Sunday, October 30, 2005
White House Ethics, Honesty Questioned
washingtonpost.com
White House Ethics, Honesty Questioned
55% in Survey Say Libby Case Signals Broader Problems
By Richard Morin and Claudia Deane
Washington Post Staff Writers
A majority of Americans say the indictment of senior White House aide I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby signals broader ethical problems in the Bush administration, and nearly half say the overall level of honesty and ethics in the federal government has fallen since President Bush took office, according to a new Washington Post-ABC News survey.
The poll, conducted Friday night and yesterday, found that 55 percent of the public believes the Libby case indicates wider problems "with ethical wrongdoing" in the White House, while 41 percent believes it was an "isolated incident." And by a 3 to 1 ratio, 46 percent to 15 percent, Americans say the level of honesty and ethics in the government has declined rather than risen under Bush.
In the aftermath of the latest crisis to confront the White House, Bush's overall job approval rating has fallen to 39 percent, the lowest of his presidency in Post-ABC polls. Barely a third of Americans -- 34 percent -- think Bush is doing a good job ensuring high ethics in government, which is slightly lower than President Bill Clinton's standing on this issue when he left office.
The survey also found that nearly seven in 10 Americans consider the charges against Libby to be serious. A majority -- 55 percent -- said the decision of Special Counsel Patrick J. Fitzgerald to bring charges against Libby was based on the facts of the case, while 30 percent said he was motivated by partisan politics.
"One thing you can't ever, ever do even if you're a regular person is lie to a grand jury," said Brad Morris, 48, a registered independent and a field representative for a lumber company who lives in Nashua, N.H. "But multiply that by a thousand times if you have power like [Libby had]. And if anybody wants to know why, ask Scooter. He's financially ruined; he'll be paying lawyers for the rest of his life."
Taken together, the findings represent a serious blow to a White House already reeling from the politically damaging effects of the slow government response to Hurricane Katrina, the continuing bloodshed in Iraq, the ongoing criticism of its since-repudiated claims that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction and the bungled nomination of Harriet Miers to the Supreme Court.
The ethics findings may be particularly upsetting to a president who came to office in 2000 vowing to restore integrity and honor to a White House that he said had been tainted by the recurring scandals of the Clinton years.
On Friday, a federal grand jury in Washington indicted Libby, Vice President Cheney's chief of staff, on two counts of making false statements, two counts of perjury and one count of obstruction of justice in the course of Fitzgerald's investigation into the disclosure of the name of covert CIA operative Valerie Plame to reporters. Plame's husband, former ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV, has accused the Bush administration of going to war in Iraq based on intelligence officials knew was untrue.
The survey of 600 randomly selected Americans represents a snapshot of initial reactions to the Libby indictment. Those views could quickly change as the public learns more about the charges and as Republicans and Democrats mount competing campaigns to shape public attitudes. The margin of sampling error for the overall results is plus or minus four percentage points.
Those campaigns may play an influential role in the public's final conclusions about the leak investigation. In the 24 hours after Fitzgerald's news conference, the survey and follow-up interviews found many Americans confused as to what, if anything, to make of the complicated indictment.
Ellen Mulligan, 34, a Republican and part-time art teacher who lives in Hamden, Conn., was one of these. "If I understood what happened, Vice President Cheney's adviser spoke to his wife and then she leaked the secret," Mulligan said.
That is not an allegation in the indictment, but though Mulligan may not know exactly what happened, the scandal for her is both typical Washington and part of a broader pattern of ethical challenges in this administration. "My actual opinion is more, 'Here we go again.' Every administration has their secrets and has some corruption," she said. But she is disappointed with Bush on the ethics front. "I think Bush's actions in certain situations are pretty much unethical, [though] not illegal. . . . He's definitely not his father. His father seemed more wholesome, more down-to-earth."
The survey found some areas of general agreement. Most Republicans, 57 percent, said that the obstruction of justice and perjury charges are serious, compared with 81 percent of Democrats and 68 percent of independents.
But once past the specifics of the charges against Libby, Republicans and Democrats differed dramatically. While a large majority of Democrats (76 percent) said the case is a sign of broader ethical problems in the administration, an equally large majority of Republicans (69 percent) said it was an isolated matter. Most Republicans continued to give Bush high marks for his handling of ethics in government, while Democrats overwhelmingly graded him poorly.
The survey also suggests the emergence of an appealing fresh face in public life: special prosecutor Fitzgerald. Fifty-five percent said Fitzgerald brought the charges against Libby based on the facts of the case and not for partisan political reasons. Less than a third -- 30 percent -- said Fitzgerald was politically motivated.
"I was very impressed by him," said Dorothy Harper, 56, an immigration lawyer and a St. Louis Democrat, who watched portions of Fitzgerald's news conference. "He was very impressive. He obviously knew what he was doing."
Many Americans believe that others may be involved in the disclosure of Plame's identity to the news media. Nearly half -- 47 percent -- believe that senior White House adviser Karl Rove did something wrong in connection with the case, including nearly a fifth who believe that Rove acted illegally.
