I thought it was his obscenely rich yet insubstantial flavor

Everyone was all up in arms Monday because former Justice Department flack Monica Goodling was revealed to have asked prospective job candidates, “What is it about George W. Bush that makes you want to serve him?” This was interpreted to be an inappropriate question because aspirants to career DoJ positions are not supposed to have to pass a partisan litmus test for what are intended to be apolitical jobs.

While Goodling might still have been feeling around for some sort of fealty, I think that folks are reading her question all wrong. Not unlike the folks at Star-Kist, this star-struck Regent University grad wasn’t looking for people that thought GW Bush had good taste; she wanted employees that thought GW Bush tasted good.

C’mon, why don’t you think about it: What is it that makes you want to serve Bush? Is it that his meat is so lean? That he is stuffed with government pork? The years of marinating in beer and bourbon? The fact that he comes packed in oil? His (artificially flavored) country-style gravy? Please let me know.

And, if you have any recipes for how to serve Bush, please post them below. You’ll be doing Monica and your country a great, uh, service.


(cross-posted on Daily Kos and The Seminal)

Barry, meet Scooter

. . . and I don’t mean Rizzuto.

Ex-San Francisco Giants slugger Barry Bonds, Major League Baseball’s record-holder for career and single-season homeruns, was indicted Thursday on five counts of perjury and obstruction of justice for lying to federal prosecutors investigating steroid use by professional athletes linked to the Bay Area Laboratory Co-operative (BALCO).

Within hours of the indictment’s unsealing, President George W. Bush—who had earlier this summer congratulated Bonds on surpassing Hank Aaron as baseball’s all-time homerun king—rushed to jump on the Barry-be-bad bandwagon.

In Washington, White House spokesman Tony Fratto said: "The president is very disappointed to hear this. As this case is now in the criminal justice system, we will refrain from any further specific comments about it. But clearly this is a sad day for baseball."

Bush, who often likes to brag about having run the Texas Rangers (even though he was only a 5% owner), neglected to mention that during the time of his involvement with the Rangers, steroid use was understood to be rampant in baseball—a dirty little secret kept on the down-low by owners and players, alike, because all concerned liked what the juiced numbers were doing for the game’s bottom line.

But that’s not the height of the hypocrisy in the Bonds case—not anymore.

The President rushed to condemn Bonds for allegations that bare a remarkable resemblance to the charges on which Vice President Dick Cheney’s former Chief of Staff Scooter Libby was convicted earlier this year (for the record, that would be four counts of making false statements, perjury, and obstruction of justice). Libby’s conviction carried mandatory jail time—as would the charges against Bonds, should they be proven at trial. But Lewis I. Libby never went to prison—George Bush pardoned Scooter soon after his conviction. Can Barry Lamar Bonds expect equal leniency from the man who was in this case, as he was in Libby’s, at least peripherally involved?


A sidebar, Your Honor

Bush’s involvement with Major League Baseball isn’t the only thread that ties the President to the BALCO investigation and the Bonds indictment. On the same day that the charges were revealed, Bush named the man who will prosecute Barry Bonds should the case go to trial.

A bit of background: The BALCO investigation was begun back in 2003 by then US Attorney Kevin Ryan—a George W. Bush appointee. But Ryan stepped down early this year, forced out, as were several other US attorneys, by Attorney General Alberto Gonzales because of a perceived lack of loyalty to the Bush Administration.

The turnover at the Northern California prosecutor’s office disrupted the ongoing BALCO investigation, likely causing a delay in the handing up of indictments. For the last eight months, the Bonds case was handled by interim US Attorney Scott Schools, a veteran DoJ lawyer.

With the confirmation and swearing in of new Attorney General Michael Mukasey, President Bush set about filling the vacancies created by the previous AG’s White House-directed purge. Joseph Russoniello, who served as US Attorney for ten years in the same district under Presidents Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush, has been nominated by his former boss’s son to take over the office now tasked with prosecuting Bonds.

And, one more thing, if this case doesn’t seem muddied enough by the behavior of the President and his appointees, defense attorney Mike Rains, representing Bonds in this matter, is accusing the feds of “unethical misconduct,” stating:

Every American should worry about a Justice Department that doesn't know if waterboarding is torture and can't tell the difference between prosecution on the one hand and persecution on the other.

