TruthOut.Org: Rove To Be Indicted

Would this be a late 2005 or an early 2006 Fitzmas present? From TruthOut:

Despite vehement denials by his attorney, who said this week that Karl Rove is neither a "target" nor in danger of being indicted in the CIA leak case, the special counsel leading the investigation has already written up charges against Rove, and a grand jury is expected to vote on whether to indict the Deputy White House Chief of Staff sometime next week, sources knowledgeable about the probe said Friday afternoon. * * *

Luskin was informed via a target letter that Fitzgerald is prepared to charge Rove for perjury and lying to investigators during Rove’s appearances before the grand jury in 2004 and in interviews with investigators in 2003 when he was asked how and when he discovered that Valerie Plame Wilson worked for the CIA, and whether he shared that information with the media.

If the grand jury returns an indictment Rove would become the second White House official - and one of the most powerful political operatives in the country - charged in the case since the leak investigation began in the fall of 2003.

In the event that an indictment is handed up by the grand jury it would be filed under seal. A press release would then be issued by Fitzgerald’s press office indicating that the special prosecutor will hold a news conference, likely on a Friday afternoon, sources close to the case said. The media would be given more than 24 hours notice of a press conference, sources added.

Luskin was at his office when called for comment but his assistant said he would not take the call or comment on this story.

In recent weeks, sources close to the case said, Fitzgerald's staff has met with Rove's legal team several times to discuss a change in Rove's status in the case - from subject to target - based on numerous inconsistencies in Rove's testimony, whether he discussed Plame Wilson with reporters before her name and CIA status were published in newspaper reports, and whether he participated in a smear campaign against her husband.

The meetings between Luskin and Fitzgerald which took place on several occasions a few weeks ago were called to discuss a timeframe to schedule a return to the grand jury by Rove to testify about, among other things, 250 pages of emails that resurfaced February 6 from Vice President Dick Cheney's office and the Office of President Bush in which Rove wrote to former White House Chief of Staff Andrew Card about strategizing an attack against Wilson, sources familiar with the case said.

Neil Young's "Living With War"

You can listen to Neil's new album here. It rocks.

Quote Of The Day

"Only problem with this case is that it’s hard to tell which ones are the whores."

A comment made by "trueblue" at the Think Progress site with regard to a Duke-Stir-related story contending that defense contractors may have supplied as many as a half dozen congressmen with prostitutes.

Holy Shit!

It looks like Tyler Drumheller's appearance on 60 Minutes last Sunday was the straw that broke the camel's back for the Bolsheviks in the Bush Regime.

As you may remember, Drumheller, the CIA's top man in Europe during the run-up to the Iraq Catastrophe, revealed that Bush, Cheney, and Rice knew a year before the U.S. invasion that Iraq had no active WMD programs. Here's BushCo's apparent response to Drumheller's accusation (from The National Journal):

The CIA has imposed new and tighter restrictions on the books, articles, and opinion pieces published by former employees who are still contractors with the intelligence agency. According to several former CIA officials affected by the new policy, the rules are intended to suppress criticism of the Bush administration and of the CIA. The officials say the restrictions amount to an unprecedented political "appropriateness" test at odds with earlier CIA policies on outside publishing.

The move is a significant departure from the CIA's longtime practice of allowing ex-employees to take critical or contrary positions in public, particularly when they are contractors paid to advise the CIA on important topics and to publish their assessments.

Good Talking Points Memo Post

I liked this post from Josh Marshall:

The president is unpopular for a lot of reasons. The biggest reason is probably Iraq -- in all its many manifestations. But a very big reason -- and one that suffuses many of the other reasons -- is a growing sense that the president and his chief advisors are dishonest, incompetent, cynical and possibly corrupt.

That's not great. But when you think about this coming election, and the stakes for the White House, you need to figure that that's all come about without any independent, let alone antagonistic or hostile, investigations into the key issues that have led to this souring view of the president.

Would the president look better after a new look at the Iraq intel bamboozlement that wasn't controlled by Sen. Roberts? How about an investigation into the executive branch side of the Abramoff scandal? What about a look into the Plame affair? What about the folks in Rumsfeld's office who knew about Duke's corruption but looked the other way?

Aggrieved opposition parties can go overboard when they come back into power and damage themselves -- the Republicans in 1946 and 1994 are good examples. But the Bush administration has built up a very big backlog of bad acts.

Get ready for a rough summer and fall. The White House can't afford to lose either house of Congress.

