Month: November 2005

Gov. Bill Richardson Commits Political Suicide for Baseball

Trish

Another Democrat saves Republicans a bullet by shooting himself in the foot so they won’t have to. New Mexico’s Gov. Bill Richardson has established a credibility issue which will make great late night fodder now and in the 2008 presidential race, if he decides to enter it.

“After being notified of the situation … I came to the conclusion that I was not drafted by the A’s,” Richardson said.

For nearly four decades, Richardson has maintained he was drafted as a pitcher in 1966 by the Kansas City Athletics.

But an Albuquerque Journal investigation found no record of Richardson being drafted by the A’s, who have since moved to Oakland, or any other team.

Richardson’s explanation for the claim is even lamer than the issue of whether he was drafted by the A’s.

“After being notified of the situation (by Journal reporter Toby Smith) and after researching the matter … I came to the conclusion that I was not drafted by the A’s,” Richardson said.

Well there you go. With those feeble words, another one bites the dust, and without even having to be smeared by Repug goons.

Richardson included the fact in a brief biography released when he successfully ran for Congress in 1982. The Clinton White House mentioned it in a 1997 news release, when Richardson was about to be named U.S. ambassador to the United Nations.

Over the years, several media organizations have reported it as fact, including The Associated Press, the New York Times and New Republic magazine, along with political almanacs.

Richardson, who was a star right-handed pitcher in high school and played at Tufts University, maintained, though: “I was actively scouted by several major league teams.”

Yeah, blah blah, Ginger. Look, it’s really simple: don’t lie, don’t embelish, don’t go there. It will absolutely bite you in the ass sooner or later, and now the Dems — and Latinos — stand to lose a great candidate. Thanks Bill. You pitched a real no-hitter this time.

Following the Money to Scooter Libby

Trish

Know who’s pitching in to help Scooter Libby beat the rap on charges of grand jury perjury and obstruction in the CIA leak case? The list is pretty interesting.

[St. Petersburg, Fl.] developer Mel Sembler, a former U.S. ambassador, is taking a leading role in raising millions for the legal defense fund of I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby…

The fund, which was formed several weeks ago, has received assistance from friends, colleagues and former government officials, according to former Justice Department spokeswoman Barbara Comstock, who is helping Libby. That group includes former United Nations Ambassador Jeanne Kirkpatrick.

Other contributors include investor Howard Leach, lobbyist Wayne Berman, both of whom help raise money for President Bush’s campaigns; Richard Carlson, president of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, 1992-1997; former presidential candidates Steve Forbes and Jack Kemp; and former Sens. Fred Thompson of Tennessee and Alan Simpson of Wyoming.

Ex-CIA director James Woolsey also is helping, as are magazine publisher Philip Merrill, a former president and ex-chairman of the Export-Import Bank of the United States, and Mideast historian Bernard Lewis…

Sembler, a longtime Republican fundraiser, has helped candidates at all levels, from St. Petersburg Mayor Rick Baker up to both President Bushes.

From 1997-2000, he was the Republican National Committee finance chairman. He served as ambassador to Australia and Nauru from 1989 to 1993, and most recently as ambassador to Italy.

If Scooter needs to put up a multi-million dollar defense, maybe a presidential pardon isn’t a slam-dunk. I’d say it depends on how poll numbers are at the end of his trial. Pres. I Don’t Pay Attention to Focus Groups will let him go as long as it doesn’t cost him any political capital.

Michael Moore Answers White House Attack, ‘Confesses’ Scandalous Affiliations

Jon Ponder

Lightning rod: Speaking at the first annual Paul Wellstone Memorial Dinner, filmmaker Michael Moore returned fire against a recent attack by the Bush White House – and helpfully provided fodder to his critics by confessing to associations with groups accused of scandalous, even murderous, behavior.

The White House recently attempted to smear Rep. Jack Murtha, a decorated Vietnam vet, by comparing Murtha’s proposal to withdraw from Iraq to Moore’s position. The smear didn’t stick, Moore said, because it was misdirected:

If they really wanted the American people to hate Congressman Murtha they should have compared him to Scooter Libby. Put that name in there. Then people would dislike him. Put Karl Rove’s name in there. Put Dick Cheney’s name in there.

Another reason the smear failed, Moore said, was the fact that a “majority of the people agree with me now” that the war should be ended. He then stated his position on withdrawing from Iraq, which is not substantively dissimilar to Murtha’s – and is in line with about two-thirds of Americans, according the latest polls:

[…]

GOP to California: ‘Drop Dead’

Jon Ponder

Arnold is screwed: Gov. Schwarzenegger evaporated immediately after he was trounced in his own special election earlier this month. He embarked within a day or two after his drubbing to China on a trade mission and hasn’t been heard from since. We had early reports that the Chinese were treating him like a movie star, which must have been a relief after so many months of being treated by his constituents like the lying, conniving tool of corporate special interests that he is.

