Pulse

2006-03-27T22:54:00.000-08:00

Dirty Bomb Slipped Across the Border

Undercover investigators bought radioactive ingredients needed to make a dirty bomb and drove them into the USA past border security agents, a government report said Monday.

The report by the Government Accountability Office, the watchdog arm of Congress, said that investigators put radioactive material in the trunks of cars and drove to Canadian and Mexican border checkpoints on Dec. 14, 2005. When Homeland Security radiation detectors went off, the investigators gave Customs and Border Protection agents fake government licenses and receipts.

Agents searched the cars, reviewed the documents and ultimately gave the undercover officers the OK to bring the material into the USA, according to the report, filed as part of a border-security probe. Full story.

2006-03-01T18:01:00.000-08:00

This frame taken from secure government video obtained by The Associated Press shows then-Federal Emergency Management Agency chief Michael Brown, center, at the Homeland Secuirty EOC (emergency operations center) in Washington, Aug. 28, 2005, taking part in a government video briefing the day before Hurricane Katrina struck on Aug. 29. [AP Photo]

OUTRAGE! THEY KNEW!
Tape: Bush, Chertoff Warned Before Katrina

In dramatic and sometimes agonizing terms, federal disaster officials warned President Bush and his homeland security chief before Hurricane Katrina struck that the storm could breach levees, put lives at risk in New Orleans' Superdome and overwhelm rescuers, according to confidential video footage.

Bush didn't ask a single question during the final briefing before Katrina struck on Aug. 29, but he assured soon-to-be-battered state officials: "We are fully prepared."

The footage - along with seven days of transcripts of briefings obtained by The Associated Press - show in excruciating detail that while federal officials anticipated the tragedy that unfolded in New Orleans and elsewhere along the Gulf Coast, they were fatally slow to realize they had not mustered enough resources to deal with the unprecedented disaster.

Linked by secure video, Bush expressed a confidence on Aug. 28 that starkly contrasted with the dire warnings his disaster chief and numerous federal, state and local officials provided during the four days before the storm. Full story.

VIEW THE VIDEO HERE.

2006-02-22T18:00:00.000-08:00

DUH!
Bush Unaware of Ports Deal Before Approval

President Bush was unaware of the pending sale of shipping operations at six major U.S. seaports to a state-owned business in the United Arab Emirates until the deal already had been approved by his administration, the White House said Wednesday. Full story.

2006-02-22T16:36:00.000-08:00

Doctors Euthanized Patients
as Katrina Destroyed New Orleans

Just after Hurricane Katrina devastated New Orleans rumors circulated that at least one hospital had euthanized patients during the mayhem. LifeSiteNews.com reported in September 2005, that an unnamed doctor admitted to a UK newspaper that such activities had taken place at Memorial Medical Center (http://www.lifesite.net/ldn/2005/sep/05091205.html ). In October another doctor at the hospital confirmed in a CNN interview that he suspected such activities and admitted he left the hospital saying he would rather abandon patients than actively kill them. (see coverage: http://www.lifesite.net/ldn/2005/oct/05101303.html ) Later in October hospital workers were subpoenaed for an investigation (http://www.lifesite.net/ldn/2005/oct/05102806.html ). Full story.

2006-02-14T00:46:00.000-08:00

YOU CAN'T MAKE UP THIS STUFF

2006-02-12T23:03:00.000-08:00

"Shhhh! We're hunting Wepubwican Wawyers."

Vice President Dick Cheney speaks to reporters at the bedside of the man he "accidentally" shot this weekend while on a hunting trip in Texas (full story).

Why Isn't A VP Shooting

A Story Of Some Significance?

Leave it to Greg Mitchell over at Editor and Publisher tonight to ask how can it not be a big story when the Vice President shoots someone, even accidentally? And yet, if it hadn’t been for the ranch owner calling her friend at the local paper this morning and letting him know about it, this story wouldn’t have even come out today because the White House was willing to let it go unreported until the local paper went with it. The local sheriff was willing to let the Secret Service sweep this under the rug, like a Jenna and not-Jenna chugging contest.

What were they afraid of? The embarrassment of Cheney looking stupid, reckless, or perhaps being drunk as a skunk? The fact that his idea of hunting is like his idea of liberating countries? Revealing who else was on that hunting party? Or is something else at play here? And why did Bush sit on this, despite being told on Saturday after it happened? Full story.

2006-02-09T14:08:00.000-08:00

Odd, How the Details Are Announced
as Bush Is Busy Defending Domestic Spying
Hmmmm... Could It Be Politics?

President Bush gave details Thursday of a 2002 al-Qaida hijack plot to strike the tallest building in L.A. that he says was thwarted by U.S. and allies anti-terror efforts.

Revealing newly declassified details, the president told a National Guard audience that the plot was hatched by Khalid Sheik Mohammed, the mastermind of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks captured in Pakistan in 2003.

According to Bush, Mohammed recruited volunteers from Southeast Asia to hijack a plane using a shoe bomb. The target was the US Bank Tower, then known as Library Tower.

Bush said the plot was broken up after a raid by a Southeast Asian country he didn't name.

The raid is one of many reasons al-Qaida is badly "weakened" and "fractured," Bush said.

Bush has referred to the plot before, but he provided more specifics details Thursday. Full Story.

The Threat to Library Tower
Has Been Well-Known

Here's a link from LAObserved.com of Oct. 7, 2005 to the Los Angeles Times of March 31, 2004: Click here.

2006-02-03T14:25:00.000-08:00

FROM ROLLING STONE:
I Don't Care What Your Opinion Is, As Long as It Is the Same as Mine

The same day Capitol police made the "mistake" of arresting Cindy Sheehan and booted the wife of a GOP representative for wearing anti- and pro- war T-Shirts to the State of the Union address, all six members of the Joint Chiefs of Staff -- 24 stars worth of the nation's top military commanders -- wrote to the Washington Post decrying the publication of "A Reprehensible Cartoon" by Tom Toles, a Pulitzer winner widely regarded as the best editorial cartoonist in the biz.

Apparently we're on a slippery slope with our Bill of Rights these days. First, the president claims his constitutional authority overrides the 4th Amendment's guarantees against unwarranted searches, now, our nation's top military generals and Capitol police feel warranted in squelching free expression.

This reminds me of something . . . What was it? Oh yeah, the nutball Islamists who are going all "Satanic Verses" on the Danish cartoonist and European newspapers who dared to publish these illustrations of Mohammed with devil horns and a bomb for a head. Full story.

2006-01-23T21:54:00.000-08:00

CONSERVATIVE MAGAZINE:

Impeachment Hearings:
The White House Prepares
for the Worst

The Bush administration is bracing for impeachment hearings in Congress. "A coalition in Congress is being formed to support impeachment," an administration source said.

Sources said a prelude to the impeachment process could begin with hearings by the Senate Judiciary Committee in February. They said the hearings would focus on the secret electronic surveillance program and whether Mr. Bush violated the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.

Administration sources said the charges are expected to include false reports to Congress as well as Mr. Bush's authorization of the National Security Agency to engage in electronic surveillance inside the United States without a court warrant. This included the monitoring of overseas telephone calls and e-mail traffic to and from people living in the United States without requisite permission from a secret court. Full story.

2006-01-14T02:18:00.000-08:00

Doug Thompson:
Bush Could Seize
Absolute Control of U.S. Government
President George W. Bush has signed executive orders giving him sole authority to impose martial law, suspend habeas corpus and ignore the Posse Comitatus Act that prohibits deployment of U.S. troops on American streets. This would give him absolute dictatorial power over the government with no checks and balances. Full story.

2006-01-04T17:16:00.000-08:00

FROM TVNEWSER:
O'Reilly & Letterman Find Something To Agree On (Barely)

Bill O'Reilly and David Letterman disagreed about everything else on last night's Late Show, but they did find a little bit of common ground: "Support the troops." It came during their conversation about Cindy Sheehan:

O'REILLY: This is important. Cindy Sheehan lost a son, professional soldier
in Iraq. Correct? She's allowed to grieve any way she wants. She has the right
to say whatever she wants. When she says to the public that the insurgents and
terrorists are freedom fighters, how do you think, David Letterman, that makes
people who lost loved ones by these people blowing the hell out of them, how do
you think they feel, what about their feelings?

LETTERMAN: What about, why are we there in the first place? The President
himself said less than a month ago said we are there because of a mistake made
in intelligence. Well, whose intelligence? Somebody got off a bus and handed it
to him? It's the intelligence gathered by his administration. So why are we
there in the first place. I agree with you. We have to support the troops,
they're there. They're the best and the brightest of this country. And I also
agree, now that we're in it, it's going to take a long time. People who expected
it to be solved or wrapped up in a couple of years...unrealistic. It's not going
to happen. However, however, that doesn't eliminate the legitimate speculation
and concern and questioning when they hell are we there to begin with.

TV Squad and Newsmax have posted recaps of the duel. Crooks & Liars has video...

2005-12-31T15:45:00.000-08:00

Obsessive Bush Has Spent 365 Days Hacking Brush on His Ranch

On most of the 365 days he has enjoyed at his secluded ranch here, President Bush's idea of paradise is to hop in his white Ford pickup truck in jeans and work boots, drive to a stand of cedars, and whack the trees to the ground.

If the soil is moist enough, he will light a match and burn the wood. If it is parched, as it is across Texas now, the wood will sit in piles scattered over the 1,600-acre spread until it is safe for a ranch hand to torch -- or until the president can come home and do the honors himself.

Sometimes this activity is the only official news to come out of what aides call the Western White House. For five straight days since Monday, when Bush retreated to the ranch for his Christmas sojourn, a spokesman has announced that the president, in between intelligence briefings, calls to advisers and bicycling, has spent much of his day clearing brush.

This might strike many Washingtonians as a curious pastime. It does burn a lot of calories. But brush clearing is dusty, it is exhausting (the president goes at it in 100 degree-plus heat), and it is earsplitting, requiring earplugs to dull the chain saw's buzz.

