Tony Snow has his own words shoved back down his throat

This is priceless! This is pure hypocrisy! I found this through Americablog, and then went back to the original source at The Chicago Tribune:

"What kinds of conversations does executive privilege protect?…What are the limits on privilege?'' a newspaper columnist wrote in the spring of 1998 on a subject strangely familiar today.

"Evidently, Mr. Clinton wants to shield virtually any communications that take place within the White House compound on the theory that all such talk contributes in some way, shape or form to the continuing success and harmony of an administration,'' the columnist wrote. "Taken to its logical extreme, that position would make it impossible for citizens to hold a chief executive accountable for anything.''

"Sounds like you're reading an old column of mine,'' Tony Snow, the Bush administration's press secretary, said today, readily recognizing his nine-year-old words read back to him at a morning press gaggle in which Snow was arguing for Bush's right to protect the internal deliberations of his White House staff.

In March 1998, Snow wrote for the Detroit News, in which this column about a president's over-reaching assertions of executive privilege appeared. Today, he is press secretary for another president confronting an aggressive Congress. It's a different situation, Snow insisted today.

With credit to Olivier Knox of Agence France-Presse for a deft piece of document research, here is a copy of the column that Snow published in the Detroit News on March 29, 1998:

"From Day One, the chief challenge facing this White House has been to place maximum distance between Bill Clinton and his behavior. That strategy has succeeded, but only with the help of mighty assaults on our common sense.

"In order to exonerate the chief, aides have made fantastic claims: that they lied to their personal diaries, that Velcro-brained lawyers couldn't recall crucial incidents, that files vanished or moved from one place to another as if by magic, that scores of people with nothing to gain from lying nevertheless perjured themselves, and that this contagion of amnesia, sloppiness and venality was just the gosh darnedest series of coincidences ever witnessed by man or beast.

"The wall of separation between Mr. Clinton and his deeds remains strong because minions have stuck to their alibis. But now comes an episode in which the Man from Hope stands alone. It is his recent attempt to claim executive privilege for counselors Bruce Lindsey and Sidney Blumenthal and first lady Hillary Rodham Clinton.

"Mr. Clinton can't blame his lawyers for this latest feint. He alone can assert the privilege. The maneuver places him at the heart of his administration's ongoing effort to use executive privilege as a way of concealing the truth about whether the president exposed himself. It is almost impossible to think of this as anything but a tactic to delay independent counsel Kenneth Starr long enough for James Carville and other red-ant assailants to nibble at Mr. Starr and pump as much venom as possible into the political system.

[....]

"Evidently, Mr. Clinton wants to shield virtually any communications that take place within the White House compound on the theory that all such talk contributes in some way, shape or form to the continuing success and harmony of an administration. Taken to its logical extreme, that position would make it impossible for citizens to hold a chief executive accountable for anything. He would have a constitutional right to cover up.

"Chances are that the courts will hurl such a claim out, but it will take time.

"One gets the impression that Team Clinton values its survival more than most people want justice and thus will delay without qualm. But as the clock ticks, the public's faith in Mr. Clinton will ebb away for a simple reason: Most of us want no part of a president who is cynical enough to use the majesty of his office to evade the one thing he is sworn to uphold the rule of law.''

It is amazing how Tony Snow wrote this column, practically demanding that just about every Clinton aid involved in the endless witch hunts and scandals, be hauled before Congress to testify. And yet, with President Bush in the White House, the president should be allowed to invoke executive privilege to protect Rove and Miers' involvement in the attorney purge. The hypocrisy is just amazing here.

You can read Tony Snow's entireoriginal column at the Chicago Tribune.

Shades of Nixon--TPM reports an 18-day gap of emails in the latest document dump

Now this is interesting. Talking Points Memo is reporting that there is an 18-day gap in the emails provided by the latest 3000-plus document release from the Justice Department. The gap takes place between November 15th and December 4th of last year. This is what Talking Points Memo reports on this gap:

I think a commenter in our document dump research thread may have been the first to notice that the emails released by the Justice Department seem to have a gap between November 15th and December 4th of last year.

(Our commenter saw it late on the evening of the dump itself -- see the comment date-stamped March 20, 2007 02:19 AM in the research thread)

The firing calls went out on December 7th. But the original plan was to start placing the calls on November 15th. So those eighteen days are pretty key ones.

Mike Allen spotted it this evening in the Politico.

An eighteen-day email gap between the date of the original planned firings, and when the firings took place. I wonder--is there a conspiracy within the Bush White House to use the number Eighteen as a means to cover their own involvement in the attorney purge, just as the Nixon administration may have used the number Eighteen to create that famous gap in the Watergate tapes? There should be a congressional investigation into this latest conspiracy--in fact, I would demand that Congress subpoena the number Eighteen to explain both the email gap on the attorney purge, and the erasure of that famous Watergate tape. Of course, President Bush will claim executive privilege for allowing the number Eighteen to provide honest advise to the Bush White House. Which means we have another constitutional crisis here!

TPM Muckraker has got White House Press Secretary Tony Snow's response to the email gap.

House OKs subpoenas for Rove, Miers, and other top Bush aids

Well, we've got a constitutional fight taking place between the Bush White House and Congress. This is from The Washington Post:

A House subcommittee today authorized the issuance of subpoenas for top presidential adviser Karl Rove and other White House and Justice Department aides as it investigates the firing of eight U.S. attorneys, potentially setting up a constitutional confrontation with President Bush.

The House Judiciary Committee's subcommittee on commercial and administrative law passed by voice vote a motion giving the committee chairman, Rep. John Conyers Jr. (D-Mich.), the power to issue subpoenas for five current and former officials, as well as for "unredacted documents" from the White House and Justice Department. Among the five are Rove, the deputy White House chief of staff, and Harriet E. Miers, the former White House counsel.

In authorizing the subpoena power over the objections of Republican members, the subcommittee implicitly spurned an offer by Bush yesterday to allow the officials to testify under strict conditions. The White House is demanding limits on the kinds of questions they would answer, opposes having them testify under oath and does not want their testimony to be recorded or transcribed.

If lawmakers actually issue the subpoenas, "the offer is withdrawn," White House spokesman Tony Snow warned in a news briefing today. "The moment subpoenas are issued, it means that they have rejected the offer."

In response to a barrage of questions about the issue, Snow said, "At this point, it is our hope that Congress in fact is going to accept what is a generous, reasonable offer to enable them to do their jobs. . . . If they don't accept the offer, it lifts the veil on some of the motivations, which means that people are less interested in the truth than creating a political spectacle."

[....]

The Senate Judiciary Committee last week authorized its chairman, Sen. Patrick J. Leahy (D-Vt.), to issue subpoenas for 11 current and former Justice Department officials, including six of the fired U.S. attorneys. But it put off until tomorrow a vote on subpoena power to compel the testimony of top White House aides.

In addition to Rove and Miers, the House committee is seeking the testimony of D. Kyle Sampson, the former chief of staff of Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales; William K. Kelley, the deputy White House counsel; and J. Scott Jennings, a special assistant to the president and deputy director of political affairs. Sampson resigned March 12 after acknowledging that he did not tell key Justice Department officials about the extent of his communications with the White House about the dismissals, leading the officials to provide incomplete information to Congress.

