The latest revelation from Scott McClellan’s book proves what has long been suspected: Despite earlier statements professing ignorance about the conspiracy among his top officials, including Dick Cheney, Karl Rove and Scooter Libby, to betray a covert CIA program tracking the international black market for weapons of mass destruction, Bush knew about it all along:
The White House deftly distracted public attention away from the true scandal here — the treasonous acts of the president’s men — by focusing on the vivid personalities of the covert agent, Valerie Plame, and her husband Joe Wilson.

McClellan recalled a day in April 2006, when the unfolding perjury case against Libby revealed that the president had secretly declassified portions of a 2002 intelligence report about Iraq’s weapons capabilities to help his aides deflect criticism that his case for war was weak. Some of the most high-profile criticism was coming from Plame’s husband, former ambassador Joseph Wilson.

The president was leaving an event in North Carolina, McClellan recalled, and as they walked to Air Force One a reporter yelled out a question: Had the president, who had repeatedly condemned the selective release of secret intelligence information, enabled Scooter Libby to leak classified information to The New York Times to bolster the administration’s arguments for war?

McClellan took the question to the president, telling Bush: “He’s saying you yourself were the one that authorized the leaking of this information.”

“And he said, ‘Yeah, I did.’ And I was kind of taken aback,” McClellan said.

Let’s look back at two of Bush’s statements to the press about this treasonous betrayal of a U.S. covert operation.

On Sept. 30, 2003, in response to a question from a reporter about his administration’s, George Bush said:

BUSH: I want to know the truth. If anybody has got any information inside our administration or outside our administration, it would be helpful if they came forward with the information so we can find out whether or not these allegations are true and get on about the business…

I don’t know of anybody in my administration who leaked classified information. If somebody did leak classified information, I’d like to know it, and we’ll take the appropriate action.

On July 18, 2005:

BUSH: We have a serious ongoing investigation here. (Laughter [from reporters].) And it’s being played out in the press. And I think it’s best that people wait until the investigation is complete before you jump to conclusions. And I will do so, as well. I don’t know all the facts. I want to know all the facts. The best place for the facts to be done is by somebody who’s spending time investigating it. I would like this to end as quickly as possible so we know the facts, and if someone committed a crime, they will no longer work in my administration.

The Bush team and their enablers among Republicans in the Congress and the media deftly distracted public attention away from the true scandal here — the treasonous acts of the president’s men who revealed the identity of the secret agent in charge of the CIA WMD program — by focusing on the vivid personalities of the agent, Valerie Plame, and her husband Joe Wilson.

As much as one might admire the Wilsons, this has never been about them. It is about a power-crazed cabal in the White House who abused their power to go after their political enemies without giving a thought to the potentially catastrophic results of their actions. We’ll never know whether the next terror attack could have been prevented if Plame’s program had not been exposed. We’ll never know if any, or how many, of her operatives around the world have been killed or tortured because of the White House conspiracy.

If there ever was an act by a president that was prima facie impeachable, this is it.

H/t: Americans United for Change

Just last week, the Los Angeles Times poll on an initiative being floated for the November ballot that would force an amendment onto the California constitution that banned gay marriage found that 54 percent of voters were in favor of the initiative while 36 percent opposed it.

Now a new Field Poll has produced the opposite results:

The Field Poll survey found 51 percent against approving a possible November ballot measure to prohibit gay marriage, with 43 percent in favor. A slightly differently worded question on the same issue found 54 percent opposed and 40 percent in favor.

The poll follows a state Supreme Court decision this month that barring homosexuals from marrying violated the California Constitution. [A majority of the justices who ruled in favor of gay marriage were Republicans.] Opponents of same-sex marriage have intensified efforts to put a state constitutional amendment on the ballot in November.

The poll found a strong generational gap on the issue, with those aged 18-29 approving of gay marriage by 68 percent and those 65 or older disapproving by 55 percent.