On Friday, Rove was not indicted, though Fitzgerald's investigation is continuing.
A smaller but still significant proportion -- 41 percent -- believe Cheney did something wrong, while 44 percent believe he did not.
Most Americans believe Bush had nothing to do with the incidents that resulted in the indictment brought against Libby: 55 percent said the president was not at fault, while 12 percent said he probably did something illegal, and 21 percent said he did something "unethical but not illegal."
The week Bush got whacked
timesonline.co.uk
The Sunday Times
Focus: The week Bush got whacked
His second term was already floundering when, on Friday, a top aide was charged with perjury. Sarah Baxter, in Washington, reports on a bad few days for the president
Nerves were jangling at the White House last week. President George W Bush, never the easiest character to work for, was growing tetchy and was lashing out at junior staff. When he was re-elected last November he said that he had political capital and was going to spend it. A year later the coffers of goodwill and trust were near-empty and he was angry.
"This is not some manager at McDonald’s chewing out the staff," said one source. "This is the president of the United States and it is not a pretty sight."
Bush’s mood had already soured during Hurricane Katrina, when he was accused of being indifferent to the misery of New Orleans. It darkened further when Harriet Miers, his White House legal adviser and nominee for the Supreme Court, was scorned by his own conservative supporters as a hapless crony, forcing her to withdraw her candidature last week.
"Why wouldn’t he be irritable?" said Bill Kristol, editor of the neoconservative Weekly Standard. Everything for Bush had gone from bad to worse and, as fate would have it, the number of American deaths in Iraq passed 2,000 on Tuesday, promoting yet another media blitz on his performance in that country.
"He is like the lion in winter," said an ally. "He’s frustrated. He remains quite confident in the decisions he has made, but this is a guy who wanted to do big things in his second term. Given his nature, there is no way he would be happy about the way things have gone."
Things were about to get worse. Having promised to restore "dignity" to the White House after the bimbo eruptions of the Clinton era, on Friday Bush became the first American president in more than 30 years to see one of his most senior aides indicted on criminal charges.
Lewis "Scooter" Libby, right-hand man to Dick Cheney — the most powerful vice-president in American history — was charged on five counts of perjury, making false statements and obstruction of justice.
Patrick Fitzgerald, an apparently fearless and politically independent prosecutor who had earned his spurs taking down Chicago mobsters, had brought the indictment which concerned the unmasking of Valerie Plame as an undercover CIA operative.
Her outing by an as yet unnamed White House official came only months after her husband, a former US ambassador, had embarrassed Bush, Cheney and Libby by accusing them of misrepresenting the intelligence case of the war on Iraq.
After Fitzgerald had served his indictment on Friday, Libby immediately resigned and now has to report to the FBI for arrest and fingerprinting. If convicted, he faces up to 30 years in jail and a fine of up to $1.25m. So much, then, for dignity.
At first glance the Libby affair is a confusing — almost academic — tale of internecine Washington politics with little obvious explosive potential. Yet it is one that has struck at the core of one of Bush’s proudest and most controversial achievements: the invasion of Iraq and the toppling of Saddam Hussein.
Worse, perhaps, so far as middle America is concerned, it raises a question mark over the one thing that the Bush administration has always been strongest on — its apparently unwavering sense of patriotism.
THE story dates back to the early years of Bush’s presidency and the aftermath of the attacks on New York and Washington on September 11, 2001. Cheney and Libby were at the vanguard of the hardcore group of "neocon" advisers who believed that Saddam’s regime in Iraq should be toppled in the wake of the overthrow of the Taliban regime in Afghanistan.
The two men, who were called the "commissars" behind their backs, became obsessed with rooting out evidence that Saddam was still seeking to acquire weapons of mass destruction. In regular meetings with the CIA they would press officials to turn over every scrap of evidence that came their way relating to Iraq.
In February 2002, Cheney was given a CIA briefing which mentioned the curious case of Saddam’s attempted purchase of uranium yellowcake from Niger — a crucial ingredient in any nuclear programme. What more could the agency tell him, Cheney demanded.
When vice-presidents bark, officials jump to it and in this case the CIA quickly dispatched Joseph Wilson, a one-time Californian surf dude and diplomat in Baghdad at the time of the first Gulf war, to Niger to find out more. But far from confirming a plot to buy uranium, Wilson reported after an eight-day trip that the allegations were bogus.
The CIA, it seems, did not report this bad news directly back to the vice-president. Cheney claims that he was never told about Wilson’s departure, nor his findings.
Whatever the truth of the matter, the vice-president might well have dismissed Wilson’s report in any event as he had long regarded the CIA with suspicion. He had first clashed with the agency when he was defence secretary under Ronald Reagan in the 1980s. Then he had accused its risk-averse bureaucrats of failing to foresee the break-up of the Soviet Union.
