Few Have Felt Beat of Roberts's Political Heart

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Few Have Felt Beat of Roberts's Political Heart

By Michael Grunwald and Amy Goldstein
Washington Post Staff Writers

E. Barrett Prettyman Jr. fondly recalls working with John G. Roberts Jr. at Hogan & Hartson, the blue-chip Washington law firm where Prettyman was a renowned Supreme Court advocate, and Roberts was quickly becoming one. The two lawyers ate lunch together almost every day, and Prettyman says they became close friends, even though he's a staunch liberal and Roberts is a staunch conservative.

At least he thinks Roberts is a staunch conservative.

He's always assumed Roberts is a staunch conservative.

Actually, now that he racks his brain, he's not so sure.

"You know, I must have had a thousand lunches with John, and I can't think of a single thing he's said that would specify his politics," says Prettyman, a World War II veteran who once served as an aide to Robert F. Kennedy. "We were all under the impression that he's a conservative, but he always talked generalities. He's not the type to lay it all out."

Now that President Bush has nominated Roberts to serve on the court, many Americans are under the impression he's a staunch conservative. He's got a conservative résumé and a conservative lifestyle; he was chosen by a conservative president. But his public record and personal history suggest that his conservatism may not resemble the conservatism of Antonin Scalia or Clarence Thomas, Bush's favorite justices.

Roberts is certainly conservative in some senses of the word. He's a strait-laced, buttoned-down midwesterner, a creature of the legal establishment, respectful of tradition and deferential to authority. He's a devout Roman Catholic and a loyal Republican who clerked for then-Associate Justice William H. Rehnquist, worked for then-Solicitor General Kenneth W. Starr and served in the Reagan White House. He's a grammar snob; he once critiqued a Justice Department memo that sounded like "an awkward translation from Bulgarian."

But Roberts has always held his politics close to his vest. He said last week that his core values as a justice would be "modesty" and "stability." If his first 50 years on Earth were a prelude to an ideological crusade, he's done an excellent job of disguising it.


The Prodigy

John Glover Roberts Jr. was born in Buffalo, but as a boy he moved to Long Beach, Ind., an all-white, predominantly Catholic, largely Republican town on Lake Michigan. His father, John Sr., was an electrical engineer at Bethlehem Steel's new mill in the area, and later an assistant general manager at the plant; his mother, Rosemary, was a homemaker. John and his three sisters all attended Notre Dame Catholic School, where he wore a uniform of navy pants, a white shirt and a navy tie. Every Sunday, the tight-knit family went to Mass.

"They were very sincere about their beliefs, and they practiced them," said Joan Langley, Notre Dame's church secretary. "They were absolutely toe the line and obey the rules."

By the time John was a teenager, the Roberts family had moved into a four-bedroom Tudor-style home and joined the Long Beach Country Club, where John and his parents spent many happy hours on the golf course. John had also blossomed into an intellectual prodigy. "He did not boast of his brilliance," says his eighth-grade math teacher, Dorothea Liddell. "He was just brilliant, and everyone accepted that."

In December 1968, John applied to La Lumiere, a rigorous all-boys Catholic prep school in the area, and his earnest letter to the school suggests his early drive. "I've always wanted to stay ahead of the crowd, and I feel that the competition at La Lumiere will force me to work as hard as I can," he wrote in neat cursive. "I won't be content to get a good job by getting a good education, I want to get the best job by getting the best education."

In fact, Roberts dominated the competition at La Lumiere, earning the best grades in his class every semester. His calculus teacher announced after one test that a few students had received D's and the rest had failed -- except for one boy who had blown the curve by getting every answer right. "We all knew, if there was one 100 percent: Guess who?" one classmate recalls. Assigned to prepare a 15-minute oral report for theology class, Roberts plowed through seven books, then lectured his fellow students for three consecutive days of class.

"If the bell hadn't rung, he could still be speaking now, 32 years later," jokes his teacher, David Kirkby.

John may have seemed like the kind of youth who gets beaten up by the football players, but he was the co-captain of the team, playing running back and linebacker. He was short, slender and slow, but he made up for it in enthusiasm, and he had a gift for seeing the whole field. John was also a wrestler, a student politician, co-editor of the school newspaper, a member of the drama club, and a "sacristan" who helped the school's priest prepare for Mass.

La Lumiere was a $7,000-a-year haven of formality in the Indiana woods, far from the Vietnam War and student protests. Students wore blazers, gray flannel trousers and ties during the day, then changed into suits for dinner. John thrived in this structured environment; his hair, classmates recall, was always cropped a bit closer than theirs. As Kirkby put it, "he wasn't trying to test the limits."

"He is conservative now, and he was conservative then," said Larry Sullivan, his former math teacher.

But if he was conservative in the studious, religious, clean-cut sense, it was not clear he was politically conservative. There was not much ideological debate at La Lumiere; students spent more time arguing what would be on their next test. Teachers sometimes had them discuss issues such as abortion or the 1972 Nixon-McGovern election, but they were assigned one side of the argument, so Roberts learned to analyze issues from every angle.

It was a cloistered childhood, but John did get a brush with the outside world during the summer, cleaning up hazardous materials and emptying grease wells in his father's mill. When he introduced Roberts, Bush implied that the job reflected working-class roots, but it was really a perk for the sons of Bethlehem executives, paying an enviable $12 to $16 an hour. And there was never any real possibility that Roberts would follow his father into the factory for good. He was heading to Harvard.
Joining the Establishment

Roberts arrived in Cambridge in the fall of 1973, during the last throes of the Vietnam protests on campus. But Roberts was there to study, not to rally. He majored in history and graduated summa cum laude in only three years; his thesis on British liberalism in the early 20th century won the prize for the best in his class. He spent the next three years at Harvard Law School, becoming the managing editor of the Law Review, more than holding his own among high-powered classmates who included future luminaries such as Sen. Russell Feingold (D-Wis.), Pulitzer-Prize-winning historian Edward J. Larson and Broadway lyricist David Zippel.

Roberts was known as a brilliant, diligent, intellectually curious student without the stereotypical Harvardian need to remind everyone how smart he was. He was humble and self-deprecating, with a dry wit often masked by his midwestern reserve. He seemed genuinely nice. "The thing that strikes you most about him is the disconnect between how cocky he could be and what a phenomenally unassuming man he is," says Norman C. Ankers, now the head of litigation at a Detroit law firm.

Most of his classmates were liberal, and some sensed that he was more conservative. But most of those impressions were based more on his central-casting demeanor than anything he said. He attended church, played squash and dressed neatly; his college roommate told the Harvard Crimson he had ruled out Stanford Law School because his interviewer wore sandals. But he didn't flaunt any GOP loyalties. "I knew nothing of his politics," says another Law Review editor, Robert M. Pozin, now a partner in a Washington law firm. "I can remember political discussions we had at the Law Review . . . but I don't remember John being involved."

Larry Robbins spent hundreds of hours with Roberts at the Law Review, but he says that at the time, he didn't even know whether Roberts was a Republican. But he did get to see how Roberts revered the law. He says that Roberts thought the way the obsessive Professor Kingsfield wanted his students to think in "The Paper Chase," the film about the rigors of Harvard Law School. "John was extremely careful and deliberate," says Robbins, now the lead partner of a Washington firm. "He studied every word, because he believed that words had consequences. If he had a political agenda, it escaped my radar."

A few of his classmates started a Rehnquist Club, honoring the justice who was then considered the most conservative voice on the Supreme Court. Roberts did not join.
The Republican Elite

Roberts's first job after graduation was a clerkship for Judge Henry J. Friendly, an Eisenhower appointee who was one of the most respected appellate judges of his era. Friendly was an influential voice for judicial restraint, criticizing the Warren Court for pushing rights that were not included in the Constitution. Roberts admired his deliberate approach to the law, and his reluctance to second-guess the political process. The next year, Roberts won a clerkship with Rehnquist, whom he called "the Boss." But Richard J. Lazarus, his roommate in a Capitol Hill apartment, says Judge Friendly was a more important mentor to Roberts.

"Friendly was a conservative Republican, but that didn't determine his jurisprudence," says Lazarus, a liberal Democrat who is now a Georgetown University law professor. "John had deep respect for his intellect and approach to the law."

Lazarus says Roberts was never a fire-breathing, in-your-face, red-meat Republican. But by now, he was clearly a Republican; the night of the Carter-Reagan showdown in 1980, Lazarus put a donkey on their television, and Roberts countered with an elephant. After the election, he went to work in the new administration under Attorney General William French Smith, although his direct boss was a rising Republican lawyer named Kenneth Starr.

Starr liked to play devil's advocate, and he often asked Roberts to present alternatives to approaches favored by the Justice Department bureaucracy. It was Starr who first assigned Roberts to make the case that Congress should be allowed to stop federal courts from mandating busing.

Toward the end of 1982, Roberts joined the White House counsel's office, his most partisan job by far. He drafted precise and occasionally witty legal memos, warning of the potential political damage from a housing bill, arguing that the Small Business Administration should not be permitted to disagree publicly with the administration, and at one point attacking Office of Management and Budget director David A. Stockman as "disloyal" for trying to undermine a bill with press leaks. "OMB's position calls to mind what has been said of the Roman legions: They lost many battles but they never lost a war, because they never let a war end until they had won it," Roberts wrote.

Roberts was part of a young GOP vanguard in the Reagan administration, and he was a loyal team player. But he was more of a lawyer than a political operative, even if his client was the president. He pored over documents for minute errors; he once corrected a speech proclaiming discrimination illegal "from Maine to California," because it was illegal in Alaska and Hawaii, too. He advised the White House not to help a well-connected New York computer firm with a loan, and rejected a request by the U.S. ambassador to the Vatican to let an embattled archbishop see his FBI files. He was politically savvy, but Michael A. Carvin, a Washington litigator who was at the Justice Department at the time, says Roberts was much less outspoken about his politics than his peers. He was an aggressive advocate for the administration's policies, but it was never entirely clear which ones he personally supported.

