So let's get into the Daily Headliners here.
Bush halts Miers' testimony, provoking threat from Congress: I'm just totally amazed at how the U.S. Attorney scandal went from a simple political purge of attorneys to a full-blown cover-up by the Bush White House. The first paragraph of the McClatchy story says it all--President Bush ordered former White House Counsel Harriet Miers to stay away Thursday from a House panel investigating last year's firings of nine U.S. attorneys, prompting the chairman of the House Judiciary Committee to threaten Miers with a contempt citation. There is a complete hypocrisy within this Bush White House. The Bush administration claims executive privilege which shields former staffers from testifying before Congress, but the Bush administration is willing to allow those same staffers to "testify about the firings in private, not under oath, and with no transcript record." This is a constitutional showdown between a Democratic Congress attempting some type of oversight verses a corrupt Republican Bush White House which wants to keep its criminal activities away from the scrutiny of the public.
But I think the best part of the role of Harriet Miers in the attorney scandal has to be with the House Judiciary Committee talking about Miers' empty chair. This is a compilation of the committee's debate through YouTube;
It is time to bring contempt charges against Miers. It is time to force the showdown between Congress and the Bush White House. President Bush will not back down. It is time to force him to release the records on the attorney scandal, release his current and former aids to testify. If Congress backs down now, they forfeit their right to congressional oversight and investigation into future White House administrations. Because you can bet that future corrupt administrations will claim the same privilege to keep their own current and former aids from testifying before Congress on anything.
And finally, The Washington Post is reporting that "a House panel took the first step toward bringing contempt charges against former White House counsel Harriet E. Miers." Miers no-show before the House Judiciary Committee "provoked a 7 to 5 vote by the House panel contesting the Bush administration's claim of executive privilege." So the House is not backing down against President Bush over Miers. There will be more to come here.
President Bush really doesn't care about his administration's involvement in outing Valerie Plame: The CNN story here gives the highlights of of President Bush's July 12 press conference on his administration's involvement in the CIA leak scandal. But what is really astounding is President Bush's response to a question regarding his administration's morality regarding this issue, since it was his administration that initiated the leak in the first place. You can view the question, and Bush's response here on YouTube;
And here is the transcript from the Bush press conference;
Q If I could just switch subjects for a second to another big decision you made recently, which was in the Scooter Libby case.
THE PRESIDENT: Yes.
Q You spoke very soberly and seriously in your statement about how you weighed different legal questions in coming to your decision on that commutation. But one issue that you did not address was the issue of the morality of your most senior advisors leaking the name of a confidential intelligence operator. Now that the case is over -- it's not something you've ever spoken to -- can you say whether you're at all disappointed in the behavior of those senior advisors? And have you communicated that disappointment to them in any way?
THE PRESIDENT: Michael, I -- first of all, the Scooter Libby decision was, I thought, a fair and balanced decision. Secondly, I haven't spent a lot of time talking about the testimony that people throughout my administration were forced to give as a result of the special prosecutor. I didn't ask them during the time and I haven't asked them since.
I'm aware of the fact that perhaps somebody in the administration did disclose the name of that person, and I've often thought about what would have happened had that person come forth and said, I did it. Would we have had this, you know, endless hours of investigation and a lot of money being spent on this matter? But it's been a tough issue for a lot of people in the White House, and it's run its course and now we're going to move on.
This is just amazing. President Bush is not disappointed that several members of his administration were involved in the CIA leak scandal. According to the CNN story here, "White House political adviser Karl Rove and Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage were the primary sources for a 2003 newspaper article outing Plame. Former White House press secretary Ari Fleischer also admitted telling reporters about her. And jurors apparently believed prosecutors who said Libby discussed Plame with reporters from The New York Times and Time magazine. Libby was the only one charged in the matter." President Bush did not fire any of these individuals from his administration. There is no morality within President Bush or his administration. President Bush admitted that he did not spend much time thinking about the testimony of his men during this leak investigation--Bush didn't even lift a finger in determining who in his administration leaked Valerie Plame's name, and did not fire those who were involved--not Rove, Libby, Fleischer, or even Armitage. Armitage resigned from his Deputy Secretary of State position in November 2004, while Fleischer resigned from the White House Press Secretary position in July 2003. Karl Rove resigned from his position as White House deputy chief of staff in policy coordination, but still works in the Bush White House as a senior adviser. And Scooter Libby was still working as Vice President Cheney's chief of staff until he was indicted for perjury and obstruction of justice in the Plame affair. And how does President Bush respond to the morality of his men in the CIA leak scandal? Well, I didn't spend much time thinking about it, or even talked to those who were involved in the scandal--but it doesn't matter. There is nothing else to see here! Move along!"
