charge that Pres. Clinton committed perjury in testimony about his affair with Monica Lewinsky, and “guilty”* on related obstruction of justice charges. Back then, Sen. Thompson wrote:

[Because Pres. Clinton has been found to be not guilty, the] notion that anyone, no matter how powerless, can get equal justice will be seen by some as a farce. And our rule of law–the principle that many other countries still dream about–the principle that sets us apart, will have been severely damaged. If this does not constitute damage to our government and our society, I cannot imagine what does. And for that he should be convicted.

Thompson, now an television actor, has been a vocal supporter of a complete pardon for Scooter Libby, who was found guilty by a jury of perjury and obstruction of justice in the investigation into the deliberate unmasking by Bush administration officials of a covert CIA specialist in weapons of mass destruction.

Here’s what Thompson had to say about the half-pardon Libby was awarded by Pres. Bush yesterday:

“While for a long time I have urged a pardon for Scooter, I respect the president’s decision. This will allow a good American, who has done a lot for his country, to resume his life.” — Former Sen. Fred Thompson, R-Tenn.

Thompson, who was a lobbyist for 18 years and a senator for nine years, will announce that he is running for president this month. (Some reports say he will announce this Friday.)

The final verdict from the Senate on Pres. Clinton’s impeachment was not guilty on all charges.

Libby will almost undoubtedly receive a full pardon at the end of Pres. Bush’s term.

Update: *In the original version of this story, I had Thompson’s votes backwards.

Now That the Libby Case Is Over, Bush & Cheney No Longer Have an Excuse for Not Talking

Jon Ponder

From the outset, Pres. Bush and Vice Pres. Cheney have brushed aside questions about their involvement in the the CIA leak case first by claiming they could not talk about it while the investigation and subsequently the trial were underway — and more recently because Scooter Libby was appealing his conviction on perjury and obstruction of justice charges.

There are serious questions that require answers about the involvement of the president and the vice president in the conspiracy to out the agent, Valerie Wilson.

Well, it’s all over now. Bush commuted Libby’s sentence. While his appeals will continue, the Libby case is done, and either Bush and Cheney will be forced to answer questions about their involvement, or — and this is much more likely — they’ll have to come up with another, more creative excuse.

There are serious questions that require answers about the involvement of the president and the vice president in the conspiracy to out the agent, Valerie Wilson. Early on, Bush played ignorant, making statements to the effect that when he found the person who leaked Wilson’s identity, that person would be fired and “no longer part of my administration. Many people thought at the time that these statements were false — that within hours of the release of the Bob Novak column that outed Wilson they president was fully briefed on how her name came to be released to the press.

The special prosecutor, Patrick Fitzgerald, was said to suspect that outing Wilson was Cheney’s idea, and that leaking of her name to various journalists was done under his direction.

Perhaps you recall responses from the White House on this matter. Here’s the classic, from the White House press briefing on Oct. 25, 2005:

[…]

Breaking: Bush Commutes Libby’s Sentence

Jon Ponder

So much for the rule of law:

President Bush commuted the sentence of former White House aide I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby on Monday, sparing him from a 2½-year prison term that Bush said was excessive…

“I respect the jury’s verdict,” Bush said in a statement. “But I have concluded that the prison sentence given to Mr. Libby is excessive. Therefore, I am commuting the portion of Mr. Libby’s sentence that required him to spend thirty months in prison.”

After Setting World on Fire, Bush Said to Be ‘at Ease’ Because He Is Doing God’s Will

Jon Ponder

An article up today at the Washington Post catches us up on the inner life of Pres. George Bush at what it calls the nadir of his presidency.

“[The president] seeks guidance, like every other president does, in prayer. And that means trying to be sure he’s +doing the right thing. And if you’ve got that set, all the criticism, it doesn’t faze you very much. You’re answering to God.”
– Theologian who recently met with Bush

What the president’s team wants us to know is that Bush is asking a lot of smart people over to the White House to ask them questions. Here’s my favorite:

After reading Andrew Roberts’s “A History of the English-Speaking Peoples Since 1900,” Bush brought in the author and a dozen other scholars to talk about the lessons. “What can I learn from history?” Bush asked Roberts…

And:

“He asked me, ‘Do you think our unpopularity abroad is a result of my personality?’ And he laughed,” [Irwin M. Stelzer, a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute] recalled. “I said, ‘In part.’ And he laughed again.”

Oh, yeah. LOL. That’s rich. “In part.” Very funny.

