Bush orders former counsel to defy House committee's subpoena

International Herald Tribune
Bush orders former counsel to defy House committee's subpoena
The Associated Press

WASHINGTON: President George W. Bush ordered former White House counsel Harriet Miers to defy a congressional summons, even as a second former aide told a Senate panel Wednesday she knew of no involvement by Bush in the dismissals of eight federal prosecutors.

Contempt citations against both women were a possibility.

Democrats want to know if the prosecutors were fired at the White House's direction, perhaps to make room for Bush loyalists. Bush has denied that there were improper political motives. Federal prosecutors are political appointees, and the president can hire and fire them for almost any reason.

The confrontation between the executive and legislative branches of the U.S. government over what the White House can keep secret could wind up in court, taking years and dragging on even after Bush leaves office in 2009.

House Democrats threatened to cite Miers if she refused to appear as subpoenaed for a Judiciary Committee hearing on Thursday. The White House said she was immune from the subpoena and Bush had directed her not to appear, according to Miers' lawyer. Democrats said her immunity ended when she left her White House job.

Across the Capitol, meanwhile, former White House political director Sara Taylor found out what Miers may already have known: It is almost impossible to answer some committee questions but not others without breaching either the subpoena or Bush's claim of executive privilege.

After first refusing to answer questions about Bush's possible role in the firings, Taylor later told the Senate Judiciary Committee that she knew of no involvement by the president. Further, she said, she knew of no wrongdoing by administration officials in the controversy that has hobbled the Justice Department and imperiled Attorney General Alberto Gonzales.

The developments whipped across Washington as part of a broader dispute over the boundaries of Bush's executive power and Congress' oversight duty. Democrats, in control of Congress for the first time in a dozen years, are probing whether the White House ordered the prosecutor firings in ways that might help Republicans in elections.

The Bush administration acknowledges that the firings were clumsily carried out but insists no wrongdoing occurred. Bush has offered to allow his aides, including counselor Karl Rove, Miers and Taylor, to be interviewed by congressional investigators — but only in private and without a transcript.

Democrats on the committees rejected the offer and subpoenaed Miers and Taylor to appear this week, a possible foreshadowing of what's to come for Rove.

In letters dated Tuesday, White House Counsel Fred Fielding told Miers' lawyer that Bush had ordered her to stay away from Thursday's hearing.

"Ms. Miers has absolute immunity from compelled congressional testimony as to matters occurring while she was a senior adviser to the president," Fielding wrote to Miers' lawyer, George T. Manning. "The president has directed her not to appear at the House Judiciary Committee hearing on Thursday, July 12, 2007."

Manning, in turn, notified committee chairman John Conyers, and Rep. Linda Sanchez, chairwoman of the subcommittee on commercial and administrative law.

Conyers had previously said he would consider pursuing criminal contempt citations against anyone who defied his committee's subpoenas.

"A refusal to appear before the subcommittee tomorrow could subject Ms. Miers to contempt proceedings," Conyers and Sanchez, wrote back to Manning. "The subcommittee will convene as scheduled and expects Ms. Miers to appear as required by her subpoena."

At the same time, Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy held open the possibility of contempt proceedings against Taylor if she does not answer follow-up questions posed during his hearing Wednesday.

"That's a decision yet to be made," Leahy said.

Taylor, eager to exhibit a willingness to answer questions but refusing to do so on many of them, revealed some details behind the firings.

"I did not speak to the president about removing U.S. attorneys," she said under stern questioning by Leahy. "I did not attend any meetings with the president where that matter was discussed."

When asked more broadly whether Bush was involved in any way in the firings, Taylor said, "I don't have any knowledge that he was."

She said she did not recall ordering the addition or deletion of names to the list of prosecutors to be fired. Taylor said she had no knowledge that Bush was involved in the planning of whom to fire, an assertion that echoed previous statements by Attorney General Gonzales, his former chief of staff, Kyle Sampson, and Deputy Attorney General Paul McNulty.

On almost every question, Taylor hesitated as she considered whether answering would cross Bush's order to not reveal internal White House deliberations.

"I'm trying to be consistent and perhaps have not done a great job of that," Taylor said. "I have tried."

The committee's ranking Republican, Sen. Arlen Specter, said that may not be enough to protect her from a contempt citation for failing to answer many of the committee's questions.

Read More...

Summary only...

Jittery Senate Republicans get nowhere with White House on quick change of course in Iraq

International Herald Tribune
Jittery Senate Republicans get nowhere with White House on quick change of course in Iraq
The Associated Press

WASHINGTON: Nervous Senate Republicans beseeched the White House without apparent success for a quick change in course on Iraq as congressional Democrats insisted on high-profile votes calling for the withdrawal of U.S. troops by spring.

Prospects for a less-sweeping, bipartisan challenge to President George W. Bush suffered a setback Wednesday when Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, a Democrat, said the leading proposal has "less teeth than a toothless tiger."

Taken together, the events pointed toward a 10-day period of politically charged maneuvering in the Senate in which Democrats push for a withdrawal, the White House's allies resist and a small but growing collection of Republicans — most of them facing re-election in 2008 — is caught in the middle.

"I'm hopeful they (White House officials) change their minds," Republican Sen. Pete Domenici, said after a meeting that National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley held with several Republicans in the Capitol.

There was no evidence of that — and the House Republican leader, Rep. John Boehner of Ohio, was biting in his criticism of Republicans who have parted company with Bush on the war. "Wimps," he called them in closed-door comments confirmed by an aide.

Bush, one day after ruling out talk of any shift in strategy before fall, met at the White House with Sens. John McCain and Lindsey Graham. Both Republican lawmakers emerged saying that the administration's troop buildup had produced progress and deserved a chance to work, at least until Gen. David Petraeus, the top commander in Iraq, produces a widely anticipated report on the war in September.

The White House owes Congress an interim report later this week on the progress that the Iraqi government has made toward meeting a series of political, military and economic goals.

One senior U.S. official said the report will judge that the Iraqi government has partially met some objectives, failed to achieve others, and completed action on a few requirements for upgrading its military.

In a downbeat assessment, the nation's top intelligence analyst told Congress during the day that the troop increase had not created conditions that would allow the country's various groups to reconcile their deep differences.

"They (the violence levels) have not yet been reduced significantly," Tom Fingar told the House Armed Services Committee.

There were signs of crumbling Republican support for the president's war policy at every turn.

Sen. Gordon Smith became the first Republican to declare on the Senate floor that he will vote for Democratic-drafted legislation that orders a troop withdrawal to begin within 120 days, to be concluded by April 30, 2008.

Republican Sens. Olympia Snowe and Chuck Hagel have also said they will vote for the measure, and Sen. Susan Collins said she has not ruled out joining them.

Most Democrats are expected to support the legislation, but Republican opponents have vowed to block a final vote, and they appeared to have enough strength to do so.

The compromise legislation, backed by a bipartisan group of 12 lawmakers, draws on a report issued last winter by the Iraq Study Group headed by former Secretary of State James A. Baker, a Republican, and former Democratic Rep. Lee Hamilton of Indiana.

Among its provisions is a goal of removing most U.S. combat brigades by the first quarter of 2008, with the exception of troops needed to train Iraqi forces, protect U.S. assets and conduct counterterrorism operations.

Reid spoke dismissively of the measure at a news conference. Sen. Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the Republican leader, has not been critical of the proposal, but nor is he a supporter.

Without the active support of either Reid or McConnell, the party leaders, the prospects of the measure succeeding are poor, particularly since it likely will need 60 votes to advance.

Across the Capitol, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi unexpectedly announced Tuesday night that the House will vote later this week on legislation requiring a troop withdrawal.

Republicans were critical. "The fact is Democrats have offered no plan for success in Iraq, indeed no plan at all other than to leave the country to radical jihadists like al-Qaida," Boehner said in a written statement.

The decision by Pelosi, as well as Reid's criticism of a potential compromise, underscored the potential political peril for Republicans facing votes on a war that has become deeply unpopular with the public 16 months before the 2008 elections.

____

Associated Press writers Anne Flaherty and Katherine Shrader contributed to this report.

Read More...

Summary only...

White House, Democrats clash over prosecutor probe

Reuters
White House, Democrats clash over prosecutor probe
By Thomas Ferraro

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The fight between the White House and Democratic-led Congress over fired U.S. prosecutors flared on Wednesday when one former official declined to answer a number of questions and another refused to even appear before lawmakers.

President George W. Bush, under fire on issues ranging from the Iraq war to immigration policy, claimed executive privilege on Monday to shield former White House political director Sara Taylor and former White House counsel Harriet Miers from having to testify to Congress about the dismissals.

"What is the White House trying to hide?" said Patrick Leahy, a Democrat from Vermont who chairs the Senate Judiciary Committee investigating the Bush administration's dismissal last year of nine of the nation's 93 U.S. attorneys.

Taylor, testifying under oath before Leahy's committee in response to a subpoena, apologized for calling one of the fired federal prosecutors "lazy."

But at Bush's direction, she refused to answer certain questions about the firings, which critics say appear to have been politically motivated -- perhaps even to influence investigations of Democratic or Republican lawmakers.

"I will answer faithfully those questions that are appropriate for a private citizen to answer while doing my best to respect the president's directive that his staff's communications be privileged," said Taylor, who stepped down as political director six weeks ago.

A short while later, Democratic lawmakers warned Miers she may face a contempt charge after her attorney advised a House of Representatives panel that the president had directed her not to appear, despite a subpoena to testify.

"The president must be nervous that Ms. Miers will accidentally divulge the truth," said Sen. Charles Schumer, a New York Democrat.

U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales signed off on the firings as part of a plan that originated at the White House shortly after Bush was re-elected to a second term in 2004.