For Bush, who is known to spend early-morning hours hacking at unwanted mesquite, cocklebur weeds, hanging limbs and underbrush only to go back for more after lunch, it borders on obsession. Full story.

2005-12-27T17:11:00.000-08:00

Conservative Barron's
Calls for Impeachment of Bush

"Willful disregard of a law is potentially an impeachable offense. It is at least as impeachable as having a sexual escapade under the Oval Office desk and lying about it later. The members of the House Judiciary Committee who staged the impeachment of President Clinton ought to be as outraged at this situation. They ought to investigate it, consider it carefully and report either a bill that would change the wiretap laws to suit the president or a bill of impeachment.

"It is important to be clear that an impeachment case, if it comes to that, would not be about wiretapping, or about a possible Constitutional right not to be wiretapped. It would be about the power of Congress to set wiretapping rules by law, and it is about the obligation of the president to follow the rules in the Acts that he and his predecessors signed into law."

Read the full editorial commentary HERE.

2005-12-27T17:04:00.000-08:00

Bush Was Denied Wiretaps,
So He Bypassed Court

U.S. President George Bush decided to skip seeking warrants for international wiretaps because the court was challenging him at an unprecedented rate.

A review of Justice Department reports to Congress by Hearst newspapers shows the 26-year-old Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court modified more wiretap requests from the Bush administration than the four previous presidential administrations combined. Full story.

2005-12-27T14:07:00.000-08:00

YIKES!
We've Been Scammed
The UMass Dartmouth student who claimed to have been visited by Homeland Security agents over his request for "The Little Red Book" by Mao Zedong has admitted to making up the entire story. Full story.

2005-12-21T22:39:00.000-08:00

2005-12-20T17:57:00.000-08:00

[President Bush is] the first President

to admit an impeachable offense.

--John Dean, former Nixon White House counsel,

was charged with obstruction of justice

and spent four months in prison

for his role in the Watergate cover-up.

2005-12-18T22:40:00.000-08:00

TIME TO IMPEACH
Yadda, Yadda, Yadda...
Too Late to Salvage the Situation

The last time President Bush delivered a prime-time address from the Oval Office was the night he launched the invasion of Iraq in March 2003, back when he expected a decisive victory and gratitude from a liberated people. Thirty-three months and more than 2,100 U.S. fatalities later, Bush last night was still predicting victory -- but sounding a more subdued note.

As he stared again into the cameras from behind the 125-year-old presidential desk named Resolute, Bush this time found himself arguing with those who "conclude that the war is lost." The president who enjoyed strong public support as he fired the first missiles at Baghdad was by last night chastened by the subsequent travails on the battlefield abroad and the political freefall at home.

"This work has been especially difficult in Iraq -- more difficult than we expected," Bush acknowledged. "Reconstruction efforts and the training of Iraqi security forces started more slowly than we hoped. We continue to see violence and suffering, caused by an enemy that is determined and brutal, unconstrained by conscience or the rules of war."

For a president traditionally resistant to acknowledging miscues, such a concession amounts to a stark political change of course. As more of the country abandons him on Iraq, Bush has embarked on a campaign to bring the war back into the fold with a more realistic assessment of mistakes and of challenges ahead. Last night's national address from the Oval Office ended a two-week series of speeches by imploring the American people to stand behind him, to swallow their skepticism and take hope from last week's Iraqi election, to believe that a greater good will come from the sacrifice. Full story.

2005-12-18T17:53:00.000-08:00

Bush Defends Eavesdropping as Defense Against Terrorism

He vows to continue the newly acknowledged domestic program despite mounting criticism, even from within his own party.

President Bush, facing fresh criticism about how he has waged the war on terrorism, acknowledged Saturday that after the Sept. 11 attacks he authorized a secret eavesdropping program in the U.S. that operates without court warrants.

He said the program was vital to saving American lives and that he had no intention of stopping it.

In an unusual live radio broadcast from the White House, he detailed what he described as a "highly classified" program to root out terrorists. He defended the surveillance plan as legal, saying his authority to approve it came from his constitutional powers as commander in chief. Full story.

Legality of Wiretaps Remains in Question

GOP Ranks Breaking Over Bush's Tactics

Secret Program Is 'Critical to Saving American Lives'

2005-12-18T17:43:00.000-08:00

What Have You Been Reading?
Federal Agents Want to Know

A senior at UMass Dartmouth was visited by federal agents two months ago, after he requested a copy of Mao Tse-Tung's tome on Communism called "The Little Red Book."

Two history professors at UMass Dartmouth, Brian Glyn Williams and Robert Pontbriand, said the student told them he requested the book through the UMass Dartmouth library's interlibrary loan program.

The student, who was completing a research paper on Communism for Professor Pontbriand's class on fascism and totalitarianism, filled out a form for the request, leaving his name, address, phone number and Social Security number. He was later visited at his parents' home in New Bedford by two agents of the Department of Homeland Security, the professors said.

The professors said the student was told by the agents that the book is on a "watch list," and that his background, which included significant time abroad, triggered them to investigate the student further.

"I tell my students to go to the direct source, and so he asked for the official Peking version of the book," Professor Pontbriand said. "Apparently, the Department of Homeland Security is monitoring inter-library loans, because that's what triggered the visit, as I understand it." Full story.

2005-12-18T16:36:00.000-08:00

QUICK HITS

Kansas City Star: “The Struggle With Foreign Enemies Does Not Simply Give Him A Blank Check”…
Denver Post: Adm. Has Lost “Balance Between Essential Anti-Terrorism Tools And Encroachment On Liberties”…
LA Times: “Stunning,” “One Of The More Egregious Cases Of Governmental Overreach”…
Wash. Post: “The Tools Of Foreign Intelligence Are Not Consistent With A Democratic Society”…
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette: “Unacceptable Actions Of A Police State”…
St. Petersburg Times: “So Dangerously Ill-Conceived And Contrary To This Nation's Guiding Principles”…
NY Times: Bush “Secretly And Recklessly Expanded The Govt.'s Powers In Dangerous And Unnecessary Ways”…

--Huffington Post

2005-12-16T17:23:00.000-08:00

DID YOU HEAR THAT CLICK?
We're Just Shocked,
Shocked I Say...

Dismayed lawmakers demanded on Friday that Congress look into whether the highly secretive National Security Agency was granted new powers to eavesdrop without warrants on people inside the United States.

"There is no doubt that this is inappropriate," declared Republican Sen. Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee. He promised hearings early next year.

President Bush refused to discuss whether he had authorized such domestic spying, saying to comment would tie his hands in fighting terrorists.

Nor would other officials confirm or deny whether the nation's largest spy agency was permitted to gather communications from Americans under a presidential directive signed in 2002.
Instead, they asserted in careful terms that the president would do everything in his power to protect the American people while safeguarding civil liberties. Full story.

2005-12-16T17:15:00.000-08:00

PATROT ACT BLOCKED
Senators Just Say No!

In a stinging defeat for President Bush, Senate Democrats blocked passage Friday of a new Patriot Act to combat terrorism at home, depicting the measure as a threat to the constitutional liberties of innocent Americans.

Republicans spurned calls for a short-term measure to prevent the year-end expiration of law enforcement powers first enacted in the anxious days after Sept. 11, 2001. "The president will not sign such an extension," said Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn., and lawmakers on each side of the issue blamed the other for congressional gridlock on the issue. Full story.

2005-12-15T21:44:00.000-08:00

TIME TO IMPEACH
BUSH ORDERED WIRETAPS
WITHOUT WARRANTS

Months after the Sept. 11 attacks, President Bush secretly authorized the National Security Agency to eavesdrop on Americans and others inside the United States to search for evidence of terrorist activity without the court-approved warrants ordinarily required for domestic spying, according to government officials.

Under a presidential order signed in 2002, the intelligence agency has monitored the international telephone calls and international e-mail messages of hundreds, perhaps thousands, of people inside the United States without warrants over the past three years in an effort to track possible "dirty numbers" linked to Al Qaeda, the officials said. The agency, they said, still seeks warrants to monitor entirely domestic communications.

The previously undisclosed decision to permit some eavesdropping inside the country without court approval represents a major shift in American intelligence-gathering practices, particularly for the National Security Agency, whose mission is to spy on communications abroad. As a result, some officials familiar with the continuing operation have questioned whether the surveillance has stretched, if not crossed, constitutional limits on legal searches. Full story.

2005-12-14T17:40:00.000-08:00

DANGER WILL ROBINSON! DANGER!
House Approves Extension
of USA Patriot Act

The House easily approved renewing a modified USA Patriot Act on Wednesday, but with the bill facing a Senate filibuster, its Republican leader began talks with the White House on instead extending the current law unchanged for a year.

The House voted 251-174 to approve a House-Senate compromise that would modify and make permanent most of the Patriot Act's 16 expiring provisions. But a group of Republican and Democratic senators is lobbying for more time to add additional safeguards on the law.

President Bush urged against any delay in Senate action. "The Patriot Act is essential to fighting the war on terror and preventing our enemies from striking America again," he said in a statement. "In the war on terror, we cannot afford to be without this law for a single moment."

Facing a threatened filibuster, Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn., was talking with White House officials about a one-year extension of the current law without any changes, a senior Republican aide said. Full story.

2005-12-14T17:12:00.000-08:00

SHADES OF THE '60s
Pentagon Spying on Quakers...
Perhaps You, Too

A year ago, at a Quaker Meeting House in Lake Worth, Fla., a small group of activists met to plan a protest of military recruiting at local high schools. What they didn't know was that their meeting had come to the attention of the U.S. military.

A secret 400-page Defense Department document obtained by NBC News lists the Lake Worth meeting as a “threat” and one of more than 1,500 “suspicious incidents” across the country over a recent 10-month period.

“This peaceful, educationally oriented group being a threat is incredible,” says Evy Grachow, a member of the Florida group called The Truth Project.