He also felt that it had not prepared adequately for the possible use of biological weapons by Saddam in the first Gulf war, when Scud missiles were launched at Israel. After the September 11 attacks, the CIA was once again in the doghouse for missing the signs that Al-Qaeda was preparing to crash planes into New York and Washington.
As the build-up to the war in Iraq grew nearer, Cheney and Libby effectively cut the CIA out of the loop, forming their own "Iraq monitoring group" with Donald Rumsfeld, the defence secretary, Paul Wolfowitz (Libby’s original mentor) and Douglas Feith, another hawkish defence official. Together they built the case for the invasion and overthrow of Saddam.
For nearly a year Wilson kept quiet about his mission but then — in January 2003 — came the president’s state of the union address and the 16 words that drove the proud, some say vain, man to distraction.
"The British government has learnt that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa," the president told the nation and the world.
Not surprisingly perhaps, Wilson felt ignored and started talking quietly to the press about his mission of a year earlier. His frustration turned to outright anger several months later when Condoleezza Rice asserted on television that no senior person in the administration had been told that the documents relating to Saddam’s alleged uranium purchase were forged. "Maybe somebody in the bowels of the agency knew something about this," she said airily, "but nobody in my circles."
Wilson went ballistic and public. In an article in The New York Times in July 2003, he publicly accused the Bush government of "misrepresenting the facts on an issue that was a fundamental justification for going to war".
As for Rice, "She was saying, ‘F*** you Washington, we don’t care’. Or rather, ‘F*** you, America’," Wilson later added.
Precisely what happened next within the administration is still the subject of conjecture and criminal investigation. What is in no doubt, however, is that the occupation of Plame, Wilson’s wife, was leaked to the press and her identity as an undercover operative in the counter-proliferation division of the CIA was blown.
The story was broken by Robert Novak, the right-wing columnist, and was widely seen as an attempt to discredit Wilson and rubbish his story. By linking him so closely with the CIA, critics said, the Bush administration was letting people know that he was just another tool of a discredited agency that had long been at loggerheads with Cheney and his neocon advisers.
In Wilson’s eyes it was a straightforward case of revenge by the government. It is a criminal offence in America for an official knowingly to leak the identity of an undercover operative. Wilson — with the backing of his wife and the CIA — demanded that a full criminal investigation be launched to establish who in the administration had leaked Plame’s occupation.
It was Fitzgerald, the 44- year-old prosecutor at the heart of the leak inquiry, who was brought in to sift through the evidence of wrongdoing. It should have been immediately obvious to Cheney and friends that the White House could not simply bluff its way out of trouble.
The clean-cut, bright-eyed prosecutor has the incorruptible air of Kevin Costner in the film The Untouchables, based on lawman Eliot Ness’s account of how he brought down Al Capone, Chicago’s most notorious gangster in the 1930s.
Fittingly, Fitzgerald also lives in Chicago where he runs the justice department. He, too, has had run-ins with the mob and secured the convictions of members of the Gambino crime family as well as terrorists such as Omar Abdul Rahman.
Fitzgerald launched his inquiry by demanding the names of all the reporters whom Libby and other senior White House officials had talked to. It was Novak who broke the story but last summer Fitzgerald was ruthless enough to send Judith Miller, a controversial Pulitzer prizewinning reporter for The New York Times, to prison for 85 days until she agreed to reveal the source of her information on the matter.
The fact that Miller never wrote the story — which turned out to have been supplied to her by Libby — did not spare her from incarceration. "If you’re not zealous, you shouldn’t have the job," Fitzgerald once said of his own role in the investigation.
The White House has tried to fight back. Wilson and his wife, insiders like to point out, are no clear-cut heroes. In Washington circles, they say, Wilson was known to introduce Plame proudly at parties as "my CIA wife" and thus could be said to have broken her cover himself.
Unfortunately for the White House, there is no rule against whistleblowers being vain and self-important. Unlike the right, which has eagerly dissected Wilson’s character and motives, Fitzgerald has shown no interest in his alleged defects.
Early on in the inquiry, one White House ally also took a swipe at Fitzgerald himself: "He’s a vile, detestable, moralistic person with no heart and no conscience who believes he has been tapped by God to do very important things."
That line of attack, too, was dropped — and not only because Bush’s opponents say much the same thing about the president. Fitzgerald, the workaholic, Harvard-educated son of an Irish immigrant New York doorman, is transparently honest and for many Americans represents what is best about their upwardly mobile nation.
YET when Fitzgerald finally served his indictment last week there was no charge levelled for the actual crime of blowing Plame’s identity. Instead Libby was charged with lying. In short he was charged not with the crime but with the cover-up.
Fitzgerald made it plain that he believed that the charges were serious. "When citizens testify before grand juries they are required to tell the truth," he said. "In an investigation concerning the compromise of a CIA officer’s testimony, it is especially important."
For a moment it was as if the prosecutor rather than the president was standing up for the integrity of the nation and behaving as a patriot.