Despite all this soul searching, people who have been around the president have found him surprisingly unburdened by angst. Henry Kissinger is quoted as saying Bush is “at peace with himself.” Rep. Peter King, a reliable GOP tool from Long Island, says the president is “amazingly calm.” One of the scholars who was brought in said, “My God, he looked well. He looked like he came off a cruise in the Caribbean. He looked like he hadn’t a care in the world. It was amazing.”

What explains the president’s carefree attitude in light of all the damage he has wreaked? You guessed it — he’s on a mission from God:

“His faith is very strong,” said [Michael] Novak, a scholar at the American Enterprise Institute. “Faith is not enough by itself because there are a lot of people who have faith but weak hearts. But his faith is very strong. He seeks guidance, like every other president does, in prayer. And that means trying to be sure he’s doing the right thing. And if you’ve got that set, all the criticism, it doesn’t faze you very much. You’re answering to God.”

The problem is, the leader of the free world has faith, strong will and a weak mind.

Romney Says Kennel Strapped to Roof to Transport ‘Family Pet’ Was ‘Enclosed’

Jon Ponder

Everything GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney says about his practice of transporting his Irish setter in a kennel strapped to his car roof in the 1980s just makes the whole thing sound worse.

In his latest statement, he seems to have been warned by his spinners not to use the word “dog” — referring to the setter and other dogs he owned four times as “family pets”:

Romney said, “sometimes when the stories come out in the media they don’t quite get it accurate. The kennel that my family pet used to ride in is enclosed. It’s not an open aired kennel. It’s enclosed and there are air vents of course at the back. My family pet used to climb up there and lie down on his own. And we love our family pets. Have always loved our family pets. And have nothing but honor and pride in taking care of great dogs. We’ve had quite a few.”

There is also the matter of the story one of Romney’s sons told about the dog’s poop coming out of the carrier during a trip and sliding down the car window. We’ll assume the “enclosed” kennel was vented at the bottom.

What this reveals, I think, is that Romney is indeed a dumbass. Fortunately for him, being as stupid as a bag of hammers is no longer a disqualifier for the presidency.

Poll: ‘The Elephant Looks in the Mirror 10 Years Later’ Updates Republicans’ View of Themselves

Jon Ponder

In 1997, GOP pollster Tony Fabrizio released “The Elephant Looks in the Mirror,” a report on an extensive survey of the Republican Party. Now he has released results of a similar poll, “The Elephant Looks in the Mirror 10 Years Later.”

49 percent of Republicans favored ending the ban on allowing gays to serve in the military.

For Democrats, the most interesting trend is the GOP’s age demographics, which have skewed dramatically older over the decade. The percentage of Republicans age 55 and older grew from 28 percent in 1997 to 41 percent now, while the number of 18- to 37-year-olds dropped from 25 percent to 17 percent. A Republican analyst finds this to be alarming:

This is not good news [says the GOP analyst]. We already know that we are struggling with younger voters. These results … point out just how old our base is shifting. This probably represents several things including, aging of the people involved in the conservative backlash to the 60s, losing the younger generation due to the war, and the dying, frankly, of the New Dealers.

In the poll, Fabrizio identified seven interest groups within the GOP:

  • Bush hawks – This new, dangerously paranoid group, along with the Fortress America crowd below, accumulated its members from the GOPers’ anti-tax, anti-gubmint lunatic fringe
  • Moralists – More accurately referred to as “Christian nationalists,” they generate headlines on social issues that make sensible conservatives cringe
  • Government knows best Republicans – Seems like an oxymoron but Pres. Bush is, if nothing else, a big-government conservative
  • Dennis Miller Republicans – The snarks get their own category?
  • Fortress America Republicans – Like the Bush Hawks, the “nationalist” wing of the Christian nationalism gained members from the economic-focused groups, the Heartlanders and free marketeers
  • Heartland Republicans – The number of these sensible Republicans declined from 1997
  • Free marketeers – As did the number of self-identified anti-taxers

Despite their dominance in the media, moralists represent less than a quarter of the Republican Party. Their influence appears to be waning, however, perhaps because their pose of moral superiority wears thin, even among conservatives:

[By] a margin of 53 percent to 42 percent Republicans believe that “The Republican Party has spent too much time focusing on moral issues such as abortion and gay marriage and should instead be spending time focusing on economic issues such as taxes and government spending.”

Forty-nine percent of Republicans in the poll favored ending the ban on allowing gays to serve in the military.