"It's not a calculated pose that he keeps his cards close to his vest; that's just the way he is," Carvin says. "I'm an obnoxious New Yorker; I spout off. He's a reserved midwesterner."
Representing His Clients

Roberts entered private practice in 1986, as an associate and then a partner at Hogan & Hartson, but Starr lured him back to government in 1989 to be deputy solicitor general, arguing the George H.W. Bush administration's cases in federal court. It was a political job, but he did not approach it in an overly political way, analyzing cases from every angle. "We had a general sense of him being comfortable with the administration's priorities," says Michael Astrue, an administration lawyer who worked with Roberts on several cases. But he was not like "a lot of very political lawyers, who wear their politics on their sleeves."

John F. Manning, who worked in the solicitor general's office and is now a Harvard Law School professor, says that if Roberts had one consistent value, it was deference to political branches. He remembers Roberts quoting Oliver Wendell Holmes, describing the review of congressional laws as "the gravest and most delicate duty that this Court is called upon to perform."

"He had that quotation at his fingertips," Manning says. "I think that's a strong value for him. He doesn't think the Supreme Court should promiscuously overrule political decisions."

But that could be true of liberal decisions, as well as conservative decisions. Under Starr, Roberts developed a reputation as a lawyer's lawyer, a process guy, an incrementalist who liked fact-based arguments better than grand theories. Mit Spears, a Roberts colleague in the Reagan administration, says Roberts believes judges should be "dispassionate arbiters of balls and strikes," as opposed to "bomb-throwers."

"People who think the Supreme Court should lead the way in society are in for a bitter disappointment," Spears said.

As an administration lawyer, Roberts's advocacy for his clients did not necessarily reflect his personal beliefs. For example, his friends argue that just because Roberts signed a brief describing Roe v. Wade as "wrongly decided" does not mean he agrees. But it doesn't mean he doesn't, either. Roberts did not become an administration lawyer by accident. He has never stated his views publicly, but his friends assume he's antiabortion. And while he has never said how he would rule on Roe as a Supreme Court justice, he once suggested while discussing a euthanasia case that he is sympathetic to letting states decide matters of "terminating life."

President George H.W. Bush nominated Roberts for a federal judgeship, but the Democratic Senate did not vote on his nomination before the Clinton administration took office. So Roberts returned to Hogan & Hartson and became one of the nation's top appellate lawyers. In 1996, he married Jane Sullivan, a rainmaking corporate lawyer. They have adopted two children.

For the most part, Roberts has avoided politics. He has given $3,735 to Republican candidates -- including Bush, Sen. Richard G. Lugar (R-Ind.) and ex-senator Peter Fitzgerald (R-Ill.) -- but that's not much on a salary that topped $1 million a year. He gave advice to Florida Gov. Jeb Bush (R) during the Florida recount in 2000, but he did not sign briefs.

"I don't really feel like I know his politics," says H. Christopher Bartolomucci, a Hogan & Hartson partner who has worked closely with Roberts. "My sense is he's conservative, but he never talked about it. He's certainly conservative in the sense of respect for the text, caution, adherence to the precedent, deference to the government as opposed to social engineering."

Roberts has argued 39 cases before the Supreme Court, representing clients as diverse as Chrysler Corp., welfare recipients, the National Collegiate Athletic Association and the National Mining Association. He once argued for Hawaii's right to maintain racial preferences for native islanders, a risky move for a Republican judicial hopeful. He rarely proposed innovative legal theories, and he never seemed to use his cases to try to advance a conservative agenda. He just argued the facts and the law. He won more often than not.

In 2003, after President Bush nominated Roberts for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, he explained his overriding philosophy of the law: no overriding philosophy. He promised to take each case as it came, always putting the law ahead of his personal beliefs.

Some liberals worry that Roberts is a kind of Trojan horse -- a conservative activist who has diligently maintained a cover as an affable, conscientious, nonideological proponent of judicial restraint. But the liberals who know him best do not worry so much about that. "I guess I think of him as conservative, but I'm not even sure why," says Henrietta Wright, a former Carter administration lawyer who is close friends with the Roberts family. "He's just a genuine guy. You can't fake that for years and years."

On the other hand, it is not entirely clear why so many conservative activists believe Bush has nominated one of their own. His associations with Rehnquist, Reagan, Starr and Bush have certainly played a role. And a soft-spoken establishment conservative has a better chance of confirmation than a flame-thrower.

Roberts certainly looks the part of a conservative. He had a priest over to his home for Christmas Eve. He has made wry comments about the progressive legal theories that are rampant on law school campuses. He belongs to a country club. He plays squash.

"You know, he's an ambidextrous squash player," says Larry Robbins, his friend from the Law Review. "He favors his right, but he can use his left when the situation calls for it."

"But don't make too much of that, okay?"

Staff writers Jo Becker, Jonathan Finer, R. Jeffrey Smith and David Von Drehle contributed to this report.

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Roberts' White House papers show sly wit

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Roberts' White House papers show sly wit

By MICHAEL R. BLOOD
Associated Press Writer

SIMI VALLEY, Calif. (AP) -- John Roberts was not afraid to jab an elbow on policy or dispense opinion with a dash of sarcasm when he was a young lawyer in the Reagan White House.

President Bush's Supreme Court nominee was a stickler for legal nuance who used a finely tuned political radar to steer officials away from entanglements on Capitol Hill, where Democrats then ruled.

Roberts' writings stored at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library give a sense of a partisan eager to defend the president and keep lawmakers and bureaucrats in line.

For someone who has become known in both parties for a self-deprecating wit, Roberts could be blunt on paper, even dismissive.

Roberts, 50, served in the White House counsel's office from 1982 to 1986. The files show that his tasks included scrutinizing proposed legislation, assessing the impact of court rulings and reviewing speeches.

Roberts' political instincts took charge when he alerted White House counsel Fred Fielding that an administration position in a racially sensitive Supreme Court case could rankle a political ally, a Mississippi congressman named Trent Lott.

In a case involving alleged discrimination and a church-run school, Roberts wrote in a memo dated Aug. 2, 1984, "There should be little press interest ... since we are on the side of the black parents at this point."


Government officials had assured Lott they would not prevent the Mississippi church from having its day in court. "Just not the Supreme Court," Lott should be told if he objects, Roberts, then 29, wrote.

In a memo from March 1984, Roberts warned an official at the White House's Office of Management and Budget to avoid references to a touchy issue during upcoming immigration testimony.

The office should not cite the denial of visas to the widow of former Chilean President Salvador Allende and Nicaragua Interior Minister Tomas Borge, according to the memo. At the time, the Reagan administration was being criticized for denying entry to leftist foreign officials on ideological grounds.

"Those denials were, and continue to be, particularly controversial and there is no need to mention them," Roberts wrote.

The hundreds of pages of memos, reports and other records provide only a glimpse of Roberts' tenure at the White House.

Many files have yet to be processed by archivists and, as with papers of other administration officials, are unavailable to the public. On Friday, Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., urged the White House to release Roberts' documents "in their entirety" from his time in the administrations of Reagan and the first President Bush. Roberts was principal deputy solicitor general from 1989-93 for the current president's father.

In his Reagan years, Roberts weighed in on matters such as busing, immigration rights, fair housing law and war powers.

In an August 1984 memo, he wrote with lawyerly precision and caution about proposed presidential remarks on fair housing.

"The first sentence refers to the right of fair housing as a 'fundamental' right. I would change this to 'basic' right, since 'fundamental right' is a legal term of art in constitutional analysis and the right to fair housing in not such a 'fundamental right,'" Roberts wrote.

Directed to analyze a bill that would have blocked lower federal courts from ordering busing to integrate public schools, Roberts bucked an administration legal heavyweight - Theodore B. Olson, an assistant attorney general.

Olson's was among the names speculated about recently as possible replacements for retiring Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor - until Bush settled on Roberts last week

Roberts challenged Olson's conclusion that Congress could not outlaw busing for the purpose of reaching a racial mix in schools.

"Olson read the early busing decisions as holding that busing may in some circumstances be constitutionally required, and accordingly concludes that Congress may not flatly prohibit busing," Roberts writes. "I do not agree."

For someone widely known as a likable Midwesterner, his writings sometimes display a snarky wit.

In August 1983, he reviewed what he called a "snide letter" to Reagan from a University of Georgia professor who alleged that a government agency was compiling a blacklist and then suggested the government might investigate him for complaining.

In a memo to Fielding, Roberts added parenthetically, "Once you let the word out there's a blacklist, everybody wants to get on."

When Rep. Elliott Levitas, D-Ga., wrote Reagan to suggest a "Conference on Power Sharing" after a broad 1983 Supreme Court ruling, Roberts was dismissive.

"There already has, of course, been a 'Conference on Power Sharing,'" Roberts wrote - then alluded to the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia.

Roberts' legal advice could be pointed.

In another August 1983 memo to Fielding, Roberts reviewed a recent speech by Stuart Statler, a member of the Consumer Products Safety Commission, on a Supreme Court ruling on the division of government powers.

In the speech, Roberts wrote, Statler had suggested Congress strip from the executive branch the Justice Department's authority to represent federal agencies in court.

"There is so much wrong with so much of what Statler suggests that it is probably best simply to acknowledge receipt of his speech," Roberts told Fielding, "and tell him you look forward to reading it."

----

Associated Press Writer Jeff Wilson contributed to this report.