The poll found that in recent decades a growing number of Californians have approved allowing same-sex couples to marry, with 51 percent of those polled now approving, up from 44 percent in 2006 and 30 percent in 1985.

It’s hard to parse the meaning of the seesawing between these two polls — perhaps the Field Poll sample was younger. Still, the ballot initiative is being paid for by out-of-state conservative political operatives whose real intent is to gin up turnout for John McCain in November. They will spend lavishly on advertising this fall.

Supporters of gay marriage in California should not relax until these numbers stabilize, with opposition to the initiative polling in double digits in every poll between now and November.

We were discussing this around the Pensito Review virtual water cooler over the weekend. Here’s the AP’s take:
After nearly a month of intense campaigning and multiple debates between the two candidates, Clinton managed to defeat Brown in the June 1992 California primary by a margin of 48 percent to 41 percent.

Hillary Rodham Clinton often says her husband wrapped up the Democratic presidential nomination in June 1992 in defending her decision to press ahead until the last primary votes.

Sixteen years ago, six contests in June did give Bill Clinton the necessary delegates for the nomination, but he had essentially won the nomination in March 1992…

THE SPIN:

Responding to a question on Friday from the Sioux Falls Argus Leader editorial board about calls for her to drop out, Clinton said: “My husband did not wrap up the nomination in 1992 until he won the California primary somewhere in the middle of June, right?”

The former first lady has used the argument before.

In a March interview with Time magazine, she said: “Primary contests used to last a lot longer. We all remember the great tragedy of Bobby Kennedy being assassinated in June in L.A. My husband didn’t wrap up the nomination in 1992 until June, also in California. Having a primary contest go through June is nothing particularly unusual.”

She also made the claim at a campaign stop in Houston on March 4, the same day as the Texas and Ohio primaries. “My husband didn’t get the nomination wrapped up until June (in 1992). That has been the tradition,” she said.

THE FACTS

While Bill Clinton did not effectively clinch the nomination until the June 2 primaries in 1992, he had held a commanding lead over his Democratic challenger Jerry Brown since his March 17 wins in Illinois and Michigan.

Clinton’s closest rival, Paul Tsongas, left the race two days after Clinton’s Midwest victories. Brown stayed in despite trailing Clinton by more than 800 delegates.

Shortly after, Democratic leaders had all but declared Bill Clinton their contender for the fall election. Clinton was so far ahead, that Paul Tully, the Democratic Party political director at the time, told The Associated Press in a March 19, 1992 article: “The fat lady is doing a sound check.”

Clinton was just 86 delegates short of the majority coming into the six-state primary finale in June that included California. He surpassed that amount to wrap up a nominating process that started with the Iowa caucus on Feb. 10.

This year’s contests began much earlier than previous election years.

What has changed is that the California primary has been moved from June to February. So while there was a time when sticking it out until June could have reversed a campaign’s fortunes by winning a big chunk of the state’s humongous delegate count, that day is over.

It’s spin to cover the real reason she is keeping her campaign going, which may be to rack up impressive metrics for a 2012 run if Obama falters in November.

The Wikipedia entry for former California Gov. Jerry Brown offers background on why Bill Clinton had to wait until June 1992 to be declared the presumptive nominee:

[…]

Imagine the conniptions we’d all be having if the Fox Newsers and Chris Matthews were making the same snide remarks about Barack Obama’s ethnicity.

But it is not true that all criticism of Hillary Clinton comes from sexism. Unlike the producers of the video, I haven’t found Keith Olbermann’s scathing critiques of Clinton to be over the line. He and others have found plenty to disparage about the campaign that has nothing to do with the fact that she is a woman.

Similarly, Obama has made missteps — the “bitter” remark and purportedly saying he would negotiate with terror states without preconditions (he didn’t say it that way, but GOP 527s will say he did) — that will likely cause big problems for the campaign this fall. It is fair to point out these missteps because they have nothing to do with Obama’s genetic heritage.