Bush and Gonzales have said the dismissals were justified but mishandled. With the support of Bush, Gonzales has rejected bipartisan calls to resign.

NEVER SPOKE TO BUSH

With lawmakers challenging Bush's claim of executive privilege, the battle will likely go to the courts unless the White House and Congress reach a compromise on demanded testimony and documents.

Caught in the middle, Taylor was guarded in her testimony but at times went on the offensive. "I don't believe that anybody did anything wrong or improper with respect to this issue," she said.

Taylor cited a letter from White House counsel Fred Fielding that advised her not to answer questions "concerning White House consideration, deliberations or communications, whether internal or external, relating to the possible dismissal or appointment of U.S. attorneys."

She declined to answer several questions, including whether she discussed the firings with White House political strategist Karl Rove and who had decided who should be fired.

But Taylor said she never spoke to Bush about replacing the prosecutors or attended any meeting with the president about the matter.

Taylor also responded when asked about an e-mail she wrote this year in which she said "Bud (Cummins) is lazy -- which is why we got rid of him" as the U.S. attorney in Arkansas.

"I would like to take this opportunity to apologize to Mr. Cummins," Taylor told the committee. "It was unkind and unnecessary."

Cummins was replaced by Tim Griffin, a former aide to Taylor and Rove.

Read More...

Summary only...

Senate Republicans stop more leave for troops

Reuters
Senate Republicans stop more leave for troops
By Susan Cornwell

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. Senate Republicans on Wednesday blocked a proposal to give American troops in Iraq more rest from battle, as Democrats renewed their attempts to change President George W. Bush's Iraq policy.

While the White House won this initial skirmish on a military policy bill, it lost the support of seven of Bush's fellow Republicans in the Senate's vote on requiring minimum rest times between troop deployments. Six of the seven Republicans who broke ranks are up for re-election next year.

Bush faces another challenge on Thursday, this time in the House of Representatives. Democratic leaders predicted they will pass a bill requiring the start of U.S. combat troop withdrawals within four months and completing it by April 1, 2008.

"My main concern is the readiness of our U.S. military," said House Armed Services Committee Chairman Ike Skelton, a Missouri Democrat who is pushing the legislation and thinks the long Iraq war is "draining" the army.

In March, the House passed a similar plan, which was not accepted by the Senate.

House Democrats hope passage of this bill, coupled with public opposition to the war, will goad the Senate into action on a similar measure setting an April 30, 2008 deadline for withdrawing troops. But passage there will be difficult because of procedural rules that likely would require 60 of the Senate's 100 members to approve it.

Several Republicans have signed up to co-sponsor the Senate withdrawal proposal, including Sens. Gordon Smith of Oregon, Olympia Snowe of Maine and Chuck Hagel of Nebraska.

Trying to calm dissent among a growing number of Republicans over the Iraq war, the White House dispatched national security adviser Stephen Hadley to Capitol Hill for the second straight day, while Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice telephoned lawmakers.

They urged senators to back Bush's determination to wait until September for an evaluation by Gen. David Petraeus, the U.S. commander in Iraq, instead of embracing some lawmakers' attempts to impose change with a series of votes this month.

"Basically the White House position is we should wait to hear from General Petraeus before we take another step," said Sen. Lamar Alexander of Tennessee after a session with Hadley.

Seven Republicans joined 48 Democrats and one independent to vote for a plan by Virginia Sen. James Webb to ensure that troops, many of whom have endured multiple deployments to Iraq, get adequate time at home between tours of duty.

But that was still four votes short of the 60 needed given procedural hurdles erected by Republican leaders.

INTERIM REPORT

The Bush administration is expected to issue an interim report on Thursday on the situation in Iraq and how the government in Baghdad is performing.

"We will all hear the U.S. government's sober assessment of that tomorrow," State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said.

The Senate did agree 97-0 on an amendment confronting Iran over its "proxy attacks" on U.S. soldiers. Sponsor Joe Lieberman, a Connecticut independent, said Iran has been training and equipping gunmen who kill U.S. troops in Iraq.

"The Senate is blowing the whistle on Iran. We know what they are doing, we know it is resulting in the death of American soldiers in Iraq, and they better stop it," he said.

But at the insistence of Democrats, Lieberman added wording to say that this was not authorizing armed force against Iran.

(Additional reporting by Richard Cowan)

Read More...

Summary only...

Sheehan launches Pelosi challenge

Yahoo! News
Sheehan launches Pelosi challenge
By PAUL J. WEBER, Associated Press Writer

Cindy Sheehan bid farewell to her former "peace camp" near President Bush's ranch and began a nearly two-week trek Tuesday toward Washington, D.C., with her sights set on House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.

Sheehan, a Californian, officially announced that she intends to run as an independent against Pelosi in 2008 if the San Francisco congresswoman doesn't move to impeach Bush by July 23, the day she expects to reach Washington.

"I know what Californians care about," Sheehan said. "They don't care about the ruling power elite."

Sheehan first told The Associated Press on Sunday about her plans to challenge the top-ranking Democrat. She made it official Tuesday at Camp Casey, named after her 24-year-old son, whose death in Iraq first led Sheehan to set up camp in Crawford in 2005 to demand a meeting with Bush, who was on vacation at the time.

Pelosi spokesman Brendan Daly said Tuesday that Pelosi's "focus is on ending the war in Iraq."

"She believes that the best way to support our troops in Iraq is to bring them home safely and soon," Daly wrote in an e-mail to The Associated Press. "Democrats will continue to hold the Bush Administration accountable by having votes in July to change course in Iraq; to responsibly redeploy our troops; and to refocus our effort on protecting Americans from terrorism."

But Sheehan said that's not enough.

"You can't bring the troops home if you give George Bush $100 billion to wage this war," she said Tuesday. "You're not supporting them. You're keeping them in harm's way."

Sheehan says Bush should be impeached because she believes he misled the public about the reasons for going to war, violated the Geneva Convention with the torture of detainees and crossed the line by commuting the prison sentence of former vice presidential aide I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby.

After her announcement, Sheehan and about 20 anti-war protesters began their 13-day trip with a symbolic march to the edge of Crawford, where a billboard of Bush and first lady Laura Bush welcomes visitors.

Sheehan, who turned 50 on Tuesday, stunned fellow anti-war activists in May by announcing that she would sell her 5-acre Crawford protest site. She said then that she felt her efforts had been in vain and that she had endured hatred and smear tactics from the left as well as from the right.

Read More...

Summary only...

Al Franken leads incumbent in fundraising

Yahoo! News
Franken leads incumbent in fundraising
By FREDERIC J. FROMMER, Associated Press Writer

Democratic Senate candidate Al Franken raised nearly $2 million in the latest reporting period, pulling in more money than both his Democratic rival and the Republican incumbent, Sen. Norm Coleman.

Franken, a comedian-turned-candidate, announced Monday he had pulled in $1.9 million in the second quarter of the year, covering April through June. Last week, Coleman, R-Minn., said he had raised about $1.6 million in the period, and Democrat Mike Ciresi said he had raised $750,000.

Ciresi, a wealthy lawyer, didn't begin raising money until May.

"It's unusual for a challenger to have this kind of quarter," said Steven S. Smith, a political science professor at Washington University in St. Louis. "It is a very impressive showing."

Coleman still enjoys a healthy advantage in cash on hand, ending the reporting period with $3.8 million, compared to just under $2 million for Franken and $625,000 for Ciresi.

According to Franken's campaign, more than 95 percent of his contributions in the last reporting period were $100 or less.

Franken's emphasis on money raised from small donors could be a way to deflect criticism of "Hollywood" money, which he has tapped from friends and colleagues from the entertainment industry. In the first quarter of the year, scores of actors, writers, producers and others from that field contributed to Franken's campaign.

The extent of their support in the latest period won't be known until Franken files his report on July 15, but the campaign did volunteer that its latest contributors include actors Edward Norton and Meg Ryan.

Read More...

Summary only...

Giuliani rejects medical marijuana use

Yahoo! News
Giuliani rejects medical marijuana use
By PHILIP ELLIOTT, Associated Press Writer

Presidential hopeful Rudy Giuliani said Tuesday that people who want to legalize marijuana for medical purposes really just want to make the drug available to everyone.

"I believe the effort to try and make marijuana available for medical uses is really a way to legalize it. There's no reason for it," the former New York mayor said during a town hall-style meeting at New Hampshire Technical Institute.

He also said there are better alternatives.

"You can accomplish everything you want to accomplish with things other than marijuana, probably better. There are pain medications much superior to marijuana," he said.

"We'd be much better off telling people the truth. Marijuana adds nothing to the array of legal medications and prescription medications that are available for pain relief."

After a speech at the first of several stops in the first-primary state, the early front-runner in the race for the Republican nomination fielded questions. None dealt with the unpopular war in Iraq.

Instead, voters wanted to know about the failed immigration bill and Giuliani's views on climate change and health care.

Giuliani said promises of universal health care are hollow and simply not manageable.

"If you try to do socialized medicine, a la Hillary Clinton, John Edwards, Barack Obama or Michael Moore, you're going to end up with a disaster," he said.

He urged voters to press other candidates for specifics and to move beyond lofty language.

"We tried that before. We tried that with the `War on Poverty' and we tried that with welfare. Look what happened. We tried a simplistic solution and look what happened. We locked people into poverty. It was a tragedy."

___

NEW YORK (AP) — The leading Democratic presidential contenders will participate in a forum on gay issues next month, sponsored by a major gay rights advocacy group and televised on a cable channel aimed at gays and lesbians.