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Poll: Many in U.S., Japan oppose Iraq war

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Poll: Many in U.S., Japan oppose Iraq war

By WILL LESTER
Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Despite many disagreements, people in the United States and Japan have the same general view of how their governments are handling Iraq: More than half in each country disapprove.

An Associated Press-Kyodo poll found that 55 percent in the U.S. disapprove of their government's handling of Iraq and 55 percent in Japan dislike their government's handling of Iraq.

In January 2004, Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi sent the first installment of troops on a noncombat, humanitarian mission in Iraq, launching Japan's largest and most dangerous military mission since World War II.

Despite strong public opposition to the dispatch and fears that it could draw Tokyo into the war, Koizumi argued that Japan - as an oil-dependent nation - had to bear its share of the burden of rebuilding Iraq and combating terrorism, while supporting its top ally, the United States.

More than 500 Japanese soldiers are based in Samawah in southern Iraq, part of a total deployment of 1,000 military personnel in the region on a mission to purify water and repair public works.

Japanese officials, who have kept the troops mostly confined to their base because of security concerns, have been debating whether to extend the mission when its authorization expires at the end of the year.

"Japan should tell the U.S. that we have already contributed our part and leave Iraq now," said Hiroshi Nose, a 46-year-old Tokyo resident. "The Japanese people don't have any idea what they are doing over there or when they are going to come back. Everything seems so unclear and the war seems to be advancing without any clear plans."

U.S. troops have been in Iraq since the March 2003 invasion, and more than 1,770 U.S. troops have died in Iraq during that time.

"I don't think we should have gone in there in the first place," said David Turechek, a teacher from Stratford, Conn. "Iraq was unrelated to things unfolding in Afghanistan."

Turechek said the United States hasn't "done a lot that's right" since going into Iraq. "We've created a lot of problems for ourselves that weren't there when we went in," he said. "There's an awful lot of chaos and death over there."


Americans who are opposed feel more strongly about it than the Japanese, with 42 percent of Americans strongly disapproving, while 17 percent of Japanese strongly disapprove.

About four in 10 in both Japan and the U.S. say they approve of their own country's Iraq policies.

"In order to maintain a good relationship with the U.S., I think Japan should contribute, said Tsutomu Hirabayashi, a 54-year-old Tokyo resident. "We can't quit the dispatch just because other countries - such as Arab countries - say we should stop."

Lew Berry, 48, of Kittanning, Pa., said he tends to approve of the Iraq mission. "I would just as soon fight the terrorist over there than get bombed over here," he said.

The poll of 1,000 adults in the United States was conducted for the AP by Ipsos, an international polling company, from July 5-10 and the poll of 1,045 eligible voters in Japan was conducted for Kyodo by the Public Opinion Research Center from July 1-3. Each poll has a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 3 percentage points.

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Obama a celebrity despite low-key approach

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Obama a celebrity despite low-key approach

By SHARON COHEN
AP National Writer

PEKIN, Ill. (AP) -- The line forms the moment Sen. Barack Obama is done speaking, a procession of admirers clutching copies of his book, magazines, scraps of paper, disposable cameras and one homemade American flag. It doesn't take long before someone pops the question.

An elderly woman, dressed in bubble-gum pink, looks up with wide eyes. The lanky senator leans in to hear her amid the din in the stuffy library meeting room.

"In 2008 or some other time," she says, "will we get a chance to work for you for president?"

Obama grins, but demurs. He is not running for president. Not in 2008, at least.

His Senate career is just six months old. And six months before that, few people in America had even heard of this man who was just introducing himself to voters in Illinois.

But one year has passed since Obama's star-making turn at the Democratic convention, and the senator is now a player in two worlds: He's a deliberately low-key newcomer to Capitol Hill, careful to avoid upstaging the powerful old bulls on their home turf. But he's also an A-list celebrity, courted by everyone from Oprah to Gorbachev.

On a scorching July day, Obama has come to this blue-collar community just south of Peoria, seat of a county he and President Bush carried by equally lopsided margins. He's recognized everywhere. As he wraps an arm around a woman celebrating her retirement at C.J.'s Cafe to pose for a photo, a half-dozen friends at her table lift their cell phone cameras and click.

"It's been sort of a whirlwind," Obama says, sipping an iced tea. "Deserved or undeserved, I've received a lot of attention and that can translate into political influence. ... I think my colleagues legitimately see me as somebody who has potential but has just arrived."

That's the Washington way. In the Senate, the seniority system is still a reality and powerful committee chairmen and party leaders jealously guard the perks and prerogatives that come only with time. Obama knows he has to wait.

So he's taken on the age-old role prescribed for Senate freshmen: He's the diligent, shirt-sleeves-rolled-up, state-oriented lawmaker, devoted to the unglamorous issues that often matter most to folks back home.


He has pushed to spend money to modernize locks and dams along the Mississippi and Illinois rivers, squeeze out more dollars for Illinois highways and create tax credits for ethanol fueling stations - a plan dear to the hearts of corn and soybean growers.

He also has focused on reported inequities in disability compensation for veterans in Illinois. And with South Carolina Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham, he successfully proposed providing free meals for soldiers and Marines in military hospitals for extended stays while recovering from injuries received in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Still, Obama has ventured out a bit - as a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, he recently visited the United Nations to press for an end to the slaughter in the Darfur region of Sudan. And he will travel to Russia, Ukraine and Azerbaijan next month.

Obama - the only black member of the U.S. Senate - knows no matter what he does, the expectations in some circles are in the stratosphere.

"In some circumstances, there probably are people who expect me to have solved the world's problems already ... ," he says, "but I think most voters are satisfied if they know I'm thinking about them."

Obama has conducted 26 town meetings, including this one, and returns to Chicago every weekend to be with his family. He and his wife, Michelle, prefer to raise their two young daughters there rather than Washington because of "the lack of pretense."

The message is clear: There's no danger of Potomac fever.

His strategy - being a student, not a showboat - is wise, says Larry Sabato, a political scientist at the University of Virginia who has followed Obama.

"I think people wondered if he would continue to be high profile or do what he said he would do - take a back seat as a new senator and as a freshman try to learn more," he says. "To his credit, he's done the latter. He could have been on a Sunday morning talk show every weekend. He was smart enough not to do that."

That may well be why Obama - who receives about 250 invitations a week - says yes to the American Legion in Springfield and no to Mikhail Gorbachev's request to attend the 5th World Summit of Nobel Peace laureates in Rome.

But Obama, who turns 44 next month, can't escape the cameras. Nor has he tried.

He graced the cover of Newsweek and posed for celebrity photographers Annie Leibovitz and Richard Avedon - before he even took office. He popped up in People magazine (in white tie) with Barbra Streisand when both were guests at Oprah Winfrey's lavish tribute to pioneering black women.

He has been mentioned on TV's "Will & Grace" and lampooned at the annual Gridiron Club dinner, where a Washington journalist playing him wore a halo and gold lame and sang a tune called "Be Bop Messiah."

Obama even made his way onto the 100 Greatest Americans nominees list compiled by the Discovery Channel - Benjamin Franklin and comic Ellen DeGeneres made the cut, too - and edged out a handful of colleagues to rank No. 1 among senators in popularity among their constituents in a recent poll.

Obama's life also has changed in one other big way this past year.

While many senators are millionaires when elected, Obama joined the club last winter, courtesy of a $1.9 million three-book contract (one will be for children.) He also continues to draw royalties from his 1995 autobiography, "Dreams From My Father," reissued after his convention speech. It has remained on The New York Times paperback best-seller list for more than 40 weeks.

It's no wonder Obama joked months ago that he made Paris Hilton look like a recluse.

Not everyone has been enamored. Former Reagan speechwriter and sometime Republican adviser Peggy Noonan replied caustically to an essay Obama wrote for Time about Abraham Lincoln.

Obama compared his humble roots to those of 16th president: His father was a Kenyan he barely knew, his mother was from Kansas. Their son, raised in Hawaii and Indonesia, would become the first black president of the Harvard Law Review.

"There is nothing wrong with Barack Obama's resume, but it is a log-cabin-free-zone," Noonan recently wrote in an online column for The Wall Street Journal. "So far it is also a greatness-free zone. If he keeps talking about himself like this, it will always be."

Obama also angered some liberals for supporting Condoleezza Rice's nomination for secretary of state and refusing to join a group of Democrats who protested the certification of the Electoral College votes from Ohio, alleging numerous irregularities.

"There's a lot of freight placed on symbolic gestures," Obama says. "I don't think that plays well with the American people. ... Despite the fact that I come from what would be considered the progressive wing of the Democratic Party, I don't always agree with the strategy and tactics of some of my friends on the left."

Even so, the phone keeps ringing. He has helped raised money for U.S. senators in Florida, Michigan and New Jersey this year, collecting chits along the way.

Obama says his party needs to do a better job of getting its message out to voters.

"I do agree that the Democrats have been intellectually lazy in failing to take the core ideals of the Democratic Party and adapting them to circumstances," he says.

He says the Democrats should "take it big instead of making it small" as they speak about globalization, the need for a tough foreign policy and the importance of faith and family.

"It's not just a matter of sticking in a quote from the Bible into a stock speech," he says.

The town meeting in Pekin draws a standing-room-only crowd of about 200. They hear Obama soft-pedal his own power, repeating his standard line that he's 99th in seniority. The audience doesn't mind, posing a series of soft, friendly questions about the U.S. Supreme Court vacancy, veterans' benefits and the environment.

Obama is confident in his answers, measured with his words. He offers no Howard Dean-like jabs, only gentle gibes. The president's tax cuts? Billionaire Warren Buffett, he says, is the real winner. Bush's education program? "You can't have No Child Left Behind if you leave the money behind," he says.

