Year: 2007

Fleischer’s Testimony Contradicts Libby Claim, Bolsters Perjury Charge

Jon Ponder

Ari’s testimony at Scooter Libby’s perjury trial in the CIA Leak scandal certainly does not bode well for Scooter:

Former White House press secretary Ari Fleischer testified Monday that then-colleague I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby told him over lunch that the wife of a prominent war critic worked at the CIA.

Fleischer said the conversation happened June [sic] 7, 2003, days before Libby told investigators he was surprised to learn about the CIA operative from a reporter. That discrepancy is at the heart of Libby’s perjury and obstruction trial.

This and AP sources say Fleischer testified that his lunch with Libby was on June 7, 2003, but apparently the correct date was July 7. (Which Firedoglake confirms here.)

According to this Plame case timeline, NBC’s Tim Russert received a phone call from Libby on July 10 or 11, 2003, in which they discussed the network’s coverage of the purported Iraq-Niger uranium deal — but during which the subject of Amb. Joe Wilson and his wife, the secret agent, Valerie Plame, did not come up. However, Libby would later claim in testimony before a Grand Jury that he first learned about Plame’s identity from Russert during that call.

Guess Who’s Coming to the White House Press Club’s Dinner?

Trish

Remember last year when Stephen Colbert addressed the White House Correspondents’ Dinner and ripped them a new one for their cowardice at reporting all things Bush?

Do we really need a neon sign to proclaim the coziness of the White House press corps and the White House’s occupant?

But, listen, let’s review the rules. Here’s how it works. The President makes decisions, he’s the decider. The Press Secretary announces those decisions, and you people of the press type those decisions down. Make, announce, type. Put them through a spell check and go home. Get to know your family again. Make love to your wife. Write that novel you got kicking around in your head. You know, the one about the intrepid Washington reporter with the courage to stand up to the administration. You know, fiction.

Well, the press club isn’t going to make the mistake of having a relevant, funny, coherent speaker again this year. No, they’re opting for Rich Little instead.

Yes, I said it, ’70s-era impersonator Rich Little. Go ahead, check deadoralive.com if you don’t believe me but the guy is still breathing, and being dragged out of mothballs to deliver those wacky impressions that make the reporters and politicians laugh out loud. Or at least not squirm uncomfortably in their chairs.

While the name is probably unfamiliar to people under 40, Little was a popular Las Vegas performer and guest star on TV variety shows of the 1960s and 1970s. He’s best known for impressions of celebrities (Johnny Carson, Jimmy Stewart, Jack Benny) and presidents (Nixon and Reagan) who are no longer with us…

Which is why, according to Little, he was hired in the first place. “One of the reasons they picked me is because I’m not controversial,” he said yesterday from his home in Las Vegas. “They did get some flak about the guy they had last year. I don’t think they wanted someone political or controversial again.”

In light of this announcement I, for one, feel terrible about all the times I accused the mainstream media of turning away from the facts or weak-sister reporting.

Still, some people are talking about giving the new improved version of the dinner a miss. Like forever.

Another reason to scrap the dinner altogether, suggests Rem Rieder, editor of the American Journalism Review. After the Colbert controversy last year, and an earlier one in which Bush joked about not finding weapons of mass destruction, Rieder wrote that such press-politico events reflect the “smugness” and arrogance of the news media, suggesting that they are “part of a wealthy elite, completely out of touch with ordinary Americans.”

The hiring of “a controversy-free” Little underscores the point, he says: “Do we really need a neon sign to proclaim the coziness of the White House press corps and the White House’s occupant? It’s really hard for me to understand making a decision like this, particularly so close to the WMD debacle. The dinner must go.”

Clinton: Bush Must End War before He Leaves Office

Jon Ponder

Campaigning in Iowa over the weekend, Sen. Hillary Clinton issued a demand that Pres. Bush bring troops home from Iraq before he leaves office:

Clinton’s proposal provides an answer to the Republican talking-points challenge that Democrats don’t have a plan for getting out of Iraq. You want plan? Here’s a plan: You broke it, you fix it.

“This was his decision to go to war with an ill-conceived plan and an incompetently executed strategy,” the Democratic senator from New York said her in initial presidential campaign swing through Iowa.

“We expect him to extricate our country from this before he leaves office” in January 2009, the former first lady said.

This is smart because it pushes the responsibility for the war back onto the president, who has been trying to toss his hot potato to Democrats since they took control of Congress in November.

The proposal also provides an answer to the Republican talking-points challenge that Democrats don’t have a plan for getting out of Iraq. You want plan? Here’s a plan: You broke it, you fix it.

The senator’s challenge also reflects polling that shows that most Americans (52 percent in the most recent ABC/WaPo) want U.S. troops to leave Iraq, whether or not civil order is restored.

What Sen. Clinton’s proposal does not do is prevent U.S. forces from needlessly dying or being injured for two years while Bush dithers.