Hillary Rodham Clinton, Barack Obama and John Edwards have agreed to appear in the live, one-hour forum in Los Angeles on Aug. 9. The program is sponsored by the Human Rights Campaign and will be broadcast on the LOGO cable channel. LOGO will also stream the forum live on its Web site.

Sens. Chris Dodd and Joe Biden declined the invitation to appear at the forum, citing scheduling conflicts. New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson and Ohio Rep. Dennis Kucinich have not yet said whether they'll attend.

Former Alaska Gov. Mike Gravel was not invited to participate because he did not meet a $100,000 fundraising threshold, HRC spokesman Brad Luna said.

Luna called the forum "a historic opportunity for us," noting it was the first time major presidential candidates had agreed to address gay issues before a television audience.

The candidates will appear one at a time to field questions on gay marriage, HIV/AIDS, hate crimes and other issues. HRC president Joe Solmonese and singer Melissa Etheridge will host the forum.

In the Democratic field, only Kucinich and Gravel support marriage rights for gays and lesbians. The major contenders oppose gay marriage but support same-sex civil unions that confer most of the same legal rights.

___

WASHINGTON (AP) — Four supporters of Barack Obama were getting a rare chance to dine with the Democratic presidential candidate Tuesday night, with one change to the guest list.

Florida firefighter Jennifer Lasko, chosen from among thousands of small-dollar donors, declined her invitation after local media reported that she used to be a man named John.

Aides to the Illinois senator said they weren't aware of Lasko's sex change before inviting her, but they encouraged her to attend after the news reports surfaced. Lasko decided that she did not want the attention that the dinner would attract.

"We would have loved to have her at the dinner with Senator Obama and the other guests," said Obama spokeswoman Jen Psaki. "We hope they have the opportunity to meet at another time."

The campaign invited Christina Cheatham, a rising senior at Georgia College and State University, to take Lasko's place. Cheatham entered the dinner contest with a $5 donation and was rewarded with an all-expense-paid trip to Washington, including a site-seeing tour and dinner at a steak restaurant.

She said she wanted to ask Obama about health care first, but also taxes, abortion and other topics that are important to her friends and family.

"I have a really, really long list of stuff," she said from her cell phone during a visit to the National Archives. "I'm not sure it'll all come up."

___

COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) — Elizabeth Edwards, the wife of Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards, missed a campaign stop in South Carolina on Tuesday to be with her mother, who was injured in a fall at her North Carolina home.

The wife of the former North Carolina senator was to open the campaign's headquarters here in this early voting state, but campaign manager David Bonior showed up in her place.

"Her mother fell yesterday in the bathroom and hit her head and she went to the hospital. So she's doing fine, but she wanted to be with her this morning," Bonior told a crowd of about 90 people gathered outside the headquarters.

Elizabeth Edwards' mother, Mary Anania, 83, lives in Chapel Hill, N.C. with her husband, Vincent.

___

Associated Press writers Beth Fouhy in New York and Nedra Pickler in Washington contributed to this report.

Read More...

Summary only...

McCain campaign suffers key shake-ups

Yahoo! News
McCain campaign suffers key shake-ups
By LIZ SIDOTI, Associated Press Writer

John McCain's campaign manager, chief strategist and other senior aides quit Tuesday, the second major staff shake-up in a week for the Republican presidential candidate who trails his rivals in money and polls.

In a statement, the Arizona senator said Terry Nelson and John Weaver offered their resignations, "which I accepted with regret and deep gratitude for their dedication, hard work and friendship."

Nelson, a veteran of President Bush's successful 2004 re-election effort, said he stepped down as campaign manager and Weaver, a longtime aide who was a key player McCain's failed 2000 presidential bid, said he left his post of chief strategist. Both resignations were effective immediately.

Following the two out the door were political director Rob Jesmer and deputy campaign manager Reed Galen, officials said.

At the Capitol, McCain said he would "of course" remain in the presidential race, and disputed the idea that the staff changes marked a major shake-up that reflects his campaign's recent troubles.

"People are free to make their own assessments. I think we're doing fine," McCain said. "I'm very happy with the campaign the way it is."

Other officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to avoid discussing private conversations, said Nelson was fired. But several people close to Nelson disputed that characterization.

Two officials said Rick Davis, a longtime McCain aide who ran the 2000 race, will take over the campaign and that other changes also were likely.

The shake-up comes just six months before the first voting in Iowa and as McCain, once considered the front-runner, seeks to regain some momentum with a diminishing list of options to lift his candidacy.

McCain's fortunes soured considerably this year as he embraced President Bush's troop increase for the Iraq war, an unpopular conflict with the public but one supported by most Republicans, and a bipartisan immigration bill that has divided the GOP.

Over the past six months, his donors and supporters were turned off by what they viewed as McCain embracing the policies of a lame-duck president with abysmal approval ratings. That caused McCain's polling and fundraising to suffer.

The campaign said Mark Salter, a senior aide whom some consider McCain's alter ego, will continue to advise him and the campaign without pay, an arrangement worked out last week. Earlier, officials had said Salter would cease day-to-day activities with the campaign.

McCain said discussions were ongoing about Salter's future role, adding, "he will remain actively involved in my campaign."

McCain hired Nelson more than a year ago to start laying the foundation for the senator's long-expected second presidential run. Weaver has been with McCain for at least 10 years.

"It has been a tremendous honor to serve Senator McCain and work on his campaign," Nelson said. "I believe John McCain is the most experienced and prepared candidate to represent the Republican Party and defeat the Democratic nominee next year."

Weaver said: "It has been my honor and a distinct privilege to serve someone who has always put our country first. I believe that most Americans will come to the conclusion that I have long known there is only one person equipped to serve as our nation's chief executive and deal with the challenges we face, and that person is John McCain."

As word of the changes became public, McCain was on the Senate floor defending the troop buildup in Iraq and contending that reinforcements had only just been put in place. He made his sixth trip to Iraq last week.

"Make no mistake. Violence in Baghdad remains at unacceptably high levels," but the United States and Iraq seem to be "moving in the right direction," McCain said. "The progress our military has made should encourage us."

Days ago, the candidate laid off dozens of staffers after lackluster fundraising and excessive spending left him with just $2 million.

McCain raised just $11.2 million in the second financial quarter of the year, which ended June 30. That was less than the $13.6 million he brought in during the year's first three months when he came in third behind Mitt Romney and Rudy Giuliani.

In what would be a major strategic shift, the campaign said it was seriously considering taking public matching funds of about $6 million. But doing so could tie the campaign's hands by limiting the amount of money it can spend in individual states, particularly if his rivals forgo taxpayer money as expected.

McCain's popularity among Republicans has dropped since the start of the year, in part because of his support for measures in Congress that don't sit well with the GOP's base, like the immigration bill. He declined to participate in an early test of organizational strength in the leadoff state of Iowa this summer, and, the 70-year-old is fighting the perception that he is yesterday's candidate.

McCain's support in national polls has slipped. He is in single digits in some surveys in Iowa and South Carolina, trailing Giuliani, the former New York mayor; Romney, the ex-governor of Massachusetts, and Fred Thompson, the actor and former Tennessee senator who hasn't officially entered the race.

Read More...

Summary only...

Many Vacancies at Homeland Security

The New York Times
Many Vacancies at Homeland Security
By BRIAN KNOWLTON

WASHINGTON, July 9 — Fully one-fourth of top positions at the Department of Homeland Security are now vacant, a problem that could make the country more vulnerable to attack, according to a critical report released today by a House oversight committee.

The report, issued by the majority staff of the House Homeland Security Committee, attributed what it called “the gaping hole in department executive resources” in part on “the over-politicization of the top ranks of department management,” particularly in critical national security jobs.

This, the report said, could lead to an unduly large turnover of department executives in 2009 when the next president installs his or her own team.

“This identifies an enormous security vulnerability should an attack or disaster occur during the upcoming presidential transition,” the committee said in a statement.

As of May 1, the report said, 138 of 575 executive positions at the department remained unfilled.

Vacancy rates were close to half in two offices — those of the assistant secretary for policy and of the general counsel — and about one-third in several others, including the office of the assistant secretary for intelligence and the Federal Emergency Management Agency, or FEMA.

Vacancy rates of about one-fifth were reported in offices as sensitive as the Nuclear Detection Office, the Office of Operations Coordination, and Customs and Border Protection.

The department was created in 2003, bringing together 22 federal agencies in an effort to forge — or in some cases force — better inter-agency cooperation in dealing with terror threats in the wake of the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.

But when Hurricane Katrina struck the Gulf Coast in 2005, the new department’s shortcomings were revealed, leading to a reorganization.

The department has attributed the job vacancies largely to the addition of 73 senior executive positions on March 1. Before then, only 12 percent of top positions were unfilled, a department spokesman, Russ Knocke, told The Washington Post, which detailed the House committee’s report on the department’s vacancies today.

The House report called the department’s assertion “a false correlation.” It noted that 70 of the 138 executive positions unfilled were “vacant with no explanation,” while 44 percent were “under recruitment” and only 5 percent involved “tentative or ending appointees.”

But Laura Keehner, a department spokesman, said today that the House report’s numbers were “skewed.” She said that 70 percent of the vacant postings were “already in the hiring process and that’s in the final stages.” She also said that the department, which has 208,000 employees around the world, currently had 200 political appointees, of which about 40 percent were in senior management. Of the top 30 positions in the department, she said, only three were not filled at present.

The House committee’s analysis said that the January 2009 presidential transition would be deeply problematic. The report cited an article from The National Journal that noted that while the Pentagon, for example, has a large and steady cadre of career officers overseeing worldwide operations, Homeland Security “is still run almost entirely by political appointees and stands to be the most weakened during the transition.”