I’m not ready to grant him that Bonds is simply being persecuted here, but as for his other observation, yeah, it—like this entire tangled web—has to get you thinking. . . .


UPDATE:

Questions about the timing of the Bonds indictment and its relationship to recent DoJ turmoil are asked in Saturday’s New York Times:

Why now? A defense lawyer for Barry Bonds and two outside legal experts raised questions yesterday about the timing of the perjury indictment against Bonds, saying they did not understand why it came this week and not months or even years ago.

But the United States attorney’s office in San Francisco declined to answer questions about the case against Bonds. . . .

The 10-page indictment issued by a grand jury Thursday consisted mostly of quotations from Bonds’s 2003 grand jury testimony, in which he repeatedly denied taking steroids or human growth hormone.

A government official involved with the case said the Department of Justice in Washington did not sign off on the decision to indict Bonds, which is not unusual. The official, who talked on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak publicly, said Attorney General Michael B. Mukasey, who was officially sworn in Nov. 9, only learned of the indictment after Scott Schools, the acting United States attorney in the Northern District of California, called the office an hour before the indictment was announced.

The lead defense lawyer for Bonds, Michael L. Rains, said the indictment did not appear to contain much new information. “Nothing has changed in four years,” Rains said. . . .

Two former federal prosecutors, Tony West and Walt Brown, speculated that Schools might have wanted to issue the indictment before he was replaced by someone unfamiliar with the case.

Less than four hours after the indictment was announced Thursday, the White House nominated Joseph Russoniello to replace Schools, a career prosecutor who has served as interim head of the office since Kevin Ryan was fired in January.

The White House spokeswoman Emily Lawrimore said the timing of the announcement was “completely coincidental.” . . .

West, a defense attorney in San Francisco and a former federal prosecutor there, said, “It’s a logical way to think about it, that you don’t have to get another U.S. attorney up to speed on it.” West said he was otherwise perplexed why Bonds would have been indicted Thursday on evidence the government seemed to have collected months ago.

Assistant United States attorneys in the office pushed to indict Bonds in the summer of 2006, but Ryan wanted to get testimony from Greg Anderson, Bonds’s trainer.

Anderson was jailed for contempt for refusing to testify for the last year, and he has been steadfast in his refusal to appear before the grand jury — another reason the government may have decided not to wait any longer, West said.

Anderson was released from jail shortly after the indictment against Bonds was announced. . . .

Brown, a former federal prosecutor in Los Angeles and now a defense lawyer in San Francisco, also said the coming change in United States attorneys might have been a factor. “You can’t help but notice the timing,” he said.

But Brown said the prosecutors might have also waited to charge Bonds until after the baseball season to avoid complaints that they had interfered with Bonds’s pursuit of Hank Aaron’s home run record.

So, either the indictment was rushed because the White House was about to replace the lead attorney (who was himself a replacement after the USA-gate purge), or the indictment was delayed so as not to interfere with the baseball season and Bonds’s pursuit of Aaron’s record—is that what counts as jurisprudence and due process these days?


(cross-posted to The Seminal and Daily Kos)

does he serve those five-year sentences consecutively or concurrently?

As I previously observed, when President Bush forbade Harriett Miers from testifying before the Senate Judiciary Committee, he likely committed a felony. Don’t remember? Well, here’s a refresher:

18 U.S.C. Sec. 1505 : ... Whoever corruptly ... influences, obstructs, or impedes ... the due and proper exercise of the power of inquiry under which any inquiry or investigation is being had by either House, or any committee of either House or any joint committee of the Congress ... [s]hall be fined under this title, [or] imprisoned not more than 5 years ... or both.

18 U.S.C. Sec. 1515(b): As used in section 1505, the term "corruptly" means acting with an improper purpose, personally or by influencing another, including ... withholding, [or] concealing ... information.

OK, with that in mind, read this:

US President George W Bush has ordered close adviser Karl Rove not to testify before a Senate hearing on the sacking of eight federal prosecutors.

