The Race To The Bottom

When I was watching Meet The Press yesterday morning and saw Senator Hutchinson choke out that statement, I literally yelled at the television. Unfortunately I was the only person in the room at the time. When Russert asked her about Clinton's perjury charges, she blithely said something to the effect that there were other charges as well involved with Clinton. Get ready for the Clinton argument from those that think lying to a Grand Jury is just a "technicality". I was equally stunned by the "Martha Stewart" analogy as well.

Some thoughtful analysis here from Jack Balkin of the blog Balkinization:

What Should Democrats Do About Miers? Beyond the Popcorn Strategy

What should the Democrats do about the Miers nomination? Currently, the Democrats are engaged in a "popcorn" strategy. Metaphorically speaking, they are sitting back, munching on popcorn, and enjoying the show as Republicans fight among themselves. They are silently being entertained while the Republicans use their well-honed skills of attack politics against each other.

In the short run, at least, the popcorn strategy makes perfect sense. First, letting Republicans attack each other (and President Bush) helps Democrats further weaken Bush's political standing; Bush must not only keep his initiatives on track in the face of scandals and political opposition, he must also quell rising resentment in his own party and particularly from his conservative base. Second, the strategy of waiting and watching may eventually help Democrats break through the stonewalling of an decidedly secretive Administration. At least some Republicans are now pressuring the President to waive executive privilege and release information about Miers' work for the executive branch. This work may concern some of the most important questions of Presidential power in our era, including questions regarding the executive's use and misuse of intelligence, and the executive's policies regarding the imprisonment, interrogation and torture of detainees. Third, letting Republicans fight among themselves may help Democrats crack the marvelous party discipline that has allowed the Republicans to resist the forces of political gravity for the last five years and govern from the right, instead of having to form a center coalition with substantial numbers of Democrats.

Nevertheless, at some point, the popcorn strategy will no longer prove viable.

Read more...
http://balkin.blogspot.com/2005/10/what-should-democrats-do-about-miers.html

Oncall,

Look, most people admit that the initial charges against Clinton were more than lying about a personal act. His actions in question were about sexual harrassment which we all admit that type of behavior IS absolutely unacceptable. Nobody said it was alright to sexually harrass Paula Jones. And we all remember the right-winged media spewing out other tales of rape against Clinton that have never been proven in a court of law or even charged by a prosecutor anywhere!

Now..comparing the charges of unspeakably pathetic sexual advances by Clinton vs the criminal act of taking a country to war and doing so based on fake facts, the resulting death of thousands of Americans, thousands of Iraqis, and the slow starvation of the millions of people in Iraq itself (due to the loss of their infrastructure)...it is absolutely noncomparable in terms of the intensity of the crimes and ethical behavior committed.

I'm deeply ashamed of anyone who would defend this administration and that includes anyone in Congress and anyone out here.

Each of us MUST take off our "label" of Republican, Democrat, or Independent and instead we must take off the label of the person accused of the crime--we must look at it in a nonbiased way and determine by the facts alone--without a face without a label--if high crimes and misdemeanors were committed. If so, then we must react even if it goes against our own party allegiances because first and foremost we must stand for the humane and ethical treatment of citizens everywhere and of those enlisted in the military too. We owe it to all of them to respect their lives and to never ever provoke a war.

So...I personally feel I can take off a party hat and think about the allegations of the crimes. Is it really asking that much to ask Republicans to do what I did and what many others like me did?

From the last thread

HANGED LIKE TOKYO ROSE.....
Oh my

Posted by: Christy at October 23, 2005 07:38 PM

Let's hope that response included the information that:
1) Tokyo Rose wasn't hanged. She was tried on eight counts, convicted on one count, fined $10,000, given ten years and served about six. Died of old age, in THIS country, in her eighties I believe. Some ambitious person can look it up.

2) She was forced to record those broadcasts and was actually an American citizen who was for all intents and purposes a Japanese POW.

3)Although the name Tokyo Rose has generally become associated with Iva Aquino, there were thought to be some twenty women who performed as Tokyo Rose at different times during the war.

4) The two people who were instrumental in her conviction, BOTH later admitted to perjury. She was cleared of charges by Douglas MacArthur.