Danimal and I were just talking the other day about how remarkable Bush's low approval ratings are given that the GOP controls everything, which of course means that there have been no serious investigations into any of the GOP corruption. When you also consider that the Corporate Media pretty much covered up for Bush all those years, the fall from grace becomes even more remarkable.

I criticize the American people a lot for being easily manipulated -- think November 2004 -- but Americans have really been able to see through all the BushCo bullshit lately. It kind of reminds me of Clinton's second term, when the American people were able to see through all the GOP crap and Clinton was able to maintain a strong approval rating during an impeachment.

And speaking of BushCo corruption, it looks like Scooter's latest legal maneuver failed:

A federal judge refused Thursday to dismiss charges against I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, the former top White House aide who was indicted on perjury and obstruction charges last year in the CIA leak scandal.

In a 31-page opinion, U.S. District Judge Reggie B. Walton turned down a motion by lawyers for Vice President Dick Cheney's one-time top assistant, who challenged the authority of Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald to handle the case.

Libby's lawyers had argued that Fitzgerald was given too much power — more than the attorney general — and that the appointment should have been made by the president with the Senate's approval.

Walton said Thursday he did not need to "look far" in the law to reject the claim by Libby's defense team. The judge said there is no question the attorney general can delegate any of his functions.

This Should Be Fun

Tony Snow is BushCo's new Press Secretary:

President Bush on Wednesday named Tony Snow, a conservative pundit who has nonetheless been critical of the administration, as his press secretary — the latest move in Bush’s effort to remake his troubled White House.

“He sometimes has disagreed with me,” Bush said of Snow’s comments in print and television. Bush said he had asked Snow about those comments, and got this response from Snow: “You should have heard what I said about the other guy.”

That's a pretty funny joke, Tony. But Think Progress has a list of some of the things Snow has said about Bush in the past, and some of it wasn't very nice:

– Bush has “lost control of the federal budget and cannot resist the temptation to stop raiding the public fisc.” [3/17/06]

– “George W. Bush and his colleagues have become not merely the custodians of the largest government in the history of humankind, but also exponents of its vigorous expansion.” [3/17/06]

– “President Bush distilled the essence of his presidency in this year’s State of the Union Address: brilliant foreign policy and listless domestic policy.” [2/3/06]

– “George Bush has become something of an embarrassment.” [11/11/05]

– Bush “has a habit of singing from the Political Correctness hymnal.” [10/7/05]

– “No president has looked this impotent this long when it comes to defending presidential powers and prerogatives.” [9/30/05]

– Bush “has given the impression that [he] is more eager to please than lead, and that political opponents can get their way if they simply dig in their heels and behave like petulant trust-fund brats, demanding money and favor — now!” [9/30/05]

– “When it comes to federal spending, George W. Bush is the boy who can’t say no. In each of his three years at the helm, the president has warned Congress to restrain its spending appetites, but so far nobody has pushed away from the table mainly because the president doesn’t seem to mean what he says.” [The Detroit News, 12/28/03]

– “The president doesn’t seem to give a rip about spending restraint.” [The Detroit News, 12/28/03]

– “Bush, for all his personal appeal, ultimately bolstered his detractors’ claims that he didn’t have the drive and work ethic to succeed.” [11/16/00]

– “Little in the character of demeanor of Al Gore or George Bush makes us say to ourselves: Now, this man is truly special! Little in our present peace and prosperity impels us to say: Give us a great man!” [8/25/00]

– “George W. Bush, meanwhile, talks of a pillowy America, full of niceness and goodwill. Bush has inherited his mother’s attractive feistiness, but he also got his father’s syntax. At one point last week, he stunned a friendly audience by barking out absurd and inappropriate words, like a soul tortured with Tourette’s.” [8/25/00]

– “He recently tried to dazzle reporters by discussing the vagaries of Congressional Budget Office economic forecasts, but his recitation of numbers proved so bewildering that not even his aides could produce a comprehensible translation. The English Language has become a minefield for the man, whose malaprops make him the political heir not of Ronald Reagan, but Norm Crosby.” [8/25/00]

– “On the policy side, he has become a classical dime-store Democrat. He gladly will shovel money into programs that enjoy undeserved prestige, such as Head Start. He seems to consider it mean-spirited to shut down programs that rip-off taxpayers and mislead supposed beneficiaries.” [8/25/00]

Of course, Snow will probably just claim that he was lying when he said all these things about his new boss. But it goes without saying that the White House press corps will have a field day with all this, particularly if Snow starts acting like an asshole in his new job (which I'm sure he will do). I can hear it now:

"Tony, I have a two part question: (1) Isn't the White House's latest proposal simply an example of -- to use your own words from back in December 2003 -- the President acting like the boy who just couldn't say no, and (2) isn't this simply another example of -- to use one of your phrases -- the president not giving a rip about spending restraint?"