The attorney purge scandal just keeps getting better here. First, the Bush administration tried to make a deal with the Democratic Congress in allowing Rove and Miers to talk with the key congressmen with conditions. Rove and Miers would not testify under oath, the "interviews" would be conducted in private, with no transcripts, and no subsequent testimony or issuing of subpoenas. In other words, Rove and Miers could go up to the Hill, and shamelessly lie about the Bush attorney purge with no consequences. What is even more amazing is that the Bush administration believes that this deal is a "generous, reasonable offer" that they are giving to Congress.

You can hear the spin coming from the president himself at yesterday's testy press conference:



And finally, Countdown with Keith Olbermann has some good coverage of this press conference. Here is Part One:



And here is Part Two:



What I especially find ironic here is how Bush is now coming out attacking the Democrats in Congress on this attorney scandal. When you look at yesterday's press conference, Bush is almost goading the Democrats into issuing subpoenas and forcing a constitutional showdown here. It is almost like President Bush is trying to bluff his way out of this scandal--I'm the Deciderer here! My firings were legal! If you don't like it, well tough! And if you try to subpoena Rove and Miers, I'll invoke executive privilege! It is almost like he's trying to force down the Democrats on this latest scandal, thinking that the Democrats will not issue subpoenas and start a constitutional crisis this late in his own presidential term, and this early into the 2008 presidential elections. Bush is trying to utilize a classic Rovian tactic of attacking your opponent's strengths here. The problem for President Bush is that his presidency has been so weakened by scandals--from the misuse of Iraq war intelligence, the outing of Valerie Plame, the illegal NSA wiretappings, the Jack Abramoff connection, and now this attorney purge. All of these scandals show a sense of corruption and cronyism taking place within the Bush White House, thus discrediting whatever the latest White House PR-spin they are trying to sell on the scandal.

It is no wonder that Congress has decided to call Bush's bluff here. I guess even Congress knows when they're getting screwed by the Bush White House.

ABC News: More E-Mails in Fired U.S. Attorneys Controversy

Well, ABC News is now calling it:

March 19, 2007— New e-mails released this evening by the Justice Department reveal the depth of White House involvement in the discussions to fire eight U.S. attorneys last year. The thousands of pages of e-mails suggest the White House was involved in the plan from the beginning.

The e-mails detail conversations about attorneys targeted for dismissal. There are no e-mails from Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, who reportedly does not use e-mail, though the Justice Department says messages show some indication that Gonzales' former chief of staff, D. Kyle Sampson, kept the attorney general apprised.

Heat From Democrats

The Justice Department has taken heat from Democrats, who stepped up harsh criticism and calls for Gonzales to step down last week. "They [the U.S. attorneys] should not be sent packing on a whim," said Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., adding, "especially when the circumstances suggest that their departures may have been motivated by politics."

"First of all, he's [Gonzales] not telling the truth. These were all political," declared Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid. "Never in the history of the country has anything like this ever happened. What is done is untoward, it is wrong, it is unethical, it's immoral. I believe it's illegal, and Gonzales should be fired or he should resign."

The president addressed criticism about political motivations last week by dismissing it. "I've heard those allegations about, you know, political decision-making," Bush said last Wednesday. "It's not true."

The documents will probably be up on the House Judiciary Committee's website in PDF format.

Tony Snow: Still spinning the line of attorney firing due to poor immigration results

Talking Points Memo has a great analysis of Tony Snow's spinning answer that U.S. attorney Carol Lam was fired as a result of "lax immigration enforcement policies," even as the press questions the timeline between Lam's May 10th email regarding the issuing of search warrants in the Duke Cunningham case, and the next day email between Alberto Gonzales' chief of staff Kyle Sampson and the White House Counsel's office William Kelley regarding Lam's removal. Here is what Tony Snow had to say:



Snow spins the question around, saying that Lam was still removed because of problems with immigration policies. This is how TPM analyzes the Snowjob spin:

To be specific, Snow appears to be referring to a March 2005 spreadsheet of US Attorneys in which the 93 US Attorneys were rated according to effectiveness and political loyalty. It is true that Lam's name was stricken out on that list. She was one of three of seven of the firees similarly noted on that March list.

But the list doesn't mention immigration policy as the reason that Lam is listed. And it's actually highly questionable what that list means.

The ratings for all 93 US Attorneys except for seven of the eight firees were redacted from the list. So it's impossible to know what the scratch-through over Lam's name really means without knowing how many others were similarly rated. A January 2005 email suggests that between 15% and 20% of the USAs were slated to be fired. For all we know, half the US Attorneys had their names stricken on the list.

What's more, to date, former Arkansas US Attorney Bud Cummins is the only one of the eight fired US Attorneys for whom poor performance has never been alleged as a reason for dismissal. And yet Cummins' name is scratched out as well.

The point is that while Snow wants to point to the March US Attorney 'ratings list' as evidence that the desire to fire Lam long predated both the Cunningham controversy and the May 2006 emails, they simply don't show that.

Secondly, the references to Lam's immigration enforcement record in the May 2006 email are more than a little questionable. The May 11 2006 email from Sampson to the White House's Willaim Kelley which refers to the "real problem we have right now with Carol Lam" makes no mention of immigration policy. (That's the email that comes right after she said she was going after the CIA appointee.)

The only mention of immigration policy comes three weeks later (May 31st, 2006) in an email from Sampson to DOJ's Bill Mercer. But look at what Sampson says. "Has ODAG ever called Carol Lam and woodshedded her re immigration enforcement? Has anyone? If the AG ordered 20 more prosecutors to S.D. Cal. to do immigration enforcement only, where would we get them from (remember the premise: AG has ordered it)? Please advise."

Now, this email can be read a few different ways. But look closely at what's being said. This is allegedly more than a year after the White House's and the DOJ's disgruntlement with Lam began. And the AG's Chief of Staff has to ask around to see whether anyone has ever even raised the issue with Lam. (Indeed, according to Lam's testimony, the DOJ never raised the immigration issue with her during her entire tenure.) I would submit that the most logical reading of this email is not to reference longstanding displeasure with Lam's immigration policy enforcement leading to her dismissal. A more logical reading is an effort to find a rationale for firing Lam and inquiring to see whether a paper trail or record exists to back that rationale. (Bold emphasis is mine.) Firing Lam for an issue Washington had apparently never even brought up with her would be pretty iffy.

In any case, the emails we have so far are just too few, far between and ambiguous to make any sense of why Lam was canned. But the White House and the Justice Department are claiming that she was dismissed for lax immigration enforcement and that the emails show this concern went back to early 2005.

Now TPM makes a fascinating conjecture here, where the Bush White House originally decides to remove Lam (possibly to stifle the Duke Cunningham investigation), and then go back through the emails and documentation to determine if they have enough of a paper trail to claim a completely different excuse for her firing. It does make some sense here, since the Bush White House has been constantly changing their story on these attorney firings. We've heard plenty of White House excuses on how these attorneys were fired due to poor performance reviews, lax immigration policies, or even because Bill Clinton did it too. The problem with these excuses is that they do not support any rational for removing Carol Lam--especially since Lam was seriously involved in investigating a growing GOP scandal regarding Duke Cunningham. Lam was doing her job way too well, and that was scaring the Republicans.