5) And finally, please tell that moron Phil, that Tokyo Rose not only wasn't hanged, she was PARDONED, by a Republican, Gerald Ford.

That concluded today's installment of why we don't listen to wingnuts. In addition to being reactionary wingnuts, they are also lazy and usually don't bother with, you know, actual FACTS.

Posted by: spinnaker at October 24, 2005 04:05 AM

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

HAHAHAHAHAAAA HAHAHA

huge attack caught on film moments ago in Iraq.

CNN will run it again shortly.

The insurgents hit the Palistine hotel..Again

From the smoke cloud though it looks like there may not be a hotel there anymore

Fitzgerald inquiry widens “to include the forgery of documents on African uranium that started the investigation,” UPI reports.

http://www.upi.com/InternationalIntelligence/view.php?StoryID=20051023-104217-9679r

Christy

16 oil pipelines are on fire also (Al Jazeera)

Language Alert courtesy of Digby at Hullabaloo:

Liberals With Guns

As of 5:49 am Monday (EST), it seems Jeffrey Goldberg's already famous article on Scowcroft in the New Yorker will not be posted - you'll have to buy the zine, unless it gets liberated and posted elsewhere. But the New Yorker did put up an interesting interview with the author.I'll leave it to others to analyse the political ramifications and content. But I seem to be unusually sensitive to Republican rhetorical hanky-panky ("pro-life," "tax relief," etc), and I couldn't help but notice some spanking new jargon bubbling up into the mainstream:

"...the deeper meaning here is ideological: George W. Bush’s father was committed to a realist understanding of foreign policy. This served him well in Iraq, and not so well in Bosnia. George W. Bush, on the other hand, has become a leading proponent of democratic transformationalism; he believes it is America’s job to help non-democratic countries become democratic. The realists don’t believe that the internal organization of another country is any of our business; George W. Bush, evidently, does."
[snip]
"Are the conservatives turning against the neoconservatives?"

"They’ve been doing so for some time. Just read George Will. Their complaint is that neoconservatives aren’t conservative; they’re liberals with guns."

You got that? "Democratic transformationalists" are "liberals with guns." Those are the clowns that got us into that stupid mess in Iraq.

In other words, the term "conservative" has been surgically removed from the failed ideology of neoconservativism and replaced with the word "democratic." This of course is purely coincidental, no associations to a certain political party should be inferred.

And "democratic" is paired with the brain-twisting neologism "transformationalist." Only a paranoid mentality would wonder whether the pairing of "democratic" with something invented, something hard to understand, and something hard to say, is intentional.

As for "liberals with guns," well...what could be a scarier image, given the relentless demonization of liberals that has been going on since McCarthy, if not earlier?

But never mind, as so many expert Democratic consultants are quick to tell us, it's not the language that matters, but the ideas. I mean it's not as if you can easily redefine failed Republican strategies as liberal and Democratic, y'know. That's preposterous. No one would fall for that and repeat it. LIke if you tried, people would just get confused about what things mean and then they wouldn't listen to anyone. What good would that be?

(By the way, reporter Jeffrey Goldberg shouldn't, necessarily, be blamed for the terminology. It's likely he's probably just repeating jargon that's getting tossed up into the air. As for passing it on, shame, shame, shame!)

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2005_10_23_digbysblog_archive.html#113014884892861612

Check out the hypocrites!!

"[I]f there is going to be an indictment that says something happened, that it is an indictment on a crime and not some perjury technicality."
-- Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchinson, 10/23/05

VERSUS

"[S]omething needs to be said that is a clear message that our rule of law is intact and the standards for perjury and obstruction of justice are not gray...And I don’t want there to be any lessening of the standard. Because our system of criminal justice depends on people telling the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. That is the lynch pin of our criminal justice system and I don’t want it to be faded in any way."
-- Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchinson, 2/2/99

Just a few months ago, in July 2005, Karl Rove's former deputy Ken Mehlman appeared on NBC's Meet the Press and said, "I have tremendous confidence in Pat Fitzgerald."