Poll: Dems Move Up in North Carolina

Jon Ponder

In the last statewide elections in North Carolina, Democrats held onto the governor’s mansion and the Assembly and won back the state Senate. Now new polling suggests Democrats are becoming more popular in the state, while Republicans, especially the state’s two nitwit U.S. senators, are becoming less so:

Approval/Disapproval

N.C. Gov. Mike Easley (D) 50/33
Sen. Elizabeth Dole (R) 36/36
Sen.Richard Burr (R) 32/34 (NC’s junior senator)
Iraq surge 40/57

And:

67 percent of voters in North Carolina want out of Iraq within the next year.

While North Carolina has always had its share of baccky-chewing rednecks, it has also always had a sizable “sensible middle” that has kept the rednecks at bay. It appears that the war and the GOP’s disastrous performance over the past six years may have energized the radical center in the Old North State.

McCain Has Mini Meltdown at Dinner with Journalists

Jon Ponder

Does Sen. John McCain have the temperament and judgment to be president? His behavior at a dinner with journalists last week indicates he may be too emotionally volatile to make it through the campaign without embarassing himself.

Arianna Huffington was at the dinner, and wrote about it (“John McCain Bites My Head Off”) here:

McCain’s “volcanic” temper is legendary and there were concerns in GOP circles during the 2000 campaign that his tantrums could become an issue.

Toward the end of the conversation, I raised my hand and asked McCain:

“Given that you’ve said that you are ‘scared to death that it’s going to be a very hot spring in Afghanistan,’ and given that you have also said, repeatedly, that only a substantial increase in troops in Iraq would make a real difference, why not send the 21,000 troops headed to Iraq, in what is clearly an act of desperation, to Afghanistan instead?”

During his response, McCain equated those opposing his position with “the far left.”

“Do you consider Sam Brownback part of the far left?” I jumped in.

The Senator flared and told me that if I’d only let him finish his answer instead of interrupting, we could have “a civil discussion.”

He then continued on about why he supports the escalation … Along the way, he denied that he had used the phrase “the far left.”

Wow, I thought, the Straight Talk Express has run so far off the rails McCain is now denying things he’d said in front of close to two-dozen note-taking journalists not half-a-minute before.

I pressed on: “You keep presenting the Iraq debate in terms of left vs right and Democrat vs Republican, when there are clearly major rifts in your own party over the direction we should take. And you yourself have changed your mind about the number of troops we need.”

With a growing edge in his voice, McCain explained that he had sat down with General Patraeus. “He looked me in the eye,” said McCain, “and told me ‘I can do it with 21,000. And if I can’t, I’ll ask for more.'” McCain went on to say he believes that in a country of 300 million we should be able to have a large enough volunteer army to do whatever we need to do.

“That’s all very good in theory,” I replied, “but, in practice, where are these additional troops going to come from? And you keep saying that the American people are ‘frustrated’ about Iraq, which totally minimizes the outrage there is at continuing to be mislead by this administration.”

He had clearly had it with me and told me that since what I had just said was a statement and not a question, he didn’t have to respond.

McCain’s bad temper is legendary and there have been longstanding concerns about it in GOP circles. For example, in 1999, during McCain’s first presidential bid, the Washington Post reported that Arizona GOP officials who had felt the wrath of McCain’s “volcanic” temper were fearful his tantrums could become a factor in the 2000 race. After McCain won the New Hampshire primary, operatives for then.Gov. George W. Bush started a whispering campaign in South Carolina against McCain that characterized him as “unstable.”

Last Sunday, on “Meet the Press,” Sen. McCain seemed vey depressed. It appears something’s going on behind the scenes with the GOP’s putative frontrunner.

UPDATE: Republican tool Bob Novak has a column up criticizing McCain’s performance on MTP:

Democratic strategists … were surprised and delighted by his dour appearance on NBC’s “Meet the Press” last Sunday. One Democratic leader referred to McCain’s performance … as “comatose.” A Republican adviser to McCain said it was one of the worst performances ever on “Meet the Press.”

Hagel: What’s the Bush Administration Afraid Of?

Trish

Don’t miss the amazing interview with Sen. Chuck Hagel (R-Neb.) in GQ. You’ll see why the Bush White House is so upset with this guy, and why there is such a remote chance he will ever drink the Kool-Aid.

A sample:

GQ: What would it take to secure Baghdad?
Hagel: It’s not ours to secure. We have never understood that! We have framed this in a way that never made sense: “Win or lose in Iraq.” Wait a minute! There is no win or loss for us. The Iraqis will determine how this turns out. We can help them with our blood and our treasure and our standing, but in the end they have to deal with the sectarian problems. That is what’s consuming that country. It’s not Al Qaeda. It’s not the terrorists. That’s not the main problem over there. It’s a civil war!