Slash-and-burn politics are not his style. "I'm just not big on demonizing people," he says.

But he can charm them in a snap: He teases a father and son about their scalp-baring haircuts, asks a college student about school, offers a hand on the shoulder and a solemn "thank you for your service" to an elderly veteran and waits patiently as a little girl spells her name M-a-r-i-s-s-a so he can autograph the paper flag she has made.

Obama says there's a disconnect between issues people raise at town meetings and those debated in Washington. "There has yet to be a serious conversation about health care on the floor of the United States Senate," he says.

In fact, he says, there hasn't been much conversation at all.

"Now that we're in the C-Span era, we really don't have debates," he says. "What we have are sequential speeches delivered to TV cameras. ... And I think that contributes to the political rancor."

Still, he says there have been great and memorable moments in his short Senate career. He recalls walking onto an empty floor, opening his desk and seeing where - following tradition - previous occupants such as Bobby Kennedy, Paul Wellstone and Paul Simon had carved their names.

"You're reminded," he says, "that a lot of important work - both for good and for ill - has been done in this job."

Obama says he is "absolutely positive" he will not run for president in 2008. Those watching him say it's premature to predict his future.

"He has great potential, but the thing about potential is it has to be followed through," says David Bositis, a senior political analyst at the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies, a black think tank.

"Clearly he has impressed a lot of people ... and what happened during the election was remarkable," he adds. "Now, it's really time for him to start building a resume as a U.S. senator."

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White House unwilling to release all Roberts documents

USA TODAY

White House unwilling to release all Roberts documents

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Bush administration does not intend to release all memos and others documents written by Supreme Court nominee John Roberts during his tenure with two Republican administrations, a White House representative said Sunday.

Fred D. Thompson, the former Tennessee senator who is guiding Roberts through the nomination process on behalf of the White House, said material that would come under attorney-client privilege would be withheld.

He said previous administrations, both Republican and Democrat, have followed that principle.

A leading Senate Democrat disputed the assertion that privacy was at stake and called such a position a "red herring."

Attorney General Alberto Gonzales said requests for documents would be considered on a case-by-case basis from the Senate Judiciary Committee, which will consider the nomination.

"There is often an accommodation that is reached with respect to requests for information, and I suspect that's going to happen in this case," Gonzales said on Fox News Sunday.

The committee has yet to make a request. But some Democrats, including Sen. John Kerry of Massachusetts, have urged the White House to release such documents "in their entirety." (Related item: Kerry seeks release of Roberts' documents)

Roberts worked in the Reagan White House counsel's office from 1982-1986. Roberts also was principal deputy solicitor general in the administration of the first President Bush.

"We hope we don't get into a situation where documents are asked for that folks know will not be forthcoming and we get all hung up on that," Thompson told NBC's Meet the Press.

Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., said other nominees, including Chief Justice William Rehnquist, have provided material they wrote in confidence while working in the Justice Department.

"There's so much precedence for that," said Leahy, the senior Democrat on the committee.

"It's a total red herring to say, 'Oh, we can't show this.' And of course there is no lawyer-client privilege. Those working in the solicitor general's office are not working for the president. They're working for you and me and all the American people," he told ABC's This Week.


The Senate's No. 2 Democrat, Dick Durbin of Illinois, said documents could be an important part of the confirmation process when little is known about a nominee.

Roberts now is a judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. Nominated by Bush on Jan. 7, 2003, Roberts was confirmed by the Senate for that court on May 8, 2003.

"When you look at John Roberts, who has risen to the highest levels in terms of the practice of law in private sector and public sector, I think there have been important questions raised about things that he said and things that he wrote when he was working for the government," Durbin told NBC.

Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., said he thought some documents about work Roberts did in the solicitor general's office probably could be turned over, but not material when he was one of the lawyers for the first President Bush.

"If we're going to set a precedent that those communications between someone who works for the president and the president of the United States are some day going to be made public, I think it could have a real chilling effect on the kind of candor in communications that people would have with the president," McCain said on ABC.

Find this article at:
http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/judicial/2005-07-24-roberts-documents_x.htm?csp=34

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Rice no-show casts cloud over Asia security forum

Reuters

Rice no-show casts cloud over Asia security forum
By Ed Cropley

BANGKOK (Reuters) - A no-show by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice at this week's annual east and southeast Asian security forum is raising concerns about U.S. commitment to a region where China is fast becoming the dominant player.

Rice's office insists other "essential travel" and a scheduling snafu are the main reasons for her missing the July 28-29 ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF) in Laos, a meeting attended regularly by her predecessors.

But the excuse has cut little ice in the Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN), a 10-country bloc of 600 million people with oil and natural gas reserves seen as essential to fueling China's booming economy into the long-term.

"I know there has been a sense of disappointment," Kantathi Suphamongkhon, foreign minister of traditional U.S. ally Thailand, told reporters.

He stopped short of saying it was a snub, but acknowledged that analysts were saying Rice's decision to send her deputy, Robert Zoellick, to the Asia-Pacific region's only security forum was a symbol of the United States ceding the initiative to China.


"This was the concern. Hopefully, next year she will be able to come and things will fall into place. Hopefully, this is just a unique scheduling problem," Kantathi told Reuters.

With a carefully mapped-out strategy to guarantee stability in its own backyard -- and main energy gateway -- Beijing has cosied up to ASEAN over the past few years, signing a raft of friendship treaties, non-aggression pacts and free trade deals.

Conversely, ever since September 11, 2001, U.S. diplomacy in southeast Asia has been dominated by bilateral "war on terror" security concerns to the detriment of America's wider strategic role as a counterweight to a growing China, analysts say.

"I'm not sure if it's a very wise move by the U.S.," said K.S. Nathan of the Singapore-based Institute of South East Asian Studies. "They are, by default, giving the initiative to others, especially the rising powers of China and India."

"The Chinese are placing a lot of emphasis on multilateralism and quite clearly it will be an opportunity for China to strengthen its influence further."

WHAT HANDSHAKE THIS YEAR?

Historically, the ARF, one of the few international clubs to include North Korea, has been dominated by the rare opportunity it permits for contact between top officials from Washington and Pyongyang to discuss the latter's nuclear ambitions.

North Korean Foreign Minister Paek Nam Sun is due in Vientiane, although the traditional "will they, won't they" excitement over a U.S.-North Korean handshake has been superseded by Tuesday's scheduled resumption of six-way nuclear talks in Beijing.

Instead, the forum, which lumps ASEAN in with the likes of China, Japan, the United States, Russia, Australia, the two Koreas and India, is likely to focus on anti-terrorism issues, such as improving maritime security, especially in the key Malacca Strait.

A quarter of the world's trade and almost all oil imports to China and Japan pass through the narrow sea lane, which is patrolled jointly by Singapore, Malaysia and Indonesia.

At their last meeting, in Jakarta a year ago, ARF members agreed on the need to apply stringent airline standard security to shipping. They look likely to put flesh on the bones of this initiative, probably by increasing the scope of joint patrols.

The ARF, which follows the ASEAN meetings, is also likely to touch on democratic reform -- or its absence -- in Myanmar, given that Yangon's military junta is due to become ASEAN chairman in 2006.

Threatened with U.S. and European boycotts if the former Burma does take over the reins, ASEAN diplomats are praying Yangon's generals will tell the meeting they are stepping aside -- although in truth nobody really knows what they are planning.

ASEAN includes Brunei, Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, Singapore, Vietnam, Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand and the Philippines.

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Ex-CIA Officers Rip Bush Over Rove Leak

ABC News
Ex-CIA Officers Rip Bush Over Rove Leak
Former Intelligence Officers Criticize Bush for Not Disciplining Karl Rove Over CIA Leak
By DONNA DE
The Associated Press

Jul. 22, 2005 - Former U.S. intelligence officers criticized President Bush on Friday for not disciplining Karl Rove in connection with the leak of the name of a CIA officer, saying Bush's lack of action has jeopardized national security.

In a hearing held by Senate and House Democrats examining the implications of exposing Valerie Plame's identity, the former intelligence officers said Bush's silence has hampered efforts to recruit informants to help the United States fight the war on terror. Federal law forbids government officials from revealing the identity of an undercover intelligence officer.

"I wouldn't be here this morning if President Bush had done the one thing required of him as commander in chief protect and defend the Constitution," said Larry Johnson, a former CIA analyst. "The minute that Valerie Plame's identity was outed, he should have delivered a strict and strong message to his employees."


Rove, Bush's deputy chief of staff, told Time magazine reporter Matthew Cooper in a 2003 phone call that former U.S. Ambassador Joseph Wilson's wife worked for the CIA on weapons of mass destruction issues, according to an account by Cooper in the magazine. Rove has not disputed that he told Cooper that Wilson's wife worked for the agency, but has said through his lawyer that he did not mention her by name.

In July 2003, Robert Novak, citing unnamed administration officials, identified Plame by name in his syndicated column and wrote that she worked for the CIA. The column has led to a federal criminal investigation into who leaked Plame's undercover identity. New York Times reporter Judith Miller who never wrote a story about Plame has been jailed for refusing to testify.

Bush said last week, "I think it's best that people wait until the investigation is complete before you jump to conclusions. And I will do so, as well."

Dana Perino, a White House spokesman, said Friday that the administration would have no comment on the investigation while it was continuing.

Patrick Lang, a retired Army colonel and defense intelligence officer, said Bush's silence sends a bad signal to foreigners who might be thinking of cooperating with the U.S. on intelligence matters.

"This says to them that if you decide to cooperate, someone will give you up, so you don't do it," Lang said. "They are not going to trust you in any way."

Johnson, who said he is a registered Republican, said he wished a GOP lawmaker would have the courage to stand up and "call the ugly dog the ugly dog."