VS

But when host Tim Russert pressed him on this statement and asked him whether he would "pledge today, because you have tremendous confidence in him, that you will not criticize his decision," Mehlman backed away from his statement, saying he did not want to "speculate."

Weekly Standard editor Bill Kristol said, "It seems to me quite possible--dare I say probable?--that no indictments would be the just and appropriate resolution to this inquiry."

Sen. Sam Brownback (R-KS) dismissed the leak inquiry as a subject the American people don't care about.

The Wall Street Journal editorializes, "Fitzgerald's larger obligation is to see that justice is done, and that should include ensuring that he doesn't become the agent for criminalizing policy differences."

The Weekly Standard wrote recently that the fall of 2005 will be remembered as a time when it became clear that a comprehensive "strategy of criminalization had been implemented to inflict defeat on conservatives."

Jonathan Chait, writing in the Los Angeles Times, noted that the wording was carefully chosen as a defense not only for Rove and Libby, but also for other conservatives who are in legal jeopardy: Tom DeLay, Bill Frist, David Safavian, Jack Abramoff, Duke Cunningham, Bob Ney, and others.

Bill Kristol, writing in the Weekly Standard, attempted to challenge the "courage" of Fitzgerald by suggesting it would be a bold and proper move for him not to bring any indictments. "Unless the perjury is clear-cut or the obstruction of justice willful and determined, we hope that the special prosecutor has the courage to end the inquiry without bringing indictments," Kristol wrote.

(excerpted from American Progress Report)

Here is some info on the Brent Scowcraft article (again courtesy American Progress Report)

NATIONAL SECURITY
A Political Intervention

Until January, Colonel Lawrence Wilkerson served as Colin Powell's chief of staff at the State Department. Brent Scowcroft was national security adviser to President George H. W. Bush, and remains a highly respected figure in America's foreign policy establishment. Both are known for their "realist," traditional conservative politics, and for the value they place on maintaining "a decorum and etiquette of public loyalty."

But in the past week, at the lowest point of George W. Bush's presidency, they have staged an intervention, unleashing singeing critiques of the Bush administration's failed national security policy.

Wilkerson charges that U.S. foreign policy has been "hijacked" by a "Cheney-Rumsfeld cabal"; he warns that "if something comes along that is truly serious, something like a nuclear weapon going off in a major American city, or something like a major pandemic, you are going to see the ineptitude of this government in a way that will take you back to the Declaration of Independence."

Scowcroft told the New Yorker that he considers Vice President Dick Cheney "a friend -- I've known him for 30 years. But Dick Cheney I don't know any more." 

Wilkerson's critique is framed around the 1947 National Security Act, which established the national security decision-making process following World War II. U.S. planners under President Truman "didn't want the concentration of power. They didn't want the lack of transparency into principle decisions that got people killed, even though they've been successful in arguably one of the greatest conflicts the world has seen, and so they set about trying to insure that this wouldn't happen again."

Their solution was to create a system that stimulated discussion and debate among the president's advisers, one "that could withstand powerful brilliant presidencies, powerful inept presidencies, and weak presidencies." According to Wilkerson, the Bush administration has "done the most to alter, distort, and "flummox" the Act of any administration since Harry Truman signed the law on July 26, 1947."

Vice President Cheney and Defense Secretary Rumsfeld made secretive decisions "on critical issues that made decisions that the bureaucracy did not know were being made." Rumsfeld was "given carte blanche to tell the State Department to go screw itself in a closet somewhere." And, according to Wilkerson, this system was aided by Condoleezza Rice, "who made a calculated decision to build her intimacy with the president" rather than do her job.

According to Scowcroft, America is now "suffering from the consequences" of this "brand of revolutionary utopianism." Likewise, the Cheney-Rumsfeld group is now "paying the consequences of making those decisions in secret," Wilkerson said, "but far more telling to me is America is paying the consequences."

For Scowcroft, "the second Gulf war is a reminder of the unwelcome consequences of radical intervention, especially when it is attempted without sufficient understanding of America's limitations or of the history of a region."

"I thought we ought to make it our duty to help make the world friendlier for the growth of liberal regimes," Scowcroft noted. "You encourage democracy over time, with assistance, and aid, the traditional way. Not how the neocons do it."