FauxNews States Its Terms RE: White House Press Room Take-Over

From The Hot Line (via Political Wire):

The Hotline has more on the likely new White House press secretary: "Tony Snow is said by Republicans familiar with the negotiations to have asked for guaranteed access to the president's ear and to an unusually large degree of latitude to reconfigure the WH press operation. That pleases the new chief of staff, who wants to relegitimize the press podium in the Brady briefing room."

"But Snow, not content to be a herald, also wants near-complete control over what he says from the podium, be it bromides, platitudes or substance. That would encroach on the broad portfolio of responsibilities that Dan Bartlett claims for himself."

Senator Pat Roberts Strikes Again

I really hate this guy:

Sen. Pat Roberts (R-Kan.), who chairs the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, said he wants to divide his panel’s inquiry into the Bush administration’s handling of Iraq-related intelligence into two parts, a move that would push off its most politically controversial elements to a later time.

The inquiry has dragged on for more than two years, a slow pace that prompted Democrats to force the Senate into an extraordinary closed-door session in November. Republicans then promised to speed up the probe.

The Democrats should be able to use Roberts' maneuvering to their advantage, perhaps in a campaign ad illustrating why GOP control of all branches of federal government is a bad thing for the country.

It's Amazing What A 32% Approval Rating Can Do

The apocalypse must nearly be upon us. Or Hell just froze over. One of the two, because Bush has ordered an investigation into gas prices:

President Bush is ordering an investigation into whether the price of gasoline has been illegally manipulated, his spokesman said Monday.

During the last few days, Bush asked his Energy and Justice departments to open inquiries into possible cheating in the gasoline markets, said White House press secretary Scott McClellan. Bush planned to announce the action Tuesday during a speech in Washington.

Bush is under pressure to do something about gas prices that have reached nearly $3 a gallon. In a new CNN poll, 69 percent of respondents said gasoline price increases had caused them personal hardship. Other polls suggest that voters favor Democrats over Republicans on the issue, and President Bush gets low marks for handling gas prices.

Of course, this has nothing to do with the fact that the latest CNN poll has Bush's approval rating at 32%, the lowest of his presidency so far. I can't wait to see what happens when his approval numbers drop into the high 20s. Maybe he'll fire Donald Rumsfeld.

Actually, if past BushCo investigations are any indication, this current investigation will not only find no wrongdoing, but will probably result in the CEOs of each major oil company receiving a Medal of Freedom.

Bush Impeachment Imminent

Illinois is getting the ball rolling on the impeachment of George W. Bush:

The Illinois General Assembly is about to rock the nation. Members of state legislatures are normally not considered as having the ability to decide issues with a massive impact to the nation as a whole. Representative Karen A. Yarbrough of Illinois' 7th District is about to shatter that perception forever. Representative Yarbrough stumbled on a little known and never utlitized rule of the US House of Representatives, Section 603 of Jefferson's Manual of the Rules of the United States House of Representatives, which allows federal impeachment proceedings to be initiated by joint resolution of a state legislature. From there, Illinois House Joint Resolution 125 (hereafter to be referred to as HJR0125) was born.

California is also using this rule to impeach both Bush and Cheney. Something tells me that this tactic won't work, but merely typing the title to this post felt great. Thanks for the link, Slic[k].

Looks Like The Intel Leading Up To The Iraq Debacle Wasn't So Faulty After All

If you missed the 60 Minutes interview of Tyler Drumheller last night, you can read all about it here. Drumheller, a 26-year veteran of the CIA and that agency's top man in Europe during the run-up to the Iraq War, dropped a bombshell during the interview:

[T]he CIA had made a major intelligence breakthrough on Iraq’s nuclear program. Naji Sabri, Iraq’s foreign minister, had made a deal to reveal Iraq’s military secrets to the CIA. Drumheller was in charge of the operation.

"This was a very high inner circle of Saddam Hussein. Someone who would know what he was talking about," Drumheller says.

"You knew you could trust this guy?" Bradley asked.

"We continued to validate him the whole way through," Drumheller replied.