This reliance has been attributed partly to the way the department was cobbled together from diverse agencies with separate power bases, and also to the political horse-trading in Congress involved in its creation. But “in the four and a half years since the department opened for business, few career officials have been promoted into positions of senior or even middle management,” The National Journal reported.

Representative Bennie Thompson of Mississippi, the Democrat who is head of the Homeland Security Committee, asserted that the high vacancy rate and broader management problems had resulted in poor morale in the department.

In January, department employees reported the lowest levels of job satisfaction of 36 federal agencies, according to a survey by the federal Office of Personnel Management.

But the precise impact of the job vacancies on the department’s day-to-day work is difficult to gauge.

“To me, the issue is less vacancies per se and more whether they have the right institutional structure,” said Michael O’Hanlon, a security expert at the Brookings Institution. “For example, do they have a vibrant internal think tank and/or red team capacity? I can’t tell, but I’m skeptical.”

A “red team” attempts to anticipate terrorists’ plans and intent.

The department’s reputation suffered in 2005 after what was seen as FEMA’s grossly inadequate response to the hurricanes that battered of the Gulf Coast.

The report indicates that only one of 19 department offices listed had zero executive vacancies: the office of Gulf Coast reconstruction.

Read More...

Summary only...

Fred Thompson aided Nixon on Watergate; Tipped off White House that Investigating Committee new about the tape weeks before asking the famous question

Yahoo! News
Fred Thompson aided Nixon on Watergate
By JOAN LOWY, Associated Press Writer

Fred Thompson gained an image as a tough-minded investigative counsel for the Senate Watergate committee. Yet President Nixon and his top aides viewed the fellow Republican as a willing, if not too bright, ally, according to White House tapes.

Thompson, now preparing a bid for the 2008 GOP presidential nomination, won fame in 1973 for asking a committee witness the bombshell question that revealed Nixon had installed hidden listening devices and taping equipment in the Oval Office.

Those tapes show Thompson played a behind-the-scenes role that was very different from his public image three decades ago. He comes across as a partisan willing to cooperate with the Nixon White House's effort to discredit the committee's star witness.

It was Thompson who tipped off the White House that the Senate committee knew about the tapes. They eventually cinched Nixon's downfall in the scandal resulting from the break-in at Democratic headquarters in the Watergate complex in Washington and the subsequent White House cover-up.

Thompson, then 30, was appointed counsel by his political mentor, Tennessee Sen. Howard Baker, the top Republican on the Senate investigative committee. Thompson had been an assistant U.S. attorney in Nashville, Tenn., and had managed Baker's re-election campaign. Thompson later was a senator himself.

Nixon was disappointed with the selection of Thompson, whom he called "dumb as hell." The president did not think Thompson was skilled enough to interrogate unfriendly witnesses and would be outsmarted by the committee's Democratic counsel.

This assessment comes from audio tapes of White House conversations recently reviewed by The Associated Press at the National Archives in College Park, Md., and transcripts of those discussions that are published in "Abuse of Power: The New Watergate Tapes," by historian Stanley Kutler.

"Oh s---, that kid," Nixon said when told by his chief of staff, H.R. Haldeman, of Thompson's appointment on Feb. 22, 1973.

"Well, we're stuck with him," Haldeman said.

In a meeting later that day in the Old Executive Office Building, Baker assured Nixon that Thompson was up to the task. "He's tough. He's six feet five inches, a big mean fella," the senator told Nixon.

Publicly, Baker and Thompson presented themselves as dedicated to uncovering the truth. But Baker had secret meetings and conversations with Nixon and his top aides, while Thompson worked cooperatively with the White House and accepted coaching from Nixon's lawyer, J. Fred Buzhardt, the tapes and transcripts show.

"We've got a pretty good rapport with Fred Thompson," Buzhardt told Nixon in an Oval Office meeting on June 6, 1973. The meeting included a discussion of former White House counsel John Dean's upcoming testimony before the committee.

Dean, the committee's star witness, had agreed to tell what he knew about the break-in and cover-up if he was granted immunity against anything incriminating he might say.

Nixon expressed concern that Thompson was not "very smart."

"Not extremely so," Buzhardt agreed.

"But he's friendly," Nixon said.

"But he's friendly," Buzhardt agreed. "We are hoping, though, to work with Thompson and prepare him, if Dean does appear next week, to do a very thorough cross-examination."

Five days later, Buzhardt reported to Nixon that he had primed Thompson for the Dean cross-examination.

"I found Thompson most cooperative, feeling more Republican every day," Buzhardt said. "Uh, perfectly prepared to assist in really doing a cross-examination."

Later in the same conversation, Buzhardt said Thompson was "willing to go, you know, pretty much the distance now. And he said he realized his responsibility was going to have be as a Republican increasingly."

Thompson, who declined comment for this story, described himself in his book, "At That Point in Time," published in 1975, as a Nixon administration "loyalist" who struggled with his role as minority counsel. "I would try to walk a fine line between a good-faith pursuit of the investigation and a good-faith attempt to insure balance and fairness," Thompson wrote.

When Dean began testifying on June 25, he implicated Nixon in the break-in and cover-up. But his testimony had little legal impact because it was his word against the president's.

During Dean's testimony, Baker asked the question that became the embodiment of the Watergate scandal: "What did the president know and when did he know it?" Thompson is sometimes credited with supplying the question to Baker.

The question was widely perceived at the time as an example of Baker's willingness to press for truth at the expense of his party's leader. Historian Kutler, however, said he believes that in the context of Dean's testimony, the question was Baker's attempt to point out that the evidence hinged on one witness's word.

It was not until three weeks later — after the disclosure of the existence of tape recordings that might either corroborate or disprove Dean's testimony — that Baker's question took on new meaning, Kutler said.

At a hearing on July 16, Thompson asked former White House aide Alexander Butterfield: "Mr. Butterfield, are you aware of the installation of any listening devices in the Oval Office of the president?"

Butterfield's confirmation of the recordings set off a cascade of events that led to Nixon's resignation 13 months later.

The question made Thompson instantly famous. His political Web site — http://www.imwithfred.com — prominently notes: "Friends in Tennessee still recall seeing the boy they'd grown up with on TV, sitting at the Senate hearing-room dais. He gained national attention for leading the line of inquiry that revealed the audio-taping system in the White House Oval Office."

What rarely is mentioned is that Thompson knew the answer to the question before he asked it. Investigators for the committee had gotten the information out of Butterfield during hours of behind-the-scenes questioning three days earlier, on July 13.

Thompson was not present, but a Republican investigator immediately tracked him down at the Carroll Arms Hotel bar where he was meeting with a reporter. Thompson called Buzhardt over the weekend to tip off the White House that the committee knew about the tapes.

"Legalisms aside, it was inconceivable to me that the White House could withhold the tapes once their existence was made known. I believed it would be in everyone's interest if the White House realized, before making any public statements, the probable position of both the majority and the minority of the Watergate committee," Thompson wrote in his book.

Scott Armstrong, a Democratic investigator for the committee who was part of the Butterfield questioning, said he was outraged by Thompson's tip-off.

"When the prosecutor discovers the smoking the gun, he's going to be shocked to find that the deputy prosecutor called the defendant and said, 'You'd better get rid of that gun,'" Armstrong said in an interview.

The committee chairman, Sen. Sam Ervin, D-N.C., had agreed to allow Thompson to question Butterfield first at the July 16 hearing as a show of bipartisanship because a GOP investigator had elicited the initial information from Butterfield.

"Fred (Thompson) and Baker carried water for the White House, but I have to give them credit — they were watching out for their interests, too," Kutler said. "They weren't going to mindlessly go down the tubes for this guy."

___

On the Net:

Nixon presidential materials: http://tinyurl.com/2bqg9a

Read More...

Summary only...

Truth or Consequences - or not.

Huffington Pust
Steve Rosenbaum|
Truth or Consequences - or not.

Scooter Libby broke the law. He withheld evidence. And perhaps most importantly, he continues to withhold evidence that would make it possible for prosecutors to discover who 'outed' Valerie Plame.

Maybe we don't care. Perhaps it was Carl Rove, trying to get back at Joe Wilson. Or maybe it was Dick Cheney. But in any case, it wasn't Scooter Libby. And now we'll never know.

He broke the law - and he's not going to be punished for it.

The Bush administration in the person of Tony Snow suggests that the commutation of his sentence is a 'compromise' and that Bush's right wing supporters are pushing still for a full pardon. But that doesn't really make a whole lot of sense. Scooter Libby isn't a poster boy for Right to Life issues, or any of the other extreme right political agenda items that would have had them calling for his pardon.

Who does Scooter Libby's commutation really serve?

One thing is clear. The Valerie Plame incident would have drawn in some of the most senior members of the administration.

Libby won't be held responsible, and he isn't alone.

He's another in a long list of Bush cronies who've broken the law, failed in their job responsibilities, been removed or resigned from office, and faced no consequences.

Remember "Brownie", Michael Brown the head of FEMA (who's previous experience was as the head of an equestrian organization). Well, under his 'leadership' people died. The country let down it's citizens. And with a hearty handshake he was out the door. Well done - Brownie!

And then there's Paul Wolfowitz, of the World Bank. He was accused of giving his girlfriend a huge raise for her work at the World Bank. He's gone. But once again, no consequences.

Or John Bolton at the UN.

Bush went so far as to put him in the job during a Senate recess, so that he could skip the confirmation process. He had lied on his application, conveniently 'forgetting' that he'd been interview by the State Department in 2003 regarding pre-war claims of Weapons of Mass destruction. And then, when it became clear that the Senate wasn't going to give him a free pass, he was out the door.