"Where are these men and women with any integrity to speak out against this?" Johnson asked. "I expect better behavior out of Republicans."

On the Net:

CIA: http://www.cia.gov

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Conflicting Stories

washingtonpost.com
Conflicting Stories

By Dan Froomkin
Special to washingtonpost.com

New reports today indicate that special prosecutor Patrick J. Fitzgerald is zeroing in on conflicting stories officials and reporters have provided his grand jury, lending credence to the theory that he may be considering obstruction of justice or perjury charges against top White House officials.

Bloomberg and the New York Times move the ball forward today, courtesy of what appear to be a growing number of leakers.

And here, culled from those and other reports, are what would seem to be some of the harder-to-reconcile contradictions in the case, which started out as an investigation into who leaked a CIA agent's identity -- but which now could be turning into another testament to the Washington maxim that the cover-up is always worse than the crime.

· White House chief political strategist Karl Rove reportedly told the grand jury that he first learned of Valerie Plame's identity from columnist Robert Novak -- but Novak's version of the story is that Rove already knew about her when the two spoke.

· Rove didn't mention his conversation with Time magazine reporter Matthew Cooper to investigators at first and then said it was primarily about welfare reform. But Cooper has testified that the topic of welfare reform didn't came up.

· Vice President Cheney's chief of staff, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby apparently told prosecutors he first heard about Plame from NBC's Tim Russert, but Russert has testified that he neither offered nor received information about Plame in his conversation with Libby.

· And former White House spokesman Ari Fleischer apparently told prosecutors that he never saw a classified State Department memo that disclosed Plame's identity, but another former official reportedly saw him perusing it on Air Force One.

Here's the Latest


Richard Keil writes for Bloomberg news service: "Two top White House aides have given accounts to a special prosecutor about how reporters first told them the identity of a CIA agent that are at odds with what the reporters have said, according to people familiar with the case.

"Lewis 'Scooter' Libby, Vice President Dick Cheney's chief of staff, told special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald that he first learned from NBC News reporter Tim Russert of the identity of Central Intelligence Agency operative Valerie Plame, the wife of former ambassador and Bush administration critic Joseph Wilson, one person said. Russert has testified before a federal grand jury that he didn't tell Libby of Plame's identity, the person said.

"White House Deputy Chief of Staff Karl Rove told Fitzgerald that he first learned the identity of the CIA agent from syndicated columnist Robert Novak, according a person familiar with the matter. Novak, who was first to report Plame's name and connection to Wilson, has given a somewhat different version to the special prosecutor, the person said. . . .

"There also is a discrepancy between accounts given by Rove and Time magazine reporter Matt Cooper. The White House aide mentioned Wilson's wife -- though not by name -- in a July 11, 2003, conversation with Cooper, the reporter said. Rove, 55, says that Cooper called him to talk about welfare reform and the Wilson connection was mentioned later, in passing.

"Cooper wrote in Time magazine last week that he told the grand jury he never discussed welfare reform with Rove in that call."

David Johnston writes in the New York Times about how Rove and Libby, at the time of the leaks, were "working closely together on a related underlying issue: whether President Bush was correct in suggesting earlier that year that Iraq had been trying to acquire nuclear materials from Africa."

Johnston, attributing the information to "people who have been briefed on the case," describes how Rove and Libby were deeply involved, for instance, in drafting a key statement by CIA director George J. Tenet.

The leakers of this new tidbit, Johnston writes, believe it shows that Rove and Libby "were not involved in an orchestrated scheme to discredit Mr. Wilson or disclose the undercover status of his wife" -- but that, in essence, the disclosure of her identity was just collateral damage in the orchestrated scheme to defend against charges that the administration had exaggerated the nuclear threat posed by Iraq.

That might tend to exculpate them from a criminal leaking charge. But it demonstrates, as Johnston writes, "the unusual degree" to which political and national security operations were intertwined.

And Johnston adds this new report to the mix, regarding the classified State Department memo and the former press secretary: "Mr. Fleischer told the grand jury that he never saw the document, a person familiar with the testimony said, speaking on the condition of anonymity because of the prosecutor's admonitions about not disclosing what is said to the grand jury."

But wait! Richard Keil and William Roberts wrote for Bloomberg on Monday: "On the flight to Africa, Fleischer was seen perusing the State Department memo on Wilson and his wife, according to a former administration official who was also on the trip."

Here is a New York Times timeline of the case.
Keeping the Story Alive

Scott Shepard writes for Cox News Service: "Congressional Democrats will conduct an unofficial hearing today that may return public attention to White House deputy chief of staff Karl Rove and any role he had in disclosing the identity of a covert intelligence officer whose husband criticized pre-war intelligence President Bush used to justify the war in Iraq. . . .

"Democrats contend they have to hold their own unofficial hearing because the Republican leadership of the House and Senate refuses to conduct an official inquiry into whether the Bush White House leaked information about Plame in an attempt to discredit her husband."

John Harwood (subscription required) writes in the Wall Street Journal that Democratic strategists have concluded that Bush's nomination of John G. Roberts Jr. to the Supreme Court "may be unstoppable, and look to maintain earlier momentum from CIA leak case and other issues. . . .

" 'Our strategy now is to essentially let Roberts go . . . then get back on Rove, Social Security and the Iraq war,' says a senior Congressional aide."

Harwood adds: "Democrats plan to grill Bush confidant Karen Hughes about leak-case in her confirmation hearing for State Department public diplomacy post."
Karen Hughes?

Karen Hughes? Isn't she still in Texas?

No, she's finally back in Washington today for a confirmation hearing on her nomination to be undersecretary for public diplomacy and public affairs at the State Department.

And as Johnston explains in the New York Times, as part of the confirmation process, Hughes was forced to divulge to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee that she was interviewed by the special prosecutor.

Al Kamen notes in today's Washington Post that "in her acclaimed book 'Ten Minutes from Normal,' the former White House counselor opines about the investigation into the leak on Valerie Plame. She suspects columnist Robert D. Novak's sources may have been in one of the agencies, not the White House.

" 'But regardless of the source, the leak compromised the confidential identity of a longtime public servant, which was wrong, and unfair to her and those who worked with her. Whoever did it should come forward and not hide behind journalistic ethics for his or her self-protection.' "
John Bolton?

And Johnston also includes this tantalizing sentence in his New York Times story today: "Democrats who have been eager to focus attention on the case have urged reporters to look into the role of several other administration officials, including John R. Bolton, who was then under secretary of state for arms control and international security and has since been nominated by Mr. Bush to be ambassador to the United Nations."
The Brits

Leave it to the Brits to seek the big picture.

Julian Borger profiles Rove in the Guardian: "There has never been a partnership like it in US political history -- so close and continuing so seamlessly from campaign trail to government. Never has a consultant, a hired mechanic in the political engineroom, risen so high.

"The official title, deputy White House chief of staff, does not do him justice. At the age of 54 and without a college degree, Rove is the second or third most powerful man in the US (arguably therefore the world) depending on where you place Dick Cheney. . . .

"Yet now, at the zenith of his career, Rove seems at his most vulnerable. A Washington scandal he tried to brush off two years ago has broken the surface again and threatens to pull him under."

Rupert Cornwell writes in the Independent: "Ah, for a scandal to while away the sticky days of high summer in the capital of the free world. This one has the lot. Featured ingredients include a glamorous CIA agent, a jailed journalist and a scandal-starved Washington press in hot pursuit of dastardly White House shenanigans. At the centre of the storm is Karl Rove, George Bush's closest adviser, architect of his election triumphs and attributed with satanic political powers by reporters and frustrated Democrats alike."

Cornwell ultimately concludes: "This tacky, third-rate leak that is starting to scar the President's second term springs from the great deception executed in his first term, luring the US into a war that 60 per cent of Americans now believe was misconceived.

"That is the true scandal, which has yet to be properly explained."
Yesterday's Grilling

Here's the text of yesterday's briefing by press secretary Scott McClellan. After a bit of chatter about the London bombings, Hearst columnist Helen Thomas started things off with a bang:

Thomas: "Why does Karl Rove still have security clearance and access to classified documents when he has been revealed as a leaker of a secret agent, according to Time magazine's correspondent?"

McClellan: "Well, there is an investigation that continues, and I think the President has made it clear that we're not going to prejudge the outcome of that investigation."

Thomas: "You already have the truth."

McClellan: "We're not going to prejudge the outcome of that investigation through --

Thomas: "Does he have access to security documents?"

McClellan: " -- through media reports. And these questions came up over the last week -- "

Thomas: "Did he leak the name of a CIA agent?"

McClellan: "As I was trying to tell you, these questions have been answered."

Thomas: "No, they haven't."

David Gregory, NBC News: "Let me ask -- "

McClellan: "Go ahead, David."

Gregory: "And they most certainly haven't. I think Helen is right, and the people watching us know that. And related to that, there are now --"

McClellan: "Let me correct the record. We've said for quite some time that this was an ongoing investigation, and that we weren't going to comment on it, so let me just correct the record."

Gregory: "If you want to make the record clear, then you also did make comments when a criminal investigation was underway, you saw fit to provide Karl Rove with a blanket statement of absolution. And that turned out to be no longer accurate --."

After a while, McClellan had this to say about the whole line of questioning: "I thank you for wanting to proceed ahead with the investigation from this room, but I think that the appropriate place for that to happen is through those who are overseeing the investigation. The President directed us to cooperate fully, and that's exactly what we have been doing and continue to do."
The Roberts Nomination

David D. Kirkpatrick writes in the New York Times: "For at least a year before the nomination of Judge John G. Roberts to the Supreme Court, the White House was working behind the scenes to shore up support for him among its social conservative allies, quietly reassuring them that he was a good bet for their side in cases about abortion, same-sex marriage and public support for religion.