According to Drumheller, CIA Director George Tenet delivered the news about the Iraqi foreign minister at a high-level meeting at the White House, including the president, the vice president and Secretary of State Rice.

At that meeting, Drumheller says, "They were enthusiastic because they said, they were excited that we had a high-level penetration of Iraqis."

What did this high-level source tell him?

"He told us that they had no active weapons of mass destruction program," says Drumheller.

"So in the fall of 2002, before going to war, we had it on good authority from a source within Saddam's inner circle that he didn't have an active program for weapons of mass destruction?" Bradley asked.

"Yes," Drumheller replied. He says there was no doubt in his mind at all.

"It directly contradicts, though, what the president and his staff were telling us," Bradley remarked.

"The policy was set," Drumheller says. "The war in Iraq was coming. And they were looking for intelligence to fit into the policy, to justify the policy."

Drumheller expected the White House to ask for more information from the Iraqi foreign minister.

But he says he was taken aback by what happened. "The group that was dealing with preparation for the Iraq war came back and said they're no longer interested," Drumheller recalls. "And we said, 'Well, what about the intel?' And they said, 'Well, this isn't about intel anymore. This is about regime change.'"

"And if I understand you correctly, when the White House learned that you had this source from the inner circle of Saddam Hussein, they were thrilled with that," Bradley asked.

"The first we heard, they were. Yes," Drumheller replied.

Once they learned what it was the source had to say — that Saddam Hussein did not have the capability to wage nuclear war or have an active WMD program, Drumheller says, "They stopped being interested in the intelligence."

The White House declined to respond to Drumheller's account of Naji Sabri’s role, but Secretary of State Rice has said that Sabri, the Iraqi foreign minister turned U.S. spy, was just one source, and therefore his information wasn’t reliable.

"They certainly took information that came from single sources on uranium, on the yellowcake story and on several other stories with no corroboration at all and so you can’t say you only listen to one source, because on many issues they only listened to one source," says Drumheller.

"So you’re saying that if there was a single source and that information from that source backed up the case they were trying to build, then that single source was ok, but if it didn’t, then the single source was not ok, because he couldn’t be corroborated," Bradley asked.

"Unfortunately, that’s what it looks like," Drumheller replied.

This is a pretty amazing revelation, particularly given that the Bush Regime and its co-conspirators in Congress have been claiming for the last two years that the Iraq Failure was due to faulty intelligence. Now we know that a high-ranking Iraqi minister -- a member of Saddam's inner circle no less -- was telling us one year before the invasion that Saddam had no WMD and that Bush, Cheney, and Rice had direct knowledge of this.

No wonder Drumheller felt compelled to come forward with this. He supervised a major intelligence victory for the CIA with regard to Iraq, only to have the White House (1) disregard it because it didn't fit in with BushCo's plans for regime change and then (2) blame the CIA for "faulty intelligence" when everything started to go sideways. It makes me wonder how many other Drumhellers are out there with a similar story to tell.

What I find particularly remarkable is that the folks planning the invasion of Iraq didn't want to talk to Foreign Minister Sabri about anything, despite the fact that he undoubtedly had extensive knowledge with regard to Iraq's military capabilities. Sabri could have given these planners information that might have saved American lives during our invasion and subsequent occupation, but for some reason these planners weren't interested in saving American lives.

But it gets worse. Josh Marshall did a follow-up on all this:

Drumheller's account is pretty probative evidence on the question of whether the White House politicized and cherry-picked the Iraq intelligence.

So why didn't we hear about any of this in the reports of those Iraq intel commissions that have given the White House a clean bill of health on distorting the intel and misleading the country about what we knew about Iraq's alleged WMD programs?

Think about it. It's devastating evidence against their credibility on a slew of levels.

Did you read in any of those reports -- even in a way that would protect sources and methods -- that the CIA had turned a key member of the Iraqi regime, that that guy had said there weren't any active weapons programs, and that the White House lost interest in what he was saying as soon as they realized it didn't help the case for war? What about what he said about the Niger story?

Did the Robb-Silbermann Commission not hear about what Drumheller had to say? What about the Roberts Committee?

I asked Drumheller just those questions when I spoke to him early this evening. He was quite clear. He was interviewed by the Robb-Silbermann Commission. Three times apparently.

Did he tell them everything he revealed on tonight's 60 Minutes segment. Absolutely.

Drumheller was also interviewed twice by the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence (the Roberts Committee) but apparently only after they released their summer 2004 report.