And let's not forget Alberto Gonzales. Gonzales testified before Congress: "I would never ever make a change in a United States attorney position for political reasons or that in any way would jeopardize an ongoing investigation."

But emails between Kyle Sampson ( Gonzales' chief-of-staff) White House Counsel Harriet Miers and Scott Jennings (Karl Rove's deputy) show, that's exactly what was doing. A email described the system Gonzales' DOJ would use for ranking U.S. attorneys, keeping those who "exhibited loyalty to the president and attorney general" and sacking the prosecutors who "chafed against administration initiatives."

So, what is the impact of lying to Congress? It appears there are no consequences.

There are more, of course:

Deputy Secretary of State Randall L. Tobias resigned, one day after confirming to ABC News that he had been a customer of a Washington, D.C. escort service, further ratcheting up the pressure on the attorney general, Alberto Gonzales, to stand down.

Monica Goodling, a senior adviser to Mr Gonzales and the justice department's conduit to the White House, resigned, and gave no reason for her decision.

Philip Cooney, chief of staff of the White House Council on Environmental Quality, abruptly resigned - he was the official involved in deleting of dire climate change warnings from US government reports.

But President Bush's decision to commute Libby's sentence takes the entire parade of lies, obfuscation, and legal gamesmanship to a new level. It's clear that Bush didn't have any first hand knowledge of Libby's relative guilt or innocence. Instead, Bush pointed to the 30 month sentence as being excessive. Patrick Fitzgerald, the Special Prosecutor who prosecuted the case said before the sentencing: "We need to make the statement that the truth matters ever so much."

But it appears that's not the case.

Read More...

Summary only...

GOP Congressman Doolittle Joins Sen. Domenici in Breaking With White House on War

Editor and Publisher
GOP Congressman Joins Sen. Domenici in Breaking With White House on War
By E&P Staff

ALBUQUERQUE Rep. John Doolittle, a consevative California congressman, today joined others in his party rapidly deserting the president on the Iraq war.

At a town hall meeting in Rocklin and then in a meeting with the editorial board of the Sacramento Bee he questioned whether the conflict was worth the loss of more American lives. He said U.S. troops should be pulled back from the front lines "as soon as possible" and the fighting turned over to Iraqi forces.

A longtime supporter of the war, Doolittle called the situation in Iraq a "quagmire" on Thursday. "We've got to get off the front lines as soon as possible," Doolittle said at Rocklin City Hall, the Bee reported. "And in my mind that means something like the end of the year. We just can't continue to tolerate these kinds of losses."

Earlier today, Sen. Pete Domenici (R-NM) also called for a change in course in U.S. military strategy in Iraq — without waiting for the September report on the "surge." He joined other Republican senators as Richard Lugar who have recently broken with the White House on this issue.

Domenici said he supports a bipartisan Senate bill which backs the recent report by the Iraq Study Group and would create conditions that could allow for a drawdown of U.S. combat forces in Iraq by next March.

Parents of New Mexico's military war dead in the past told him the U.S. should stay in Iraq as long as it takes, Domenici said. Those same parents are asking him to do more to bring troops home sooner, he added.

His office released the statement below.
*

Pointing to his profound disappointment in the Iraqi government, U.S. Senator Pete Domenici today called for a redirection of U.S. military policy in Iraq and announced his support for bipartisan legislation to create conditions by which American combat troops can be removed from that nation.

Domenici, who serves on the Senate Defense Appropriations Subcommittee, announced his decision to support the legislation, the Iraq Study Group Recommendation Implementation Act (S.1545), at a news conference in Albuquerque Thursday.

"I want a new strategy for Iraq. I continue to completely support the men and women in the American Armed Forces. They have not failed us. It is the Iraqi government that is failing to make even modest progress to help Iraq itself or to merit the sacrifices being made by our men and women in uniform," Domenici said. "I am unwilling to continue our current strategy."

"I have carefully studied the Iraq situation, and believe we cannot continue asking our troops to sacrifice indefinitely while the Iraqi government is not making measurable progress to move its country forward," Domenici said. "I do not support an immediate withdrawal from Iraq or a reduction in funding for our troops. But I do support a new strategy that will move our troops out of combat operations and on the path to coming home."

S.1545, introduced by Senators Ken Salazar (D-Colo.) and Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.), embraces the recommendations in the Iraq Study Group Report issued by the bipartisan Baker Hamilton Commission. The bill makes the Iraq Study Group's 79 recommendations the policy of the United States, and asks the Bush administration-working with military and diplomatic leaders-to implement those recommendations.

The bill is intended to create conditions that could allow for a drawdown of American combat forces in Iraq by March 2008. Under S.1545, the U.S. military could maintain a long-term but more limited presence in Iraq-focused on protecting American personnel and interests, training and advising Iraqi forces, and carrying out counterterrorism and special operations missions.

Domenici indicated that the provisions in S.1545 could be debated as part of the FY2008 Defense Authorization Bill that the Senate will take up next week.


Find this article at:
http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1003607658

Read More...

Summary only...

Should Vice President Cheney Be Impeached? Hank Johnson Says Yes, Barack Obama Says No

Should Vice President Cheney Be Impeached? Hank Johnson Says Yes, Barack Obama Says No
By: Michael H. Cottman
BAW

Saying Vice President Dick Cheney deliberately mislead the American people about the U.S. government’s role in Iraq, Rep. Hank Johnson (D-GA) said Tuesday he felt compelled to sign a House resolution to impeach Cheney for high crimes and misdemeanors.

Johnson, a member of the House Judiciary Committee, told BlackAmericaWeb.com that he is fed up with the Vice President operating as if he is above the law.

"I wanted to send a clear and distinct message that I’m sick and tired of the incompetence, arrogance, secrecy and lawlessness in the Executive Branch and I think it’s appropriate for me to direct my ire to Cheney through the impeachment resolution," Johnson said in an interview.

Johnson said he is "more committed" than ever to support the resolution, particularly after President George W. Bush on Tuesday left open the possibility of an eventual pardon for I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, the former White House aide and Cheney’s chief of staff.

"As to the future, I rule nothing in and nothing out," the president said a day after commuting Libby's 2 1/2-year prison term in the CIA leak case. Bush said he had weighed his decision carefully to erase Libby's prison time for lying and obstruction of justice. He said the jury's conviction of Libby should stand but the prison term was too severe.

With prison seeming all but certain for Libby, Bush’s move came just five hours after a federal appeals court panel ruled that Libby could not delay the start of his sentence. The Bureau of Prisons had already assigned Libby a prison identification number.

"Now comes Scooter Libby, who is allowed to scoot free in the face of the American public," Johnson said. "The vice president’s hand is still at work."

Johnson acknowledged that impeachment proceedings may not go forward, but said, "Anything is possible. I’m finding that the American people are equally as frustrated as I am [at Cheney], and they want Democrats to take strong action."

The resolution, introduced in April by president candidate Rep. Dennis J, Kucinich (D-OH), states that the vice president has "purposely manipulated the intelligence process to deceive" citizens and the Congress by fabricating a threat of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction.

"It became obvious to me that this vice president, who was a driving force for taking the United States into a war against Iraq under false pretenses, is once again rattling the sabers of war against Iran with the same intent to drive America into another war, again based on false pretenses," Kucinich told reporters in April.

"It's not appropriate for the government to lie to people," Kucinich said. "It is wrong for government officials -- you know, the vice president, in this case -- to take this nation into war based on lies."

"And so, again, this becomes a question of who we are as a people," the congressman added. "And so this resolution 333, Articles of Impeachment against the Vice President, will let future generations know that no one is above the law of this country and that Congresses have the specific responsibility to provide a check to administrative abuse of power."

Kucinich’s Articles of Impeachment against Vice President Cheney reads in part:

"In his conduct while Vice President of the United States, Richard B. Cheney, in violation of his constitutional oath to faithfully execute the office of Vice President of the United States and, to the best of his ability, preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States, and in violation of his constitutional duty to take care that the laws be faithfully executed, has purposely manipulated the intelligence process to deceive the citizens and Congress of the United States by fabricating a threat of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction to justify the use of the United States Armed Forces against the nation of Iraq in a manner damaging to our national security interests, to wit:

"Despite all evidence to the contrary, the Vice President actively and systematically sought to deceive the citizens and Congress of the United States about an alleged threat of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction..."

"Preceding the March 2003 invasion of Iraq the Vice President was fully informed that no legitimate evidence existed of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. The Vice President pressured the intelligence community to change their findings to enable the deception of the citizens and Congress of the United States."

However, Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Barack Obama (D-IL) said he opposes impeachment for either President George W. Bush or Vice President Cheney.

Obama said he would not back such a move, although he has been distressed by the "loose ethical standards, the secrecy and incompetence" of a "variety of characters" in the administration.

"There's a way to bring an end to those practices, you know: Vote the bums out," the top-tier presidential candidate said, without naming Bush or Cheney. "That's how our system is designed."

The term for Bush and Cheney ends on Jan. 20, 2009. Bush cannot constitutionally run for a third term, and Cheney has said he will not run to succeed Bush.

Obama, a Harvard law school graduate and former lecturer on constitutional law at the University of Chicago, said impeachment should not be used as a standard political tool.

Meanwhile, a vocal coalition of Cheney critics are calling for impeaching the Vice President, including Democrats, citizen groups, political and community organizations and websites, including Slate.com.

"In the end," writes Bruce Fein for Slate.com, "President Bush regularly is unable to explain or defend the policies of his own administration, and that is because the heavy intellectual labor has been performed in the office of the vice president. Cheney is impeachable for his overweening power and his sneering contempt of the Constitution and the rule of law."