Moreover, Fitzgerald made it clear that his inquiry was not yet over. His indictment reveals that it was not Libby — but a mysterious "Official A" — who gave Plame’s name to Novak. Libby, it transpired, had passed it to three other journalists, including Miller who had failed to make use of the information in print.
Official A is widely believed to be Karl Rove, the president’s chief political adviser and a man widely known as "Bush’s brain". Experts now believe that Fitzgerald, having charged Libby, could push him to expose Rove’s role in exchange for a more lenient sentence. That, say some, could open the door to Cheney being charged.
If Libby comes to trial, Cheney is bound to have to take the stand as a witness. At the very least he will have to answer embarrassing questions about why he let Libby claim throughout the 22- month inquiry that he learnt of Plame’s identity only through reporters when Cheney himself had told Libby that Plame worked for the CIA.
Whatever the deal, Libby now finds himself, at 55, facing serious jail time.
The Democrats, meanwhile, can hardly believe their luck. "This is going to consume the rest of the Bush presidency," said Paul Begala, a former adviser to Bill Clinton.
Wilson has certainly got his own back for the perceived smears against him and his wife. "When an indictment is delivered to the front door of the White House, the office of the president is defiled," Wilson said on Friday.
For defenders of the president, the fact that it is only Libby and not Rove who was charged is important. In Kristol’s view, the charges are "a personal blow for Libby and embarrassing for the White House" but they are focused on only one person: "It’s not so bad for Bush. There was no conspiracy, which limits the damage."
Indeed, Washington conservatives were far less despondent this weekend than might have been expected. Buoyed up by their success in getting Miers to withdraw her nomination for the Supreme Court, many talk as if Bush now has a unprecedented opportunity to move forward.
"We have reached the bottom of the Bush bear market," said Kristol emphatically. Others note that there are still three years to go before the next election.
There are signs that the economy is improving and Ben Bernanke, Bush’s nominee for the chairman of the Federal Reserve last week, has been widely praised.
"What they’ve decided to do is have the world’s worst Thursday and Friday, see if they can get through the weekend and start all over again on Monday," said Byron York, a conservative commentator.
It could work if the public has a short-term memory
Cast list of the CIA scandal
DICK CHENEY
The combative Cheney saw Iraq as a serious threat after 9/11. Learning of documents purporting to show that Iraq was trying to buy uranium “yellow cake” —- a potential ingredient for nuclear weapons — from Niger, he ordered further investigations. He pressed CIA analysts sceptical about Iraq having WMD.
JOSEPH WILSON
Former US ambassador Wilson was sent to Niger by the CIA to authenticate the claims. He found no evidence and was dismayed when President Bush referred to the claims in a 2003 speech. To the fury of Cheney’s office, Wilson told journalists that the White House had “twisted” evidence on Iraq’s WMD.
VALERIE PLAME
Wilson’s wife, she was a covert CIA operative and WMD expert. According to allegations this week, her identity became known among senior White House figures after Wilson criticised the administration. Her CIA links were revealed by a right-wing newspaper columnist with White House connections. Whoever first “outed” her committed a serious offence.
PATRICK FITZGERALD
A tough prosecutor, Fitzgerald launched an investigation into the Plame leak. He examined the roles of senior White House staff, including Karl Rove, the political adviser known as “Bush’s brain”. Last week Fitzgerald left open the possibility of further investigations into Rove, but did not indict him.
LEWIS ‘SCOOTER’ LIBBY
Arch neoconservative Libby has resigned as Cheney’s chief of staff. Last week he was indicted by Fitzgerald. Although not directly accused of leaking Plame’s name, he was charged with obstruction of justice, lying to the FBI and committing perjury before a grand jury. Libby denies the charges.
The second term curse has hit every two-term president since the second world war. Recent victims include:
Bill Clinton
On January 26, 1998, he denied on national television having an affair with Monica Lewinsky. Found to have lied, he was impeached although the Senate did not convict him.
Ronald Reagan
Cursed by the Iran-Contra affair, in which missiles were sold to Iran and Tehran’s money illegally funded Contras fighting Nicaragua’s socialist government.
Richard Nixon
Brought down by Watergate scandal and on August 8, 1974, announced his resignation.
Lyndon Johnson
Despite earnest pledges, in the first year of his second term American troop numbers in Vietnam rose from 15,000 to 200,000.
Dwight Eisenhower
In 1960 he denied Gary Powers’s spy plane had been shot down in Soviet air space. After Powers was jailed in Russia, Eisenhower then denied he had authorised the mission.
White House Portrays Libby, Accused of Lying in Leak Probe, as Dedicated Worker With Bad Memory
White House Portrays Libby, Accused of Lying in Leak Probe, as Dedicated Worker With Bad Memory
By LARRY MARGASAK and PETE YOST
Associated Press Writers
WASHINGTON (AP) -- The prosecution's conclusion: Vice President Dick Cheney's chief of staff zealously pursued information about a critic who said the Bush administration manipulated intelligence to make the case for war. The view of the president and vice president: I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby is a dedicated public servant who has worked tirelessly on behalf of his country.
