Month: November 2005

Abramoff Scandal Could Net a Dozen Members of Congress

Jon Ponder

The sleaze lobby: The investigations into various scandals around GOP former lobbyist Jack Abramoff is entering a new phase:

U.S. News has learned that the conduct of at least a dozen representatives and senators is now being scrutinized by a small army of federal prosecutors and FBI agents. According to sources familiar with the inquiry, a federal task force, which includes investigators from the Interior Department–which has authority to regulate Indian reservations–is examining the relationships between lawmakers and [Abramoff’s former partner Michael] Scanlon and Abramoff. A key question is whether the lawmakers took official actions after receiving campaign contributions, free trips, or other gifts from the lobbyists, the sources say.

[…]

Fitzgerald Calls Another Time Reporter to Testify about Rove

Jon Ponder

Washington Post:

A second Time magazine reporter has agreed to cooperate in the CIA leak case and will testify about her discussions with Karl Rove’s attorney, a sign that prosecutors are still exploring charges against the White House aide.

Viveca Novak, a reporter in Time’s Washington bureau, is cooperating with Special Counsel Patrick J. Fitzgerald, who is investigating the leak of CIA operative Valerie Plame’s identity in 2003, the magazine reported in its Dec. 5 issue.

Novak specifically has been asked to testify under oath about conversations she had with Rove attorney Robert Luskin starting in May 2004, the magazine reported.

Novak, part of a team tracking the CIA case for Time, has written or contributed to articles in which Luskin characterized the nature of what was said between Rove and Matthew Cooper, the first Time reporter who testified in the case.

For Bush, Iraq War Has Always Been About GOP Politics

Jon Ponder

Bush’s war: From the outset of the Bush team’s “marketing campaign” (their words) promoting the war in Iraq in 2002, cynical types such as yours truly have suspected that going to war in Iraq on the timetable they rammed through the Congress and the Pentagon had everything to do with electing Republicans – including themselves in 2004 – and nothing whatsoever to do with WMD, democracy in the Middle East, fighting terrorism “over there” and the dozens of other reasons they have tested on us for sending American youths to die in Iraq.

I said: ‘Mr. President, I know this is urgent, but why the rush? Why do we have to do this now?’ He looked at Cheney and he looked at me, and there was a half-smile on his face. And he said: ‘We just have to do this now.’ “

Now – at long last, and way too late – the former Democratic Majority Leader of the Senate confirms this suspicion:

Tom Daschle, the former Democratic senator from South Dakota, remembers the exchange vividly.

The time was September 2002. The place was the White House, at a meeting in which President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney pressed congressional leaders for a quick vote on a resolution authorizing military action against Iraq.

But Daschle, who as Senate majority leader controlled the chamber’s schedule, recalled recently that he asked Bush to delay the vote until after the impending midterm election.

“I asked directly if we could delay this so we could depoliticize it. I said: ‘Mr. President, I know this is urgent, but why the rush? Why do we have to do this now?’ He looked at Cheney and he looked at me, and there was a half-smile on his face. And he said: ‘We just have to do this now.'”

Daschle’s account, which White House officials said they could not confirm or deny, highlights a crucial factor that has drawn little attention amid rising controversy over the congressional vote that authorized the war in Iraq. The recent partisan dispute has focused almost entirely on the intelligence information legislators had as they cast their votes. But the debate may have been shaped as much by when Congress voted as by what it knew.

It was obvious in 2002, and it is crystal clear now, that the Bush team – led by their political director, Karl Rove – carefully scheduled the war so that the timetable would work with the schedule of the next two election cycles.

[…]

Preacher: ‘Lesbianism Is About to Take Over’

Jon Ponder

“Lesbianism is about to take over our community. I’m talking about young girls. My son in high school last year tried to go to the prom. He said, ‘Dad, I ain’t got nobody to take to the prom because all the girls in my class are gay. Ain’t but two of ’em straight, and both of them ugly.'”

— Rev. Willie Wilson, pastor of Union Temple Baptist Church in Southeast Washington DC.

White House in Denial

Jon Ponder

In over his head: What is sad about this story is the fact that White House aides are still so deluded that they think they’d be better off if President Bush actually ran the show:

Embattled White House aides have begun to believe President Bush must take the reins personally if his evaporating agenda and credibility are to be salvaged.

Bush has been advised to make staff changes, but “He thinks that would be an admission he’s screwed up, and he can’t bring himself to do that,” said one official.

“We’re just plodding along,” admitted a senior Bush aide from deep within the West Wing bunker. “It’s up to the President to turn things around now.”

Even as his poll numbers tank, however, Bush is described by aides as still determined to stay the course. He resists advice from Republicans who fear disaster in next year’s congressional elections, and rejects criticism from a media establishment he disdains.

“The President has always been willing to make changes,” the senior aide said, “but not because someone in this town tells him to – NEVER!”

For the moment, Bush has dismissed discreetly offered advice from friends and loyalists to fire Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and bring back longtime confidant Karen Hughes from the State Department to shore up his personal White House staff.

“He thinks that would be an admission he’s screwed up, and he can’t bring himself to do that,” a former senior staffer lamented.

So aides have circled the wagons as Bush’s woes mount, partly hoping they can sell the President on a December blitz of media interviews to help turn the tide.

“The staff basically still has an unyielding belief in the wisdom of what they’re doing,” a close Bush confidant said. “They’re talking to people who could help them, but they’re not listening.”