But White House Press Secretary Tony Snow will keep spinning the Bush-PR excuses on this attorney purge around and around and around.

Gee Tony--maybe you need to take a Sit 'N' Spin on this little baby:

For White House Press Secretary Tony Snow. You might want to try it out in front of the White House press corps.

TPM is also reporting that there will be another White House document dump of 2000 hard-copy pages regarding this scandal. This has also been reported on Think Progress. If this is true, then it is certainly interesting that the Bush White House is sending a 2000-page pile of hard copies of whatever to either overwhelm, or stall, the congressional investigations into this attorney scandal.

More to come.

White House emails show a possible connection between attorney purge and Cunningham corruption probe

This is a big story here. We're going to start with The Washington Post here:

The U.S. attorney in San Diego notified the Justice Department of search warrants in a Republican bribery scandal last May 10, one day before the attorney general's chief of staff warned the White House of a "real problem" with her, a Democratic senator said yesterday.

The prosecutor, Carol S. Lam, was dismissed seven months later as part of an effort by the Justice Department and the White House to fire eight U.S. attorneys.

A Justice spokesman said there was no connection between Lam's firing and her public corruption investigations, and pointed to criticisms of Lam for her record on prosecuting immigration cases.

Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) said in a television appearance yesterday that Lam "sent a notice to the Justice Department saying that there would be two search warrants" in a criminal investigation of defense contractor Brent R. Wilkes and Kyle "Dusty" Foggo, who had just quit as the CIA's top administrator amid questions about his ties to disgraced former GOP congressman Randy "Duke" Cunningham.

The next day, May 11, D. Kyle Sampson, then chief of staff to Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales, sent an e-mail message to William Kelley in the White House counsel's office saying that Lam should be removed as quickly as possible, according to documents turned over to Congress last week.

"Please call me at your convenience to discuss the following," Sampson wrote, referring to "[t]he real problem we have right now with Carol Lam that leads me to conclude that we should have someone ready to be nominated on 11/18, the day her 4-year term expires."

The FBI raided Foggo's home and former CIA office on May 12. He was indicted along with Wilkes on fraud and money-laundering charges on Feb. 13 -- two days before Lam left as U.S. attorney.

I don't know about you, but the timing here seems really suspicious. Now McClatchy has a little more information on this story:

Feinstein said Lam notified the Justice Department on May 10, 2006, that she planned to serve search warrants on Kyle Dustin "Dusty" Foggo, who'd resigned two days earlier as the No. 3 official at the CIA.

On May 11, 2006, Kyle Sampson, then Gonzales' chief of staff, sent an e-mail to deputy White House counsel William Kelley, asking Kelley to call to discuss "the real problem we have right now with Carol Lam that leads me to conclude that we should have someone ready to be nominated on 11/18, the day her 4-year term expires."

The e-mail did not spell out what the "real problem" was, and it was unclear whether Kelley and Sampson talked later.

[....]

Lam oversaw the investigation that led to the corruption conviction of then-Rep. Randy "Duke" Cunningham, R-Calif., who pleaded guilty in late 2005 to accepting $2.4 million in bribes. He was sentenced in March 2006 to eight years and four months in prison.

On the same day last year as the Sampson e-mail, the Los Angeles Times reported that the Cunningham probe was being expanded to look at the actions of another California Republican, then-House Appropriations Committee Chairman Jerry Lewis.

Feinstein did not say how she learned that Lam had notified the Justice Department about her plans to serve search warrants on Foggo, who on May 8 had resigned as the executive director of the CIA. FBI agents seized records from Foggo's CIA offices and his suburban Vienna, Va., home on May 12.

Who Lam notified about her plans was unknown. Ordinarily, information about search warrants in high-profile cases would be passed to the U.S. attorney executive office in Washington. At the time, that office was headed by Michael Battle. Battle, who notified the dismissed U.S. attorneys they were being replaced in December, resigned March 5.

So Lam sent an email to the Justice Department saying that she would be issuing search warrants against Foggo on May 10, 2006. McClatchy says that the email would have been sent to the U.S. attorney executive office, which was headed up by Michael Battle. Now according to a March 5, 2007 CNN story, Battle not only personally informed the eight U.S. attorneys of their dismissal, but also announced that he would resign from his post on March 16. According to TPM Muckraker, Battle resigned his post, just two weeks ago, in order to pursue opportunities in the private sector. There is a lot of coincidental timing here that really doesn't pass the smell test. Lam sends her email regarding the search warrants, supposedly to Battle, on May 10th. Sampson sends his email regarding the "problem" with Carol Lam to William Kelly on May 11th. And now as this whole attorney scandal starts to break open in public, we've got Battle resigning his post to pursue opportunities in the private sector? Did Michael Battle forward Lam's email to Kyle Sampson? Did Battle resign his position as the head of the U.S. attorney executive office in Washington as a CYA to stay out of the attorney scandal? Even more, we've got a Los Angeles Times article that was published on May 11th, reporting that the U.S. attorney's office was looking into the connection between the Cunningham probe and GOP Representative Jerry Lewis, who was the chairman of the House Appropriations Committee. Sampson would have known that Lam was heading up the Duke Cunningham corruption probe--did he learn of Lam's email regarding the search warrants before the LA Times story was published? Was the "real problem" that Sampson refers to in his email to Kelly about Lam's expanding corruption investigation to include Lewis?

There is a lot more to this scandal.

One final little detail from the McClatchy story:

On Sunday, Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., said he intends to force President Bush's top political adviser, Karl Rove, to testify and will insist that the testimony be under oath. Leahy, who appeared on ABC's "This Week," said he is "sick and tired" of the administration's changing rationale for the firings.

It appears that Leahy is going to issue subpoenas to force Karl Rove to testify before the Senate Judiciary Committee on his own involvement in this attorney scandal. The Bush White House will refuse to allow Rove to testify, claiming executive privilege. The end result here is that we're going to have a constitutional crisis in the next couple of weeks, where a Democratic Congress wants to investigate a Republican White House's political involvement in this attorney purge. We may just see this scandal end up in the Supreme Court.

More to come.

Monday Schoolhouse Rock--Interjections

I thought I would try a new posting category here called Monday Schoolhouse Rock! Schoolhouse Rock was a series of short educational films highlighting such topics as grammer, mathematics, history, economics, science, and politics. They were shown on ABC in between the commercials on the Saturday morning cartoons between 1973 and 1986. The Schoolhouse Rock songs are certainly looked upon with nostalgia from the Generation X era (Yes, I'm a Gen Xer, having been born in 1965).

So I thought it would be fun to bring these short cartoons here for those Monday school/work blues. And the first one I'll start with is Interjections. The lyrics for all the Schoolhouse Rock songs can be found here. So, from YouTube:



Darn! That's the end!

Pressure building for Bush to fire Gonzales

This is off CBS News:

The fallout from the firings continues to grow in Washington, and sources tell CBS News that it looks like Attorney General Alberto Gonzales will take the fall.