The neoconservatives "believe in the export of democracy, by violence if that is required, Scowcroft said. 'How do the neocons bring democracy to Iraq? You invade, you threaten and pressure, you evangelize.'"

Though the critiques were focused more on process than on President Bush's personal faults, Bush himself was not spared criticism.

Wilkerson charged that the president was "not versed in international relations and not too much interested either." When asked if the president was different from the father, Scowcroft said, "I don't want to go there."

But according to the New Yorker, "his dissatisfaction with the son's agenda could not have been clearer. When I asked him to name issues on which he agrees with the younger Bush, he said, 'Afghanistan.' He paused for twelve seconds. Finally, he said, 'I think we're doing well on Europe,' and left it at that.

And as former Secretary of State Richard Holbrooke noted in yesterday's Washington Post, "In the end, presidents get the advice they deserve, from the advisers they pick. Those advisers never agree completely, nor should they. Bush was surely aware that there were two views in his administration on most critical issues, but the buck stopped on his desk."

Christy

Here's the link about the Palestine Hotel, where Anne Garels wrote "Naked in Bagdad," and where journalists always stay.

http://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory?id=1244652

Checking Reuters and some of the news services (since I hate tv and newspapers have a time delay) and there was violence all over Iraq today, battles in all the major cities. It's morning here but much later there.

Bert in Mpls and I here in Seattle have our camera batteries charging, anticipating a night vigil as we were only 4 casualties from 2000 last we heard.

1997

http://www.afsc.org/2000

Type in your zip code for vigil location

From the Washington Post, some insight into the Federal Prosecutor, Patrick Fitzgerald, and the inquiry he's managed...

By Peter Slevin and Carol D. Leonnig
Washington Post Staff Writers
Monday, October 24, 2005

Inquiry as Exacting As Special Counsel Is;
A Tough Investigation Is Also Praised as Nonpartisan

~snip~
Fitzgerald's most difficult and contentious choices -- whether to seek criminal charges -- remain to be announced, possibly this week. Yet in a case with huge political stakes for the White House, a portrait is emerging of a special counsel with no discernible political bent who prepared the ground with painstaking sleuthing and cold-eyed lawyering.

So far, Fitzgerald has given neither Republicans nor Democrats grounds to question his motives as he excavated the machinations of a White House that prided itself on its discipline and its ability to push its pro-war message. He did not blink, lawyers and witnesses say, and he did not leak.

News organizations have complained bitterly that Fitzgerald fractured the special relationship between reporters and their sources. White House allies have warned that he will criminalize routine Washington political transactions or impute a coverup where no provable original crime occurred. But federal judges have strongly backed Fitzgerald, who presented secret evidence to persuade an ideologically diverse appeals court that someone committed "a serious breach of public trust."

Read more here...
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/10/23/AR2005102301028_pf.html

I tried to pick out more to recommend but it turned out to be practically the whole article so just go read it.

they are saying it was across the street from the hotel behind the Ag ministry building

georgie the moron

That is how history will remember him.

Georgie The Moron

Christy

The Palestine Hotel has concrete blast walls now, since it was hit before, so it wasn't penetrated but alot of windows were shadowed and journalists had to escape. A cement mixer packed with explosives blew up next to the hotel.

http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/article321922.ece

Death Toll Approaches 2000

They point out that over 7000 of the wounded would have died in previous wars. The article also summarizes the British study that shows well over a majority don't want us there.

http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/article321742.ece

Courtesy of dailykos poster Sean Stidd:

(Semi-) Hidden Documents on Fitzgerald Website
by Sean Stidd
Mon Oct 24, 2005 at 08:18:14 AM PDT

If you were just looking at the front page of the Special Prosecutor site,

http://www.usdoj.gov/usao/iln/osc/

You might well have missed these:

http://www.usdoj.gov/usao/iln/osc/documents/cooper_brief_july2005.pdf

http://www.usdoj.gov/usao/iln/osc/documents/miller_brief_july2005.pdf

http://www.usdoj.gov/usao/iln/osc/documents/dccircenbanc_04_19_05.pdf

I find the use of public opinion in the Miller document especially interesting.