Or, if you prefer, this:

Citing executive privilege, President George W. Bush on Wednesday rejected a subpoena for his close adviser Karl Rove to appear before to the Senate Judiciary Committee in a probe over fired federal prosecutors.

Gosh, that sure sounds like the Prez has again violated 18 U.S.C. Sec. 1505. That would be twice, now. So, you tell me, who should be held in contempt? Tell me whom a federal prosecutor should really investigate.

OK, you can tell me, but I’ll admit I want to hear it from a Senator or a major establishment media outlet.

going for baroque

When you don’t have a legal leg to stand on, and you only have to tap dance around the Congress for another 18 months, why not dispense with all the tedious formalities of Constitutional governance and just go nuts? You know, dispense with the subtleties, do something really grand!

Oh, that’s what you decided to do? OK.

Bush administration officials unveiled a bold new assertion of executive authority yesterday in the dispute over the firing of nine U.S. attorneys, saying that the Justice Department will never be allowed to pursue contempt charges initiated by Congress against White House officials once the president has invoked executive privilege.

The position presents serious legal and political obstacles for congressional Democrats, who have begun laying the groundwork for contempt proceedings against current and former White House officials in order to pry loose information about the dismissals.

Under federal law, a statutory contempt citation by the House or Senate must be submitted to the U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia, "whose duty it shall be to bring the matter before the grand jury for its action."

But administration officials argued yesterday that Congress has no power to force a U.S. attorney to pursue contempt charges in cases, such as the prosecutor firings, in which the president has declared that testimony or documents are protected from release by executive privilege.

Oh, c’mon, that’s all? Just some total blanket cover-up thingamabob to stop Congress from calling you to account? That only deals with after you do something untoward—it’s what you actually do that counts.

In a little-noticed executive order issued on Tuesday, President Bush directed the Treasury Department to block the U.S.-based financial assets of anyone deemed to have threatened "the peace or stability of Iraq or the Government of Iraq" or who "undermin(e) efforts to promote economic reconstruction and political reform in Iraq."

The order empowers Treasury, in consultation with the State and Defense Departments, to target those individuals or organizations that either "have committed, or ... pose a significant risk of committing" acts of violence with the "purpose or effect" of harming the Iraqi government or hindering reconstruction efforts. It applies to "U.S. persons," a category including American citizens. It had not previously been disclosed -- and still hasn't -- that U.S. persons are abetting the Iraqi insurgency, nor that Iraqi insurgents have property in the United States, raising questions about who in fact the order targets.

"The part where they reserve lots of discretion to themselves is the list of conditions that goes beyond determination of acts of violence. 'Threatening the peace or stability of Iraq or the Government of Iraq,' that could be anything," says Ken Mayer, an expert in executive orders and a University of Wisconsin political scientist. "Think of the possibilities: it could be charities that send a small amount of money (to groups linked to) the insurgency, or it could be the government of Iran that has assets in the U.S. and has money that flows through a U.S. bank or something like that."

Yeah! That’s more like it! As Bruce Fine, official from the Reagan DoJ, puts it:

Certainly it is highly constitutionally questionable to empower the government to destroy someone economically without giving notice. This is so sweeping it's staggering. I've never seen anything so broad that it expands beyond terrorism, beyond seeking to use violence or the threat of violence to cower or intimidate a population. This covers stabilization in Iraq. I suppose you could issue an executive order about stabilization in Afghanistan as well. And it goes beyond even attempting violence, to cover those who pose 'a significant risk' of violence. Suppose Congress passed a law saying you've committed a crime if there's significant risk that you might commit a crime.

“Suppose Congress passed a law”—that’s so quaint! Why would anybody in this executive branch care tinker’s cuss about that?

As a former New Orleans district attorney (might have) said: We are through the looking glass here, people.

Or, like I accidentally put it up top, it’s like tap dancing without legs!

I see a conundrum. . .

And I think Bush’s (or is it Cheney’s?) lawyers see it too. . . .

this one should be easy

Well, surprise, surprise, President Bush has again defied Congress and again invoked a tenuous claim of executive privilege to do so:

President Bush directed former aides to defy congressional subpoenas, claiming executive privilege and prodding lawmakers closer to their first contempt citations against administration officials since Ronald Reagan was president.