Republicans close to the White House tell CBS News chief White House correspondent Jim Axelrod that President Bush is in "his usual posture: pugnacious, that no one is going to tell him who to fire." But sources also said Gonzales' firing is just a matter of time.

The White House is bracing for a weekend of criticism and more calls for Gonzales to go. One source tells CBS News he's never seen the administration in such deep denial, and Republicans are growing increasingly restless for the president to take action.

This story is interesting for two reasons. First, the Bush White House was caught firing these eight attorneys for political reasons. All the Bush PR-spin about how the attorneys had receiving bad performance reviews, it was the president's prerogative, or even claiming that President Clinton fired attorneys, turned out to be either outright lies, or complete falsifications.

The second important factor about this story is really Alberto Gonzales. The administration has been caught stacking the U.S. Attorney's Office with political appointees--especially in a way that circumvents the Senate's approval. Because of this, the scandal has taken a life of its own here. The Bush White House is unable to contain this scandal, not with the congressional Democrats issuing subpoenas to Bush administration officials in their own investigations. Gonzales was caught lying, under oath, to Congress. Gonzales assured the Senate Judiciary Committee in January that the eight replacement attorneys would be confirmed by the Senate. According to Gonzales:

I am fully committed, as the administration’s fully committed, to ensure that, with respect to every United States attorney position in this country, we will have a presidentially appointed, Senate-confirmed United States attorney.

And while assuring the Senate Judiciary Committee that that these replacement attorneys would be confirmed by the Senate, Gonzales had already testing the administration's newfound interim appointment powers by selecting Karl Rove's aid Tim Griffin to replace Bud Cummings. Gonzales is becoming the Bush administration's scapegoat for this scandal--perhaps also to protect Karl Rove. The problem here is that Gonzales is not just the attorney general here, but also a close, personal friend of President Bush. This makes it especially tough for a president, who both demands and provides a close personal loyalty to aids, to even fire Gonzales. This may be why Bush is in "his usual posture: pugnacious, that no one is going to tell him who to fire." But the bigger problem here with the Bush White House isn't that this attorney scandal can be defined as a conflict between congressional Democrats and the Republican White House--not when Republicans are now demanding Gonzales' head. So it becomes a question of time here. How long can the Bush White House stave off both Democratic and Republican demands for Gonzales' resignation, how long can they fight the congressional Democrats' subpoenas for documents and congressional testimony from Karl Rove and other officials on this scandal, and even continue its own domestic and foreign policy agenda while this latest scandal casts a dark, gray cloud over the Bush White House? Will President Bush be forced to make Gonzales a scapegoat on this scandal in order to protect Karl Rove?

More to come.

Valerie Plame testifies before Congress

Former CIA employee Valerie Plame Wilson appears at a House Oversight and Government Reform Committee hearing on Capitol Hill in Washington March 16, 2007. The hearing is on on whether White House officials followed appropriate procedures for safeguarding the identity of Wilson. REUTERS/Jason Reed (UNITED STATES)

A new twist came about in the Valerie Plame intelligence scandal when the the former CIA officer herself went to Capitol Hill to testify before the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform. Here is the New York Times coverage on the Plame testimony, the Washington Post's coverage, and MSNBC's coverage is here.

There are a couple of interesting details in Plame's testimony. The first is that she said she was a covert agent for the CIA. According to the Washington Post:

Plame calmly but firmly knocked down longstanding claims by administration allies that the disclosure was not criminal because she had not worked in a covert capacity.

"I am here to say I was a covert officer of the Central Intelligence Agency," Plame told House members, journalists and a smattering of antiwar activists. Her work, she said, "was not common knowledge on the Georgetown cocktail circuit."

Former CIA operative Valerie Plame testifies on Capitol Hill in Washington, Friday, March 16, 2007, before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee. (AP Photo/Dennis Cook)

Plame also gave more details regarding her involvement in sending her husband, Ambassador Joe Wilson, into Niger to investigate reports that Iraq was trying to purchase nuclear materials from that country. According to the WaPost:

Plame also provided the most detailed account to date of her role in a decision by the agency to dispatch her husband, former U.S. ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV, to Niger five years ago to assess reports that Iraq had sought to buy nuclear material from the African nation.

Rebutting an assertion by White House officials to reporters that she had sent her husband on the trip, Plame said one of her colleagues broached the idea after a call in early 2002 from Vice President Cheney's office seeking information about Iraqi activity in Niger. Plame said she "wasn't overjoyed" at the suggestion because a trip would leave her alone with their 2-year-old twins.

Still, she said, at the direction of her supervisor, she asked her husband whether he would come to CIA headquarters at Langley to discuss the possible trip and sent a quick e-mail about the prospect to the chief of the agency's counterproliferation division, where she worked.

"I did not suggest him," she said. "There was no nepotism involved. I didn't have the authority."

Now these details regarding the scandal have already been reported. But it is interesting to hear them from the former CIA agent's perspective. The information may not be new, but it does provide a unique historical context on this scandal. If there is any new information regarding this scandal that has yet to be revealed, it is probably in either Dick Cheney's office, or Karl Rove's office.

There are plenty of YouTube videos showing the Plame testimony. There is a three-part YouTube video showing the opening of Plame's testimony.

Here is Part One:



Here is Part Two:



And here is Part Three:



PoliticsTV has highlights of the Plame hearings here and here.

One final interesting note. This is off The New York Times:

The committee’s ranking Republican, Representative Thomas M. Davis III of Virginia, tried at the beginning of the hearing to pre-emptively label the event as meaningless. As if to underscore his point, he was one of only two of the 17 Republicans on the committee who bothered to show up.

Mr. Davis said that the investigation by a special counsel ended without anybody being charged with knowingly leaking the name of an undercover C.I.A. officer. The disclosure of Ms. Wilson’s identity, he said, was unintentional. (Mr. Libby was convicted of perjury, obstruction of justice and lying to the F.B.I.)

Friday’s episode, Mr. Davis added, was but a “media maelstrom,” an assessment no one quibbled with.

The Washington Post adds to Rep. Davis' snubbing of Plame with this quote:

The committee's ranking Republican, Rep. Thomas M. Davis III (Va.), sought to deflect blame from the administration. "This looks to me more like a CIA problem than a White House problem," Davis said. The agency should have made sure that White House officials who inquired about Plame knew that her position was classified, he said.

You have got to love the Republicans here. Not only are they still clinging to their excuse that the CIA was at fault here for Plame's exposure, but of the 17 Republicans on the committee, only Davis and Georgia Representative Lynn Westmoreland were the only committee Republicans that attended the hearing.

Karl Rove's fingers caught in the cookie jar--more thoughts on the U.S. attorney purge

I've been reading through news articles and the emails regarding the Bush administration's firings of the U.S. attorneys. For the past week, the stuff has been coming out so fast here. TPM Muckraker still has some of the best news coverage of this scandal. McClatchy has a good selection of articles for the mainstream news. There was even a huge document dump of White House emails to the public regarding this attorney purge. You can find the emails here in Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, and Part 4. You can find a list of the New York Times stories regarding the attorney purge here, and a list of the Washington Post stories here. For the best overall summary of this scandal today, you can check out Countdown with Keith Olbermann's story on Rove, and Gonzales. Olbermann's story on Rove has been posted on YouTube in two parts.