Is Libby an influential White House adviser who lied? Or is he a man with a hectic schedule who happens to remember events differently from the reporters and administration figures who will eventually be called to testify against him?
"As lawyers, we recognize that a person's recollection and memory of events will not always match those of other people, particularly when they are asked to testify months after the events occurred," Libby's lawyer, Joseph Tate, said in a statement.
Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald drew his detailed portrait of Libby based on a two-year investigation that pulled dozens of witnesses in for questioning, including President Bush and Cheney.
Libby, the indictment against him concludes, received information from Cheney, the State Department and the CIA about covert CIA officer Valerie Plame, whose husband was attacking an administration unable to find any weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. Libby then spread the information to reporters and later concocted a story that his information had come from reporters, the indictment says.
The other portrait of Libby, the favorable version, shows a deeply committed conservative who has been a player on the Washington scene since the early days of the Reagan administration.
Libby left the White House for the last time Friday, departing after seeing some of the ideas he and others championed become administration policy.
In 1992, Libby and former Pentagon deputy Paul Wolfowitz wrote a paper favoring the use of pre-emptive force to prevent countries from developing weapons of mass destruction. The paper later won praise from the neoconservative Project for the New American Century, which called it "a blueprint for maintaining U.S. pre-eminence, precluding the rise of a great power rival."
Notwithstanding Fitzgerald's insistence Friday that the criminal case is not about Iraq, he probably will seek to cast Libby as an architect of the U.S.-led invasion, said Scott Fredericksen, a former prosecutor who now represents white-collar defendants.
The prosecution will call Libby "a very bright guy at the highest levels of government with motivation to prevent Fitzgerald and the grand jury from learning the true source" of Libby's information about administration critic Joseph Wilson.
After the indictment, Cheney issued words of praise in Washington but made no mention of his departing chief of staff on a trip later in the day to Robins Air Force Base in Georgia. Cheney's speech to base personnel was on terrorism, the topic that, along with Iraq, has consumed his and Libby's time and energy.
"This is nothing new for a White House having to counter its critics, particularly when the administration believes the criticism to be false," said Washington lawyer Michael Madigan, a former Republican counsel in the Senate investigation of Clinton-era campaign fund-raising abuses. "The trouble the White House encountered in this case is that some of the information was classified."
If he were representing Libby, lawyer David Schertler said he would present character witnesses to testify about Libby's dedication to public service.
"This guy, every day, deals with some of the most important issues facing the American people," said Schertler, a former federal prosecutor. "You're asking him to recollect conversations, some fairly short, and he's giving his best recollections. Maybe he didn't remember correctly, but he didn't have the intent to deceive the special prosecutor or grand jury."
Fitzgerald's probe initially sought to determine whether anyone in the administration violated the law by knowingly disclosing the identity of a covert CIA employee.
"You didn't have that, so why did you charge him?" Schertler suggested Libby's defense would assert.
Fitzgerald spent 22 months on the investigation at a cost of more than $1 million. In the end, Libby was charged with five felonies alleging obstruction of justice, perjury to a grand jury and making false statements to FBI agents. If convicted, he could face a maximum of 30 years in prison and $1.25 million in fines.
The starting point was Bush's claim in his State of the Union address in January 2003 that Saddam Hussein had tried to acquire uranium from the African nation of Niger as part of an effort to develop weapons of mass destruction.
Bush took the country to war with Iraq in March 2003, saying Saddam's banned weapons program threatened the U.S. When no such weapons turned up, the administration was put on the defensive.
Wilson, a former ambassador, had gone to Niger in 2002 for the CIA to investigate the uranium claim. He found no evidence to back up an allegation of a sales agreement between Iraq and Niger. Wilson's wife, Plame, was the covert CIA officer whose name was leaked in July 2003 as the debate about the war heated up.
The indictment alleges Libby had information from at least seven government officials, including the vice president, about Plame and her CIA status. Libby said he heard it first from reporters. The indictment said Libby spread the information to the media.
Fitzgerald summed up the charges:
"At the end of the day what appears is that Mr. Libby's story that he was at the tail end of a chain of phone calls, passing on from one reporter what he heard from another, was not true. It was false. He was at the beginning of the chain of phone calls, the first official to disclose this information outside the government to a reporter. And then he lied about it afterward, under oath and repeatedly."
Libby's case has been assigned to U.S. District Judge Reggie Walton, nominated by Bush in 2001.
Moving on After 2004, John Edwards Lays Groundwork for Possible Presidential Bid in 2008
Moving on After 2004, John Edwards Lays Groundwork for Possible Presidential Bid in 2008
By GLEN JOHNSON
Associated Press Writer
CAMBRIDGE, Mass. (AP) -- John Edwards came downstairs and found 5-year-old son Jack on the floor, arranging toy trucks in a column. "What are you doing?" the former North Carolina senator asked. "Making a motorcade," came the exuberant reply.
A year after Democrats John Kerry and Edwards lost the White House election, young Jack still may think about the heady days of last fall. His father, however, has moved on - without a Secret Service escort.