"When the White House began testing the name of Judge Roberts on a short list of potential nominees, many social conservatives were skeptical. . . .

"But with a series of personal testimonials about Judge Roberts, his legal work, his Roman Catholic faith, and his wife's public opposition to abortion, two well-connected Christian conservative lawyers -- Leonard Leo, chairman of Catholic outreach for the Republican Party, and Jay Sekulow, chief counsel of an evangelical Protestant legal center founded by Pat Robertson -- gradually won over most social conservatives to nearly unanimous support, even convincing them that the lack of a paper trail was an asset that made Judge Roberts harder to attack.

"Both had been tapped by the White House to build the coalition for judicial confirmation battles."

Gary Fineout and Marc Caputo write in the Miami Herald: "As U.S. Supreme Court nominee John Roberts is scrutinized for everything from his judicial rulings to his abortion views, his role during one of the most memorable times in modern political history remains obscured by imperfect memories and White House-imposed secrecy.

"Roberts was called to the state capital by Gov. Jeb Bush's office during the 2000 presidential election to advise the governor on his role in certifying the disputed results, which ultimately put Bush's brother in the White House."
Veto Threat

Vicki Allen writes for Reuters: "The White House on Thursday threatened to veto a massive Senate bill for $442 billion in next year's defense programs if it moves to regulate the Pentagon's treatment of detainees or sets up a commission to investigate operations at Guantanamo Bay prison and elsewhere. . . .

"Arizona Republican Sen. John McCain, who endured torture as a prisoner of war in Vietnam, said after meeting at the Capitol with Vice President Dick Cheney that he still intended to offer amendments next week 'on the standard of treatment of prisoners.' "

McCain is among at least three Republicans working on amendments "intended to prevent further abuses in the wake of the scandal over sexual abuse and mistreatment of prisoners at Abu Ghraib prison and harsh, degrading interrogations at Guantanamo," Allen writes.
Anybody Listening?

Bush gave a speech at the Organization of American States yesterday. Here's the text . It was mostly about CAFTA.

But the wire services barely covered it. CNN cut away from their London reporting when Bush started speaking, but after hearing Bush say "There's nothing more beautiful than freedom," cut right back to the news.

And unless I missed it, there was not one word about his speech in this morning's Washington Post, New York Times, Los Angeles Times or Wall Street Journal.
Today's Calendar

Bush is off to Atlanta today. He is chatting about Medicare at a senior center and then participating "in a conversation on Senior Security," at the Atlanta Civic Center.

The Associated Press notes that tickets to the civic center event were given out by Georgia congressmen and a few chambers of commerce.

Bush is off to Camp David later tonight, and has a light to nonexistent public schedule for next week.
Fund-Raising Watch

Peter Whoriskey and John Wagner write in The Washington Post: "The first couple stepped out separately yesterday evening for destinations in the Washington suburbs: President Bush set off for a 'very intimate dinner' at a McLean estate overlooking the Potomac River; first lady Laura Bush headed for a North Bethesda hotel. . . .

"Their appearances, essentially an hour or so of face time, raised roughly $2.3 million for Republican leaders in Maryland and Virginia. . . .

"The invitation to Dwight and Martha Schar's luxurious home by the Potomac River in McLean beckoned with the promise of proximity to power: a 'very intimate dinner,' it proposed, with 'our very special guest President George W. Bush.' "
Tableau Watch

Fashion writer Robin Givhan writes in The Washington Post: "It has been a long time since so much syrupy nostalgia has been in evidence at the White House. But Tuesday night, when President Bush announced his choice for the next associate justice of the Supreme Court, it was hard not to marvel at the 1950s-style tableau vivant that was John Roberts and his family."
Exercise Watch

As I noted yesterday, Elisabeth Bumiller had a story in the New York Times in which she wrote: "When President Bush sat down in the White House residence last Thursday to interview a potential Supreme Court nominee, Judge J. Harvie Wilkinson III of the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, he asked him about the hardest decision he had ever made -- and also how much he exercised.

" 'Well, I told him I ran three and a half miles a day,' Judge Wilkinson recalled in a telephone interview on Wednesday. 'And I said my doctor recommends a lot of cross-training, but I said I didn't want to do the elliptical and the bike and the treadmill.' The president, Judge Wilkinson said, 'took umbrage at that,' and told his potential nominee that he should do the cross-training his doctor suggested."

Blogger Brendan Nyhan yesterday mocked what he calls "affirmative action for the fit" in the Bush White House.

And Jonathan Chait writes in a Los Angeles Times opinion column this morning: "Bush has an obsession with exercise that borders on the creepy. . . .

"Bush's insistence that the entire populace follow his example, and that his staff join him on a Long March -- er, Long Run -- carries about it the faint whiff of a cult of personality. It also shows how out of touch he is. It's nice for Bush that he can take an hour or two out of every day to run, bike or pump iron. Unfortunately, most of us have more demanding jobs than he does."
Late Night Humor

Paul Brownfield writes in the Los Angeles Times: "Two seemingly unrelated things have happened lately on 'The Daily Show With Jon Stewart': There's a new set, and the show has gotten great play out of the Karl Rove CIA leak scandal/not a scandal. . . .

" 'The Daily Show,' which one night called the story 'Rove Actually,' " is "feasting off of it, mixing the story's convoluted and coded elements with easy pop culture references."

Brownfield calls special attention to this already legendary segment from last week, in which Stewart showed one of McClellan's recent grillings, and announced, sotto voce: "We've secretly replaced the White House press corps with actual reporters."

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Former agents criticize Bush over CIA leak

Reuters

Former agents criticize Bush over CIA leak

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Bush's failure to take action against a top aide involved in the outing of a covert CIA operative sends "the wrong message" overseas, former U.S. intelligence officials said on Friday.

At a hearing sponsored by Democrats, the retired agents said U.S. intelligence gathering had been damaged by the leak of Valerie Plame's name two years ago after her husband, former diplomat Joseph Wilson, criticized the White House's justification for going to war in Iraq.

Time magazine reporter Matthew Cooper told a federal grand jury that presidential adviser Karl Rove told him that Wilson's wife worked for the CIA, but did not disclose her name.

Cooper has also said he discussed the Wilsons with Lewis "Scooter" Libby, Vice President Dick Cheney's chief of staff.

"What has suffered irreversible damage is the credibility of our case officers when they try to convince an overseas contact that their safety is of primary importance to us," Jim Marcinkowski, a former CIA case officer, said.

He also criticized Republican efforts to minimize the damage caused by the leak.

"Each time the political machine made up of prime-time patriots and partisan ninnies display their ignorance by deriding Valerie Plame as a mere paper pusher or belittling the varying degrees of cover used to protect our officers or continuing to play partisan politics with our national security, it's a disservice to this country," he added.

Bush vowed this week to fire anyone found to have acted illegally in the controversy, backing away from a broader pledge to dismiss anyone found to have leaked information in the case.


CRIMINAL STANDARD

Marcinkowski said the criminal standard was too high and that Bush should take action against those involved.

"Inaction itself sends the message -- the wrong message," he said.

As controversy over the matter heated up in recent weeks, the White House has refused to answer questions about Rove, who is credited with being the architect of the president's election victories.

So far, the only person to suffer legal sanction in the case is New York Times reporter Judith Miller, who has been jailed for refusing to testify about her sources.

Congressional Republicans have rushed to defend Rove and criticize Wilson, who took a CIA-funded trip in 2002 to investigate a charge that Iraq tried to buy nuclear materials in Africa, and later accused the Bush administration of exaggerating the Iraqi weapons threat. They said Rove is a "whistleblower" because Wilson told lies about the trip and he was trying to set the Time reporter straight.

Larry Johnson, a former CIA analyst who said he was a registered Republican, spoke harshly of the criticisms of Wilson and efforts to minimize his wife's job at the CIA.

"This is wrong. This should stop. And it could stop in a heartbeat if the president would simply put a stop to it -- he hasn't," Johnson said. "That speaks volumes."

White House officials have sought to put the controversy behind them pending the outcome of a federal investigation.

But the matter continues to dog the administration, with key Bush aide Karen Hughes facing questions from reporters on Friday after testifying on Capitol Hill.

"There's an ongoing investigation," she said.

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Rove: Not Entirely Forgotten

washingtonpost.com
Rove: Not Entirely Forgotten

By Dan Froomkin
Special to washingtonpost.com

Wondering if -- with all the excitement over President Bush's brilliantly scripted Supreme Court nomination -- the press was going to forget about Karl Rove and the White House's role in the leak of a CIA agent's identity?

No worries.

Walter Pincus and Jim VandeHei roar into the lead spot of The Washington Post's front page this morning (Thursday) with this development: "A classified State Department memorandum central to a federal leak investigation contained information about CIA officer Valerie Plame in a paragraph marked '(S)' for secret, a clear indication that any Bush administration official who read it should have been aware the information was classified, according to current and former government officials. . . .

"Prosecutors attempting to determine whether senior government officials knowingly leaked Plame's identity as a covert CIA operative to the media are investigating whether White House officials gained access to information about her from the memo, according to two sources familiar with the investigation.

"The memo may be important to answering three central questions in the Plame case: Who in the Bush administration knew about Plame's CIA role? Did they know the agency was trying to protect her identity? And, who leaked it to the media?

"The Wall Street Journal reported Tuesday that the memo made it clear that information about Wilson's wife was sensitive and should not be shared. Yesterday, sources provided greater detail on the memo to The Post."

(Much more - click the link)


The Meaning of the Play

The Post's placement of this story was not lost on media observers.