Now, quite a few of us have been arguing for almost two years now that those reports were fundamentally dishonest in the story they told about why we were so badly misled in the lead up to war. The fact that none of Drumheller's story managed to find its way into those reports, I think, speaks volumes about the agenda that the writers of those reports were pursuing.

"I was stunned," Drumheller told me, when so little of the stuff he had told the commission's and the committee's investigators ended up in their reports. His colleagues, he said, were equally "in shock" that so little of what they related ended up in the reports either.

What Drumheller has to say adds quite a lot to our knowledge of what happened in the lead up to war. But what it shows even more clearly is that none of this stuff has yet been investigated by anyone whose principal goal is not covering for the White House.

My conclusion from all this? Expect massive GOP-fueled election fraud this Fall. There is no way the Republicans can afford to lose either the Senate or the House in November. The last thing Bush needs is someone doing a real investigation into these issues.

Crooks and Liars has video of the Drumheller interview here.

Martin's New Blog

I was wondering why Martin hadn't put up a post at his blog for a few months. The reason is because he has a new blog that he didn't tell me about. Definitely check it out -- the link is on the right.

His post for a drinking game based on the show "24" is pretty good.

John Dean On The "October Surprise"

John Dean makes some suggestions with regard to what this year's October Surpise might be:

If anyone doubts that Bush, Cheney, Rove and their confidants are planning an "October Surprise" to prevent the Republicans from losing control of Congress, then he or she has not been observing this presidency very closely.

What will that surprise be? It's the most closely held secret of the Administration.

How risky will it be? Bush is a whatever-it-takes risk-taker, the consequences be damned.

One possibility is that Dick Cheney will resign as Vice President for "health reasons," and become a senior counselor to the president. And Bush will name a new vice president - a choice geared to increase his popularity, as well as someone electable in 2008. It would give his sinking administration a new face, and new life.

The immensely popular Rudy Giuliani seems the most likely pick, if Giuliani is willing. (A better option for Giuliani might be to hold off, and tacitly position himself as the Republican anti-Bush in 2008.) But Condoleezza Rice, John McCain, Bill Frist, and more are possibilities.

Bush's second and more likely, surprise could be in the area of national security: If he could achieve a Great Powers coalition (of Russia, China, the United Kingdom, France, and so on) presenting a united-front "no nukes" stance to Iran, it would be his first diplomatic coup and a political triumph.

But more likely, Bush may mount a unilateral attack on Iran's nuclear facilities - hoping to rev up his popularity. (It's a risky strategy: A unilateral hit on Iran may both trigger devastating Iran-sponsored terrorist attacks in Iraq, with high death tolls, and increase international dislike of Bush for his bypass of the U.N. But as an active/negative President, Bush hardly shies away from risk.) Another rabbit-out-of-the-hat possibility: the capture of Osama bin Laden.

Thanks for the link, Slic[k].

Did BushCo Intentionally Blow An Opportunity To Reduce Friction With Iran?

I hope members of the Mainstream Media pick up on this. It looks like Iran was making back-channel overtures to the Bush Administration back in 2003 -- shortly after Bush declared "mission accomplished" in Iraq -- for "comprehensive negotiations to resolve bilateral differences," but the War Mongers running our country would have none of it. Kevin Drum has all the details here, and then offers this suggestion:

[Q]uit letting Cheney's crackpots run foreign policy and talk to Iran. After all, the administration's ideologues killed an opportunity to ratchet down tensions three years ago, and since then things have only gotten worse: Iran has elected a wingnut president, they've made progress on nuclear enrichment, gained considerable influence in Iraq, and increased their global economic leverage as oil supplies have gotten tighter. So why blow another chance? If the talks fail, then they fail. But what possible reason can there be to refuse to even discuss things with Iran — unless you're trying to leave no alternative to war?

Even though the invasion of Iraq was a huge blunder, the Bush Regime could have at least used that invasion to put some pressure on Iran. Hell, Iran was asking for negotiations. What's the old rule again -- always negotiate from a position of strength. It certainly appeared back in May of 2003 that we were in a position of strength (it took several months for the Iraq insurgency to start making major headway).

But Cheney and company were apparently saving Iran for a later war, obviously thinking that Iraq would soon flower into the greatest democracy in the Middle East. Oops.

Now, BushCo refuses to negotiate with Iran, opting instead to let other countries do it. Harry Reid recently expressed regret with regard to BushCo's inability to engage Iran diplomatically:

The Bush administration is relying too heavily on other countries in the international effort to stop Iran from developing nuclear weapons, according to Sen. Harry Reid.