“This is incredible,” adds group member Rich Hersh. “It's an example of paranoia by our government,” he says. “We're not doing anything illegal.”

The Defense Department document is the first inside look at how the U.S. military has stepped up intelligence collection inside this country since 9/11, which now includes the monitoring of peaceful anti-war and counter-military recruitment groups. Full story and Video.

2005-12-11T16:53:00.000-08:00

VIVE LA FRANCE!
French Told CIA of Bogus Intelligence
The foreign spy service warned the U.S. various times before the war that there was no proof Iraq sought uranium from Niger, ex-officials say.

More than a year before President Bush declared in his 2003 State of the Union speech that Iraq had tried to buy nuclear weapons material in Africa, the French spy service began repeatedly warning the CIA in secret communications that there was no evidence to support the allegation.

The previously undisclosed exchanges between the U.S. and the French, described in interviews last week by the retired chief of the French counterintelligence service and a former CIA official, came on separate occasions in 2001 and 2002.

The French conclusions were reached after extensive on-the-ground investigations in Niger and other former French colonies, where the uranium mines are controlled by French companies, said Alain Chouet, the French former official. He said the French investigated at the CIA's request. Full story.

2005-12-10T14:22:00.000-08:00

Sen. Eugene McCarthy, D-Minn., is shown in this March 12, 1968 file photo as he talks to campaign workers and the press at his Bedford, N.H. campaign headquarters. McCarthy, 89. died in his sleep Saturday, Dec. 10, 2005 in Washington. (AP Photo/ File)

Former Sen. Eugene McCarthy, 89, Dies

Former Minnesota Sen. Eugene J. McCarthy, whose insurgent campaign toppled a sitting president in 1968 and forced the Democratic Party to take seriously his message against the Vietnam War, died Saturday. He was 89.

Although he supported the Korean War, McCarthy said he opposed the Vietnam War because "as it went on, you could tell the people running it didn't know what was going on."

On his 85th birthday in 2001, McCarthy told the Star Tribune of Minneapolis that President Bush was an amateur and said he could not even bear to watch his inauguration.

In an interview a month before the 2003 invasion of Iraq, McCarthy compared the Bush administration with the characters in the William Golding novel "Lord of the Flies," in which a group of boys stranded on an island turn to savagery.

"The bullies are running it," McCarthy said. "Bush is bullying everything." Full story.

2005-12-10T13:12:00.000-08:00

TIME TO IMPEACH
Bush on the Constitution:
'It's Just a Goddamned Piece of Paper'

Last month, Republican Congressional leaders filed into the Oval Office to meet with President George W. Bush and talk about renewing the controversial USA Patriot Act.

Several provisions of the act, passed in the shell shocked period immediately following the 9/11 terrorist attacks, caused enough anger that liberal groups like the American Civil Liberties Union had joined forces with prominent conservatives like Phyllis Schlafly and Bob Barr to oppose renewal.

GOP leaders told Bush that his hardcore push to renew the more onerous provisions of the act could further alienate conservatives still mad at the President from his botched attempt to nominate White House Counsel Harriet Miers to the Supreme Court.

“I don’t give a goddamn,” Bush retorted. “I’m the President and the Commander-in-Chief. Do it my way.”

“Mr. President,” one aide in the meeting said. “There is a valid case that the provisions in this law undermine the Constitution.”

“Stop throwing the Constitution in my face,” Bush screamed back. “It’s just a goddamned piece of paper!” Full story.

2005-12-02T21:49:00.000-08:00

WHY DID WE BELIEVE HIM?
How U.S. Fell Under
the Spell of 'Curveball'
The Iraqi informant's German handlers say they had told U.S. officials that his information was 'not proven,' and were shocked when President Bush and Colin L. Powell used it in key prewar speeches.

The German intelligence officials responsible for one of the most important informants on Saddam Hussein's suspected weapons of mass destruction say that the Bush administration and the CIA repeatedly exaggerated his claims during the run-up to the war in Iraq.

Five senior officials from Germany's Federal Intelligence Service, or BND, said in interviews with The Times that they warned U.S. intelligence authorities that the source, an Iraqi defector code-named Curveball, never claimed to produce germ weapons and never saw anyone else do so.

According to the Germans, President Bush mischaracterized Curveball's information when he warned before the war that Iraq had at least seven mobile factories brewing biological poisons.

Then-Secretary of State Colin L. Powell also misstated Curveball's accounts in his prewar presentation to the United Nations on Feb. 5, 2003, the Germans said.

Curveball's German handlers for the last six years said his information was often vague, mostly secondhand and impossible to confirm. "This was not substantial evidence," said a senior German intelligence official. "We made clear we could not verify the things he said." Full story.

2005-12-02T19:21:00.000-08:00

WHY DO WE STILL TRUST THEM?
Attack in Gulf of Tonkin
Never Occurred, Analysis Says

A spy-agency analysis released Thursday contends a second attack on U.S. ships in the Gulf of Tonkin never happened, casting further doubt on the leading rationale for escalation of the Vietnam War.

''The parallels between the faulty intelligence on Tonkin Gulf and the manipulated intelligence used to justify the Iraq war make it all the more worthwhile to re-examine the events of August 1964 in light of new evidence,'' said researcher John Prados. Full story.

2005-12-01T21:03:00.000-08:00

FROM ROMENESKO:
Five Pundits Who Should Be Held Responsible for Iraq Debacle
Broward-Palm Beach New Times

Bob Norman lists them:

Thomas Friedman: "He's like a mouse on a sinking ship, running from nook to nook as the water comes to flood his excuses."

Jim Hoagland: "This is sort of the Post's version of Judith Miller, only he gets more leeway because he's an op-ed columnist. ... Hoagland, to his great detriment, forged a too-close, 30-year friendship with Ahmad Chalabi. It obviously skewed the man's logic."

Kingsley Guy: "I put Guy's name here only because he runs the Sun-Sentinel's editorial page, where numerous unsigned and unintelligible commentaries have appeared regarding Iraq."

Nicholas Kristof: "Here's my advice to Mr. Kristof: Stop trying to fly with the hawks. They're smarter and meaner than you are. If you're a dove, be a damned dove."

Jeffrey Goldberg: "I think Vanity Fair writer James Wolcott got it right when he described Goldberg's prose as 'neocon propaganda and scaremongering disseminated under the guise of reporting.'" Full story.

2005-11-30T20:03:00.000-08:00

Quicks Hits

SEYMOUR HERSH: "Up in the Air"

"The Man Who Sold the War", Meet John Rendon, Bush's general in the propaganda war

U.S. & Coalition/Casualties

Pentagon Admits to Using White Phosphorus as a Weapon

2005-11-30T19:38:00.000-08:00

WHY ARE WE NOT SURPRISED?
U.S. Military Covertly Pays
to Run Stories in Iraqi Press
Troops write articles presented as news reports. Some officers object to the practice.

As part of an information offensive in Iraq, the U.S. military is secretly paying Iraqi newspapers to publish stories written by American troops in an effort to burnish the image of the U.S. mission in Iraq.

The articles, written by U.S. military "information operations" troops, are translated into Arabic and placed in Baghdad newspapers with the help of a defense contractor, according to U.S. military officials and documents obtained by the Los Angeles Times. Full story.

2005-11-30T19:35:00.000-08:00

You Can Stay 2 More Weeks... Then, Get Out!

The Department of Homeland Security's Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) announced today a two-week extension of the deadline for termination of FEMA's hotel program for evacuees from Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. Upon application by the Governor, FEMA will further extend the termination deadline for the 10 states with the highest concentration of evacuees through Jan. 7, 2006. Full Story.

2005-11-22T10:55:00.000-08:00

Louisiana Sees
Faded Urgency in Relief Effort

Less than three months after Hurricane Katrina ravaged New Orleans, relief legislation remains dormant in Washington and despair is growing among officials here who fear that Congress and the Bush administration are losing interest in their plight.

As evidence, the state and local officials cite an array of stalled bills and policy changes they say are crucial to rebuilding the city and persuading some of its hundreds of thousands of evacuated residents to return, including measures to finance long-term hurricane protection, revive small businesses and compensate the uninsured. Full story.

2005-11-11T21:17:00.000-08:00

A Month After Pledge, FEMA Has Yet to Reopen No-Bid Katrina Contracts

Despite a month-old pledge, the Federal Emergency Management Agency has yet to reopen four of its biggest no-bid contracts for Hurricane Katrina work and won't do so until the contracts are virtually complete. A promise to hire more minority-owned firms also is largely unfulfilled.

The no-bid contracts for temporary housing, worth up to $100 million each, were given to Shaw Group Inc., Bechtel Corp., CH2M Hill Inc. and Fluor Corp. right after Katrina struck. Charges of favoritism helped prompt last month's pledge by FEMA acting director R. David Paulison, but now officials with the Homeland Security Department, which oversees FEMA, say the contracts won't be awarded again until February. Full story.

2005-11-11T20:22:00.000-08:00

ANGUISH: In an interview in 2002, Bruce Sommer said the face in his sketch was loosely patterned after the facial expression of a woman kneeling beside a dead student in a famous photo of the Kent State protests. But some Vietnam veterans look at the piece and see themselves.

Portrait of a Veteran's Grief

When Bruce Sommer returned to Minnesota from the Vietnam War in 1971, he did not find the refuge that he sought.

Instead of parades, there were marches. Instead of accolades, the Marine sergeant who volunteered for an extended tour felt blame. While he was away, his world had turned upside down. Protests, pollution and graft dominated the news.

So he hunkered down in his mother's basement in Fridley, where he poured a multitude of worldly troubles into an ink drawing that became a portrait of a veteran's grief.

"This was about coming back to a country he didn't recognize anymore," said Vickie Wendel, program director for the Anoka County Historical Society, which recently acquired a print of Sommer's drawing, "Anguish."