Tim Grieve writes in Salon that "maybe the Post's editors really think this morning's Plame piece is worthy of front-page attention. But maybe this is what the White House can expect from some journalists who have finally grown tired of getting jerked around."

Greg Mitchell writes in Editor and Publisher: "It was almost as if the Washington Post was saying, 'So there.' "

Liberal Daily Kos blogger Markos Moulitsas writes: "Well, Roberts bought Rove all of what, 24 hours? I hope he got some sleep in, because he's got no reprieve."

The Story That Wouldn't Go Away

Washington Post White House correspondent Michael Fletcher was asked in a Live Online chat yesterday if the nomination of John G. Roberts Jr. would push the leak story aside: "I think the nomination will push Rove out of the news only for short period of time," Fletcher replied.

"The Rove story is too important to stay out off the front page for long. Not only does it reveal how the White House sometimes operates, but it shows how sensitive the administration was to any arguments that undercut its rationale for war. The court obviously is important, perhaps almost as important as a presidential election. But developments in the Rove case will surely be back in the news."

MSNBC's Keith Olbermann blogged yesterday: "Who knows if President Bush really did rush his nomination of Judge John G. Roberts to the Supreme Court in order to knock the Karl Rove story off the front page. But if he did -- he did a poor job of it.

"Unfortunately for the conspiracy theory and/or the conspiracy, the first 18 hours of Democratic reaction to the Roberts candidacy seems to be almost benign.

"No hair-on-fire, 'Save America!' response means no controversy.

"No controversy means no headlines.

"No headlines means -- we rejoin the Karl Rove story already in progress. . . .

"Karl Rove is the Natalee Holloway of non-tabloid journalism. His story will stick around, whether or not politicians or reporters want it to, because people will watch."

Keeping the Story Alive

The Associated Press reports: "Eleven former intelligence officers are speaking up on behalf of CIA officer Valerie Plame, saying leaking her identity may have damaged national security and threatens the ability of U.S. intelligence gathering."

Here's their letter

Mark Preston (subscription required) writes in Roll Call: "In a set of talking points issued Wednesday morning, the Senate Democratic leadership urged rank-and-file Senators to continue spotlighting Rove's involvement in the leaking of CIA operative Valerie Plame's identity.

" 'A Supreme Court nominee will not distract the country from the growing credibility problem at the White House,' Democrats were told to echo, according to a copy of the leadership memo obtained by Roll Call. 'If Bush wants to know what Karl Rove and Scooter Libby did or did not do, he should call them into his office and ask them. It's time for President Bush to show some leadership.' "

And Democrats are planning a joint House-Senate faux hearing Friday morning, "to examine the national security implications of disclosing the identity of a covert intelligence officer."

Brief Respite

At yesterday's press briefing , spokesman Scott McClellan only faced two questions about the leak:

"Q In Chicago in December of '03, the President said, 'I want to know who the leakers are.' Separate from the legal issue, is the President convinced now that Karl Rove was one of the leakers?

"MR. McCLELLAN: I've answered these questions, and I don't have anything to say beyond what I've already said. Go ahead.

"Q What's the answer to that one, then, Scott?

"MR. McCLELLAN: I've answered these questions over the course of the last week. Go ahead."

The second one was not entirely serious:

"Q Is it true Karl Rove was the first person to leak John Roberts' name to the media last night? (Laughter.)

"MR. McCLELLAN: Next question."

But I suspect the pace will pick up again today.

Rove's Odds

A press release announces: " Sportsbook.com has entered the fray in the latest political storm to rock the White House by offering odds on the future of its Deputy Chief of Staff, Karl Rove. The opening line is that Rove will not be dismissed or resign in the wake of an ongoing criminal investigation, with odds at 1-6."

Conversely, the odds that he will be dismissed are 4 to 1.

Blogger Humor



Liberal bloggers are having great fun pointing out this just-released Associated Press photo taken in June 2003. It shows Rove and Robert Novak at a party marking the 40th anniversary of Novak's newspaper column. Rove, like many other people at the event, is wearing a button reading, 'I'm a source, not a target.'


New White House Star

Wondering why Bush sported a particularly odd grin during parts of his speech Tuesday night?

Ladies and gentleman, the dance stylings of Jack Roberts, age 4.
http://news.search.yahoo.com/news/search?p=bush+roberts+son&ei=ISO-8859-1&fl=0&c=news_photos

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Russert Watch: In the Interest of Full Disclosure

huffingtonpost.com

Russert Watch: In the Interest of Full Disclosure
Arianna Huffington

Since I’m still away, this weekend’s Russert Watch will once again be in the masterful hands of Harry Shearer, who really nailed it last week when he pointed out the despicable-yet-delicious way that Russert, in interviewing Matt Cooper, completely failed to mention the fact that he too had testified in front of the grand jury investigating the Plame leak.

The latest twist in this tale that the blogosphere has been buzzing about (check out FishBowlDC, Jim Gilliam, JABBS and Digby) has put Russert smack in the middle of the story, with reports that his testimony puts him at odds with Scooter Libby’s testimony.

Gee, it seems like the kind of thing a journalist might want to tell his audience -- especially given the fact that there is no grand jury rule compelling witnesses to stay mum about their testimony. But he said not a word about it last week. Hell, he didn’t even whip out the old “In the interest of full disclosure, I should point out that…”

The biggest irony is that if this discrepancy between what Tim said he told Libby and what Libby said he told Tim ends up playing a role in taking down Libby and/or Rove, Tim Russert, of all people, will have actually played a role in keeping our government accountable.

Not a role he intended to play, of course, and one that he had to be subpoenaed for, but still, who’d’ve ever thunk it…


Russert’s guests this week include Fred Thompson, the actor who played a politician playing an actor now playing Bush’s SCOTUS handler for the nomination of John “Really Nice and Really Modest and Really Brilliant” Roberts, and Sen. Dick “Don’t Cry for Me Gitmo” Durbin. And a roundtable panel of Beltway journalists will discuss, among other things, the Rove scandal. Wonder if Tim will get them to play that hot new DC parlor game: “Guess What I Told the Grand Jury!”

Here are a few of the questions I’d like to hear Tim ask:

“Sen. Thompson, conservatives have frequently said that they want a Supreme Court nominee who will, in the words of Scott McClellan, ‘faithfully interpret our Constitution and our laws’. Don’t they really mean that they want someone who will faithfully interpret the Constitution in their way?”

“A follow-up: Be straight with us -- no hems and haws -- who was the sexiest assistant D.A. on Law and Order, Claire, Abbie, Jamie, Serena or Alexandra?”

“Sen. Durbin, you voted against Judge Roberts two years ago when he was nominated to the federal bench. Why -- and do those reasons still hold?

“A follow-up: Why did you apologize for your Guantanamo remarks when you know at least as well as well as I do that you really didn’t say anything you needed to apologize for? And how come John McCain knew that you were going to apologize the Sunday before you did -- and said so on this show?

“For the panel… Bet you can’t guess what else I told, Mr. Fitzgerald! Go ahead, try…”

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Poll: Many fear Iraq hurting war on terror

USA Today
Poll: Many fear Iraq hurting war on terror

WASHINGTON (AP) — A growing number of Americans fear the war in Iraq is undermining the fight against terrorism and raising the risk of terrorist attacks in this country, a poll found.

Almost half, 47%, say the war in Iraq has hurt the fight against terrorism — the highest number to say that since the war began in March 2003, according to the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press.

And about the same number, 45%, said soon after the first round of subway bombings in London that the war in Iraq was raising the risk of terrorism in this country. That's up from 36% last fall.


But increased doubts about the effects of the Iraq war have not had much of an effect on overall support for the continuing effort to establish Iraq's attempts at democracy. About half the public, 52%, favors staying in Iraq until the country is stabilized and about the same number, 49%, support the decision to go to war.

The number who support the decision to go to war has not changed much during the year.

People are evenly divided on whether a timetable should be set on withdrawal from Iraq.

Hopes remain high that the United States can eventually establish a stable government in Iraq, with six in 10 saying they think a stable government will be established and just a third said the U.S. will fail.

Only a fourth of those polled, 27%, said President Bush has a clear plan for bringing the situation in Iraq to a successful conclusion. That's the lowest number on that measure since the start of the war.

The poll of 1,502 adults was taken July 13-17 and has a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 3 percentage points.

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Many Layoffs Despite Good Economic Projections

news.aol.com
Many Layoffs Despite Good Economic Projections

ROCHESTER, N.Y. (July 22) - In a week where Alan Greenspan said he expected the U.S. economy to keep growing and Wall Street seemed generally pleased with corporate performance, workers at Eastman Kodak Co., Hewlett-Packard Co. and Kimberly-Clark Corp., among others, were warned about thousands of new layoffs.

''You get immune to it after a while,'' longtime Kodak technician John Hladis said with barely a shrug when the scythe fell once more at the Rochester-based photography company, slicing away another 10,000 employees.

But some economy watchers are suddenly concerned that this latest flurry of job cuts - a byproduct of various trends such as outsourcing, mergers, automation, changing technology and consumer demands - may foreshadow some trouble ahead.

''We won't know till afterwards, but I do think we may be seeing a tipping point in the economic cycle that these big layoffs are flagging,'' said John A. Challenger, chief executive of Challenger, Gray & Christmas, a Chicago-based employment research firm. ''I think it's a sign that leaks are breaking out.''

One thing is for certain: It was not a good week for American labor. In fact, it's been an unusually torrid summer in terms of trimming payrolls.

U.S. corporations announced plans in June to cut 110,996 jobs - the highest monthly total in 17 months - and July's toll could turn out to be steeper. Overall job cuts are on the rise in 2005, reaching 538,274 through June, according to Challenger's monthly job-cut analysis.