Said Johnson in a statement: "This vice president has continually operated in the shadows -- beyond the view of the American public. I intend to hold him accountable to the same high standards that we must all uphold. We all acknowledge that he is the most powerful vice president in the history of this nation, however, he is not above or beyond the law."

---

Associated Press contributed to this story.

Read More...

Summary only...

Bush-Cheney Offshore Oil Plan Challenged in Court

ENS Newswire
Bush-Cheney Offshore Oil Plan Challenged in Court

WASHINGTON, DC, July 5, 2007 (ENS) - The Bush administration's nationwide plan governing the sale of all offshore oil and gas leases in federal waters over the next five years is facing a legal challenge from the Center for Biological Diversity.

The lawsuit, filed in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia, raises claims under the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act, the National Environmental Policy Act, and the Endangered Species Act.

The Minerals Management Service's 2007-2012 Outer Continental Shelf Oil and Gas Leasing Program was approved by Secretary of Interior Dirk Kempthorne last Friday.

The program, effective July 1, schedules 21 lease sales in eight planning areas across the nation. Twelve sales are scheduled for the Gulf of Mexico, eight off the coast of Alaska, and one off the coast of Virginia.

In addition to fouling some of the most pristine and sensitive marine habitat in the country, the program would generate more than four billion tons of greenhouse gases over the expected life of the leases, the conservation group warns.

The lawsuit alleges that even though the leasing program will result in more greenhouse gas emissions than virtually any other single federal approval, the administration did not study the environmental consequences of emissions from the program.

"This plan is the culmination of the Cheney energy policy," said Kassie Siegel, climate program director of the Center for Biological Diversity. "It will further our national addiction to fossil fuels, contribute to global warming, and at the same time directly despoil the habitat of polar bears and other imperiled wildlife."

Five of the proposed lease sales would be in the Beaufort and Chukchi Seas off Alaska, turning prime polar bear habitat into a polluted industrial zone. Oil development in the Beaufort Sea would likely also be visible from the shores of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.

An additional lease sale proposed in Alaska's Bristol Bay is within critical habitat for the North Pacific right whale, the world's most endangered whale, while two lease sales are proposed for Cook Inlet, home to endangered beluga whales and sea otters.

"Short of sending Dick Cheney to Alaska to personally club polar bear cubs to death, the administration could not have come up with a more environmentally destructive plan for endangered marine mammals," said Brendan Cummings, ocean program director of the Center. "Yet the administration did not even analyze, much less attempt to avoid, the impacts of oil development on endangered wildlife."

In addition to its contribution to global warming and severe impacts on marine mammals, the leasing program would hurt commercial fisheries and subsistence activities in Alaska.

Read More...

Summary only...

House Balks at Bush Order for New Powers

House Balks at Bush Order for New Powers
By JIM ABRAMS
Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) -- President Bush this month is giving an obscure White House office new powers over regulations affecting health, worker safety and the environment.

Calling it a power grab, Democrats running Congress are intent on stopping him.

The House voted last week to prohibit the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs from spending federal money on Executive Order 13422, signed by Bush last January and due to take effect July 24.

The order requires federal officials to show that private companies, people or institutions failed to address a problem before agencies can write regulations to tackle it. It also gives political appointees greater authority over how the regulations are written.

The House measure ''stops this president or any president from seizing the power to rewrite almost every law that Congress passes, laws that protect public health, the environment, safety, civil rights, privacy and on and on,'' said Rep. Brad Miller, D-N.C., its sponsor.

''OIRA has quietly grown into the most powerful regulatory agency in Washington,'' the House Science investigations subcommittee, chaired by Miller, said in a report in April.

The administration contends Bush's order merely strengthens a similar directive issued by President Clinton in 1993 giving the White House budget office oversight of federal agency rulemaking.

Andrea Wuebker, a spokeswoman for the Office of Management and Budget, which manages the White House regulatory affairs office, said the order, along with an OMB good guidance bulletin, ''will help increase the quality, accountability and transparency of agency guidance documents.''

Bush's executive order:

--Requires agencies to identify ''market failures,'' where the private sector fell short in dealing with a problem, as a factor in proposing a rule. The White House regulatory affairs office is given authority to assess those conclusions.

--States that no rulemaking can go forward without the approval of an agency's Regulatory Policy Office, to be headed by a presidential appointee.

--Directs each agency to provide an estimate of costs and benefits of regulations.

--Requires agencies to inform the White House regulatory affairs office of proposed significant guidance documents on complying with rules. Critics say this will create a new bottleneck delaying the issuance of guidelines needed to comply with federal regulations.

''This can only further delay implementing health, safety and environmental protections,'' said Gary Bass, executive director of OMB Watch, a private watchdog group that joined numerous labor and good-government groups, including the AFL-CIO, Public Citizen and the Union of Concerned Scientists, in opposing Bush's order.

Miller tried unsuccessfully at a hearing in April to persuade the White House regulatory affairs office's former acting administrator, Steven Aitken, to reveal what private groups might have been involved in rewriting the Clinton-era order.

Aitken stressed that the Clinton order also used market failure as a criteria in advancing new rules and directing agencies to appoint regulatory policy officers, many of whom were political appointees. Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, R-Calif., backed Aitken up at the hearing.

''The pattern is that we are challenging the president's authority, hoping to find a mistake and then making a lot of political hay about it,'' Rohrabacher said.

The nonpartisan Congressional Research Service noted in an analysis last February that President Reagan made the White House regulatory affairs office the central clearinghouse for substantive rulemaking, reviewing 2,000 to 3,000 proposed regulations per year. With Clinton's 1993 order, White House reviews of proposed regulations dropped to between 500 and 700 a year, the researchers said.

Bill Kovacs, vice president for regulatory affairs with the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, said the White House's regulatory affairs office now has about 35 people to keep track of the 4,000 rules federal agencies issue every year.

''It's only reasonable that you have some way of monitoring what your agencies are doing,'' Kovacs said, adding that the White House needs to assert control over the process.

Read More...

Summary only...

Bush, Cheney should resign

MSNBC.com
Olbermann: Bush, Cheney should resign
‘I didn’t vote for him, but he’s my president, and I hope he does a good job.’
SPECIAL COMMENT
By Keith Olbermann
Anchor, 'Countdown'

“I didn’t vote for him,” an American once said, “But he’s my president, and I hope he does a good job.”

That—on this eve of the 4th of July—is the essence of this democracy, in 17 words. And that is what President Bush threw away yesterday in commuting the sentence of Lewis “Scooter” Libby.

The man who said those 17 words—improbably enough—was the actor John Wayne. And Wayne, an ultra-conservative, said them, when he learned of the hair’s-breadth election of John F. Kennedy instead of his personal favorite, Richard Nixon in 1960.

“I didn’t vote for him but he’s my president, and I hope he does a good job.”

The sentiment was doubtlessly expressed earlier, but there is something especially appropriate about hearing it, now, in Wayne’s voice: The crisp matter-of-fact acknowledgement that we have survived, even though for nearly two centuries now, our Commander-in-Chief has also served, simultaneously, as the head of one political party and often the scourge of all others.

We as citizens must, at some point, ignore a president’s partisanship. Not that we may prosper as a nation, not that we may achieve, not that we may lead the world—but merely that we may function.

But just as essential to the seventeen words of John Wayne, is an implicit trust—a sacred trust: That the president for whom so many did not vote, can in turn suspend his political self long enough, and for matters imperative enough, to conduct himself solely for the benefit of the entire Republic.

Our generation’s willingness to state “we didn’t vote for him, but he’s our president, and we hope he does a good job,” was tested in the crucible of history, and earlier than most.

And in circumstances more tragic and threatening. And we did that with which history tasked us.

We enveloped our President in 2001.And those who did not believe he should have been elected—indeed those who did not believe he had been elected—willingly lowered their voices and assented to the sacred oath of non-partisanship.

And George W. Bush took our assent, and re-configured it, and honed it, and shaped it to a razor-sharp point and stabbed this nation in the back with it.

Were there any remaining lingering doubt otherwise, or any remaining lingering hope, it ended yesterday when Mr. Bush commuted the prison sentence of one of his own staffers.

Did so even before the appeals process was complete; did so without as much as a courtesy consultation with the Department of Justice; did so despite what James Madison—at the Constitutional Convention—said about impeaching any president who pardoned or sheltered those who had committed crimes “advised by” that president; did so without the slightest concern that even the most detached of citizens must look at the chain of events and wonder: To what degree was Mr. Libby told: break the law however you wish—the President will keep you out of prison?

In that moment, Mr. Bush, you broke that fundamental com-pact between yourself and the majority of this nation’s citizens—the ones who did not cast votes for you. In that moment, Mr. Bush, you ceased to be the President of the United States. In that moment, Mr. Bush, you became merely the President of a rabid and irresponsible corner of the Republican Party. And this is too important a time, Sir, to have a commander-in-chief who puts party over nation.

This has been, of course, the gathering legacy of this Administration. Few of its decisions have escaped the stain of politics. The extraordinary Karl Rove has spoken of “a permanent Republican majority,” as if such a thing—or a permanent Democratic majority—is not antithetical to that upon which rests: our country, our history, our revolution, our freedoms.

Yet our Democracy has survived shrewder men than Karl Rove. And it has survived the frequent stain of politics upon the fabric of government. But this administration, with ever-increasing insistence and almost theocratic zealotry, has turned that stain into a massive oil spill.

The protection of the environment is turned over to those of one political party, who will financially benefit from the rape of the environment. The protections of the Constitution are turned over to those of one political party, who believe those protections unnecessary and extravagant and quaint.

The enforcement of the laws is turned over to those of one political party, who will swear beforehand that they will not enforce those laws. The choice between war and peace is turned over to those of one political party, who stand to gain vast wealth by ensuring that there is never peace, but only war.

