Day: November 6, 2005

The Sierra Club is appalled at the Pombo bill, which will allow oil drilling in both the Arctic and the Florida coast, and which will likely pass. The time is now to contact your representatives and sign the petition.

If the Republican leadership is so eager to please an oil industry that is squeezing Americans dry at the gas pump, we wondered what else we might find in the Budget Reconciliation Bill besides the keys to our most treasured natural areas. We wonder if any of these other favors for oil companies might be hidden in the bill:

1. Free massages and mud masks at the Congressional spa.
2. Golf trip to Scotland with Tom DeLay.
3. Year’s supply of caribou jerky.
4. Open contract with Haliburton for dry cleaning services.
5. Stock tips from Senator Bill Frist.
6. Whale watching junket with Richard Pombo.
7. Limited-edition red, white and blue Hummers.
8. Coupons for a free “5 Wing Flappertizer” at Hooters.
9. Friendship bracelets for oil and gas lobbyists, hand woven by Vice President Cheney.
10. Naming rights for future hurricanes.

Things were so bad that he left early :

President Bush left the country before the conclusion of a two-day summit here as key South American leaders rejected the White House’s vision for a free-trade zone that would stretch from the Arctic to the southern tip of South America.

Fierce opposition from the populist presidents of the continent’s three largest economies — Brazil, Argentina and Venezuela — thwarted the resuscitation of the so-called Free Trade Area of the Americas, or FTAA.

“There are two points of view on the continent,” said Argentine Foreign Minister Rafael Bielsa, referring to the five dissenting nations, including Uruguay and Paraguay. The five nations account for more than half of the continent’s economic activity.

Senior administration officials immediately disputed the notion that the session was a failure for Bush, noting that 29 of the 34 participating nations favored the trade pact, and that the summit’s final document calls for further talks next year.

“Isn’t that in itself an important accomplishment?” one administration official said.

But coming amid lackluster poll numbers for the president back home, some observers called the talks’ collapse another disappointment for Bush.

Tacit approval? In case you’re just tuning in: The syndicated column in which Robert Novak outed secret agent Valerie Plame was published in July 2003, but the investigation into whether Novak’s treasonous-ish “reporting” was, in fact, flacking for the White House did not begin until two months later. This gave Team Bush eight weeks or so to shred documents, delete emails and get its story together.

Two years and two months later, just about all that remains on the record about President Bush’s participation in the alleged cover-up comes down to this:

In the hours before the Justice Department informed the White House in late September 2003 that it would investigate the leak of a covert C.I.A. officer’s identity, Scott McClellan, the White House press secretary, gave reporters what turned out to be a rare glimpse into President Bush’s knowledge of the case.

Mr. Bush, he said, “knows” that Karl Rove, his senior adviser, had not been the source of the leak. Pressed on how Mr. Bush was certain, Mr. McClellan said he was “not going to get into conversations that the president has with advisers,” but made no effort to erase the impression that Mr. Rove had assured Mr. Bush that he had not been involved.

Since then, administration officials and Mr. Bush himself have carefully avoided disclosing anything about any involvement the president may have had in the events surrounding the disclosure of the officer’s identity or anything about what his aides may have told them about their roles. Citing the continuing investigation and now the pending trial of [Scooter Libby], they have declined to comment on almost any aspect of the case.

The issue now for the White House is how long it can go on deflecting the inquiries and trying to keep the focus away from Mr. Bush.