It was the second time in as many weeks that Bush had cited executive privilege in resisting Congress' investigation into the firings of U.S. attorneys.

White House Counsel Fred Fielding insisted that Bush was acting in good faith in withholding documents and directing the two aides -- Fielding's predecessor, Harriet Miers, and Bush's former political director, Sara Taylor -- to defy subpoenas ordering them to explain their roles in the firings over the winter.

In the standoff between branches of government, Fielding renewed the White House offer to let Miers, Taylor and other administration officials meet with congressional investigators off the record and with no transcript. He declined to explain anew the legal underpinnings of the privilege claim as the chairmen of the House and Senate judiciary committees had directed.

Both House Judiciary Committee Chair John Conyers and Senate Judiciary Committee Chair Patrick Leahy have issued responses. Conyers was stern but polite:

We are extremely disappointed with the White House letter. While we remain willing to negotiate with the White House, they adhere to their unacceptable all-or-nothing position, and now will not even seek to properly justify their privilege claims. Contrary to what the White House may believe, it is the Congress and the Courts that will decide whether an invocation of Executive Privilege is valid, not the White House unilaterally.

While Leahy exhibited a bit more piss and vinegar:

I have to wonder if the White House’s refusal to provide a detailed basis for this executive privilege claim has more to do with its inability to craft an effective one.

But I have to wonder if Democrats are not missing the best and easiest argument to make in this and the other privilege cases. It seems to me that what needs to be said is something like this:

President Bush has again demonstrated his belief that he, and anyone else he designates, is above the law, but worse, he has asserted that his administration owes nothing to the American people. In this case, the president’s continued insistence that his aids will only meet with Congressional investigators in secret and without a transcript confirms such disrespect. Why is it OK for administration officials to talk to a select few in private, but not OK for them to talk in the open, in front of the people that elect the president and pay the salaries of his entire staff?

We think the American people deserve to hear what these Bush aids have to say. We believe that Americans are capable of understanding the facts of this case, and, more importantly, understanding right from wrong. Judging from the position taken by President Bush, either he believes that the people are incapable of understanding, or he is deeply afraid that they will understand all too well.

failing the smell test

Late on Thursday, the White House released this terse statement:

On June 14, 2007, the President signed into law:

S. 214, the “Preserving United States Attorney Independence Act of 2007.”

Sounds good, right? Bush actually signed a bill passed by the Democratic Congress written to undue the provision at the heart of the US attorney scandal—what could be wrong with that?

Well, actually, plenty. In fact, it stinks. . . .

what to write about?

Thursday was a day so full of real news, it made my head spin. More fallout from James Comey’s testimony (and more fallout still), Paul Wolfowitz’s resignation, Cheney’s lawyers claiming total immunity in the Plame civil suit, Bush not answering one question, and smirking at another—I wanted to write a piece that pulled it all together, culminating in one or two undeniable conclusions. But, I’ll leave that to your imagination for now, that post is growing very long, and there is something else that I just can’t get off of my mind.

It’s kind of a small thing, really, but in another way, kind of not. It involves, of all things, last night’s episode of the long-running NBC hospital drama ER. The show, the season finale, itself wasn’t great (I’m not sure there has been a “great” episode of ER in a very, very long time), but some of the things in it really struck me. Struck me not so much because they were rendered that artfully, but rather, it struck me because they were rendered at all.

Over the years (and I am not a regular, each and every week viewer, but I see my share), ER has been good about bringing the outside world into the TV one—adding a line or a short subplot about the state of healthcare in America, or about other social issues—but last night, well. . . .

(almost) everybody must get stoned

These guys kill me. I mean, I know that they literally kill others, through their actions, but they, you know, in a head-shaking kind of disbelief way, stone-dead kill me.

Yesterday, it was Attorney General Alberto Gonzales taking the convenient opportunity to seize upon the resignation of his Deputy AG Paul McNulty to announce that, even though Gonzales had previously sworn little knowledge of what was going on regarding the US attorneys, and even though he had earlier the same day claimed that his chief deputy wasn’t actually a “top aid,” Abu-G now knew that the whole was USA-purge-gate mess was squarely McNulty’s fault.