Here is Part One:



And here is Part Two:



So what happened? I think there was a convergence of two separate political events that created the genesis of this attorney purge. The first even was the complaints Rove received by state Republicans regarding the U.S. attorneys. What is interesting about this event is that the Bush White House was already politicizing the U.S. Attorney's office. You can view a study reporting this politicizing of the U.S. Attorney's office here. I have not gone through this study yet. But one thing I do recall back in 2005 has been the publication of GOP scandal after scandal. Duke Cunningham pleaded guilty to bribery charges in November, 2005. The Tom DeLay scandal started breaking out late August and early September of 2005. My first posting on the Jack Abramoff scandal was in June 2005, but the Abramoff scandal goes back to around August of 2004. And let us not also forget that there was an investigation looking into the Valerie Plame affair, and the intelligence failures leading up to the Bush administration's war in Iraq. These were the scandals that were battering the Bush White House at that time--the convergence of the second factor to contribute to the attorney purge. Now the Bush administration probably couldn't do anything regarding the investigations into the intelligence failures, but they could slow down the investigations into the corruption cases against the GOP congressional officials by purging the U.S. attorney's office. Even better yet, if you can selectively target certain attorney's offices with Bush loyalists, you can use them in future investigations against the Democrats--say, putting a Bushie into a U.S. attorney's office in Arkansas to look into any dirt that can be found and used against Senator Hillary Clinton during the 2008 presidential elections. And by stacking the U.S. Attorney's Office with even stronger Bush loyalists, gives the Bush administration even greater control of the Justice Department, and what investigations to pursue or abandon. It was complaints by state Republican officials, and the continuing GOP "culture of corruption," that prompted this idea of an attorney purge in the Bush White House.

Who first thought this attorney purge up? My guess is that Karl Rove first brought up the idea of a complete attorney purge, replacing them with Bush loyalists. This is speculation so far. But what is really important here is that an exchange of emails took place between Rove, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, and White House counsel Harriet Miers. This genesis of replacing all of the U.S. attorneys started in 2005, and was refined to selectively replace the eight U.S. attorneys near the end of 2006. What this scandal really shows is that the Bush administration systematically planned to politicized the entire U.S. Attorney's Office, and use that office for long-term Republican political goals. The Bush administration fired U.S. Attorney Carol Lam as a possible means to shut down the Duke Cunningham corruption investigation. The administration forced Arkansas U.S. Attorney Bud Cummings out to give the slot to Rove operative Timothy Griffin. U.S. Attorney for New Mexico David Iglesias was fired because he didn't pursue a corruption case against a state Democratic legislator hard enough to hand down indictments before the 2006 midterm election. The U.S. attorney for Washington state, John McKay was removed because he would not "convene a federal grand jury to investigate allegations of voter fraud in the [2004 governor's] race." There was even some speculation that Karl Rove was involved in a lawsuit contesting the election. The U.S. Attorney for Arizona, Paul Charlton, was forced to resign after "butting heads" with the Bush Justice Department over death penalty cases. But there is more here on Charlton. Apparently Charlton was also conducting two investigations into land deals involving Republican Representative Rick Renzi. So there are crass political reasons for the Bush White House to remove these attorneys. Even better yet, a small provision that was slipped into the Patriot Act allowed President Bush to appoint interim attorneys for an indefinite period of time and without Senate confirmation. It is a beautiful scam for the Bush White House to take complete political control of the U.S. Attorney's Office.

And it almost worked.

Friday Fun Stuff--A $1,000 Pizza!

For $1,000, you can chow down on this 12-inch caviar and lobster tail pizza. From MSNBC.

And no, it is not DiGiorno! This New York pizza comes topped with six types of caviar and a lobster tail--you can forget adding the anchovies on this 12-inch pie. From MSNBC.Com:

They say there's no pizza in the U.S. like New York City pizza, and Upper East Side restaurateur Nino Selimaj proves it. He's dishing up a specialty pie that should make his competitors green with envy.

Actually, it's Selimaj who is seeing green. He's charging $1,000 for a 12-inch pie.

And people are paying it!

“One for lunch yesterday, and one for dinner last night I sold. I just started yesterday,” Selimaj said during an appearance Thursday on TODAY.

Selimaj, who owns six New York City pizza restaurants, offers six types of caviar and lobster tail on the thin-crust pizza at Nino's Bellissima, which opened last month on Second Avenue. The caviar, a delicacy comprised of the roe of sturgeon and other salted fishes, is added along with other toppings, after the pie is baked.

“One thousand bucks for this pizza. How did you come up with this idea?” TODAY host Meredith Vieira asked.

“The idea came because I've been 29 years in this city,” Selimaj said. “It's a great city, maybe the greatest city on Earth. I believe we deserve something to show ... I wanted to be different.”

TODAY host Matt Lauer wanted to know if there's a way to sample what is believed to be the world’s most-expensive pizza without paying the full fare.

“So, can you just come in here and order a slice?” Lauer asked. “Here's 250 bucks, give me a slice?”

“No, I'm sorry,” Selimaj said, laughing.

With his production cost estimated at about $720 per pie, Selimaj may be laughing all the way to the bank.

Here is the Today Show video of this $1,000 pizza. I don't think they deliver.

Senate begins Iraq war debate

From left, Senators Joseph R. Biden Jr., Harry Reid, John Kerry, Carl Levin and Jack Reed after the procedural vote on the Iraq resolution today. Doug Mills/The New York Times.

This is off The New York Times:

WASHINGTON, March 14 — The Senate began an all-out debate today on a Democratic resolution calling for the withdrawal of most American troops from Iraq in 2008, with both Democrats and Republicans invoking the Constitution and America’s place in history.

“The way to succeed in Iraq is not to do more of the same,” said Senator Harry Reid of Nevada, the Democratic majority leader. “It is to change the mission and change the course.”

But Senator John McCain, a Republican of Arizona who backs an increase in troop strength in Iraq, said sponsors of the resolution “would not declare war, nor end it, as the Constitution provides, but micromanage it.”

“I ask my colleagues: is such micromanagement of warfare the responsibility of this body?”

The path to a full debate was cleared this morning, when the Senate voted, 89 to 9, not to block it. But the vote, set up on Tuesday when Republicans announced that they would not exercise their rights to stall consideration of the measure, is by no means indicative of support for the actual resolution.

Several Republican leaders said, in fact, that they would relish the debate, which they said would highlight the flaws and dangers of what they asserted was Democratic “micromanagement” of the war. Mr. McCain reiterated that theme today as he complained that the Democrats would “legislate our troops’ mission in midstream.”

But Senator Edward M. Kennedy, Democrat of Massachusetts, said a momentous choice was at hand. “History will judge us,” he said. “We can either continue down the president’s perilous path, or embrace a new direction.” To continue on the same road, he said, means “more American casualties, more death, and more destruction.”