At the urging of California’s congressional Democrats, Schwarzenegger sent a letter to the state’s delegation in the House expressing concern about the proposal’s impact on the state. Every California Republican in Congress voted for it nonetheless.

He may want to stay evaporated because the leaders of his party in Washington have drafted legislation that will cost California taxpayers billions of dollars. If it passes, the bill could end the governor’s floundering political career in November of next year – and convert the GOP from a meager opposition party to permanent minority party status for years to come:

Republican-backed budget cuts moving through Congress threaten to hit California with billions of dollars in lost aid, putting some state social services in jeopardy and Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger at risk of yet another political setback.

State and federal budget analysts say California, because of its reliance on some of the specific programs targeted, would suffer more in coming years than most states from the package of reductions approved by the House last week.

The bill includes provisions that, in California, would make it tougher to get child support from tens of thousands of deadbeat parents, would strip food stamps from legal immigrants, and would make less money available to doctors who treat low-income patients.

Amid pressure from Democrats in the Legislature, Schwarzenegger had sent an extensive letter to California’s congressional delegation earlier this month, expressing concern about the proposal’s impact on the state. Every California Republican in Congress voted for it nonetheless.

The spending bill was ultimately approved by the House, 217 to 215. While the [Republicans in the] Senate passed a smaller cuts package, that version would still cost California billions in the future. The bills now head to a conference committee, where members of both houses will attempt to reach a final agreement.

Republicans in Congress are pushing ahead with the budget reductions as they struggle to pare down the federal deficit while paying for the Iraq war, hurricane relief and an extension of the tax cuts championed by President Bush.

The governor, battered by the defeat of his special-election initiatives just weeks ago, is under pressure to draw concessions from Washington … He has long promised to get more federal money for California, vowing that he would come to be known as the “Collectinator.” Democrats say his inability to garner votes from California Republicans in Congress suggests that he is failing.

Hint to Arnie: Maybe one reason no one takes you seriously – and why in fact voters find you to be so irritating – is your propensity for coming up with annoying words like “Collectinator.”

Must Listen: If Bush was Joking, Why is Blair Panicking?

Trish

Stop what you’re doing and listen to this NPR report on the British cover-up of Tony Blair holding Bush back from bombing the headquarters of Arab satellite station Al Jazeera.

Blair putting a restraining hand on George Bush casts Bush as somehow trigger happy…with Blair constantly reaching for the cold flannel to mop his forehead and calm him down

Day to Day’s Madeleine Brand interviewed the Guardian’s Jonathan Freedland, who reported the questions being asked in England are: If that good-natured, wacky cut-up George Bush was just joshing, then a) why was his proposition – and Blair’s attempts to talk him out of it – included in an official memo; and b) why is the British government going to such great lengths – invoking a gag order and threats of criminalization against anyone who might leak the memo’s contents – to squash it?

The answers to those questions include the possibility that there are other things in other memos, both about Bush’s idiocy and Blair’s restraining hand. And maybe, just maybe, the actual bombings of Al Jazeera in Iraq and Afghanistan, including the one at the Hotel Palestine in Baghdad, which killed one Al Jazeera journalist and critically wounded two more, were not the pure accidents the Bush administration claimed.

Nabil Khoury, a U.S. State Department spokesman in Doha, said the strike on the Arab satellite TV network’s office was a mistake, and he called upon al-Jazeera not to jump to conclusions. “My personal view is that it is a mistake, a grave mistake. It is something we all regret,” Khoury said. “I personally cannot imagine that a country which respects general freedoms can target media establishments.”

Time to get a more vivid imagination, Nabil.

Some Al-Jazeera employees felt the bombing might have been deliberate, for the station has been reporting extensively on the plight of Iraqi civilians and the number of casualties from U.S. bomb attacks…

Chief editor Ibrahim Hilal, speaking from the station’s headquarters in Doha, said witnesses “saw the plane fly over twice before dropping the bombs. Our office is in a residential area and even the Pentagon knows its location.”

Meanwhile, Freedland paints an even more nauseating picture.

The idea of Blair putting a restraining hand on George Bush casts Bush as somehow trigger happy…with Blair constantly reaching for the cold flannel to mop his forehead and calm him down. That’s not a flattering image, really, for either of them.”

Poll: 64% Believe Bush Is a Misleader

Jon Ponder

Return to Credibility Gap: One thing the political class learned during the Vietnam era is that the U.S. president cannot lead if he has no credbility with the public:

Among Democrats, 91 percent believe Bush lies to the public, and among Independents, 73 percent also say he misleads.

A majority of U.S. adults believe the Bush administration generally misleads the public on current issues, while fewer than a third of Americans believe the information provided by the administration is generally accurate, the latest Harris Interactive poll finds.