And now, when just one cooked book gets corrected by an honest auditor, when just one trampling of the inherent and inviolable fairness of government is rejected by an impartial judge, when just one wild-eyed partisan is stopped by the figure of blind justice, this President decides that he, and not the law, must prevail.

I accuse you, Mr. Bush, of lying this country into war.

I accuse you of fabricating in the minds of your own people, a false implied link between Saddam Hussein and 9/11.

I accuse you of firing the generals who told you that the plans for Iraq were disastrously insufficient.

I accuse you of causing in Iraq the needless deaths of 3,586 of our brothers and sons, and sisters and daughters, and friends and neighbors.

I accuse you of subverting the Constitution, not in some misguided but sincerely-motivated struggle to combat terrorists, but to stifle dissent.

I accuse you of fomenting fear among your own people, of creating the very terror you claim to have fought.

I accuse you of exploiting that unreasoning fear, the natural fear of your own people who just want to live their lives in peace, as a political tool to slander your critics and libel your opponents.

I accuse you of handing part of this Republic over to a Vice President who is without conscience, and letting him run roughshod over it.

And I accuse you now, Mr. Bush, of giving, through that Vice President, carte blanche to Mr. Libby, to help defame Ambassador Joseph Wilson by any means necessary, to lie to Grand Juries and Special Counsel and before a court, in order to protect the mechanisms and particulars of that defamation, with your guarantee that Libby would never see prison, and, in so doing, as Ambassador Wilson himself phrased it here last night, of becoming an accessory to the obstruction of justice.

When President Nixon ordered the firing of the Watergate special prosecutor Archibald Cox during the infamous “Saturday Night Massacre” on October 20th, 1973, Cox initially responded tersely, and ominously.

“Whether ours shall be a government of laws and not of men, is now for Congress, and ultimately, the American people.”

President Nixon did not understand how he had crystallized the issue of Watergate for the American people.

It had been about the obscure meaning behind an attempt to break in to a rival party’s headquarters; and the labyrinthine effort to cover-up that break-in and the related crimes.

And in one night, Nixon transformed it.

Watergate—instantaneously—became a simpler issue: a President overruling the inexorable march of the law of insisting—in a way that resonated viscerally with millions who had not previously understood - that he was the law.

Not the Constitution. Not the Congress. Not the Courts. Just him.

Just - Mr. Bush - as you did, yesterday.

The twists and turns of Plame-Gate, of your precise and intricate lies that sent us into this bottomless pit of Iraq; your lies upon the lies to discredit Joe Wilson; your lies upon the lies upon the lies to throw the sand at the “referee” of Prosecutor Fitzgerald’s analogy. These are complex and often painful to follow, and too much, perhaps, for the average citizen.

But when other citizens render a verdict against your man, Mr. Bush—and then you spit in the faces of those jurors and that judge and the judges who were yet to hear the appeal—the average citizen understands that, Sir.

It’s the fixed ballgame and the rigged casino and the pre-arranged lottery all rolled into one—and it stinks. And they know it.

Nixon’s mistake, the last and most fatal of them, the firing of Archibald Cox, was enough to cost him the presidency. And in the end, even Richard Nixon could say he could not put this nation through an impeachment.

It was far too late for it to matter then, but as the decades unfold, that single final gesture of non-partisanship, of acknowledged responsibility not to self, not to party, not to “base,” but to country, echoes loudly into history. Even Richard Nixon knew it was time to resign

Would that you could say that, Mr. Bush. And that you could say it for Mr. Cheney. You both crossed the Rubicon yesterday. Which one of you chose the route, no longer matters. Which is the ventriloquist, and which the dummy, is irrelevant.

But that you have twisted the machinery of government into nothing more than a tawdry machine of politics, is the only fact that remains relevant.

It is nearly July 4th, Mr. Bush, the commemoration of the moment we Americans decided that rather than live under a King who made up the laws, or erased them, or ignored them—or commuted the sentences of those rightly convicted under them—we would force our independence, and regain our sacred freedoms.

We of this time—and our leaders in Congress, of both parties—must now live up to those standards which echo through our history: Pressure, negotiate, impeach—get you, Mr. Bush, and Mr. Cheney, two men who are now perilous to our Democracy, away from its helm.

For you, Mr. Bush, and for Mr. Cheney, there is a lesser task. You need merely achieve a very low threshold indeed. Display just that iota of patriotism which Richard Nixon showed, on August 9th, 1974.

Resign.

And give us someone—anyone—about whom all of us might yet be able to quote John Wayne, and say, “I didn’t vote for him, but he’s my president, and I hope he does a good job.”

Read More...

Summary only...

Libby move helps seal Bush's legacy

Reuters
Libby move helps seal Bush's legacy
By Steve Holland

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President George W. Bush refused to rule out a pardon for former White House aide Lewis "Scooter" Libby on Tuesday, a day after sparing him from prison in a case that helped seal Bush's Iraq legacy and gave ammunition to Democrats.

Bush, who angered Democrats but reassured conservatives by saving Libby from serving a 2-1/2 year prison sentence, told reporters who asked about an eventual full pardon: "As to the future I rule nothing in and nothing out."

Bush's elimination of Libby's prison sentence -- while leaving intact a $250,000 fine and two-year probation -- was seen in Washington as an act of loyalty by an unpopular president trying to repair ties with disaffected conservatives who had pressed him to keep Libby out of jail.

There were comparisons to pardons issued by his father, President George H.W. Bush, in 1992 to key figures in the Iran-contra scandal -- former Defense Secretary Caspar Weinberger and State Department official Elliott Abrams.

The decision was also likened to President Bill Clinton's 11th-hour pardon in 2001 of financier Marc Rich from tax-evasion charges.

Libby was saved from a jail term for his conviction in March on charges of lying and obstruction of justice in an investigation into who leaked the identity of a CIA officer, Valerie Plame. Plame's husband, former Ambassador Joe Wilson, questioned evidence used to justify the Iraq war.

"It closes one chapter of the sort of life-draining issue of George W. Bush and Iraq," said presidential historian Stephen Hess. "It's totally in keeping with everything he's done up to now, including his sense of loyalty to his people."

Hess said Bush's move will eventually be seen as a footnote to a legacy that will feature Iraq prominently.

But for now the decision has embittered Democrats, sharpening a sense that bipartisan compromises may be elusive in the president's remaining 18 months in office.

"Will it have an impact? Absolutely. How much of one I can't tell yet," said Jim Manley, spokesman for Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada.

Bush argued that Libby's 30-month prison sentence was excessive. But prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald, who brought the case against Libby, said the sentence was fair given the seriousness of the crime.

In light of Bush's highly unusual decision to scrap Libby's prison term, the federal judge who imposed the sentence issued an order directing Libby's lawyers and the prosecutor to clarify exactly when Libby would be required to begin his probation.

"Strictly construed, the statue authorizing the imposition of supervised release indicates that such release should occur only after the defendant has already served a term of imprisonment," U.S. District Judge Reggie Walton wrote, ordering the lawyers to respond by Monday.

Democratics found in Bush's move a reason to rally the party's faithful. New York Democratic Sen. Charles Schumer issued a statement asking supporters to sign a petition of outrage. "Tell President Bush you are appalled by his actions," said the e-mail, which did not ask for donations.

The Libby move was an unknown factor on the Republican campaign trail.

Former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani and prospective candidate Fred Thompson of Tennessee issued statements of support. Others were more circumspect, and Arizona Sen. John McCain was conspicuously silent on the issue.

The Bush decision appealed to the conservative base that can be key to Republican presidential primary elections. But it could be more problematic for Republicans in the general-election campaign, in which candidates typically move toward the center.

(Additional reporting by Andy Sullivan)

Read More...

Summary only...

Bush won't rule out Libby pardon

Yahoo! News
Bush won't rule out Libby pardon
By MATT APUZZO, Associated Press Writer

President Bush on Tuesday refused to rule out an eventual pardon for former White House aide I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby.

"As to the future, I rule nothing in and nothing out," the president said a day after commuting Libby's 2 1/2-year prison term in the CIA leak case.

Bush said he had weighed his decision carefully to erase Libby's prison time. He said the jury's conviction of Libby should stand but that the 30-month prison term was too severe.

"I made a judgment, a considered judgment, that I believe was the right decision to make in this case," the president said. "And I stand by it." At the same time, he left the door open for the possibility of a pardon later.

Bush spoke to reporters Tuesday after visiting wounded soldiers at Walter Reed Army Medical Center. His decision was roundly criticized by Democrats; Republicans were more subdued, with some welcoming the decision and but some conservatives saying he should have gone further.

Earlier Tuesday, chief Bush spokesman Tony Snow had declined to rule out the possibility of an eventual pardon and called the president satisfied with his decision to commute Libby's 2 1/2-year prison sentence.

"He thought any jail time was excessive. He did not see fit to have Scooter Libby taken to jail," Snow said.

The spokesman told reporters at a White House briefing that even with Bush's decision, Libby remains with a felony conviction on his record, two years' probation, a $250,000 fine and probable loss of his legal career. "So this is hardly a slap on the wrist," Snow said. "It is a very severe penalty.

U.S. District Judge Reggie Walton, who sentenced Libby to prison, declined Tuesday to discuss the case or his views on sentencing. "To now say anything about sentencing on the heels of yesterday's events will inevitably be construed as comments on the president's commutation decision, which would be inappropriate," the judge said in an e-mail.

With prison seeming all but certain for Libby, Bush on Monday suddenly spared the former chief of staff to Vice President Dick Cheney. His move came just five hours after a federal appeals court panel ruled that Libby could not delay his prison term. The Bureau of Prisons had already assigned Libby a prison identification number.