Sommer died last year. [MORE]

2005-11-10T17:06:00.000-08:00

WACKO No.1
Robertson Warns Pennsylvania Voters of God's Wrath

Conservative Christian broadcaster Pat Robertson told citizens of a Pennsylvania town that they had rejected God by voting their school board out of office for supporting "intelligent design" and warned them Thursday not to be surprised if disaster struck. Full story.

WACKO No.2
Muhummad Ali Gives the President
a 'Crazy Twirl'

President Bush, who appeared almost playful, fastened the heavy Medal of Freedom around Muhammad Ali's neck and whispered something in the heavyweight champion's ear. Then, as if to say "bring it on," the president put up his dukes in a mock challenge. Ali, 63, who has Parkinson's disease and moves slowly, looked the president in the eye -- and, finger to head, did the "crazy" twirl for a couple of seconds.

The room of about 200, including Cabinet secretaries, tittered with laughter. Ali, who was then escorted back to his chair, made the twirl again while sitting down. And the president looked visibly taken aback, laughing nervously. Full story.

2005-11-09T14:22:00.001-08:00

WHY WE'RE
EVEN MORE SKEPTICAL
Liar, Liar, Pants on Fire!

There is a brewing controversy about what exactly was said at the White House press conference on October 31. Everyone agrees NBC’s David Gregory said this:

Q Whether there’s a question of legality, we know for a fact that there was involvement. We know that Karl Rove, based on what he and his lawyer have said, did have a conversation about somebody who Patrick Fitzgerald said was a covert officer of the Central Intelligence Agency. We know that Scooter Libby also had conversations.

Congressional Quarterly and FNS both transcribed Press Secretary Scott McClellan’s answer as “That’s accurate.” The White House transcript lists McClellan’s answer as “I don’t think that’s accurate.”

Full story and video.

2005-11-08T18:54:00.000-08:00

President George W. Bush addresses a joint press conference with Panamanian President Martin Torrijos in Panama City, Panama, 07 November 2005. Bush declined to comment on reports of secret U.S. prisons for terrorism. [AFP]

WHY WE'RE SKEPTICAL, No. 1
Bush: 'We Don’t Torture' … But White House Opposes Legislation Banning Torture …

President Bush on Monday defended U.S. interrogation practices and called the treatment of terrorism suspects lawful. "We do not torture," Bush declared in response to reports of secret CIA prisons overseas.

Bush supported an effort spearheaded by Vice President Dick Cheney' to block or modify a proposed Senate-passed ban on torture.

"We're working with Congress to make sure that as we go forward, we make it possible, more possible, to do our job," Bush said. "There's an enemy that lurks and plots and plans and wants to hurt America again. And so, you bet we will aggressively pursue them. But we will do so under the law." Full story.

WHY WE'RE SKEPTICAL, No. 2
U.S. 'Uses Incendiary Arms' in Iraq

Italian state TV, Rai, has broadcast a documentary accusing the US military of using white phosphorus bombs against civilians in the Iraqi city of Falluja.

Rai says this amounts to the illegal use of chemical arms, though the bombs are considered incendiary devices.

Eyewitnesses and ex-US soldiers say the weapon was used in built-up areas in the insurgent-held city.

The US military denies this, but admits using white phosphorus bombs in Iraq to illuminate battlefields. Full story.

Video.

WHY WE'RE SKEPTICAL, No. 3
Justices to Rule on a Challenge to U.S. Tribunals

The Supreme Court announced on Monday that it would decide the validity of the military commissions that President Bush wants to use to bring detainees charged with terrorist offenses to trial.

The case, to be argued in March without the participation of Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr., places the court back at the center of the national debate over the limits of presidential authority in conducting the war on terror. Last year, the Supreme Court rejected the administration's position that the federal courts had no jurisdiction over those held as enemy combatants at the United States naval base at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba.

This time, once again, the justices acted over the vigorous opposition of the administration, which urged the court to stay its hand and defer any review until after a detainee had been tried by a military commission and convicted. Full story.

WHY WE'RE SKEPTICAL, No. 4
Editorial: President Bush's Walkabout

After President Bush's disastrous visit to Latin America, it's unnerving to realize that his presidency still has more than three years to run. An administration with no agenda and no competence would be hard enough to live with on the domestic front. But the rest of the world simply can't afford an American government this bad for that long. Full story.

WHY WE'RE SKEPTICAL, No. 5
GOP Congress to Hunt Down CIA Prison Leaker

Top U.S. Republican lawmakers on Tuesday called for a congressional investigation into leaks of information used by The Washington Post in an article on the CIA's secret global prison system.

Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist and House of Representatives Speaker Dennis Hastert in a letter asked the intelligence committees to "immediately initiate a joint investigation into the possible release of classified information."

Democrats said instead of just investigating possible leaks related to that story, Republicans should allow a broad investigation on detainee abuses and whether the Bush administration manipulated intelligence before the Iraq war. Full story.

WHY WE'RE SKEPTICAL, No. 6
A History of the Iraq War,
Told Entirely in Lies

All text is verbatim from senior Bush Administration officials and advisers. In places, tenses have been changed for clarity. Click HERE for text.

2005-11-08T18:40:00.000-08:00

WHO'S IN CHARGE HERE?
Dubya-Cheney Ties
Frayed by Scandal
'There has been some distance for some time'

The CIA leak scandal has peeled back the veil on the most closely held White House secret of all: the subtle but unmistakable erosion in the bond between President Bush and Vice President Cheney.

Multiple sources close to Bush told the Daily News that while the vice president remains his boss' valued political partner and counselor, his clout has lessened - primarily as a result of issues arising from the Iraq war.

"The relationship is not what it was," a presidential counselor said. "There has been some distance for some time." Full story.

2005-11-06T01:28:00.000-08:00

SURPRISE, SURPRISE
Bush's FBI Is Spying on You...
What? You Didn't Know?

The FBI now issues more than 30,000 national security letters a year, according to government sources, a hundredfold increase over historic norms. The letters -- one of which can be used to sweep up the records of many people -- are extending the bureau's reach as never before into the telephone calls, correspondence and financial lives of ordinary Americans.

Issued by FBI field supervisors, national security letters do not need the imprimatur of a prosecutor, grand jury or judge. They receive no review after the fact by the Justice Department or Congress. The executive branch maintains only statistics, which are incomplete and confined to classified reports. The Bush administration defeated legislation and a lawsuit to require a public accounting, and has offered no example in which the use of a national security letter helped disrupt a terrorist plot. Full story.

2005-11-06T01:19:00.000-08:00

SURPRISE, SURPRISE
Bush Knew Source
of Al Qaeda Info Was Fake

A high Qaeda official in American custody was identified as a likely fabricator months before the Bush administration began to use his statements as the foundation for its claims that Iraq trained Al Qaeda members to use biological and chemical weapons, according to newly declassified portions of a Defense Intelligence Agency document.

The document, an intelligence report from February 2002, said it was probable that the prisoner, Ibn al-Shaykh al-Libi, "was intentionally misleading the debriefers" in making claims about Iraqi support for Al Qaeda's work with illicit weapons.

The document provides the earliest and strongest indication of doubts voiced by American intelligence agencies about Mr. Libi's credibility. Without mentioning him by name, President Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney, Colin L. Powell, then secretary of state, and other administration officials repeatedly cited Mr. Libi's information as "credible" evidence that Iraq was training Al Qaeda members in the use of explosives and illicit weapons. Full Story.

2005-11-05T14:50:00.000-08:00

FEMA TELLS LOUISIANA
TO PAY $3.7 BILLION

Flood-ravaged Louisiana can't pay the $3.7 billion that the U.S. government says is its share of hurricane relief, a spokeswoman for Gov. Kathleen Blanco said Thursday.

"You can't squeeze $3.7 billion out of this state to pay this bill. Period. That would be difficult for us on a good day," the spokeswoman, Denise Bottcher, told USA TODAY.

Staffers for the governor "about fell over" Wednesday night when they received the Federal Emergency Management Agency's estimate of the state's costs for hurricanes Katrina and Rita, said Mark Merritt, a consultant working for Blanco. Full story.

2005-11-04T21:21:00.000-08:00

President Bush opens 34-nation trade meeting as thousands of demonstrators turn out to protest and violent splinter groups clash with police.

Anti-U.S. Protests
Flare at Summit
As Bush Meets With Allies in Argentina, Rally Led by Chavez Turns Violent

Anti-American demonstrators torched storefronts and battled police Friday in this Atlantic resort following a large, peaceful protest, spearheaded by Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, over President Bush's plans to revive a free trade accord at a regional summit.

While Bush held closed-door meetings with allies among the 33 other presidents attending the fourth Summit of the Americas, Chavez antagonized him from the sidelines, rallying thousands of supporters in a nearby soccer stadium with a promise to bury U.S.-style capitalism throughout Latin America. Full story.

2005-11-04T20:52:00.000-08:00

FEMA Finally Speeds Katrina Relief
Owners in Areas With Worst Damage To Receive $26,200

Faced with the daunting task of inspecting hundreds of thousands of damaged homes, federal officials have decided to award the maximum relief aid possible to people in neighborhoods presumed destroyed by Hurricane Katrina.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency has begun notifying 60,000 renters and property owners in nine Louisiana and Mississippi parishes and counties that they will immediately receive as much as $26,200, the most Congress has authorized for individual households battered by Katrina. The determination of who gets the money is being based on satellite imagery of the worst flooding or wind damage, broken down by Zip code, where individual inspections have not been done. Full story.

2005-11-03T14:17:00.000-08:00

Brown's Gossipy, Chit-Chatty
E-Mails Ignore New Orleans

E-mails sent by FEMA Director Michael Brown during and immediately after Hurricane Katrina hit the Gulf Coast reveal that he was looking for a dog sitter, chatting about shopping and showing concern about his appearance during the tumultuous time.

In one e-mail, sent on Aug. 29 as Katrina was pummeling the Gulf, a FEMA public affairs official tells Brown the outfit he wore on a television appearance looked "fabulous," to which Brown replies, "I got it at Nordstroms," then adds, "Are you proud of me? Can I quit now? Can I go home?" Full story.