-He is traveling the country, trying to rally college students to the cause of fighting poverty in the U.S.
-He is presiding over a new poverty center at the University of North Carolina.
-He is laying the groundwork for a possible return to the political spotlight as a presidential candidate in 2008.
A little bit of all three was on his mind when he made a stop at Harvard's John F. Kennedy School of Government.
"I'm in a very forward-looking, positive state of mind," said Edwards, while hundreds of students began to assemble in a nearby common. "I mean, being able to take on a big cause in a really serious way is an extraordinary thing."
A year ago Tuesday, Edwards and Kerry, the Massachusetts senator, were in Boston, awaiting the general election results. There was uncertainty about the outcome, especially in Ohio. At 2 a.m., Kerry sent his running mate to address the waning crowd in Copley Square.
"John Kerry and I made a promise to the American people that in this election, every vote would count and every vote would be counted," Edwards said. "Tonight, we are keeping our word and we will fight for every vote."
Hours later, the senators agreed the cause was lost and conceded defeat. Almost simultaneously, Edwards and his wife, Elizabeth, announced that she had been diagnosed with breast cancer.
Two months later, Edwards surrendered his Senate seat.
Today, Elizabeth Edwards has successfully completed her cancer treatments and is regaining her strength. The couple sold their Washington town house and built a new home in Chapel Hill, N.C.
Edwards is focused on poverty, a theme that emerged from his childhood as a son of a mill worker. It was the basis for his stump speech about the "two Americas" he saw emerging as the wealthy pulled away from the less fortunate.
"When I saw up close what was happening to them, honestly I remember thinking to myself, man, given my personal background, without a little luck, I could be in the same place a lot of these people are," Edwards said.
Hurricane Katrina, he believes, opened the rest of the country's eyes to the plight of the hidden poor in places such as Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama.
"The hard question is will that window of opportunity stay open or will it close?" Edwards said. "I think whether it stays open depends on whether we have people like these college students who take it on as a cause."
Altruism aside, the poverty work also provides Edwards a platform to maintain his political viability.
He spoke this year at the annual steak fry organized by Democratic Sen. Tom Harkin in first caucus state Iowa.
Also, Edwards has avoided making the pledge that Sen. Joe Lieberman, D-Conn., made after he and presidential nominee Al Gore lost the 2000 race to Republicans George W. Bush and Dick Cheney: Edwards refuses to declare that he will forgo his own White House bid in 2008 if Kerry decides to run again.
There is a simmering rivalry between the two, ignited by Edwards' postelection remarks in which he said he had unsuccessfully urged Kerry to fight back after the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth in the summer of 2004 challenged Kerry's Vietnam record.
Just last month, Edwards and Kerry competed for media attention on the same day as they delivered dueling speeches decrying the Bush administration's response to Hurricane Katrina.
Last week, when Edwards came to Massachusetts, he made a special point to call Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., and tell him he was in the state. No such call was made to Kerry, although Edwards said the two are friends and still talk regularly.
"This is my cause now," Edwards declared, dismissing the political talk for another day. "This is what I'm spending my energy and life blood on, and if I can do something serious, I'll be very happy with what I've spent my life on."
Gay Rights, Teen Abortion Among Issues Facing Voters in Ballot Measures Throughout Seven States
Gay Rights, Teen Abortion Among Issues Facing Voters in Ballot Measures Throughout Seven States
By DAVID CRARY
AP National Writer
Gay rights, teen abortion, Arnold Schwarzenegger's prestige. These and other volatile topics are adding spice to off-year elections in seven states where voters will be considering statewide ballot measures on Nov. 8.
As is often the case, California has the most intriguing mix of propositions - including four backed by Schwarzenegger, the Republican governor, to curb the power of the Democratic-controlled Legislature and the state's public employee unions. Another measure, notable in a state with liberal leanings, would require parents to be notified when a minor seeks an abortion.
Texas voters are expected to approve a proposed constitutional ban on same-sex marriages - a step already taken in 18 other states. In Maine, a conservative alliance is urging voters to quash a new law prohibiting discrimination based on sexual orientation.
In Republican-controlled Ohio, site of bitter wrangling in the 2004 presidential election, four election overhaul measures backed by Democratic-leaning groups are on the ballot. Voters will be asked if bipartisan boards, instead of elected officials, should draw lawmakers' districts and oversee elections; whether campaign contribution limits should be lowered; and whether all voters should be allowed to vote early by mail.
Doctors and lawyers in Washington state are spending heavily to support rival measures dealing with medical malpractice. The one backed by doctors would place a cap on certain types of jury awards and limit lawyers' fees. The lawyers' proposal would create a state-run supplemental malpractice insurance program, and allow doctors' licenses to be revoked after three malpractice verdicts against them within 10 years.
Other measures in Washington would ban smoking in public areas and indoor workplaces, and overturn the Legislature's gas-tax hike of 9.5 cents a gallon.