Anyway, there's an erroneous PDF link under the "Legal Proceedings" header near the bottom of the front page. If you follow it you'll get to a page that has these extra documents on it.

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2005/10/24/111814/77

It is truly dispicable that this same crowd that was so vitriolic about the importance of the Rule of Law when it came to Bill Clinton, now say its a mere inconvenience/trivial thing if Rove or Libby committed perjury before the Grand Jury. Didn't know that there was 2 statutes for perjury, an R Perjury and a D Perjury.

Would like to find Sen. Hutchinson's exact words if anyone can help regarding Bill Clinton and perjury,

Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-Tex.), appearing on the same program, said people should wait, but if there were an indictment, she hoped it would be for "a crime and not some perjury technicality where they couldn't indict on the crime."

Hutchison described someone being tripped up "because they said something in the first grand jury and then maybe they found new information or they forgot something, and they tried to correct that in a second grand jury."

Rove, who recently appeared for the fourth time before the grand jury, is said to have been asked to explain new information about a conversation he had in July 2003 about Plame with Time magazine correspondent Matthew Cooper.

He (Richard Thornberg at least has some principles) also challenged the idea that an indictment for less than the original crime was not important. "If there is false testimony given or there's an attempt to corrupt any of the witnesses or evidence that is presented to the grand jury, that's a very serious offense because it undermines the integrity of the whole rule of law and investigatory process."

Christy
They hit the Sheraton Hotel too
http://www.aljazeera.com/cgi-bin/news_service/middle_east_full_story.asp?service_id=9923

Posted by: Amy at October 23, 2005 11:30 PM

Amy,

Comment from prior thread...

Problem with that theory. McCain is a hawk. He's already given his support to this war plan and hasn't indicated by any stretch of the imagination that there has been anything wrong other than torture. He's indicated that Bush has done a good job and has made little effort to get Rummy and Condiliar out.

Ira--and all--sorry I decided to post all of it.

http://www.australianpolitics.com/usa/clinton/trial/statements/hutchison.shtml

Statement by Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-Texas)
Following is a statement from the Senate's closed deliberations on the articles of impeachment against President Clinton, excerpts of which senators were allowed to publish in the Congressional Record for Friday, February 12, 1999.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Analysis of the Articles of Impeachment:
`Do you solemnly swear that in all things appertaining to the trial of the impeachment of William Jefferson Clinton, president of the United States, now pending, you will do impartial justice according to the Constitution and laws: So help you God?'

When the Chief Justice of the United States administered this oath and I signed my name to it on January 7, 1999, as one of one hundred triers of fact and law in the Court of Impeachment of the President of the United States, I did so with a heavy heart, but with a clear mind.

That solemn occasion in the well of this Senate, and the weight of the burden imposed on us as `jurors' in only the second such proceeding in the history of our Nation, reminded me with vivid clarity that our Constitution belongs to all of us.

I was reminded as well, however, that the laws of our Country are applicable to us all, including the President, and they must be obeyed. The concept of equal justice under law and the importance of absolute truth in legal proceedings is the foundation of our justice system in the courts.

In this proceeding, I have drawn conclusions about the facts as I see them, and I have applied the law to those facts as I understand that law to be.
------------
[Remainder of post has been edited for length. Please use link provided either above here, or in the Editor's Note at the end of the main post, "The Race To The Bottom". Thank you.]

Hutchinsens exact words...

Hutchison Flip-Flops on Importance of Perjury
Yesterday, offering a hint of the attack White House allies will launch on special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald if and when he announces any indictments, Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison dismissed the possible felony indictment of perjury as a mere “technicality”:

Ms. Hutchison said she hoped “that if there is going to be an indictment that says something happened, that it is an indictment on a crime and not some perjury technicality where they couldn’t indict on the crime and so they go to something just to show that their two years of investigation was not a waste of time and taxpayer dollars.”

On February 2, 1999, Hutchison stood with a bipartisan group of senators at a press conference announcing a resolution to open the Senate trial on the impeachment of President Clinton. At the time, Hutchison said it was vitally important to prosecute on perjury charges because telling the truth is the lynch pin of our criminal justice system:

[S]omething needs to be said that is a clear message that our rule of law is intact and the standards for perjury and obstruction of justice are not gray. And I think it is most important that we make that statement and that it be on the record for history.