What has happened here is that both political parties have decided that a debate on the Iraq war would be beneficial to both sides. The Democrats want to get the U.S. out of the war in Iraq. That is pretty straight forward. The Republicans, on the other hand, are hoping to use this debate to paint the congressional Democrats as micromanaging the Iraq war. Senator John McCain outlined the Republican position perfectly, claiming that the Democratic sponsors of these resolutions "would not declare war, nor end it, as the Constitution provides, but micromanage it. I ask my colleagues: is such micromanagement of warfare the responsibility of this body?" Excuse me Senator, but the Democrats are not "micromanaging" this Iraq war by introducing these resolutions. What the Democrats are doing with these resolutions is expressing the will of the American people. Just look at this latest CNN poll:

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Nearly six in ten Americans want to see U.S. troops leave Iraq either immediately or within a year, and more would rather have Congress running U.S. policy in the conflict than President Bush, according to a CNN poll out Tuesday.

Though support for Bush's decision to dispatch additional troops to Iraq grew to 37 percent -- up from 32 percent in a mid-January poll -- a slim majority of 52 percent say Congress should block funding for the new deployment.

The CNN poll was conducted Friday through Sunday by Opinion Research Corp. Pollsters interviewed 1,027 adults for the survey, which had a sampling error of plus or minus 3 percentage points.

And I've got more polls showing a majority of Americans wanting to get out of Iraq here, here, and here. If anything, Senator, you and the Republicans are now in the minority regarding your unwavering support for the Bush war in Iraq. The Democrats are simply trying to enforce the will of the American people here. And so, Senator, it will certainly be interesting to see just how badly the Senate Republicans are going to spin their own destructive political position on this issue.

And as I've said before, this debate is all about the 2008 elections. The Republicans really don't have any viable, political position to run on--especially after the six years of Bush administration's scandals, corruption, and the Iraq war disaster. And with the Bush administration demanding that the Republican Party marches in line with the administration's pro-war policy, as a means to salvage Bush's legacy, the Republicans are forced into this no-win situation. Hence, the Republicans are trying to paint the Democrats as wanting to lose the war in Iraq, as wanting to support the terrorists, and this latest micromanaging the war. It is all lies. But then again, there is nothing left of this Bush-controlled Republican Party but lies.

I didn't know Ronald McDonald was a martial arts expert....

I found this YouTube video off Shakespeare's Sister. All I can say is WTF?

I didn't know that old Ronald McDonald had picked up some of Bruce Lee's moves. From YouTube:

General refuses to apologize for calling homosexuality "immoral."

Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Gen. Peter Pace is shown at the Pentagon in Washington on Wednesday, March 7, 2007. Pace said Monday he considers homosexuality to be immoral and the military should not condone it by allowing gay soldiers to serve openly. (AP Photo/Charles Dharapak, FILE)

This is what happens when generals put their combat boots in their mouths. From MSNBC.com:

WASHINGTON - Senior aides to the chairman of the military Joint Chiefs of Staff said Tuesday that Marine Gen. Peter Pace won’t apologize for calling homosexuality immoral — an opinion that gay advocacy groups deplored.

In a newspaper interview Monday, Pace had likened homosexual acts to adultery and said the military should not condone it by allowing gays to serve openly in the armed forces.

“General Pace’s comments are outrageous, insensitive and disrespectful to the 65,000 lesbian and gay troops now serving in our armed forces,” the advocacy group Servicemembers Legal Defense Network said in a statement on its Web site.

The group has represented some of the thousands dismissed from the military for their sexual orientation.

Pace’s senior staff members said Tuesday that the general was expressing his personal opinion and did not intend to apologize. They spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not allowed to speak on the record.

[....]

In an interview Monday with the Chicago Tribune, Pace was asked about the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy that allows gays and lesbians to serve if they keep their sexual orientation private and don’t engage in homosexual acts.

Pace said he supports the policy, which became law in 1994 and prohibits commanders from asking about a person’s sexual orientation.

“I believe that homosexual acts between individuals are immoral and that we should not condone immoral acts,” Pace said in the audio recording of the interview posted on the Tribune’s Web site. “I do not believe that the armed forces of the United States are well served by a saying through our policies that it’s OK to be immoral in any way.”

Pace, a native of Brooklyn, N.Y., and a 1967 graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy, said he based his views on his upbringing.

“As an individual, I would not want (acceptance of gay behavior) to be our policy, just like I would not want it to be our policy that if we were to find out that so-and-so was sleeping with somebody else’s wife, that we would just look the other way, which we do not. We prosecute that kind of immoral behavior,” he said, according to the audio and a transcript released by his staff.

The newspaper said Pace did not address concerns raised by a 2005 government audit that showed some 10,000 troops, including more than 50 specialists in Arabic, have been discharged because of the policy.

You can find the audio of General Pace's comments here:

General, it doesn't matter whether you believe in homosexuality or not, whether you believe that homosexuality is immoral or not, or if you are a flaming gay. You keep your mouth shut to the press on this issue--Don't ask, don't tell. You say you support the current Pentagon policy regarding gays in the military and that is that. But General, you had to open your mouth. And now we've got another wonderful scandal to savor here.

General, you've got a problem here. Both the Army, and the National Guard forces are stretched thin to the point of breaking down. Like it or not, you need new recruits to replace the already worn-out soldiers that have served multiple tours in both Iraq and Afghanistan. If gays and lesbians want to serve their country by joining the military, then let them serve--heck, rescind the Pentagon's "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy and openly allow gays to serve in the military, if it helps increase military recruitment. You couldn't lose here.

Except when you opened your mouth.

Kiley resigns amid Walter Reed scandal

Army Surgeon General, Lt Gen. Kevin Kiley, testifies on Capitol Hill in Washington, Tuesday, March 6, 2007, before the Senate Armed Services Committee hearing on conditions at Walter Reed Army Medical Center. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh)

This is off CNN.Com:

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Lt. Gen. Kevin Kiley has lost his job as Army surgeon general, another casualty of the care scandal at Walter Reed Medical Center.

Acting Army Secretary Pete Geren asked for Kiley's resignation, and Secretary of Defense Robert Gates approved the action, a senior Pentagon official said.

In its official announcement, the Army said Kiley had requested retirement.

Kiley had been made temporary head of Walter Reed, the Army's top hospital, after Army Maj. Gen. George W. Weightman was ousted in the wake of a series in The Washington Post that found soldiers living in deplorable conditions.

However, he was quickly replaced by Gen. Eric Schoomaker amid criticism that Kiley, who was head of Walter Reed from 2000 to 2004, had been aware of the problems at the facility.

Secretary of the Army Francis Harvey, who had placed Kiley in temporary command of Walter Reed, resigned March 2 in wake of the scandal.

Kiley, who was also commanding general of Army Medical Command, submitted his request to retire on Sunday, the Army said in a news release.

Geren announced Kiley's request to retire and said Maj. Gen. Gale Pollock, current deputy surgeon general, will take over Kiley's duties until a permanent replacement can be named. That selection requires the approval of the president and confirmation in the Senate.