New Jersey voters will decide whether the state should have an elected lieutenant governor to take over if a sitting governor leaves office early. The measure is a response to the sex scandal that drove former Gov. James McGreevey from office and installed Senate President Richard Codey as acting governor even as he retained his Senate duties. New Jersey is one of eight states with no lieutenant governor.
Voters in New York are being asked to approve a $2.9 billion transportation bond and a measure that would give the Legislature, not the governor, the upper hand in writing a budget.
In Texas, the proposed gay-marriage ban is the only high-profile statewide item on the ballot, and both sides are concerned about possible low voter turnout.
"We think the vast majority of people in Texas are with us but that doesn't help if they don't show up," said Kelly Shackelford of the Liberty Legal Institute, which supports the ban.
Gay-rights activists opposing the ban have produced television ads featuring direct appeals by same-sex couples for marriage rights.
"We are not second-class citizens, and we need the same resources and rights available to heterosexual couples to protect our families," said the Rev. Carolyn Mobley, an associate pastor at the Resurrection Metropolitan Community Church, appearing with her partner in one of the ads.
Massachusetts is the only state allowing such marriages; Vermont and Connecticut have approved same-sex civil unions. Texas law already prohibits same-sex marriages, but supporters of the amendment say a constitutional ban would guard that law from judicial challenges.
While the Texas amendment was placed on the ballot by the Legislature, the measure dealing with gay rights in Maine resulted from a petition campaign by conservatives upset that lawmakers expanded the state's human rights act to address anti-gay bias.
The act already prohibited discrimination based on race, gender and other factors; it was broadened this year to outlaw discrimination based on sexual orientation in employment, housing, credit, public accommodations and education.
California voters face a special election called by Schwarzenegger in hopes of strengthening his hand in confrontations with legislators and civil service unions that have flared since he took office in 2003.
Schwarzenegger is backing proposals - all trailing in the polls - that would cap state spending and give the governor greater authority to make budget cuts; make teachers work five years instead of two to pass probation; strip lawmakers of their power to carry out redistricting, and require public employee unions to get members' permission before dues could be used for political purposes.
Schwarzenegger also supports the abortion measure, which would require doctors to give parents or guardians written notice 48 hours before performing an abortion on a minor. Adults would not have to consent, but sponsors hope the requirement would reduce California's teen abortion rate - the nation's fourth-highest - by involving parents in the decision.
More than 30 states have parental notification or consent laws.
Italy defends spy chief over Iraq controversy
Reuters
Italy defends spy chief over Iraq controversy
By Phil Stewart
ROME (Reuters) - Italy's government on Sunday rallied to the defense of spy chief Nicolo Pollari, whose agency is accused of passing off bad intelligence to the United States, helping bolster claims about Iraq's pre-war nuclear ambitions.
Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, on the eve of a meeting on Monday with U.S. President George W. Bush, said he respected Pollari, trusted and appreciated his work and last week approved statements defending his Sismi military intelligence agency.
Pollari, Sismi's director, is due to address a parliamentary committee on November 3 about the allegations by La Repubblica newspaper. La Repubblica says the agency passed off fake documents showing Iraq had sought to obtain uranium from Niger.
Bush cited Iraq's attempted purchase of African uranium in a 2003 speech, helping to build support for war.
The Italian government's backing for Pollari was called into question earlier on Sunday by ex-President Francesco Cossiga, who said Pollari lacked support and should resign "in the interest of the country, the (Sismi) service and your own".
"This morning, my friend Nicolo Pollari, who feels, rightly, abandoned by everybody...called me to ask for advice. I did not hesitate and gave him just one piece: quickly resign as director of Sismi," Cossiga was quoted as saying in a letter to La Repubblica.
The office of Defense Minister Antonio Martino also said in statement that he "confirmed his full confidence in Pollari".
PRE-WAR MEETING?
The Niger uranium allegations partly extend to Berlusconi, whom La Repubblica accused of siding with U.S. hawks before the war and possibly pressuring Sismi for evidence against Iraq.
The newspaper has focused much of its attention on a meeting on September 9, 2002, between Pollari and Stephen Hadley, who was at the time deputy White House national security adviser.
Hadley later took the blame for a reference to Iraq seeking uranium in Africa made in Bush's State of the Union address before the invasion of Iraq.
Berlusconi's office tried to quash speculation, saying on Friday there was no mention of the Iraq-Niger affair at Pollari's September 9 meeting in Washington, at which it said Hadley was a just silent guest.
In his State of the Union speech, Bush cited British -- not Italian intelligence -- as the source of the information on the uranium. However, La Repubblica said that an Italian middleman provided Britain with forged Niger documents.
Bush's 2003 uranium claim fueled criticism from the husband of covert CIA operative Valerie Plame, whose identity was later leaked, sparking a U.S. scandal that led to the indictment on Friday of Vice-President Dick Cheney's chief of staff.
Berlusconi's office issued a flurry of statements last week denying any involvement of the government or Sismi in fabricating or transmitting the documents, declared crude forgeries by the International Atomic Energy Agency.