I very much worry that with the evidence that we have seen that grand juries across America are going to start asking questions about what is obstruction of justice, what is perjury. And I don’t want there to be any lessening of the standard. Because our system of criminal justice depends on people telling the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. That is the lynch pin of our criminal justice system and I don’t want it to be faded in any way.

www.thinkprogress.org

I just sent Senator Hutchinson an email quoting her own words regarding Impeachment and advising her that her trivilizing Perjury disturbs all of us in Texas who believe in the Rule of Law and that no where have I found a Criminal Statute that speaks of R Perjury and D. Perjury.
Could you please tell me Senator what has changed in the last 6 years regarding our Perjury Statutes? As your constituent I will have a difficult time voting to re-elect my Senator who apparently no longer believe that the Rule of Law applies to the Whitehouse.

"The President's supporters have launched a "not-so-subtle campaign" against Patrick Fitzgerald, with one White House ally telling the paper the special prosecutor is "a vile, detestable, moralistic person with no heart and no conscience who believes he's been tapped by God to do very important things."

Sounds like Bush and his crowd have been looking in the mirror to attack Fitzgerald.

"Each of us MUST take off our "label" of Republican, Democrat, or Independent and instead we must take off the label of the person accused of the crime--we must look at it in a nonbiased way and determine by the facts alone--without a face without a label--if high crimes and misdemeanors were committed. If so, then we must react even if it goes against our own party allegiances because first and foremost we must stand for the humane and ethical treatment of citizens everywhere and of those enlisted in the military too. We owe it to all of them to respect their lives and to never ever provoke a war."

Posted by...Sparrow

Amen, and I second that.

Posted by: Ira at October 24, 2005 01:13 PM

Perhaps we can take the high road here, by remindin people that criminals generally are not the best friends with their prosecuting attorneys.

In fact, I could walk into any courthouse in Anywhere, USA and find a defendant bad mouthing the Prosecutor--glaring at him, smirking, and smearing him.

sparrow: most of my clients have more common sense than that.
Smirking, smearing or bad mouthing a D.A. is not the smartest way of avoiding harsh punishment and certainly would not be well thought of by a jury.
Criminal Defense Law 101.

Posted by: Ira at October 24, 2005 01:26 PM

Seems to work in the current White House though. I've often wondered why Republicans and NeoCONS supported a guy who does that.

I myself find it untrustworthy and scary. He seems really "seedy" to me.

But then again, I guess some people like drinking a beer with a seedy guy, huh?

Well, when I was a defendant in a trial that took two weeks, three days of it with me on the stand, my lawyer made it PERFECTLY clear at the very beginning that if I so much as looked sideways at anyone in a questionable way, or even sighed out loud, she was out the door. The accusations were ludicrous, but that didn't matter. I was to remain expressionless at all times, and keep my mouth shut unless I was being questioned.

I behaved perfectly, I'm proud to say.

georgie dont drink beer, hes a real mans drinker

A glass of milk with a human hair in it.

I'm not visiting California today, though I wish I were!

Therefore, if you have friends in CA or you're visting, make sure they are registered to vote in the special election.

http://www.ss.ca.gov/elections/votereg1.html

"I behaved perfectly, I'm proud to say."

As should everyone appearing in a Court Room.
You, Tom DeLay, Karl Rove, Scooter Libby, we are all equal in the eyes of the law.

Our Legal System is all that seperates our country from less civilized nations.

One story in particular is already done but has never been aired. 60 Minutes has it ready to go, they've just never aired it. Now is the time to contact them and request they show this important story. Here is the contact information:

EMAIL: 60m@cbsnews.com

PHONE: (212) 975-3247

More detail on the story that never aired below...