Reid, D-Nev., said the administration should be taking the lead, but instead is relying on Germany, France and Great Britain to convince Iran to end its uranium enrichment program.

"It is hard to comprehend," Reid said Tuesday in Reno. "We should be involved at trying to arrive at a diplomatic solution. ... Not just these three countries."

Reid said the Middle East is a "powder keg" because of U.S. failures in Iraq, the rise of fundamentalism and the recent election of Hamas in Palestine.

"Our not being involved diplomatically in trying to solve the situation in Iran shows the Bush failure in foreign policy there and elsewhere."

And he said the U.S. has no military option in Iran.

"We don't have the resources to do it" because of the ongoing war in Iraq," he said.

BushCo's ability to consistently do the wrong thing never ceases to amaze me.

Thirty-Three Percent

The latest FoxNews poll gives Bush a 33% approval rating:

More Americans disapprove than approve of how George W. Bush, Donald Rumsfeld and Congress are doing their jobs, while a majority approves of Condoleezza Rice. President Bush’s approval hits a record low of 33 percent this week, clearly damaged by sinking support among Republicans. * * *

President Bush’s job approval rating slipped this week and stands at a new low of 33 percent approve, down from 36 percent two weeks ago and 39 percent in mid-March. A year ago this time, 47 percent approved and two years ago 50 percent approved (April 2004).

Did I mention this is a FoxNews poll?

Is George W. Bush The Worst President In American History?

Princeton History Professor Sean Wilentz chimes in on what he thinks might be President George W. Bush's eventual place in history, and it ain't pretty. From Rolling Stone (via a heads-up from Slic[k]):

George W. Bush's presidency appears headed for colossal historical disgrace. Barring a cataclysmic event on the order of the terrorist attacks of September 11th, after which the public might rally around the White House once again, there seems to be little the administration can do to avoid being ranked on the lowest tier of U.S. presidents. And that may be the best-case scenario. Many historians are now wondering whether Bush, in fact, will be remembered as the very worst president in all of American history.

The reason I think Bush will be remember as one of if not the worst of the American presidents is because of the deadly combination of (1) over-the-top incompetence, (2) supreme arrogance, and (3) unfortunate historical timing. Wilentz cites other examples of awful chief executives -- e.g., James Buchanan, Andrew Johnson, Herbert Hoover -- and explains why Bush will probably end up being the worst of that bunch:

Calamitous presidents, faced with enormous difficulties -- Buchanan, Andrew Johnson, Hoover and now Bush -- have divided the nation, governed erratically and left the nation worse off. In each case, different factors contributed to the failure: disastrous domestic policies, foreign-policy blunders and military setbacks, executive misconduct, crises of credibility and public trust. Bush, however, is one of the rarities in presidential history: He has not only stumbled badly in every one of these key areas, he has also displayed a weakness common among the greatest presidential failures -- an unswerving adherence to a simplistic ideology that abjures deviation from dogma as heresy, thus preventing any pragmatic adjustment to changing realities. Repeatedly, Bush has undone himself, a failing revealed in each major area of presidential performance.

It's hard to argue with that, particularly when you add to the mix his inability to outright fire supremely incompetent people (Rumsfeld still has his job, and Condi Rice and Paul Wolfowitz were actually promoted).

And unfortunately for us, we've had this loser during a particularly calamitous time in our history. I'm not just talking about the 9-11 attacks. Global warming has already started wreaking havoc on this country as well as the rest of the world, and Bush has not only done nothing to slow it down -- his administration has actually attempted to cover up its very existence. Unless Bush is forced out of office -- or unless he has a change of heart in the next year or two -- this country will have wasted eight years by not dealing with an issue that even Bush's own Pentagon admits is the most dangerous security threat this country currently faces.

But let's get back to the whole 9-11 issue. After a promising initial response, Bush ultimately responded to 9-11 by . . . invading a country that had nothing to do with 9-11, and then doing it in the most incompetent way imaginable. The decision to invade Iraq will undoubtedly go down as the greatest American foreign policy blunder ever. We'll be feeling the effects of that mistake for decades to come.

And if all those colossal failures weren't enough, we also have the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina and the images related to BushCo's inept response to that particular catastrophe, images which are seared into the minds of people all over the world. I suspect that even folks around the world who hate Bush's America were horrified by the pictures of American citizens dying on their own streets and dead bodies floating in downtown New Orleans -- images which showed that the greatest nation in the history of the world may not be as great as everyone thought.