Click HERE to see the e-mails.

2005-11-02T17:48:00.000-08:00

Profits Over Public Service
GOP Investors Want
to Dismember Nation's
No. 2 Newspaper Chain

As you probably know if you're a newspaper junkie, and may not know if you're a normal human being, a Florida-based investment group -- with zero fanfare -- this summer bo ught up 19 percent of the stock of Knight Ridder, Inc., the owners of the Daily News and the Philadelphia Inquirer, not to mention the Miami Herald, the San-Jose Mercury News, and a bunch of other big names in the dead-tree world.

And now, apparently unaware that newspaper readership has been dropping steadily for a half-decade and that advertisers are starting to follow readers to this new-fangled Internet thingee, the investors -- named Private Capital Management -- are shocked, shocked to learn that they aren't getting the greatest return on their investment.

And so their solution, having been around for all of four months: They want to sell the company.

Full story.

2005-11-02T17:03:00.000-08:00

Dear Reader,
CIA Running
a Soviet-Style Gulag
Aren't You Outraged?

The CIA has been hiding and interrogating some of its most important al-Qaida captives at a Soviet-era compound in Eastern Europe, according to U.S. and foreign officials familiar with the arrangement, the Washington Post reported.

The secret facility is part of a covert prison system set up by the CIA nearly four years ago that at various times has included sites in eight countries, including Thailand, Afghanistan and several democracies in Eastern Europe, as well as a small center at the Guantanamo Bay prison in Cuba, according to current and former intelligence officials and diplomats from three continents, the paper said Tuesday on its Web site. Full story.

Prison camps located in Poland and Romania. Full story.

2005-11-01T19:44:00.000-08:00

ONE-ON-ONE:
An Interview with Kent State's Dave Airhart
"I was in the Marine Corps Infantry. I Learned Absolutely Nothing of Value in the Rest of the World."

Q: Now, the big question. What made you decide to oppose the US wars in these countries?

A: Mostly personal reasons. Like the fact that most of the dead bodies that I saw were women and children, innocent civilians. Also, most of my friends that were killed were killed by friendly fire from close air support. It is obvious that there is some hidden agenda behind Bush's motivation for going to war in Iraq, because they had nothing to do with the 9-11 attacks, and there were no weapons of mass destruction. We should know the real reasons that we are fighting and dying over there. At the very least, we should know that, be it a good or bad reason, it is important that we know why. If it is that crucial that it stays a secret, it is probably too crooked to be worth fighting for anyway. [MORE]

2005-11-01T14:14:00.000-08:00

BUT WHY BEHIND CLOSED DOORS?
FINALLY, FEET WILL BE HELD TO THE FIRE
Senate goes into secret session

Sen. Reid just took the senate into closed session to discuss the body's failure to pursue 'phase two' of the senate intel investigation into the Iraq WMD intel failure.

Click for his remarks, as prepared for delivery, before taking the senate into closed session. Full story.

Senate Democrats Force Closed Session on Intelligence. Full story.

Senators Back in Open Session, Now With Six-Member Taskforce to Review Pre-War Probe Progress. Full story.

2005-10-31T13:48:00.000-08:00

HAVE THE FEDS FORGOTTEN ALREADY?

Thousands of Evacuees
Face Eviction

Other Katrina victims homeless after aid problems

Two months after Hurricane Katrina displaced more than 1 million people, problems with federal housing aid threaten to spawn a new wave of homelessness.

In Texas, thousands of evacuees who found shelter in apartments face eviction threats because rents are going unpaid.

In Louisiana, some evacuees are beginning to show up in homeless shelters because they haven't received federal aid or don't know how to get it.

Advocates for the poor say the situation will worsen this winter. Full Story.

2005-10-31T00:28:00.000-08:00

Flying Blind

Dark days: Singed by the special prosecutor and rattled by the Harriet Miers mess, Team Bush is in turmoil.

The mood in the White House last Friday afternoon was grim, but eerily quiet. Dick Cheney was gone, off in Georgia giving yet another apocalyptic terrorism speech to yet another military crowd. The president, just back from his own rally-the-troops address, was eager to chopper to Camp David for the weekend. But, in the small dining room adjoining the Oval Office, he was doing something uncharacteristic: watching live news on TV. Full story.

2005-10-28T21:08:00.000-07:00

A Prosecutor's Focus
Shifted to a Cover-Up

The capital stopped in its tracks on Friday to watch a trim, plain, soft-spoken prosecutor whose voice it had barely heard in two years call the most important aide to the most powerful vice president in American history a liar. Politely, calmly, but firmly - and over and over again.

The prosecutor, Patrick J. Fitzgerald, (shown, left, at his press conference) brought no charges on the issue that prompted his investigation: whether someone in the government committed a crime by leaking the classified C.I.A. identity of the wife of one of the sharpest critics of the administration's rationale for war with Iraq. But he offered renewed evidence of that oldest of Washington axioms: the cover-up is always worse than the crime.

In an hourlong, live television news conference, Mr. Fitzgerald said that Vice President Dick Cheney's chief of staff, I. Lewis Libby Jr., had repeatedly told F.B.I. agents, and later a federal grand jury, that he was "just passing gossip from one reporter to another at the end of a long chain of phone calls" about the identity of the agent, Valerie Wilson. "It would be a compelling story that would lead the F.B.I. to go away," Mr. Fitzgerald said. "If only it were true." Full story.

Transcript

Reaction: Bush Cheney

2005-10-28T20:59:00.000-07:00

WHY DO WE HAVE ANY TRUST IN THESE PEOPLE?
Libby Resigns His Post; Rove's Fate Remains Unresolved

Lewis Libby Jr., Vice President Dick Cheney's chief of staff and one of the most powerful figures in the Bush administration, was formally accused today of lying and obstruction of justice in an inquiry into the unmasking of a covert C.I.A. officer.

A federal grand jury indicted Mr. Libby on one count of obstruction, two counts of perjury and two of making false statements in the course of an investigation that raised questions about the administration's rationale for going to war against Iraq, how it treats critics and political opponents and whether high White House officials shaded the truth. The charges are felonies.

Mr. Libby was not charged directly with revealing the identity of a C.I.A. undercover operative, the accusation that brought about the investigation in the first place. Full story.

Plame Leak timeline

Indictment documents [pdf]

Official press release [pdf]

2005-10-27T22:37:00.000-07:00

Gov. Bush, left, looks on as President Bush speaks to the media at the Southern Baptist Convention relief center in Pompano Beach. Bush visited South Florida three days after Hurricane Wilma. [Sun-Sentinel/Joe Cavaretta]

"Things don't happen instantly"
Bush Tours Florida; Large Sections Still Lack Power

President Bush visited hurricane-stricken South Florida on Thursday, promising frustrated citizens that help is on the way even as thousands affected by Hurricane Wilma spent hours in agonizingly long lines for gas, food and ice.

Accompanied by his brother, Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, the president visited a food center at a church north of Fort Lauderdale, then met with emergency officials at the National Hurricane Center west of Miami. It was his first visit since Wilma struck Florida on Monday, leaving millions without electricity and disrupting water and phone service for tens of thousands.

"Things don't happen instantly," the president said at First Baptist Church in Pompano Beach in northern Broward County. "But things are happening. Right here on this site people are getting fed." Full story.

2005-10-27T21:45:00.000-07:00

No-Bid Contracts to His Relatives
Head of New Orleans' Levee Board Quits

The head of the Orleans Levee Board has quit amid questions about no-bid contracts to his relatives in the days after Hurricane Katrina.

The final days of board president Jim Huey's tenure also had been marred by his collection of nearly $100,000 in back pay several weeks before the storm. Huey had led the board for nine years. Full story.

2005-10-27T16:45:00.000-07:00

WHAT THE HECK IS GOING ON IN D.C.?
Confused About
the CIA Leak Case? Start Here.

For almost two years, special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald has led an investigation to determine whether anyone acted illegally when the identity of CIA agent Valerie Plame was made public. After hearing testimony from some of Washington's most powerful figures, a grand jury is expected to issue indictments as soon as Friday. The Monitor's White House correspondent, Linda Feldmann, answers key questions about the case. Full story.

2005-10-27T16:32:00.000-07:00

"This is like the Third World"
Long Lines After Wilma
Spark Anger in Florida

They were running on fumes, and they were fuming.

Drivers waited for hours, some overnight, for a chance to fill up at a Sam's Club gas station, in a line that by Wednesday had wrapped around the warehouse store's parking lot and spilled over onto an expressway exit.

Somehow the line got snarled, and anxious motorists screamed at each other in the uproar. As several police officers tried to restore order, Claudia Shaw sat and wondered how a hurricane could bring such chaos to a state that is practically synonymous with them.

"This is like the Third World," said Shaw, a native of Colombia who said she never saw such conditions in her home country — not even when the power went out.

"We live in a state where we suffer from these storms every year. Where is the planning?" Full story.

Florida's aggressive hurricane plan faltered

2005-10-27T16:25:00.000-07:00

Anger Simmers in New Orleans'
Dead Ninth Ward

Dispersed residents of the Lower Ninth Ward, an overwhelmingly black neighborhood that experienced some of the worst damage from Katrina, say they are frustrated by what they see as a double-standard in the city's recovery efforts.

Many residents have not been allowed back to retrieve what they can from their homes. Some question the commitment of city officials to rebuild in this flood plain and wonder aloud whether the new New Orleans will exclude them.

"Lower Nine is not a priority," said Greta Gladney, a fourth-generation resident whose mother was whisked by boat from the rooftop of a neighbor's home in the area still off-limits to residents. "There's almost a concerted effort to keep African Americans from returning to the city." Full story.