*****Please go read the thread and recommend it. This should have been aired a long time ago.

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2005/10/24/133038/24

Suz:
Therefore, if you have friends in Va or New Jersey or you're visting, make sure they are registered to vote and if necessary requested absentee ballots in the Va or New Jersey elections.

the one time i stood before a judge my lawyer friend gave me the same warnings stand at attention say nothing dont flinch or smile..

so i was doing exactly that when my brand spanking new wonder bra ripped right in two in the middle of my chest. i was standing too straight i think

Everyone else must have gotten the same orders cause there was almost an uproar. I just so happened to not only be standing between the DA and my lawyer in front of the judge but we were also facing a gallery of orange suited prisnors, all waiting for arraignments. About 20 of them.

needless to say i threw myself at the mercy of the court and recieved a 100 dollar fine.

Bush bitter...

http://nydailynews.com/front/story/358714p-305660c.html

Posted by: Ira at October 24, 2005 01:52 PM

Ohio special elections coming up too.

We all need to donate our time and or money to reformohionow.

More news:

Cheney aide passed Plame's name to Libby, Hadley, those close to leak investigation say
Jason Leopold and Larisa Alexandrovna

With the possibility of indictments just days away, sources close to the investigation into who outed covert CIA agent Valerie Plame Wilson have provided RAW STORY a more detailed account into how and why Plame's name was leaked and what role the Pentagon and the vice president's office played.

Those close to the investigation say that Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald has been told that David Wurmser, then a Middle East adviser to Vice President Dick Cheney, met with Cheney and his chief of staff I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby in June 2003 and told him that Plame set up the Wilson trip. He asserted that it was a boondoggle because she was a CIA agent, the sources said.

Libby then shared the information with Karl Rove, President Bush's deputy chief of staff, the sources said. Wurmser also passed on the same information about Wilson and his CIA to Deputy National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley and Security Adviser Condoleeza Rice, they added.

http://rawstory.com/news/2005/Cheney_aide_passed_Plames_name_to_1024.html

Oops...meant to include this link. Please donate time and/or money!

http://www.reformohionow.org/

Posted by: Christy at October 24, 2005 01:57 PM

And I imagine the real wonder was that no one was injured in this strutural engineering disaster...

Sorry, but you had to know that one was acomin'...

Posted by: Christy at October 24, 2005 01:57 PM

Posted by: spinnaker at October 24, 2005 02:13 PM

really Laughing Out Loud...

LOL

Posted by: spinnaker at October 24, 2005 02:13 PM

No no injuries, although by the time i was able to get out of there I ran to the bathroom where i dissolved into hysterical sobbing laughter and headbutted the wall like 4 times

"The President's supporters have launched a "not-so-subtle campaign" against Patrick Fitzgerald, with one White House ally telling the paper the special prosecutor is "a vile, detestable, moralistic person with no heart and no conscience who believes he's been tapped by God to do very important things."

Sounds like Bush and his crowd have been looking in the mirror to attack Fitzgerald.

Posted by: Ira at October 24, 2005 01:13 PM

O.M.G.

If that isn't the pot calling the kettle black I don't know what is.

I just sent a nice little note to Senator Hutchison (sans profanity, natch, just eloquent indignation). I hope you do too. She should know that her statements and her base partisanship, cloaked as righteousness, are not going unnoticed.

Let's not just passively stick these comments up on blogs. Let's put them back in people's faces. Say it. All the time:

I know what you said.
I know what you did.
You can't fool us any more.

Posted by: sparrow at October 24, 2005 10:05 AM

I want to make it clear that I am not defending what Bill Clinton did. What I am saying is be prepared for the Bill Clinton argument from those that think Bushco did nothing wrong.

Posted by: Dedalus at October 24, 2005 04:46 PM

Dedalus,

I sent her my e-mail this morning. I told her she might want to reconsider what she said on Meet The Press, and if she felt so compelled, she might want to make a statement.

1997

http://icasualties.org/oif/

Posted by: oncall at October 24, 2005 05:03 PM

Right...the "But Bill did this argument..." should only be used to show the following: If perjury is a high crime and covering said perjury is a high crime as well (impeachable) then let them impeach Bush for the lies that caused 1000's of deaths.

No excusing Clinton anywhere in that statement.

lots of links to dkos today.
this is a keeper: a primer on the leaker case:

Mr. Leaker and Mrs. Wilson.
http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2005/10/24/174045/35