The problem is that everyone in this country knows that we are a lot better than what the images in the Katrina aftermath portrayed. Unfortunately, we are stuck with an enormously incompetent president who actually seems eager to destroy this country. Professor Wilentz makes this particular point very effectively in his article:

According to the Treasury Department, the forty-two presidents who held office between 1789 and 2000 borrowed a combined total of $1.01 trillion from foreign governments and financial institutions. But between 2001 and 2005 alone, the Bush White House borrowed $1.05 trillion, more than all of the previous presidencies combined. Having inherited the largest federal surplus in American history in 2001, he has turned it into the largest deficit ever -- with an even higher deficit, $423 billion, forecast for fiscal year 2006. Yet Bush -- sounding much like Herbert Hoover in 1930 predicting that "prosperity is just around the corner" -- insists that he will cut federal deficits in half by 2009, and that the best way to guarantee this would be to make permanent his tax cuts, which helped cause the deficit in the first place!

But Bush's biggest failure has to be the fact that he could have gone down as one of the greats -- history certainly presented such an opportunity to him -- but he was too stupid to follow a path that would have guaranteed him an honorable place in history. He instead decided to abandon the moderate tone he took during the 2000 campaign to become the most extreme American president ever. He'll have to live with that decision, but unfortunately, so will we.

Even folks like Thomas Friedman are starting to see the danger that Bush represents, particularly in the area of foreign policy:

I look at the Bush national security officials much the way I look at drunken drivers. I just want to take away their foreign policy driver's licenses for the next three years. Sorry, boys and girls, you have to stay home now -- or take a taxi. ... You will not be driving alone. Not with my car. * * *

If ours were a parliamentary democracy, the entire Bush team would be out of office by now, and deservedly so. ... But ours is not a parliamentary system, and while some may feel as if this administration's over, it isn't. So what to do? We can't just take a foreign policy timeout.

Anyway, read Wilentz's Rolling Stone article. It's excellent.

It's always fun to end one of these rants with a song, so here's a good one (thanks for the link, Fredrick).

The Theocrats In Kansas Were Not Amused

The Bible-Beaters on the Kansas Board of Education apparently don't believe in the Flying Spaghetti Monster. Oh ye of little faith:

State Board of Education member Connie Morris took exception Wednesday to a picture of a made-up creature that satirizes the state's new science standards hanging on a Stucky Middle School teacher's door.

Fellow board member Sue Gamble told The Eagle that Morris asked for the picture to be removed.

The creature, called the Flying Spaghetti Monster, is the creation of Bobby Henderson of Corvallis, Ore. It looks like a clump of spaghetti with two eyes sticking out of the top and two meatballs flanking the eyes.

Henderson created the entity and an accompanying mythology on the origin of mankind to make fun of Kansas' recent debate over the teaching of criticisms of evolution, including intelligent design.

In November, the board voted 6-4 to allow criticisms of evolution to be taught in Kansas schools.

Criticism of evolution is OK in Kansas schools, but criticism of the critics of evolution apparently is not.

Stalin would be proud of these people.

Will FauxNews' Tony Snow Be BushCo's New Press Secretary?

From CNN:

"I have given it my all sir and I have given you my all sir, and I will continue to do so as we transition to a new press secretary," McClellan said. He's expected to remain on the job until his replacement is named.

CNN has learned from multiple Republican sources that new White House chief of staff Josh Bolten reached out to Fox News anchor Tony Snow several weeks ago at the White House. Snow, who was a speechwriter for former President George H.W. Bush, had no comment on the story.

Appointing Snow to this position would be a sensible move for two reasons: (1) FoxNews has been the de facto press secretary for the Bush Regime since George W. was appointed to the White House in 2000, so why not formalize this arrangement; and (2) Snow and the rest of the folks at FoxNews are accomplished liars as well as experts at disseminating extremist propaganda. McClelland was never much of a liar.

Harold Returns From The Poker Graveyard

Our poker group played our weekly tournament last night. We had nine players at the start, and the top three would finish in the money. As is the usual pattern lately, Danimal's wife Ease was on a tear. She's won quite a few times in the last few weeks. I was able to bluff a monster pot away from her by representing pocket jacks when I only had a 7-3 offsuit in the pocket; but other than that, she was winning pretty much every major contested pot.