Kiley was in charge of Walter Reed when some of the worst of the hospital neglect of the veterans took place. He knew about the neglect since 2003. And let us not forget this famous example of Kiley's own ignorance and incompetence regarding the veterans' care:

In 2004, Rep. C.W. Bill Young (R-Fla.) and his wife stopped visiting the wounded at Walter Reed out of frustration. Young said he voiced concerns to commanders over troubling incidents he witnessed but was rebuffed or ignored. "When Bev or I would bring problems to the attention of authorities of Walter Reed, we were made to feel very uncomfortable," said Young, who began visiting the wounded recuperating at other facilities.

Beverly Young said she complained to Kiley several times. She once visited a soldier who was lying in urine on his mattress pad in the hospital. When a nurse ignored her, Young said, "I went flying down to Kevin Kiley's office again, and got nowhere. He has skirted this stuff for five years and blamed everyone else."

Goodbye and good riddance.

Conservative Award Winner is a Military Gay Porn Star!

This was on Wednesday, March 7, 2007, episode of Countdown with Keith Olbermann, but I have not had a chance to comment on it. I'm not even sure I know what to say about this story. So I'll show Olbermann's number one story for that day. From YouTube:



When I watched this story last Wednesday, I had the laugh at the absurdity of it. A Marine Reservist corporal becomes a darling of the GOP conservative movement for speaking out against some Columbia University anti-war protesters. He is interviewed on two Faux News programs--Hannity and Colmes, and The O'Reilly Factor. He is also presented an award at the CPAC conference, where he gets his picture taken with Ann Coulter. And now this same Marine Corps Reservist Corporal Matt Sanchez, for whom the GOP establishment seemed to fawn over and fall in love with, had his own secret life as a gay porn star? And let's not forget that the same Ann Coulter, who had a picture taken with gay porn star, Corporal Matt Sanchez, is also taking plenty of criticism for her own "faggot" insult towards Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards during a speech at the CPAC conference.Are the Republicans that stupid or that hypocritical? I honestly cannot say.

There is a lot of details on this story through Americablog, Firedog Lake, Joe.My.God, Think Progress, Max Blumenthal, Shakespeare's Sister, The Daily Kos, and Salon.com.

And finally, here's some pics and videos for you to muse on:

Here is Corporal Matt Sanchez taking the GOP fight against evil, liberal, Columbia University anti-war students on Hannity and Colmes:



And here is Corporal Matt Sanchez taking the GOP fight against the same, evil, liberal, Columbia University anti-war students with Bill O'Reilly:



For his heroic service to the GOP, Corporal Matt Sanchez was awarded the Jeane Kirkpatrick Academic Freedom Award at the CPAC conference, and got his picture taken:

Mild-mannered Marine Corporal Matt Sanchez hanging out with Ann Coulter at the CPAC conference. But when trouble arises from those evil, godless, anti-family, anti-Christian, anti-war liberals, mild-mannered Corporal Matt Sanchez ducks into the phone booth, and emerges as....

Rod Majors--Defender of GOP Family Values!

Take that, you evil, liberal Columbia U. anti-war students!

SOCK! POW! ZOCK! WHAP! BIFF! OOOF!

Another GOP Family Value has been saved, thanks to....Rod Majors!

Bush troop surge is getting bigger

Should we be surprised about this story? From ABC News:

WASHINGTON Mar 9, 2007 (AP)— President Bush's troop buildup in Baghdad apparently will be bigger and more costly and perhaps last longer than it seemed when he unveiled the plan in January as the centerpiece of a new Iraq strategy.

U.S. officials say it's too early to tell whether the troop reinforcements will succeed in containing the sectarian and insurgent violence, but it looks as though the Pentagon is preparing for an expanded commitment assuming that by summer there are solid signs that the extra effort is yielding significant results.

The Bush plan called for sending 21,500 extra U.S. combat troops to Iraq mainly to Baghdad with the last of five brigades arriving by June. The estimated price tag was $5.6 billion. Officials have refused to say exactly how long it would last, but Defense Secretary Robert Gates had suggested that it could be over by fall.

In recent days a different picture has emerged.

The total number of troops required for the plan, while still uncertain, is climbing. When Bush announced the boost of 21,500 combat troops, the Pentagon said still others would be required to go with them in support roles. Its initial estimate of 2,400 support troops has doubled and may go higher still.

The cost also is rising. Administration officials conferred with lawmakers this week about an extra $1 billion, on top of the original $5.6 billion. The actual cost depends on how long the troop reinforcement is sustained.

[....]

As of Thursday there were 141,000 U.S. troops in Iraq, according to the Pentagon. That includes two of the five Army brigades designated for the buildup. A third brigade is scheduled to arrive this month, another in April and the last one in May or June.

In addition, Gates said Wednesday that at least another 2,400 would be needed to support the extra combat forces. And he said Petraeus had added still another requirement about 2,200 more military police to help with an anticipated increase in detainees and for other duties.

Also, it was decided last month that an additional division headquarters 1,000 soldiers from the 3rd Infantry Division at Fort Stewart, Ga., should go in March to split Baghdad command and control duties with the 1st Cavalry Division headquarters. The 3rd Infantry headquarters was originally scheduled to go this summer.

Maj. Gen. Joseph Fil Jr., commander of the 1st Cavalry, said Feb. 16 he has requested additional attack helicopters, and Gates said Wednesday that other unspecified requests for extra troops were being studied at the Pentagon.

Gordon England, the deputy defense secretary, told Congress this week that the total number of support troops could approach 7,000.

So if I'm adding this up right, we need to include 7,000 support troops, 1,000 troops from the 3rd Infantry, 2,400 more combat troops, and 2,000 military police are needed to be added to the initial 21,500 combat troops slated for the Bush troop surge. And those 21,500 combat troops in the initial Bush surge were to be supported by 2,400 support troops. If you add these numbers up, you get a final troop surge of 36,300 U.S. forces that are going to be shipped out to Iraq. Add that to the 141,000 U.S. forces already in Iraq, and you get a final troop count of 177,300 troops (Please feel free to check my figures here).

In terms of money, the Bush administration estimated that the troop surge cost would be $5.6 billion. And now the administration officials are saying that it is going to cost an extra $1 billion on top of the original $5.6 billion. That makes the costs go up to $6.6 billion--let's add another billion or two on top of that costs. What the heck--we're fighting the terrorists over there so we won't have to be fighting them here! In fact, it will certainly cost another billion or two if we keep those troops there until September or longer, rather than until the summer as the Bush administration had planned for.

I can see that this latest Bush troop surge is going to be a rip-roaring failure.

Coulter's fallout--Newspapers are dropping Coulter's syndicated column

It has been an interesting week when looking at the fallout conservative columnist Ann Coulter has been receiving after her "faggot" comment against Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC). Since the commnet, seven newspapers have dropped Coulter's column. These papers are the The Lancaster New Era, The Oakland Press of Michigan, The Mountain Press of Sevierville, Tenn., The Times of Shreveport, La., The American Press in Lake Charles, La., The Sanford (N.C.) Herald, and The DeKalb Daily Chronicle in Illinois. Instead of a deluge of papers dropping Coulter's column in the wake of this controversial remark, we've been seeing the steady drip-drip of papers pulling out like that of a Chinese water torture. Executive editor of The Times of Shreveport, Louisiana, Alan English, wrote this statement regarding why his paper was dropping Coulter:

Today we move past the rhetoric and unproductive dialogue offered by Ann Coulter. The Times is dropping her column effective immediately.