Today, we read that the other guy vying for the title “Most Embattled Bushie,” World Bank President Paul Wolfowitz, is holding his organization hostage by insisting the Bank take the blame for his, Wolfie’s, misdeeds:

After six weeks of combating efforts to oust him as president of the World Bank, Paul D. Wolfowitz began Wednesday to negotiate the terms under which he would resign, in return for the dropping or softening of the charge that he had engaged in misconduct, bank officials said.

Mr. Wolfowitz was said to be adamant that he be cleared of wrongdoing before he resigned, according to people familiar with his thinking.

This is after Wolfowitz already laid the blame for his troubles on his “companion” (or maybe former companion?) Shaha Riza:

Wolfowitz effectively blamed Riza for his predicament as well, saying that her "intractable position" in demanding a salary increase as compensation for her career disruption forced him to grant one to pre-empt a lawsuit.

Indeed, these are the kinds of men we want in charge of the Justice Department and the World Bank. This is an example of the high moral and ethical standards that America wants to hold up as a beacon to the rest of the planet. This is the kind of dedication to self and others, to friends, to country, to the institution you serve, run, and pretend to honor that it makes each of us want to stand up, salute, and vow to be better ourselves.

Not.

Rather, this is the kind of behavior that makes people turn off to public service, distrust their governments, and assume that rules are different for the rich and powerful. In short, it makes people cynical.

Which is likely a happy byproduct for the members of this cult of irresponsibility. Sure, first and foremost, it is an innate sense of entitlement and an imperial hubris that results in such behavior—and the likes of Gonzales and Wolfowitz (not to mention the likes of Bush and Cheney) probably don’t even realize it could or should be any other way. But, their religious dedication to blaming others, this pathological inability to see that the fault lies not in the stars, but somewhere much, much closer to home, thrives in the climate it creates, thus allowing the self-anointed forgivers of their own sins to continue in the same self-obsessed vein, and maybe contributing to even bigger abuses and grander claims of immunity.

What’s really funny, too, is how any number of these sorts like to wear their piety on their sleeves—so quick to tell everyone else they’ve got it wrong, have erred, have transgressed, are not worthy of trust or respect. . . . I guess if you are so certain that you yourself are without guilt, it is easier to cast that first stone.

Like I said, these guys kill me. Stone-dead kill me.


(cross-posted to Daily Kos)

as suspected. . .

The case against the suspects is suspect:

[T]he criminal complaint that details the plot describes an effort that was alternately ambitious and clumsy, with the men at turns declaring themselves eager to sacrifice their lives in the name of Allah and worrying about getting arrested or deported for buying weapons or possessing a map of a military base.

And lookie here: The US Attorney that is bringing this case against the Fort Dix Six (it does have such a nice ring) is none other than Chris Christie, the former Bush “pioneer” who issued a string of squirrelly subpoenas last year against Senator Bob Menendez (D-NJ). In what is now an all too familiar story, Christie used his position to attempt to exert influence on an election. Christie’s investigation seemed at the time to dovetail very conveniently with the themes raised by the campaign of Republican challenger Tom Kean, Jr. With Kean’s loss last November, the always-silly investigation of Menendez seems to have taken a backseat to the GWOT ™.

I would also like to point out something else: Assuming there is something to this “terror plot” (a big assumption, I know), let us all take note of how this “plot” was uncovered.

The authorities first caught up with the men in January 2006, when personnel at a video store alerted the authorities after the suspects requested that he transfer onto a DVD a videotape of the group shouting about jihad as they fired assault weapons at a range in the Pocono Mountains.

Got that? A video store employee dropped a dime on these guys. That was followed up with good, old-fashioned human surveillance and the recruiting of an informant. There were no high-tech, extralegal, NSA electronic intercepts, no FISA warrants, no National Security Letters—there were absolutely none of the newfangled constitution trampling tools or Patriot Act hooey that the Bush Administration claims it absolutely must have to win this new “war.” None of that was needed here. . . it has yet to be shown how any of it is needed anywhere.

Of course, all of that secret surveillance could come in handy when doing opposition research for the next election cycle. . . and we’ve got about seven-dozen United States Attorneys in position to run with the “evidence.”