Snow was pressed several times on whether the president might eventually grant a full pardon to Libby, who had been convicted of lying and conspiracy in the CIA leak investigation. The press secretary declined to say anything categorically.

"The reason I will say I'm not going to close a door on a pardon is simply this: that Scooter Libby may petition for one," Snow said. "But the president has done what he thinks is appropriate to resolve this case."

"There is always a possibility — or there's an avenue open — for anybody to petition for consideration of a pardon," he added.

Snow did suggest that Bush was "getting pounding on the right for not granting a full pardon."

Asked whether Cheney — who calls Libby a friend and who has enormous influence within the White house — had pressed for Bush to commute Libby's sentence, Snow said, "I don't have direct knowledge. But on the other hand, the president did consult with most senior officials, and I'm sure that everybody had an opportunity to share their views."

"I'm sure that the vice president may have expressed an opinion ... he may of recused himself. I honestly don't know," Snow said.

However, the president made the decision without seeking any advice from the Office of the Pardon Attorney at the Justice Department, the White House had previously acknowledged.

Snow defended Bush's decision to not follow the usual course of running the matter past the Justice Department, saying details of the case were still fresh in everybody's mind, and that the president did not need to be brought up to date on details of the case.

Democrats have charged cronyism in sparing Libby jail time. But Snow said, "The president does not look upon this as granting a favor to anyone, and to do that is to misconstrue the nature of the deliberations."

"He spent a lot of time trying to figure out how to maintain the faith in the jury system, and he did that by keeping intact the conviction and some of the punishments," Snow said.

Snow was asked by a reporter if anyone in the administration would ever apologize for what prompted the entire investigation — public disclosure that Valerie Plame, the wife of sharp anti-war critic Joseph Wilson, was an undercover CIA officer.

"Yeah, it's improper to be leaking those names," Snow said. Pressed on whether someone in the administration owed the American public an apology, Snow said, "I'll apologize. Done."

Wilson, meanwhile, suggested the president's decision was a cover-up attempt to protect Cheney and perhaps his own office. He said Congress should investigate whether the president and Cheney were obstructing justice. "It's about them," Wilson told MSNBC from Santa Fe, New Mexico. Wilson, Plame and their children moved to Santa Fe earlier this year.

In an interview with APTN, Wilson called Bush's action "a continuation of the cover up for which Scooter Libby was originally convicted."

Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald disputed Bush's assertion that the prison term was excessive. Libby was sentenced under the same laws as other criminals, Fitzgerald said. "It is fundamental to the rule of law that all citizens stand before the bar of justice as equals."

Libby's attorney, Theodore Wells, said in a statement that the Libby family was grateful for Bush's action and continued to believe in his innocence.

Because he was not pardoned, Libby remains the highest-ranking White House official convicted of a crime since the Iran-Contra affair.

That didn't stop an avalanche of criticism from Democrats.

"Libby's conviction was the one faint glimmer of accountability for White House efforts to manipulate intelligence and silence critics of the Iraq war," said Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid. "Now, even that small bit of justice has been undone."

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., said Bush's decision showed the president "condones criminal conduct."

___

Associated Press Writer Ben Feller contributed to this report.

Read More...

Summary only...

Bush commutes Libby prison sentence

Yahoo! News
Bush commutes Libby prison sentence
By BEN FELLER, Associated Press Writer

President Bush spared former White House aide I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby from a 2 1/2-year prison term in the CIA leak case Monday, stepping into a criminal case with heavy political overtones on grounds that the sentence was just too harsh.

Bush's move came hours after a federal appeals panel ruled Libby could not delay his prison term in the CIA leak case. That meant Libby was likely to have to report to prison soon and put new pressure on the president, who had been sidestepping calls by Libby's allies to pardon the former chief of staff to Vice President Dick Cheney.

"I respect the jury's verdict," Bush said in a statement. "But I have concluded that the prison sentence given to Mr. Libby is excessive. Therefore, I am commuting the portion of Mr. Libby's sentence that required him to spend thirty months in prison."

Bush left intact a $250,000 fine and two years probation for Libby, and Bush said his action still "leaves in place a harsh punishment for Mr. Libby."

Libby was convicted in March of lying to authorities and obstructing the investigation into the 2003 leak of CIA operative's identity. He was the highest-ranking White House official ordered to prison since the Iran-Contra affair.

Reaction was harsh from Democrats.

"As Independence Day nears, we are reminded that one of the principles our forefathers fought for was equal justice under the law. This commutation completely tramples on that principle," Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., said through a spokesman.

Libby's supporters celebrated.

"That's fantastic. It's a great relief," said former Ambassador Richard Carlson, who helped raise millions for Libby's defense fund. "Scooter Libby did not deserve to go to prison and I'm glad the president had the courage to do this."

A message seeking comment from Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald's office was not immediately returned.

Bush said Cheney's former aide was not getting off free.

"The reputation he gained through his years of public service and professional work in the legal community is forever damaged," Bush said. "His wife and young children have also suffered immensely. He will remain on probation. The significant fines imposed by the judge will remain in effect. The consequences of his felony conviction on his former life as a lawyer, public servant and private citizen will be long-lasting."

A spokeswoman for Cheney said simply, "The vice president supports the president's decision."

The president's announcement came just as prison seemed likely for Libby. He recently lost an appeals court fight that was his best chance to put the sentence on hold, and the U.S. Bureau of Prisons had already designated him inmate No. 28301-016.

Bush's statement made no mention of the term "pardon," and he made clear that he was not willing to wipe away all penalties for Libby.

The president noted Libby supporters' argument that the punishment did not fit the crime for a "first-time offender with years of exceptional public service."

Yet, he added, "Others point out that a jury of citizens weighed all the evidence and listened to all the testimony and found Mr. Libby guilty of perjury and obstructing justice. They argue, correctly, that our entire system of justice relies on people telling the truth. And if a person does not tell the truth, particularly if he serves in government and holds the public trust, he must be held accountable."

Bush then stripped away the prison time.

The leak case has hung over the White House for years. After CIA operative Valerie Plame's name appeared in a 2003 syndicated newspaper column, Special Prosecutor Fitzgerald questioned top administration officials, including Bush and Cheney, about their possible roles.

Nobody was ever charged with the leak, including Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage or White House political adviser Karl Rove, who provided the information for the original article. Prosecutors said Libby obstructed the investigation by lying about how he learned about Plame and whom he told.

Plame believes Libby and other White House officials conspired to leak her identity to reporters in 2003 as retribution against her husband, Joseph Wilson, who criticized what he said was the administration's misleading use of prewar intelligence on Iraq.

Attorney William Jeffress said he had spoken to Libby briefly by phone and "I'm happy at least that Scooter will be spared any prison time. ... The prison sentence was imminent but obviously the conviction itself is a heavy blow to Scooter."

___

Associated Press Writer Matt Appuzo contributed to this report.

Copyright © 2007 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. The information contained in the AP News report may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without the prior written authority of The Associated Press.

Read More...

Summary only...

Bush Provokes Britain's Terrorists With: "This is Amateur Time!"

Huffington Post
Linda Milazzo
Bush Provokes Britain's Terrorists With: "This is Amateur Time!"


With Great Britain under extreme alert after three car bomb attempts over the past two days, George W. Bush and his high level White House cohorts are doing their utmost to goad the terrorists to try harder next time. To be more "PROFESSIONAL" in their planning. To detonate bombs that are certain to cause harm.

By all accounts, the failed detonations of the two cars in London and the blazing SUV in Scotland weren't huge or impressive enough for Bush and his buddies. They didn't do enough damage. They didn't produce real harm. They weren't "PROFESSIONAL" enough to get America's attention.

The underlying message: to be worth your salt as terrorists, you'll have to do better next time! Another case of: "Bring it on!"

Rather than supporting the Brits and their new Prime Minister by publicly commiserating with them on the tragedies that were averted, Bush and his buddies have once again chosen the most irrational, incompetent course. They've called the terrorists "AMATEURS" to encourage their devising more sophistocated methods next time.

Bring it on!

In the six and a half years George W. Bush has been President, he and his Administration have never had a logical, well-reasoned, legitimate or successful response to any situation. He failed miserably after 9/11. He attacked Afghanistan, but failed to capture the orchestrators of the World Trade Center's demise. He unnecessarily invaded and occupied Iraq, destroyed its infrastructure, killed thousands of Americans, and caused the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Iraqis who survived Saddam, but succumbed to him. And he's made America the most reviled nation in the world.

Now once again, in the aftermath of a critical incident that requires a sound leadership response, George W. Bush makes another illogical and counter-productive choice. He faults the terrorists for failing, giving them impetus to improve their attacks.

Could he be more inept? Could he be more dangerous? Could he be more ill-suited for his job?

In lieu of goading for more successful terrorism, George Bush should contact the new Prime Minister to offer moral support. He should state publicly to the Brits that he's pleased no innocents were harmed. He should instruct potential attackers that all human life, including their own, is too precious to sacrifice in so heinous a way. In other words, George Bush should deliver an adult, reasoned, moral message - and not antagonize the frey.

But naturally Mr. Bush isn't doing anything of the sort.

Instead he's playing with his boat and his bicycle in Kennebunkport, looking into the eyes of Vladimir Putin to once again "know his heart," and childishly snubbing the new British Prime Minister for taking his Tony's job.

How long will our nation permit this grievous incompetent to remain in office? Every second he's there our nation and our world fall further apart.

I. I. I. I. -- Invoke, Impeach, Indict and Imprison George W. Bush and Dick Cheney. It can't happen a moment too soon!

Read More...

Summary only...