2005-10-26T17:27:00.000-07:00

The Big Push: Good samartians help motorist Darren Peterson push his truck to a gas pump at the Sunoco station on Okeechobee Road just east of the Florida Turnpike on Wednesday. Peterson ran out of gas while waiting in line. Gas lines in Palm Beach County can stretch for a mile and take hours to get through. [South Florida Sun-Sentinel/Scott Fisher]

Bush Admits Underestimating Demand for Water and Ice

Gov. Jeb Bush admitted on Wednesday the state underestimated the demand for ice and water in southeast Florida and didn't funnel enough supplies to the area immediately after Hurricane Wilma roared through.

"It didn't work as well as it should have yesterday," said Gov. Jeb Bush, referring to Tuesday's long lines of frustrated residents, many of whom left distribution sites empty-handed.

"My expectation was that within 24 hours we'd have our points of distribution set up. Never has that been done in any hurricane. We didn't meet those expectations and I accept responsibility for that," he said. "Today is going to be better. Tomorrow is going to be better than today." Full story.

2005-10-26T16:59:00.000-07:00

Want to see the names in an enlarged version of this Mike Luckovich cartoon?
Download a full-size PDF of this illustration (1.1 MB)

2005-10-26T16:33:00.000-07:00

2,000 Deaths

From LA Observed:

Today's Daily News blows out the front page to list the names of the 2,000 U.S. military dead in Iraq. Here's the main story; the package is rich in online extras. The L.A. Times package includes a large PDF graphic that runs on page A9 and shows the states where the killed troops lived. There's also a link to Newsday's searchable database of Iraq casualties.

2005-10-25T19:27:00.000-07:00

Hoping for gas: Pompano Beach residents lined up for as long as 3 hours hoping to fill gas cans at a service station. A sheriff's car parked in the street kept the scene in order. [Sun-Sentinel/Robert Duyos]

MORE HURRICANE SCREW-UPS
Millions Are Still Without Power and in Need of Basic Supplies

South Florida was a coast-to-coast mess on Tuesday as millions of people remained without power, huge lines formed for basic supplies and drivers wove through packed, debris-strewn streets with no traffic signals.

Despite Gov. Jeb Bush's assurances that recovery from Hurricane Wilma would proceed smoothly after lessons learned from seven previous storms, the government response looked frayed. In Broward and Miami-Dade Counties, people lined up for ice and water only to learn that government deliveries of both were late. Full story.

Complete Wilma coverage

2005-10-25T19:17:00.000-07:00

A Look at Those
Who Died in Iraq

Since the War in Iraq began in March 2oo3, more than 2,000 soldiers have died. The dead come from all branches of the armed services and represent the highest toll since the Vietnam War.

Click here for INTERACTIVE GRAPHIC.

2005-10-25T17:57:00.000-07:00

SHADES OF WATERGATE
Has This All Been
a Cheney Cover-Up?

I. Lewis Libby Jr., Vice President Dick Cheney's chief of staff, first learned about the C.I.A. officer at the heart of the leak investigation in a conversation with Mr. Cheney weeks before her identity became public in 2003, lawyers involved in the case said Monday.

Notes of the previously undisclosed conversation between Mr. Libby and Mr. Cheney on June 12, 2003, appear to differ from Mr. Libby's testimony to a federal grand jury that he initially learned about the C.I.A. officer, Valerie Wilson, from journalists, the lawyers said.

The notes, taken by Mr. Libby during the conversation, for the first time place Mr. Cheney in the middle of an effort by the White House to learn about Ms. Wilson's husband, Joseph C. Wilson IV, who was questioning the administration's handling of intelligence about Iraq's nuclear program to justify the war. Full Story.

2005-10-25T17:10:00.000-07:00

CHENEY, CHENEY, CHENEY
Vice President at Center of the Drama

It should surprise nobody that Vice President Dick Cheney is at the center of another firestorm. He's got his hands in just about everything at the White House.

Now the administration's Mr. Fix-It faces a sticky political, if not legal, situation with the latest leak in the CIA leak investigation.

"His name is thrown into the mix," said Stephen Hess, a presidential scholar and political analyst at the Brookings Institution. "Big time."

Cheney once called a New York Times reporter a "big time" expletive. The same newspaper reported Tuesday that notes taken by Cheney chief of staff I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby suggest that the vice president learned about CIA officer Valerie Plame from then-CIA Director George Tenet, then passed the information to Libby in a June 12, 2003 conversation.

While it is not against the law for three high-level officials to discuss the identity of a CIA agent, the conversation is part of Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald's investigation of whether crimes were committed when Plame's name was leaked to journalists.

The New York Times, quoting unidentified lawyers involved in the case, said Libby's notes differed from his grand jury testimony. Libby reportedly told grand jurors he learned Plame's name from reporters.

There is nothing in the public record to suggest that Cheney, like perhaps Libby and deputy White House chief of staff Karl Rove, pointed reporters toward the CIA official in conversations about her husband, diplomat Joe Wilson.

But the investigation has lifted the veil on the White House's brass-knuckle political culture - and Cheney's role in it. Full story.

See VIDEO.

2005-10-25T17:04:00.000-07:00

Where's the Food, Ice in Florida?

Only two of eight food distribution centers in Collier County have food and ice.

County officials said they weren't sure why only Barron Collier High School and the Immokalee center received the supplies. However, plans to have 73 food distribution sites in 12 counties up and running by noon had to be delayed due to supply shortages and trouble getting trucks to designated distribution points, state officials said. Full story.

2005-10-25T14:27:00.000-07:00

WHEN WILL IT END?
2,000
American Soldiers Have Been Killed

The war in Iraq saw two milestones Tuesday that reflect the country's path toward democracy and its human toll as officials said the referendum on a draft constitution passed and the number of U.S. military deaths reached 2,000.

CNN's count of U.S. fatalities reflects reports from military sources and includes deaths in Iraq, Kuwait and other units assigned to the Iraq campaign.

The U.S. military does not publish an up-to-date running tally of deaths.

Among the latest casualties, an American soldier was killed Saturday by a roadside bomb, and a roadside blast killed two Marines in combat Friday near Amariya in the western Anbar province, according to the U.S. military.

President Bush, speaking to military spouses at Bolling Air Force Base in Washington, said the best way to honor the dead would be to complete the mission in Iraq. Full story.

2005-10-24T17:29:00.000-07:00

DECLINE AND FALL AT THE WHITE HOUSE

Facing the darkest days of his presidency, President Bush is frustrated, sometimes angry and even bitter, his associates say.

With a seemingly uncontrollable insurgency in Iraq, the White House is bracing for the political fallout from a grim milestone that could come any day: the combat death of the 2,000th American G.I.

Last week alone, 23 military personnel were killed in Iraq, and five were wounded yesterday in a relentless series of attacks across the country.

This week could also bring a special prosecutor's decision that could shake the foundations of the Bush government.

The President's top political guru, Karl Rove, and Vice President Cheney's right-hand man, Lewis (Scooter) Libby, are at the center of a two-year criminal probe into the leak of a CIA agent's identity. Many Bush staffers believe indictments are likely. Full story.

2005-10-24T16:57:00.000-07:00

AS OF THIS POSTING...
With Only 2 More Deaths,
2,000 Americans Will Have
Been Killed in the Iraq War

From TVnewser:

Iraqi insurgents brought the war to the doorsteps of western correspondents today. Iraq's national security adviser said the Baghdad attack was a "very clear" effort to take over the hotel and seize journalists as hostages.

NBC News producer Karl Bostic was in the traffic circle when the bombings happened. "I feel like I lost three lives tonight," he told Brian Williams today. His report will air on the NBC Nightly News. "We came very close today, it is now clear,to losing some very special people," BW blogs. NBC wasn't alone. Journalists in the Palestine Hotel, "including those from AP, Fox News and the U.S. government-funded Alhurra TV station," were forced to "take refuge in the corridor," the AP says. All the Fox employees are safe.

CNN's camera position was about a mile and a half away from the explosions. "This is something that U.S. military commanders and Iraqi government officials have been fearing and talking about," CNN's Nic Robertson told Wolf Blitzer this afternoon. "They've been saying that they think insurgents want to try and create a spectacular explosion right in front of the international television cameras so that they can get maximum impact, to create the maximum worry in Iraq, to create the maximum impact outside of Iraq. And that is what appears to have happened.

The first two explosions, small explosions, drawing the journalists to the windows. They turned on their cameras. As the cameras turned on, that's when that third massive explosion happened."

2005-10-21T22:21:00.000-07:00

"Just tell her that I just ate an MRE and crapped in the hallway of the Superdome along with 30,000 other close friends so I understand her concern about busy restaurants."

-- FEMA e-mail excerpt

2005-10-21T17:56:00.000-07:00

DEAR READER,
WHY AREN'T YOU OUTRAGED?
Brown Went Out to Dinner
While Evacuees Were Starving

On Thursday, FEMA official Marty Bahamonde testified in front of the Senate Homeland Security Committee. He was the first official from the agency to arrive in New Orleans ahead of Katrina. In the midst of the chaos and horror of the hurricane's aftermath, Bahamonde sent a dire e-mail to former FEMA Director Michael Brown saying victims had no food and were dying. No response came from Brown.

Instead, less than three hours later, an aide to Brown sent an e-mail saying her boss wanted to go on a television program that night. But first, the aide said, Brown needed at least an hour to eat dinner at a Baton Rouge restaurant, writing, "He needs much more than 20 or 30 minutes." Full story.

Read the e-mails HERE.

2005-10-20T17:28:00.000-07:00

Who are these people that keep telling us lies and how did these people get control of our lives and who'll stop the violence 'cause it's out of control? Make 'em stop.

--Burt Bacharach, 77-year-old composer has found his voice in a politically charged album "At This Time" that features his first lyrics ever in a nearly 50-year career creating some of pop music's best-known love songs. Full story.

2005-10-20T16:50:00.000-07:00

The Torture Question
PBS' Frontline goes behind closed doors to investigate the struggle over how and when to use what was called "coercive interrogation." The film begins with a policy born out of fear and anger and tracks the increasingly tough measures taken to gather information about Al Qaeda and the growing insurgency in Iraq. This examination begins at the White House and ends in the public debate about alleged abuses at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and Abu Ghraib. Full story. Links, Video.