Anyway, we got down to six players and I was somewhere in the middle as far as chip stack size goes. I called pre-flop with a K in the pocket, and I got a K-high two pair on the flop, but two spades also showed up so I put in a moderate raise. Ease called, and Walter was all-in after he called. A blank showed up on the turn, so I raised it up again, and Ease, who had a big chip stack at this time, called me. I put Ease on a spade draw, so when another spade hit on the river, I figured she made her spade flush, so I checked and Ease went all-in.

Although I though she might be bluffing the flush since she had the big stack at the table, I decided to fold, mostly because Walter was all-in in that hand which meant that I'd be able to see Ease's cards anyway. Well, she had the flush, so Walter got knocked out and we were down to five players.

Although I was happy with my fold, the battle left me with only 3500 or so in chips and the blinds were at 500/1000. A couple hands later, I got dealt a K-7 in the small blind, so when everyone folded to the blinds, I went all-in in an attempt to steal the big blind. Unfortunately, Jenny, who was in the big blind, had A-K. She had 300 less in chips than I did, so when she called me and her A-K held, I was down to 300 in chips at a point in the tournament when the blinds were 500/1000. In other words, I was beyond dead. I couldn't even cover the small blind at that point.

Due to crappy cards, I had to wait until the big blind rotated around to me. Luckily, I got dealt an A-4 spades in the pocket when the big blind reached me, so I was all-in with my 300. I hit a spade flush on the river and tripled up. I doubled up a few times more, and pretty soon I was right back in it. Jenny took Charlie out, and we were down to four. A few hands later, I called Corrina's all-in with an Ace high, and my ace held.

Ease then took Jenny out, so Ease and I were heads-up. I was pretty short stacked, so Ease was able to dispatch me fairly quick and win yet another tournament. But I was more than happy to finish in the money after being virtually dead with a mere three black $100 chips when the blinds were 500/1000 and there were still five players in the game. It was my biggest hold 'em comeback to date.

Mr. Stevens Goes To Washington

I love it when Republicans lament about how nasty things have become in Washington D.C. and then act like none of it is their fault, despite the fact that they control both branches of Congress and the White House.

Senator Ted Stevens of Alaska is, of course, responsible for more than his fair share of vitriol. Who could forget when he tried to sneak ANWR oil drilling in through the Senate's back door and then threw a hissy fit when his little scheme didn't work.

That's why I had to laugh when I read this:

As he pushed his way into the Senate race in Washington state last week, Sen. Ted Stevens (Alaska) did not wear the "Incredible Hulk" necktie that on Capitol Hill signals his readiness for close-quarters combat.

The Senate's longest-serving Republican sounded more wistful than wound up. Stevens reminisced about an era when he could trust Democratic senators from Washington state. He recalled that the late senators Warren G. Magnuson and Henry "Scoop" Jackson had "adopted" him and had always done right by Alaska.

"Warren called me 'Son,' " Stevens, 82, said at a breakfast in this port city with executives whose companies depend on trade with Alaska. "I have not forgotten."

So, Warren Magnuson called Teddy Stevens "Son." God, it almost brings a tear to my eye. But why is Stevens in Washington State you ask? Well --

Fond memory, though, has given way to bad blood between Alaska and Washington -- and Stevens blames much of it on Sen. Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.), who faces reelection this fall. She has lead Democratic opposition to Stevens's long-frustrated crusade for oil drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.

When Cantwell again worked last December to torpedo the drilling, Stevens warned on the Senate floor that he would go to her state and "tell them what you've done." And so he did last week, but more in sadness than anger.

"I can't remember until these past few years any senator from your state who wasn't a close friend of mine," Stevens said. "That is a problem."

Well now I'm really starting to get choked up. Poor Senator Stevens has no close friends in the Senate from Washington State anymore. Isn't that awful.

But you're probably wondering where the funny part of the article is. Well, it's right here:

The problem, though, does not appear to be costing Cantwell voter support. Polls here show that the public is opposed to ANWR drilling and increasingly frustrated with Republican leadership on Capitol Hill.

Stevens's ire, in fact, may prove a political windfall for Cantwell, who squeaked into the Senate six years ago with a winning margin of just over 2,000 votes and whom some Republican strategists have described as beatable.

In the past year, Cantwell's knack for getting Stevens's goat has won widespread attention across this Democratic-leaning state, garnered favorable local press coverage, partially drowned out the campaign of her formidable Republican challenger and, polls suggest, may help her win reelection.

Senator Ted "I Can't Seem To Ever See The Big Picture" Stevens is welcome over in these parts anytime.