While the telephone survey of 1,011 U.S. adults indicates about 64 percent of Americans believe the Bush administration “generally misleads the American public on current issues to achieve its own ends,” opinion on the topic is clearly divided along party lines. A large majority (68 percent to 28 percent) of Republicans say the Bush administration generally provides accurate information. However, even larger majorities of Democrats (91 percent to 7 percent) and Independents (73 percent to 25 percent) think the information is generally misleading.

When asked about former Vice Presidential Chief of Staff Lewis “Scooter” Libby, who has been indicted on charges of perjury, obstruction of justice and making false statements, more than half of U.S. adults say the situation indicates “a larger problem in the Bush administration,” while 35 percent say it was an “isolated incident.” About 82 percent of Democrats say it indicates a larger problem, while 70 percent of Republicans feel the Libby case is an isolated incident.

Kolbe (R-AZ) Retires – House Cleaning in 2006 May Hinge on the West

Jon Ponder

Liberal Republican Rep. Jim Kolbe of Arizona – the only out gay Gop in Congress – announced his retirement this week opening up another vunerable GOP seat in the West.

Kolbe’s district includes Tucson, which President Bush carried by only 53 percent, so this is a seat that is a possible pick up for Dems next year.

Other possibly vulnerable seats in the West include:

Al Franken Confronts Justice Scalia at Event

Jon Ponder

Page Six:

AL Franken, the former “Saturday Night Live” star, found out the hard way not to mess with U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, who chided Franken as if he were a delinquent schoolboy at Time Warner Center on Monday night.

Scalia, following in the footsteps of Karl Rove and Bill Clinton, was the guest at Conversations on the Circle, a series of one-on-one interviews with outgoing Time Inc. editor-in-chief Norman Pearlstine…

When Pearlstine opened the floor for Q&A, Franken stood up in the back row and started talking about “judicial demeanor” and asking “hypothetically” about whether a judge should recuse himself if he had gone duck-hunting or flown in a private jet with a party in a case before his court.

Franken was clumsily referring to the fact that Scalia had gone hunting and flying with Dick Cheney before the 2000 election.

First, Scalia lectured Franken, “Demeanor is the wrong word. You mean ethics.” Then he explained, “Ethics is governed by tradition. It has never been the case where you recuse because of friendship.”

…”I think I got under his skin a little,” Franken humbly told us.

Murrow: ‘We Are Not Descended from Fearful Men’

Jon Ponder

“We will not be driven by fear into an age of unreason, if we dig deep into our own history and our doctrine and remember that we are not descended from fearful men, not men who feared to write, to speak, to associate, and to defend causes which were for the moment unpopular.

“This is no time for men who oppose Senator [Joe] McCarthy’s methods to keep silent. We can deny our heritage and our history, but we cannot escape responsibility for the result.”

— Edward R. Murrow, 1954

Offshoring CIA Torture: European Probe Expands

Trish

Europe is vigorously investigating which of its members helped the CIA get away with disappearing and torturing suspected terrorists over the four years since 9/11. The probe began after a Nov. 2 story in the Washington Post exposed suspicious flights.

Whether it was European complicity in the U.S. effort to “offshore” its torture, or the CIA simply using our allies behind their backs, the activity was widespread. AP:

Human Rights Watch identified possible sites for secret detention centers, based on flight logs of CIA aircraft from 2001 to 2004

Austria’s air force was investigating allegations that a CIA transport plane containing suspected terrorist captives flew through the neutral country’s airspace in 2003, and Denmark said it would ask U.S. authorities for details about the alleged transport of detainees on planes said to be used by the CIA over Danish territory…

Bulgaria was the latest country to deny reports of involvement, saying the CIA’s planes never landed at the Sarafovo airport near the Black Sea…

Human Rights Watch said it had evidence indicating the CIA transported suspected terrorists captured in Afghanistan to Poland and Romania. The New York-based group identified the Kogalniceanu military airfield in Romania and Poland’s Szczytno-Szymany airport as possible sites for secret detention centers, saying it based its conclusions on flight logs of CIA aircraft from 2001 to 2004…

On Tuesday, Swiss senator Dick Marty, who leads the Council of Europe probe, said he was investigating 31 suspect planes that landed in Europe in recent years…

Other airports that might have been used by CIA aircraft in some capacity include Palma de Mallorca in Spain, Larnaca in Cyprus and Shannon in Ireland, as well as the U.S. air base at Ramstein, Germany, Marty said in a report.

Swedish authorities, meanwhile, have confirmed at least one plane with alleged CIA links landed in Sweden three times since 2002. Denmark says 14 flights with suspected CIA ties entered its airspace since 2001; Norway has confirmed three such flights; and Icelandic media have reported 67 landings.

There have been other unconfirmed reports in Macedonia and Malta.