2005-10-20T14:10:00.000-07:00

Job Losses From Hurricanes
Up to 478,000

Another 40,000 Americans filed claims for unemployment benefits last week due to Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, pushing the total who have lost jobs because of the storms to 478,000. Full story.

2005-10-19T21:40:00.000-07:00

HIJACKED!
Cheney and His 'Cabal'
Took Control of U.S. Foreign Policy

Vice-President Dick Cheney and a handful of others had hijacked the government's foreign policy apparatus, deciding in secret to carry out policies that had left the US weaker and more isolated in the world, the top aide to former Secretary of State Colin Powell claimed on Wednesday.

In a scathing attack on the record of President George W. Bush, Colonel Lawrence Wilkerson, chief of staff to Mr Powell until last January, said: “What I saw was a cabal between the vice-president of the United States, Richard Cheney, and the secretary of defense, Donald Rumsfeld, on critical issues that made decisions that the bureaucracy did not know were being made.

“Now it is paying the consequences of making those decisions in secret, but far more telling to me is America is paying the consequences.” Full story.

2005-10-19T17:00:00.000-07:00

Is FEMA Ready

for Category 5 Wilma?

The fringes of Hurricane Wilma lashed Caribbean nations on Wednesday, forcing schools to close and thousands to evacuate as it churned toward Mexico's Cancun resort and Florida after killing at least 12 people and becoming the most intense storm ever to form in the Atlantic.

The National Hurricane Center in Miami warned that Wilma would be a "significant threat" to Florida by the weekend in a season that has already seen devastation from Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. Officials ordered tourists out of the Florida Keys. Full story.

"I'm not a hurricane expert," Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff says. Full story.

2005-10-18T19:33:00.000-07:00

WHO'S IN CHARGE HERE?
Messages Depict Disarray in Federal Katrina Response

As Hurricane Katrina devastated New Orleans on Aug. 29, Michael D. Brown, then director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, appeared confused over whether Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff had put him in charge, senior military officials could not reach Brown and his team became swamped by the speed of the unfolding disaster, according to e-mails to and from Brown.

When Chertoff belatedly named Brown the on-site disaster coordinator on the night of Aug. 30 and declared Katrina an "incident of national significance" -- the highest- order catastrophe under a new national response plan -- Brown and his assistants privately complained.

The e-mails also show that the government's response plan, two years in the making, began breaking down even before Katrina hit the Gulf Coast. Full story.

2005-10-17T19:24:00.000-07:00

Bush Is in No Hurry
on Katrina Recovery
The president's go-slow approach is called
a recipe for chaos, even by fellow Republicans.

Almost two months after Hurricane Katrina slammed into the Gulf Coast and a month after promising in a nationally televised speech to help rebuild the region "quickly," President Bush has settled on a cautious, piecemeal approach that even many members of his own party fear will stall reconstruction and sow economic disarray.

Bush has made highly publicized trips to Louisiana and Mississippi on average of once a week since the storm, but the administration has yet to introduce legislation for two of the three proposals the president highlighted during his September speech from New Orleans. Full story.

2005-10-17T17:29:00.000-07:00

WAR IS PEACE
Our Troops Only Hear Drumbeat From the Right

Armed Forces Radio (AFR) is a station that broadcasts to American troops overseas through “over 1,000 outlets in more than 175 countries.” It currently features an hour of programming by right-wing host Rush Limbaugh. There is no comparable progressive program.

Today, that was supposed change. Ed Schultz – the host of the most popular progressive radio show in the country — was supposed to start broadcasting on Armed Forces radio. Jones Radio, the company that syndicates The Ed Shultz Show, received an email on September 29 from an Armed Forces Radio official confirming that one hour of Schultz’s program would begin airing today, October 17.

But this morning at 6AM, the producer of the Ed Schultz show, James Holm, received a call from Pentagon communications aide Allison Barber. She told Holm that she was calling so early to let Schultz know his show would not begin airing on AFR today. You’ll remember Barber as the aide caught coaching troops before a photo-op with President Bush last week. Full story.

2005-10-16T14:54:00.000-07:00

FEMA Bought Flip-Flops, Underwear, Golf Carts, Flyswatters, 4 Packs of Playing Cards

On the federal government's long shopping list for hurricane relief: $223,000 for flip-flops, $153,600 worth of underwear, three golf carts rented for $1,500 a month and flyswatters for $5.28. Oh, and four packs of playing cards bought by the United States Forest Service, for which records list no price but do offer an explanation: "to help morale during Hurricane Rita."

Most of the government's estimated $150 billion bill for Hurricanes Katrina and Rita is going for disaster aid checks to thousands of victims and gargantuan contracts for debris removal and housing.

But there is a vast quantity of smaller purchases, made by an army of workers dispatched to the storm region, many carrying government credit cards. Full story.

2005-10-14T22:41:00.000-07:00

KEITH OLBERMANN:
Here's My List
of 13 Politically Influenced Terror Coincidences...

In the last three years there [have] been about 13 similar coincidences -- a political downturn for the administration, followed by a “terror event” -- a change in alert status, an arrest, a warning.

We figured we’d better put that list of coincidences on the public record. Full story.

2005-10-14T17:24:00.000-07:00

COLLECTION AGENCY WANTS $646, TOO
For Honor of Sacrificing His Body,
Uncle Sam Bills Soldier $6,200

His hand had been blown off in Iraq, his body pierced by shrapnel. He could not walk. Robert Loria was flown home for a long recovery at Walter Reed Army Medical Center, where he tried to bear up against intense physical pain and reimagine his life’s possibilities.

The last thing on his mind, he said, was whether the Army had correctly adjusted his pay rate — downgrading it because he was out of the war zone — or whether his combat gear had been accounted for properly: his Kevlar helmet, his suspenders, his rucksack.

But nine months after Loria was wounded, the Army garnished his wages and then, as he prepared to leave the service, hit him with a $6,200 debt. That was just before last Christmas, and several lawmakers scrambled to help. This spring, a collection agency started calling. He owed another $646 for military housing. Full story.

2005-10-14T12:49:00.000-07:00

VANISHED!
50,000 New Orleans Households
Have Left the City, Never to Return

Hurricane Katrina has swept away more than New Orleans buildings: Nearly four in 10 city residents who sought help from the Red Cross say they don't plan to move back, a USA TODAY/CNN/Gallup Poll finds.

That astounding migration of an estimated 50,000 households could change the face of the city they're leaving behind — and the places where they relocate. Full story.

2005-10-13T22:30:00.000-07:00

PRESIDENT STAGES AN INFOMERCIAL
Bush's Q&A With the Troops
Was Rehearsed Beforehand

In a videoconference linking him by satellite to a group of soldiers in Iraq, President Bush sought and won their assurances on Thursday that Iraqi forces are up to the job of helping American troops provide security for the voting there this weekend.

The event, stage-managed for television, came across as carefully scripted and a bit awkward, despite attempts to prepare the soldiers for what they would be asked and to give them time to think through their answers. Full story.

Video | Transcript

2005-10-12T15:40:00.000-07:00

TROOPS IN YOUR STREETS
Don't Say You Weren't Warned

The Pentagon is looking at the possibility of using federal troops to enforce a quarantine in the event of an outbreak of pandemic bird flu in the United States, a senior official said on Wednesday.

President George W. Bush said last week he would consider using the military to "effect a quarantine" in response to any outbreak of avian influenza, but provided few details.

Bush at the time also suggested he might place National Guard troops, normally commanded by state governors, under federal control as part of the government's response to the "catastrophe" of such a flu pandemic. Full story.

2005-10-12T15:00:00.000-07:00

THE BULLSHIT DETECTOR
Getting Mixed Messages on Terror
Threat—And Giving Them, Too

By any measure, Oct. 6 was a bountiful and tricky day for television news.

In the morning, the President gave a speech outlining the terrible things that could happen if the U.S. military were to leave Iraq too soon. Several hours later, word came that Karl Rove, his top advisor, was not yet clear of the threat of indictment. Bird flu was coming; Hurricane Katrina funds were going fast.

Then, at 4:30 p.m., as producers were emerging from editorial meetings with their evening-news lineups, one last piece of news broke: Any day now, 19 terrorists would explode bombs in baby carriages on the New York City subway. Or—they wouldn’t.

It was a problematic story. Federal and local officials disagreed about the credibility of the threat. Multiple and conflicting political motivations could have been in play. And, as ever, there was a fine line between informing the viewing public about terror threats and merely alarming everyone.

So when the wire report appeared on Keith Olbermann’s computer screen, the anchor got up from his desk and marched into MSNBC’s newsroom in Secaucus.

“How many times is this?” he asked his staff, haute voix. “How many times has this happened?” Full story.

2005-10-11T20:26:00.000-07:00

Why Aren't Evacuees Getting the Jobs
to Rebuild New Orleans?

The Bush administration is dragging its feet on the return of New Orleans residents displaced by Hurricane Katrina, leaving tens of thousands cut off from jobs and other opportunities in the devastated city, the Rev. Jesse Jackson said on Tuesday.

The U.S. civil rights leader, a Democrat who has criticized the White House and the Federal Emergency Management Agency for its handling of the crisis, made the charge at the end of a two-day bus tour of shelters and camps in several U.S. states.

"The people who are able-bodied should have the right to return and should have priority in jobs, training and housing," Jackson said outside a restaurant in Metairie, a New Orleans suburb, that was accepting job applications.

"They're trapped in those rescue camps ... and I find no active recruitment by FEMA in those camps," Jackson said. Full story.

2005-10-10T09:11:00.000-07:00

Why, why, why? Police officers subdue a man on Conti Street near Bourbon Street in the French Quarter of New Orleans Saturday night, Oct. 8, 2005. At least one police officer repeatedly punched the 64-year-old Robert Davis, accused of public intoxication, and another officer assaulted an Associated Press Television News producer as a cameraman taped the confrontations. [AP Photo/Mel Evans] Full story.