New Orleans’ Missing Six Thousand

Jon Ponder

Karena:

6,664 people are still reported missing twelve weeks after Hurricane Katrina, but Kym Pasqualini of the Center for Missing Adults says most of them are probably alive and well! That’s great news, Kym!!!! Tell that to the folks who reported them missing.

Yup, they are probably off somewhere having a jolly old time! They are out there somewhere, working at a new job, setting up their new house, fit as fiddles they are! They are so alive and so well they just can’t be bothered to check in with their families or have their names removed from those pesky old government lists. Jeez.

Bush Knew Saddam-al Qaeda Link Was False from the Beginning

Jon Ponder

Murray Waas:

Ten days after the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, President Bush was told in a highly classified briefing that the U.S. intelligence community had no evidence linking the Iraqi regime of Saddam Hussein to the attacks and that there was scant credible evidence that Iraq had any significant collaborative ties with Al Qaeda, according to government records and current and former officials with firsthand knowledge of the matter.

“You can’t distinguish between Al Qaeda and Saddam when you talk about the war on terror,” President Bush said in September 2002 – one year after he learned that the facts were otherwise.

The information was provided to Bush on September 21, 2001 during the “President’s Daily Brief,” a 30- to 45-minute early-morning national security briefing. Information for PDBs has routinely been derived from electronic intercepts, human agents, and reports from foreign intelligence services, as well as more mundane sources such as news reports and public statements by foreign leaders.

This evidence means that the president, vice president and their top staffers lied repeatedly when they connected the Iraqi leader with bin Laden’s terrorist group. For example, one year after reviewing the PDB, Bush said:

“You can’t distinguish between Al Qaeda and Saddam when you talk about the war on terror,” President Bush said on September 25, 2002.

The next day, Rumsfeld said, “We have what we consider to be credible evidence that Al Qaeda leaders have sought contacts with Iraq who could help them acquire … weapons-of-mass-destruction capabilities.”

And now:

The administration has refused to provide the Sept. 21 President’s Daily Brief, even on a classified basis, and won’t say anything more about it other than to acknowledge that it exists.

Polls: How Dangerous Is a 37% Approval Rating?

Jon Ponder

Teflon wearing thin? It is astounding that 37 percent of Americans still give George Bush a positive rating on his performance as president. (Even hard to fathom is the fact that 8 percent of Democrats approve of Bush!).

It is true, nonetheless, according to a recent USA TODAY/CNN/Gallup Poll. In the past 50 years, only two presidents – Reagan and Clinton – have regained popularity after falling into the 30’s. The others never fully recovered from their drop in the polls:

  • Bush need look no farther than his father, George H. W. Bush, who struggled with a sluggish economy in 1992. His job approval hit 39 percent in February, and in November he was voted from office.
  • Carter, hurt by the Iran hostage crisis, was at 37 percent in September 1980. Two months later, he lost his re-election bid.
  • Ford, who succeeded Nixon, grappled with a falling economy and high inflation. He spent much of 1975 with approval percentages in the 30s and lost to Carter in ’76.
  • Nixon saw his approval rating plummet to 31 percent in the summer of 1973 as the nation followed the Watergate hearings. He resigned a year later.
  • Johnson, stymied by the Vietnam War, hit 36 percent in March 1968, the month he decided not to seek re-election.
  • Truman, beset by the unpopular Korean War, was at 23 percent in January 1952, when he chose not to run again.
  • Dwight Eisenhower and John Kennedy were the only two presidents in the past 50 years to never fall below 40 percent approval. Eisenhower’s low was 49 percent in 1960, shortly after a U.S. spy plane was shot down by the Soviets. Kennedy bottomed at 56 percent in September 1963, two months before his assassination, as the public began to grow uneasy about U.S. involvement in Vietnam.

Craigslist Founder Considering Online News Project

Jon Ponder

Says MSM not doing its job: Craigslist founder Craig Newmark gave voice to millions of us when he spoke at an Oxford University event earlier this week:

Saying U.S. newspapers “are afraid to talk truth to power,” Craigslist founder Craig Newmark hinted that he’s about to launch a major online journalism project within the next few months that will copy the successful “wisdom of the masses” approach to classified advertising and apply it to journalism.

In a follow-up interview with the British newspaper the Guardian, Newmark expressed the frustration so many Americans feel about the overpaid lapdogs who report the news, especially those in the Capitol:

When talk turned to the problems plaguing the U.S. news industry, Newmark let fly: “The big issue in the U.S. is that newspapers are afraid to talk truth to power,” the Guardian quoted him as saying. “The White House press corps don’t speak the truth to power — they are frightened to lose access they don’t have anyway. … The American public has lost a lot of trust in conventional newspaper mechanisms. Mechanisms are now being developed online to correct that.”

Newmark also said coverage of the Iraq war and the press’ involvement in the Valerie Plame case had damaged American journalism.

About his new venture, Newmark said this on his blog:

I’m working with some folks on technologies that promise to help people find the most trusted versions of the more important stories… and this is personal, helping out another group not associated with craigslist. This kind of technology is intended to preserve the best of existing journalistic practices, and should help retain newsroom jobs.

Repost – Bush Advisor: ‘We’re an Empire Now’

Jon Ponder

“We’re an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you’re studying that reality — judiciously, as you will — we’ll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that’s how things will sort out. We’re history’s actors . . . and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do.”

– Unnamed Bush advisor to writer Ron Suskind, as reported in a October 2004 New York Times Magazine article