Suffering its third straight quarterly loss, Kodak upped its job-slashing target to 22,000 to 25,000 on Wednesday from an earlier range of 12,000 to 15,000. By mid-2007, its worldwide payroll should level out below 50,000, one-third what it was in 1988.

Even as the picture-taking pioneer enjoys rapid gains in digital photography, it is struggling to cope with plummeting demand for conventional silver-halide film, its cash cow for the last century.

''We cannot keep bleeding year after year,'' Kodak's new chief executive, Antonio Perez, told analysts. ''We need to establish an end point to this transformation, and we need to get there soon.''

The same applies at Hewlett-Packard. The Palo Alto, Calif., computer and printer maker moved Tuesday to modify its pension benefits and eliminate 14,500 jobs, or nearly 10 percent of its work force, in a scramble to rein in bloated costs and combat efficient rivals.

Kimberly-Clark joined the job terminators Friday: The maker of Kleenex tissues and Huggies diapers plans to let 6,000 people go and sell or close as many as 20 plants. And Ford Motor Corp., which is already cutting 2,700 salaried workers this year, is mulling more aggressive measures.

In contrast, International Business Machines Corp.'s second-quarter earnings beat Wall Street's expectations, suggesting a rebound from its difficulties this spring when it targeted 14,500 job cuts, primarily in Europe.

Indeed, the economic picture displayed plenty of positives this past week.

The Labor Department said the number of Americans filing new claims for unemployment benefits plunged 34,000 to 303,000 - the largest one-week improvement since December 2002. And while Greenspan cautioned that a big run-up in already high energy prices could throw a wrench into his forecast, the Federal Reserve Board chairman reiterated his bullish economic outlook.

''The economy,'' Challenger acknowledged, ''has been very strong for the last year. We've seen over 2 million jobs created, we've seen unemployment drop to 5.0 percent, but I feel like we've probably hit the high water mark.

''We are beginning to see some of these icon companies topple a bit. It's not visible too much yet, but these are signs and suggest the next six months to a year are going to be tougher times for the economy.''

The huge overhauls at General Motors Corp., Kodak and other bellwether companies are hardly surprising considering the heightened pressures of global competition, countered Pete Sperling, professor of finance at Yeshiva University's Sy Syms School of Business in New York. The U.S. economy has become more dominated by service industries, he said.

''It's something that's basically long overdue,'' Sperling said, referring to the transformations under way at many legacy manufacturers. ''I would almost argue that if these businesses don't get it done now, we'll be in bigger trouble down the road. It's adapt or just go by the wayside.

''One of the most difficult things,'' Sperling added, ''is you need a senior management that knows how to function in this kind of environment - and that's very difficult to find. At Kodak, it sounds as if at least they're moving in the right direction.''

Kodak is hoping film will continue to bring enough cash as it steadies on its new bearing. But less than seven weeks after taking the helm, CEO Perez is already reaching for the ax.

Hladis, 55, who joined Kodak in 1975, has survived a seemingly endless string of company cutbacks over the last quarter-century and is glad to be working in a research unit focused on ''mostly digital stuff.'' But Stan Beloch, 52, a machine operator, worries his 15-year career has fallen in front of the firing line.

''They tell us nobody is going to lose their jobs, they can send us to other areas of the company,'' he said gloomily. ''But there's not a whole lot of other areas you can go to.''

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Pentagon seeks higher age limit for recruits

Reuters

Pentagon seeks higher age limit for recruits

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Faced with major recruiting problems sparked by troop deployments in Iraq and Afghanistan, the Pentagon has asked Congress to raise the maximum age for U.S. military enlistees from 35 to 42 years old.

The request, sent to lawmakers this week, would apply to all active duty branches of the military services, said Air Force Lt. Col. Ellen Krenke, a Pentagon spokeswoman, on Friday. But it is aimed chiefly at the active duty Army, which has fallen far short of recruiting goals this year, by adding millions of potential enlistees.

The Army has provided most of the 140,000 U.S. ground troops in Iraq and has also relied heavily on part-time soldiers from the National Guard and Reserve for year-long deployments there.


Krenke said the active duty Air Force, Navy and Marine Corps, which are meeting their recruiting goals, were unlikely to change their current policy of declining to accept recruits older than 35.

The new proposal would not change the limit of 39 years old for those with previous military service who seek to enlist in the Army Reserves and National Guard.

The Army National Guard, struggling more than any other part of the U.S. military to sign up new troops amid the Iraq war, missed its ninth straight monthly recruiting goal in June.

The regular Army met its recruiting goal this month, but is still 14 percent behind its year-to-date recruiting target and is in danger of missing an annual recruiting goal for the first time since 1999. The Army Reserve is 21 percent behind its year-to-date goal and also in danger of falling short for the year.

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Congress Report: TSA Broke Privacy Laws

Yahoo! News
Congress Report: TSA Broke Privacy Laws

By LESLIE MILLER, Associated Press Writer

The Transportation Security Administration violated privacy protections by secretly collecting personal information on at least 250,000 people, congressional investigators said Friday.

The Government Accountability Office sent a letter to Congress saying the collection violated the Privacy Act, which prohibits the government from compiling information on people without their knowledge.

The information was collected as the agency tested a program, now called Secure Flight, to conduct computerized checks of airline passengers against terrorist watch lists.

TSA had promised it would only use the limited information about passengers that it had obtained from airlines. Instead, the agency and its contractors compiled files on people using data from commercial brokers and then compared those files with the lists.

The GAO reported that about 100 million records were collected.


The 1974 Privacy Act requires the government to notify the public when it collects information about people. It must say who it's gathering information about, what kinds of information, why it's being collected and how the information is stored.

And to protect people from having misinformation about them in their files, the government must also disclose how they can access and correct the data it has collected.

Before it began testing Secure Flight, the TSA published notices in September and November saying that it would collect from airlines information about people who flew commercially in June 2004.

Instead, the agency actually took 43,000 names of passengers and used about 200,000 variations of those names — who turned out to be real people who may not have flown that month, the GAO said. A TSA contractor collected 100 million records on those names.

Justin Oberman, the TSA official in charge of Secure Flight, said that was a highly instructive test.

"When you cannot distinguish one John Smith from another, you're going to get records from John Smiths who aren't boarding flights on an order of magnitude we can't handle," Oberman said.

He said the testing is designed to find out what kind of data airlines will need to get — such as passengers' birthdates — so they can turn it over to the government to check against watch lists.

The GAO letter said that the TSA also said originally that it wouldn't use and store commercial data about airline passengers. It not only did that, it collected and stored information about the people with similar names.

"As a result, an unknown number of individuals whose personal information was collected were not notified as to how they might access or amend their personal data," the letter said.

It was only after meeting with the GAO, which is overseeing the program, that the TSA published a second notice indicating that it would do the things it had earlier said it wouldn't do.

Oberman said it's not unusual to revise such notices.

"We are conducting a test," he said. "I didn't know what the permutations would be."

Oberman also said that the test has no impact on anyone who travels and that the data will be destroyed when the test is over.

Friday's GAO letter shed new light on how the TSA expanded the testing of Secure Flight well beyond its original scope and why it had to publish the second notice.

The letter drew a sharp rebuke from Senate Homeland Security Committee chairman Susan Collins, R-Maine, and the ranking Democrat, Joe Lieberman of Connecticut, in a letter to Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff dated Friday.

"Careless missteps such as this jeopardize the public trust and DHS' ability to deploy a much-needed, new system," the letter said, citing the project's "unfortunate history."

___

On the Net:

Transportation Security Administration: http://www.tsa.gov

Homeland Security Department: http://www.dhs.gov

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Government Defies an Order to Release Iraq Abuse Photos

The New York Times

Government Defies an Order to Release Iraq Abuse Photos
By KATE ZERNIKE

Lawyers for the Defense Department are refusing to cooperate with a federal judge's order to release secret photographs and videotapes related to the Abu Ghraib prison abuse scandal.

The lawyers said in a letter sent to the federal court in Manhattan late Thursday that they would file a sealed brief explaining their reasons for not turning over the material, which they were to have released by yesterday.

The photographs were some of thousands turned over by Specialist Joseph M. Darby, the whistle-blower who exposed the abuse at Abu Ghraib by giving investigators computer disks containing photographs and videos of prisoners being abused, sexually humiliated and threatened with growling dogs.

The small number of the photographs released in spring 2004 provoked international outrage at the American military.

In early June, Judge Alvin K. Hellerstein of Federal District Court in Manhattan ordered the release of the additional photographs, part of a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit filed by the American Civil Liberties Union to determine the extent of abuse at American military prisons in Iraq and Afghanistan and at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba.

The government has turned over more than 60,000 pages of documents on the treatment of detainees, some containing graphic descriptions of mistreatment. But the material that the judge ordered released - the A.C.L.U. says there are 87 photographs and 4 videos - would be the first images released in the suit. The judge said they would be the "best evidence" in the debate about the treatment of Abu Ghraib prisoners.


"There is another dimension to a picture that is of much greater moment and immediacy" than a document, Judge Hellerstein said in court.

He rejected arguments from the government that releasing the photographs would violate the Geneva Conventions because prisoners might be identified and "further humiliated," but he ordered any identifying features to be removed from the images.

In the letter sent Thursday, Sean Lane, an assistant United States attorney, said that the government was withholding the photographs because they "could result in harm to individuals," and that it would outline the reasons in a sealed brief to the court.

The A.C.L.U. accused the government of continuing to stonewall requests for information "of critical public interest."

"The government chose the last possible moment to raise this argument," said Amrit Singh, a staff lawyer with the A.C.L.U.

"Because it is under seal, we don't know whether their reasons are adequate," Ms. Singh said.

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