Hagel: “If Bill Clinton had invaded Iraq and after two years he was having the same problems, do you think the Republican Congress would have put up with that? I don’t think so”

GQ: The administration doesn’t call it that.
Hagel: They won’t call it civil war. Everybody calls it a civil war! Of course it’s a civil war. The generals call it a civil war. And it’s even worse than a civil war, because in addition to the sectarian violence, you’ve got Shia killing Shia. We have ethnic cleansing of major proportions going on in Baghdad. It’s reminiscent of Bosnia. A truck pulls up and Uncle Joe is put inside; his body is found in a dump two or three days later, arms bound, usually tortured—one of the favorite deals is to drill into their head a little bit while they’re still conscious and then shoot them. We can’t solve that!

GQ: If we can’t win and the public wants out, isn’t it the responsibility of Congress to check the power of the president?
Hagel: Sure.

GQ: But it seems Congress has been ineffective at that.
Hagel: Well, we have. We’ve abdicated our responsibilities. That has to do with the fact that the Republican Party controlled the White House, the House, and the Senate. When that happens, you get no probing, no questioning, no oversight. If Bill Clinton had invaded Iraq and after two years he was having the same problems, do you think the Republican Congress would have put up with that? I don’t think so.

…GQ: Does being a veteran also make you sensitive to the administration’s approach to interrogation and the use of secret military prisons?
Hagel: It does, because that’s not who America is. We have always, certainly since World War II, had the moral high ground in the world. But these secret prisons and the treatment at Guantánamo destroy all of that. We ought to shut down Guantánamo. There shouldn’t be any secret prisons. Why do we need those? What are we afraid of? Here we are, the greatest nation the world has ever seen. Why can’t we let the Red Cross into our prisons? Why do we deny they exist? Why do we keep them locked up? What are we afraid of? Why aren’t we dealing with Iran and Syria?

…GQ: You don’t hear very many politicians say that both sides of an issue are reasonable these days.
Hagel: We are living through one of the most transformative periods in history. If we are going to make it, we need a far greater appreciation and respect for others, or we’re going to blow up mankind. Look at what zealotry can do. Religious zealotry has been responsible for killing more people than any other thing. Look at the Middle East today. It’s all about religion. We need to move past those divisions and learn to be tolerant and respectful. If we go out there full of intolerance and hatred, we’ll never make it.

Read the whole interview. When the Rovian attacks start on Chuck Hagel — and they will — at least you’ll know what he really said.

Keep Molly in Your Thoughts

Jon Ponder

Houston Chronicle:

Nationally syndicated columnist Molly Ivins has been hospitalized in her recurring battle with breast cancer.

“I think she’s tough as a metal boot,” her brother, Andy Ivins, said Friday after a visit with her at Seton Medical Center in Austin.

Andy Ivins said his sister was admitted to Seton on Thursday. She spent Friday morning with longtime colleagues and friends, and was “sleeping peacefully” when he arrived later in the day.

A self-described leftist agitator, Ivins, 62, completed a round of radiation treatment in August, but the cancer “came back with a vengeance,” and has spread through her body, Andy Ivins sai

Fleischer Feared Death Penalty in CIA Leak Case – Immunity Now Questioned

Jon Ponder

Reporting from inside the courtroom in the CIA leak-related trial of Scooter Libby this week revealed that former White House spokesman Ari Fleisher sought immunity from prosecution because he was worried he might have committed treason — and even fearred he was in jeopardy of receiving the death penalty:

Fleischer saw a story in the Washington Post suggesting that anyone who revealed Valerie Plame’s identity might be subject to the death penalty. And he freaked. Of course,

It turns out Ari Fleischer will be the next witness, once court resumes Monday [Jan. 29, 2007]. The defense team wants to note — for the jury’s benefit — that Fleischer demanded immunity before he would agree to testify, because this might cast Fleischer’s testimony in a different light.

And here Fitzgerald makes a nice little chess move: Fine, he says, we can acknowledge that Fleischer sought immunity. As long as we explain why. Turns out Fleischer saw a story in the Washington Post suggesting that anyone who revealed Valerie Plame’s identity might be subject to the death penalty. And he freaked. Of course, if Fleischer was this worked up about it during the time period in question, that suggests Libby would have been, too. (Which again undermines the notion that Libby had much bigger fish to fry.)

Can we extrapolate from this that the normally uber-unctious Fleischer was feeling a wee bit — what’s the word — guilty?

With the prospect of a lethal injecution put to rest, Fleischer spilled the beans. In particular, he told prosecutors that he learned Plame’s identity from Libby in the summer of 2003. Now Libby’s lawyers are now firing back, questioning the conditions of Fleischer’s immunity deal:

Defense attorneys are skeptical [and] are preparing court documents demanding to know exactly what Fleischer promised in exchange for immunity.

“I’m not sure we’re getting the full story here,” defense attorney William Jeffress said in court.

It is doubtful anyone will be charged with treason in this matter, even though it is clear that exposing the identity of a secret agent was the aim of this enterprise, and that it was done on direct orders from the vice president.

In any case, Ari can rest easy. He’s not going to fry. He’ll just have to live with being persona non grata among his former colleagues. (And he should probably buy a polonium detector.)