"I haven't had a drink in 25 years." Full story.

2005-10-10T09:01:00.000-07:00

Ka-CHING! Ka-CHING!
Sorry Taxpayer, You Don't Need to Know Where Your Money Went

Suppose a substantial amount of your tax money goes to a government agency that writes checks to all kinds of people following a disaster. And suppose the agency issues no-bid contracts, is accused of cronyism, and has demonstrated incompetence in spending -- thereby wasting -- your tax money.

Would you like to know who got the money and whether those getting the money really deserved it? Would you want to know who received the contracts, whether they followed the rules or "knew somebody" or reaped an easy windfall?

Sorry, mere taxpayer, you can't find out. Full story.

2005-10-09T23:27:00.000-07:00

FASTER THAN KATRINA RESPONSE
Showing Speed and Loyalty,
Bush Mobilizes Aid to Pakistan
Eager to show it has learned from the slow responses to the Asia-Pacific tsunami and Hurricane Katrina, the White House announced Sunday evening that it would provide an "initial contribution" of $50 million for relief efforts in Pakistan. It also said it would dispatch helicopters and reconnaissance aircraft that are in the area hunting members of Al Qaeda. Full story.

2005-10-09T02:22:00.000-07:00

The Amazing Shrinking President

It's hard to listen to George W. Bush and not think about the Wizard of Oz.

What comes to mind is the weak, fallible human being who was revealed when Toto pulled the curtain.

There, in the small booth, a small, ordinary man, not an omnipotent sorcerer, frantically yanks at levers and dials. When the ''wizard" finally admits the obvious fraud, Dorothy says, ''Oh, you're a very bad man." Replies the wizard, ''Oh, no, my dear, I'm a very good man. I'm just a very bad wizard." Full story.

2005-10-07T22:35:00.000-07:00

OOPS! HE'S DONE IT AGAIN
Bush Plan Shows U.S. Is Not Ready for Deadly Flu

A plan developed by the Bush administration to deal with any possible outbreak of pandemic flu shows that the United States is woefully unprepared for what could become the worst disaster in the nation's history.

A draft of the final plan, which has been years in the making and is expected to be released later this month, says a large outbreak that began in Asia would be likely, because of modern travel patterns, to reach the United States within "a few months or even weeks."

If such an outbreak occurred, hospitals would become overwhelmed, riots would engulf vaccination clinics, and even power and food would be in short supply, according to the plan, which was obtained by The New York Times.

The 381-page plan calls for quarantine and travel restrictions but concedes that such measures "are unlikely to delay introduction of pandemic disease into the U.S. by more than a month or two." Full story.

2005-10-07T19:21:00.000-07:00

DEAD PILE UP IN NEW ORLEANS
Coroner says FEMA Making It Harder to Clear Autopsy Backlog

The man in charge of identifying most of those killed by Hurricane Katrina, New Orleans Coroner Frank Minyard, complained Thursday that federal regulations had unnecessarily slowed that process.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency — which is responsible for keeping the morgue operational — sometimes shuts it down with hours left in the workday, Minyard said. During an afternoon news conference at FEMA headquarters here, the coroner said that on Thursday, federal officials told his people to stop conducting autopsies at 11:30 a.m., despite a backlog of 300 bodies. Full story.

2005-10-07T17:32:00.000-07:00

"Don't go home and tell your constituents you did anything for them. In truth, you haven't," said Rep. James P. McGovern (D-Mass.) "When they ask you, `What did you do to lower the prices of gas and home hearting oil,' you can say, honestly, you did nothing."

GOP Twists Arms to Push Refinery Bill Through House

The House today approved legislation aimed at spurring construction and expansion of oil refineries and cracking down on gasoline price gouging in Congress' first major response to the high energy prices and tight supplies caused by Hurricane Katrina.

The measure was approved, 212-210, after bit of political theater as House GOP leaders kept open what was supposed to be a five-minute roll call for about 40 minutes in order to round up votes.

"Shame. Shame. Shame," Democrats chanted in protest.

The scene was reminiscent of the 2003 vote on the Medicare prescription drug benefit when House leaders had to extend the vote for three hours in the middle of the night while President Bush and GOP leaders twisted arms. Full story.

2005-10-07T17:05:00.000-07:00

PARDON MY SKEPTICISM No.1
Are These Terror Warnings Being Manipulated for Political Reasons?
No one can prove whether there is political meddling in terror alerting -- although former Homeland Security chief Tom Ridge seemed to suggest the possibility months after he left office, indicating that he believed the White House sometimes got too involved in micro-managing the alert system. Full story.

PARDON MY SKEPTICISM No.2
Keith Olbermann: Well...I'm going to raise this question as skeptically and bluntly as I can. It's not a question that doubts the existence of terror, nor the threat of terrorism. But we've cobbled together in the last couple of hours a list of at least 13 occasions that -- on which -- whenever there has been news that significantly impacted the White House negatively, there has been some sudden credible terror threat somewhere in this country. How could the coincidence be so consistent? Full story. Transcript.

2005-10-06T21:36:00.000-07:00

Senate Defies Bush Veto Threat and Bans Torture of Prisoners

The Senate delivered a rebuke to the Bush administration Wednesday night, adding language banning U.S. torture of military prisoners to a $440-billion military spending bill despite a White House threat to veto the bill if the language was in it.

The Republican-majority Senate followed the lead of Sens. John McCain, R-Ariz., and Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., voting 90-9 to add the anti-torture language.

Former Secretary of State Colin Powell, a retired Army general, joined 28 other retired senior military officers in endorsing the amendment, which would ban "cruel, inhuman or degrading" treatment of any prisoner in U.S. hands.

Last week, the White House sent the Senate a "statement of administration policy" that opposed the anti-torture language, saying it would tie the president's hands in the war on terrorism. The statement said that if the terms remained in the bill's final version, "the president's senior advisers would recommend that he veto the bill."

Bush has never vetoed any legislation. Full story.

2005-10-06T21:14:00.000-07:00

GEORGE WILL:
'The president has forfeited his right to be trusted as a custodian of the Constitution. '

This column by conservative George Will has been bouncing around the web, but is worth reproducing here.

Senators beginning what ought to be a protracted and exacting scrutiny of Harriet Miers should be guided by three rules. First, it is not important that she be confirmed. Second, it might be very important that she not be. Third, the presumption — perhaps rebuttable but certainly in need of rebutting — should be that her nomination is not a defensible exercise of presidential deference to which senatorial discretion is due. It is not important that she be confirmed because there is no evidence that she is among the leading lights of American jurisprudence, or that she possesses talents commensurate with the Supreme Court’s tasks. The president’s ‘‘argument’’ for her amounts to: Trust me. There is no reason to, for several reasons.

He has neither the inclination nor the ability to make sophisticated judgments about competing approaches to construing the Constitution. Few presidents acquire such abilities in the course of their prepresidential careers, and this president, particularly, is not disposed to such reflections.

Furthermore, there is no reason to believe that Miers’ nomination resulted from the president’s careful consultation with people capable of such judgments. If 100 such people had been asked to list 100 individuals who have given evidence of the reflectiveness and excellence requisite in a justice, Miers’ name probably would not have appeared in any of the 10,000 places on those lists.

In addition, the president has forfeited his right to be trusted as a custodian of the Constitution. The forfeiture occurred March 27, 2002, when, in a private act betokening an uneasy conscience, he signed the McCain-Feingold law expanding government regulation of the timing, quantity and content of political speech. The day before the 2000 Iowa caucuses he was asked in advance — to insure a considered response from him — whether McCain-Feingold’s core purposes are unconstitutional. He unhesitatingly said, ‘‘I agree.’’ Asked if he thought presidents have a duty, pursuant to their oath to defend the Constitution, to make an independent judgment about the constitutionality of bills and to veto those he thinks unconstitutional, he briskly said, ‘‘I do.’’

It is important that Miers not be confirmed unless, in her 61st year, she suddenly and unexpectedly is found to have hitherto undisclosed interests and talents pertinent to the court’s role. Otherwise the sound principle of substantial deference to a president’s choice of judicial nominees will dissolve into a rationalization for senatorial abdication of the duty to hold presidents to some standards of seriousness that will prevent them from reducing the Supreme Court to a private plaything useful for fulfilling whims on behalf of friends.

The wisdom of presumptive opposition to Miers’ confirmation flows from the fact that constitutional reasoning is a talent — a skill acquired, as intellectual skills are, by years of practice sustained by intense interest. It is not usually acquired in the normal course of even a fine lawyer’s career. The burden is on Miers to demonstrate such talents, and on senators to compel such a demonstration or reject the nomination.

Under the rubric of ‘‘diversity’’ — nowadays, the first refuge of intellectually disreputable impulses — the president announced, surely without fathoming the implications, his belief in identity politics and its tawdry corollary, the idea of categorical representation. Identity politics holds that one’s essential attributes are genetic, biological, ethnic or chromosomal — that one’s nature and understanding are decisively shaped by race, ethnicity or gender. Categorical representation holds that the interests of a group can only be understood, empathized with and represented by a member of that group.

The crowning absurdity of the president’s wallowing in such nonsense is the obvious assumption that the Supreme Court is, like a legislature, an institution of representation. This from a president who, introducingMiers, deplored judges who ‘‘legislate from the bench.’’ Minutes after the president announced the nomination of his friend from Texas, another Texas friend, Robert Jordan, former ambassador to Saudi Arabia, was on Fox News proclaiming what he and, no doubt, the White House that probably enlisted him for advocacy, considered glad and relevant tidings: Miers, said Jordan, has been a victim. She has been, he said contentedly, ‘‘discriminated against’’ because of her gender. Her victimization was not so severe that it prevented her from becoming the first female president of a Texas law firm as large as hers, president of the State Bar of Texas and a senior White House official. Still, playing the victim card clarified, as much as anything has so far done, her credentials, which are her chromosomes and their supposedly painful consequences. For this we need a conservative president?