It is her recent “joke” about John Edwards being considered a “faggot” that is the back-breaking straw for a decision we've openly discussed for some time. We had a dialogue with readers last year regarding whether Coulter was a responsible commentator and journalist.

Her repeated use of hyperbole in the call for the death of some journalists and politicians was beyond the pale. And while we all believe she was “just kidding,” her "shock-jock'' writing style is no different from Howard Stern's practical jokes and bathroom humor that aims to draw a school-yard snicker but falls well short of reasonable, thought-provoking journalism. Unlike the work of a Thomas Sowell or a Kathleen Parker, two thoughtful conservatives, does a Coulter column raise the level of discourse?

The answer: rarely.

No doubt some conservatives will lament the loss of their beloved Coulter, someone who made the joke they are too polite to make. Objections are expected, but please do not miss the continuation of outstanding conservative commentary by Cal Thomas and Jonah Goldberg that continues on our pages. Sure Michelle Malkin sometimes approaches a Coulter-style rant, but we don't recall any homicidal zingers.

We are committed to providing a balance in commentary, so Coulter will be replaced by another conservative voice. Our many local conservative voices from the community also will continual to be welcome on our pages. With Coulter's departure, we're not demanding commentary all dressed up in delicate finery. Forceful, direct, even bare-knuckled writers are welcome as long as they are tackling ideas or stances rather than making profane personal attacks.

Coulter's "shock-jock'' writing style is no different from Howard Stern's practical jokes and bathroom humor that aims to draw a school-yard snicker but falls well short of reasonable, thought-provoking journalism. I'll admit that there is a place for Coulter's "shock-jock" writing style, just as there is a place for Howard Stern's bathroom humor. But you don't see Howard Stern's bathroom humor being published on the editorial pages of the nation's newspapers. Ann Coulter's columns are. If Ann Coulter wants to continue calling John Edwards a faggot, endorse assassinating President Bill Clinton and Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens, accuse President Clinton of raping women, claim that 2006 Connecticut Democratic challenger, for the U.S. Senate, Ned Lamont supporters were "anti-American," accusing New York Senator Hillary Clinton of being gay, calling Vice President Al Gore a "total fag," President Clinton a "latent homosexual," and I can just go on adding more of Coulter's smears, baseless claims, distortions, and lies. If she wants to continue writing this crap, then fine--she can spout her trash in published books, or on a website, or perhaps even on the Republican Propaganda Channel, Faux News. But this type of sewage doesn't belong on the nation's editorial pages, any more than Howard Stern's crude bathroom jokes could be published in The New York Times, or aired on CNN. I'm not demanding legalized censorship against Coulter here--if a newspaper wants to publish her trash, then that is fine. But I'm not going to shed any tears if papers continue dropping her column because of these outrageous statements.

MSNBC: Gingrich admits having an affair in Clinton era

Former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich speaks at the 2007 Conservative Political Action Conference Saturday, March 3, 2007 in Washington. Gingrich acknowledged he was having an extramarital affair even as he led the charge against President Clinton over the Monica Lewinsky affair. (AP Photo/Kevin Wolf, FILE)

I just love Republican hypocrisy. This is off MSNBC News:

WASHINGTON - Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich was having an extramarital affair even as he led the charge against President Clinton over the Monica Lewinsky affair, he acknowledged in an interview with a conservative Christian group.

"The honest answer is yes," Gingrich, a potential 2008 Republican presidential candidate, said in an interview with Focus on the Family founder James Dobson to be aired Friday, according to a transcript provided to The Associated Press. "There are times that I have fallen short of my own standards. There's certainly times when I've fallen short of God's standards."

So while Newt was busily pushing the impeachment process on President Clinton for lying about his own affair with Monica Lewinsky, Gingrich was also happily enjoying a little extramarital-curricular activities--hey, impeaching a sitting president is hard work! I'll admit that the irony here is just incredible. But I can also accept that people can do some really stupid things here. That is what makes us human. And Newt Gingrich did a really stupid thing in having an extramarital affair while he was impeaching President Clinton for lying about having an extramarital affair.

But that is not what is so incredible about this story. Continuing with the MSNBC story:

Gingrich argued in the interview, however, that he should not be viewed as a hypocrite for pursuing Clinton's infidelity.

"The president of the United States got in trouble for committing a felony in front of a sitting federal judge," the former Georgia congressman said of Clinton's 1998 House impeachment on perjury and obstruction of justice charges. "I drew a line in my mind that said, 'Even though I run the risk of being deeply embarrassed, and even though at a purely personal level I am not rendering judgment on another human being, as a leader of the government trying to uphold the rule of law, I have no choice except to move forward and say that you cannot accept ... perjury in your highest officials."

This is just outrageous! Newt Gingrich should not be viewed as a hypocrite for impeaching President Clinton on lying about having a sexual affair, when Gingrich himself was having his own sexual affair, because Clinton had lied to a federal judge about the affair. Gingrich was "not rendering judgment on another human being," but rather judging Clinton as a government official. Talk about hypocrisy here! The reason Clinton ended up lying about his sexual relations was because of the endless Republican investigations during his presidency. The Republicans wanted to take down Clinton in any way they could. They started the endless investigations into Whitewater, Filegate, Travelgate, and even the Vince Foster suicide. It was only after Monica Lewinsky started talking to Linda Tripp about her affair with Clinton, that this whole mess ended up into Ken Starr's lap. And the Republicans had their smoking gun to not only smear Clinton with the Starr Report, but also to embark on removing Clinton through impeachment. Excuse me Newt, but you were so bent on taking down President Clinton, that you, and your GOP ilk, would submerge yourselves into the slime of investigating Clinton's personal affairs. You could not accept the fact that Bill Clinton was a successful Democratic president. You had to find a way to remove Clinton. Even better yet, if you could have forced Clinton out on impeachment, then Vice President Al Gore would become president and be under tremendous pressure to pardon Clinton--something you could then use as a means to impeach Gore, and make the Speaker of the House president. And that Speaker of the House would have been you Mr. Gingrich. Was that your political plan?

Either way, it was all old news. What is new here is the resurfacing of your own hypocrisy regarding the Clinton impeachment proceedings. I could care less if you, Mr. Gingrich, had one affair, or a thousand affairs while you were Speaker of the House during the Clinton years, and even when you were embarking on the impeachment proceedings against Clinton. That is politics. But don't give me this bull crap about how you were correct in impeaching Clinton because he lied about having sex without looking down into your own, stained pants. You, and the entire Republican right-wing conspiracy could have ended the Starr investigation without looking into Bill Clinton's pants. But you didn't. You could have ended the Clinton sex scandal with the publication of the Starr Report, and even a censure of the president. But you didn't. You wanted to remove Clinton from office. You are just as responsible for creating this sordid mess as Clinton was in engaging in such behavior.

Mr. Gingrich--You are a hypocrite!