At Least Half Of Iraq Benchmarks Unmet; This US News and World Report story has a great round-up of the stories of the Bush administration, and the Iraqi government's failure to achieve some progress in the U.S. war in Iraq. The Bush administration released The Final Benchmark Assessment Report on Iraq, and apparently it is not pretty. The Iraq government was given 18 benchmarks to succeed in as a final report card to determine whether the Bush administration's was also succeeding or not. According to this Los Angeles Times story, the report is a mixed bag of successes and failures. The successes are coming in the areas of "setting up joint U.S.-Iraqi security stations and for moving more combat troops into Baghdad." But the report cites major failures in de-Bathification reforms, setting up an oil-sharing revenue program, amnesty for ex-insurgents and the disarming of militias, are complete failures. I'm getting the impression that the Bush administration will try to tout the easily achieved benchmarks in this report as major successes, while ignoring the hard political problems and benchmark failures of this report.
Remember the overall goal of this Bush administration--keep the Iraq war going until after President Bush leaves office in January, 2009. It is the reason for the Bush troop surge--the American public was turning against the war, and elected the Democrats to control Congress because of the war. The Bush administration needed to cite some type of progress in Iraq in order to keep the war going. The troop surge, and the September assessment was their policy to keep the war going until Bush leaves office. There is just a couple of problems here. The troop surge could never reduce the level of sectarian violence, or the civil war in Iraq, and the September assessment was nothing more than a hopeful date to report some good news on the war. This was a policy program based on wishful political thinking. Now September is rapidly approaching and the initial assessment report is showing not success, but failure in the Bush war in Iraq.
Government report states that Al Qaeda strongest since September 11, 2001: The headline says it all. The CNN story gives more details. What can I say, but that the Bush administration really screwed up here in shifting its attention from fighting against al Qaeda, and terrorism, in Afghanistan towards fighting against Saddam Hussein for PNAC glory and American imperialism in Iraq and the Middle East. Now we have a failure in the Iraq war, and a failure in destroying al Qaeda. But that's okay--we've got Homeland Security Director Michael Chertoff's "gut feeling" to protect us from another al Qaeda terrorist attack.
New Woes For Senator Caught In Sex Scandal: I should say a few words about the Republican Senator David Vitter's sex scandal. The details are in this CBS News story;
(CBS/AP) New allegations tie Sen. David Vitter to a high-priced brothel in his hometown, one day after he publicly apologized for his connection to an alleged prostitution ring in Washington, D.C.
On Monday, Vitter acknowledged being involved with the so-called D.C. Madam, hours after Hustler magazine told him his telephone number was among those she disclosed. A day later, new revelations linked him to a former madam in New Orleans and old allegations that he frequented a former prostitute resurfaced, further clouding his political future.
Jeanette Maier on Tuesday said Vitter was once a client of the Canal Street brothel. She pleaded guilty to running the operation in 2002. Vitter won his seat in the U.S. Senate in 2004.
Saying he was a "decent guy" who appeared to be in need of company when he visited the brothel, Maier added unexpected details to a scandal enveloping the first-term Republican.
"As far as the girls coming out after seeing David, all they had was nice things to say. It wasn't all about sex. In fact, he just wanted to have somebody listen to him, you know. And I said his wife must not be listening," Maier said in an interview with The Associated Press.
I learned of the story through Countdown with Keith Olbermann, which reported David Vitter's apology regarding the sex scandal. The story on Countdown can be found here;
I just have to laugh at the hypocrisy here with Senator David Vitter, who champions GOP "family values" while bopping high-class hookers. What is even more amazing is how Vitter is claiming that God is forgiving him for his adultery--did God specifically tell him that he was forgiven for bopping hookers? Is Vitter's wife going to walk of with Vitter's...manliness?
Incredible.
But there is more. Consider this Raw Story article, titled Flynt: Hustler involved in more than 20 sex scandal investigations;
Hustler publisher Larry Flynt said Wednesday that investigators working for the magazine are involved in more than 20 investigations relating to his recent call for information on Washington sex scandals.
The investigations include "high ranking Republican and Democrat members of the Senate and the House," Flynt said at a press conference in Los Angeles, in which RAW STORY participated via conference call.
"We've got some really good information here," he said.
Sen. David Vitter, R-La., revealed Monday night that he had been a client of alleged "DC Madam" Deborah Jean Palfrey after reporters working for Hustler called him about the allegations.
"If somebody's living a lie ... they become fair game," Flynt said, referring to Vitter's "family values" stances and opposition to same-sex marriage.
Flynt said his investigations were not meant to be witch-hunts against frisky members of Congress -- "I don't care what their sex life involves," he said -- rather the goal is exposing hypocrisy.
"Unfortunately we have too many of these guys in Congress, and I'm going to do my part to get them out," Flynt told reporters, adding that he doesn't mind spending his own money to do so.
An ad that ran in the Washington Post last month offered $1 million from Flynt for information about people who had an illicit affair with elected officials. Flynt said Wednesday he paid $150,000 to run the full-page advertisement.
The exposure of Vitter came from Flynt's cooperation with Palfrey in securing a complete list of her phone records, not in response to the Post ad, Flynt said.
Referring to his past court battles over indecency charges, the hardcore magazine publisher said the government "did everything it could for 15 years" to put him behind bars.
"This is payback time," he said. "And payback's a bitch."
I'm starting to wonder who else is in Larry Flynt's sights here?
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