Distancing himself from U.S. hawks, Berlusconi, a strong U.S. ally, said in a television interview due to air on Monday that he repeatedly tried to talk Bush out of invading Iraq.
"I tried many times to convince the American president not to go to war," Berlusconi was quoted as saying by La7 television network, which recorded the interview. "I tried to find other avenues and other solutions...But we didn't succeed."
Calls for White House shakeup focus on Karl Rove
Reuters
Calls for White House shakeup focus on Karl Rove
By Randall Mikkelsen
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. President George W. Bush, whose top adviser Karl Rove remains in jeopardy in a CIA-leak probe, needs to shake up his White House staff if he hopes to revive a presidency reeling from multiple setbacks, Republican and Democratic lawmakers said on Sunday.
The lawmakers also urged Bush to investigate the office of Vice President Dick Cheney, whose chief of staff, Lewis Libby, resigned on Friday and was indicted on perjury and other charges in connection with the probe.
Bush should take Cheney "to the woodshed" if necessary, a Democratic lawmaker said, and the Senate's top Democrat said Rove should be fired or quit.
"I think Karl Rove should step down," Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid of Nevada said on ABC's "This Week."
Mississippi Republican Sen. Trent Lott said the Bush administration needed "new blood, new energy, qualified staff," and that he expected the president to address his problems.
"I'm not talking about wholesale changes, but you've got to reach out and bring in more advice and counsel," Lott said on "Fox News Sunday."
Rove remains under investigation in the probe into who leaked the identity of covert CIA operative Valerie Plame, whose diplomat husband is a prominent Iraq war critic. The White House's credibility has been hurt by disclosures that Rove and Libby leaked Plame's identity, despite earlier official denials attributed to the two men.
Reid said Bush and Cheney owed the public an apology. "They should come clean with the American public," he said on ABC.
Rove has been the chief architect of Bush's political career. However, lawmakers questioned whether he is an obstacle to Bush's recovery from problems including growing public opposition to the Iraq war, a botched response to Hurricane Katrina and the withdrawal of Harriet Miers' nomination to the U.S. Supreme Court under fire from both parties.
"(Although) there's no existing evidence here that Karl Rove is about to be indicted ... the president has to make a determination as to whether or not he wants to be preoccupied with legal issues around the White House," Democratic Sen. Christopher Dodd of Connecticut said on "Fox News Sunday."
CHENEY IN THE SPOTLIGHT
Lott raised similar concerns but said any decision should be left to Rove.
"If he has a problem, I think he's got to step up and ... acknowledge that and deal with it," Lott said. "If he's not going to be indicted ... then, you know, his view of what he does is very different," he said.
Reid previewed the potential for Rove to become a political lightning-rod, seeing his hand in what he said were White House plans to name a right-wing replacement for Miers who would spark an attention-diverting partisan brawl in the Senate.
"The president, I guess, is still being driven by Karl Rove," Reid told ABC's "This Week."
White House spokesman Scott McClellan, asked about Rove's status on Friday, said he still works at the White House and declined to discuss any conversations between Bush and his senior staff.
Lawmakers also kept the spotlight on Cheney, who had told Libby that Plame worked for the CIA's counterproliferation division, according to the indictment.
Plame's husband, former diplomat Joseph Wilson, contends her identity was leaked to discredit his charges that the administration twisted intelligence on Iraq to justify war.
"The president ought to do his own internal investigation of the vice president's office, see what happened, set some standards and if need be take the vice president to the woodshed," New York Democratic Sen. Charles Schumer said on CBS's "Face the Nation."
South Carolina Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham agreed that Bush should probe Cheney's office, but he attributed the White House's involvement in the Plame issue to a lawful desire to "set the record straight" after what he called an inaccuracy in Wilson's charges.
Some Republicans also looked for Bush to try to change momentum by quickly picking a new Supreme Court nominee after Miers' withdrawal.
Tug-of-war begins on Bernanke's political voice
Reuters
Tug-of-war begins on Bernanke's political voice
By Tim Ahmann
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A quiet tug-of-war has begun over the role presumptive future Federal Reserve chief Ben Bernanke will play in Washington budget debates, with both conservatives and liberals hoping he'll be one of their own.
Conservatives express confidence that Bernanke, if confirmed by the Senate to succeed Alan Greenspan next year, will do nothing to upset the Bush administration's apple cart when its comes to its tax-cutting agenda.
Liberals, in contrast, hope Bernanke, who associates say lacks clear ideological stripes, will be a voice of fiscal restraint and a counterweight to Bush's tax-cutting zeal.
Long-time colleagues and past comments from the nominee suggest the politically moderate monetary expert may hew to a middle ground, stopping short of comments that could be seen as advocating particular policies but speaking freely in broad terms when he thinks budgetary discipline is needed.
In essence, supporters say, Bernanke is likely to be more restrained in offering budgetary advice than his predecessor.
Greenspan has often been criticized for stepping outside the Fed's bailiwick in weighing in on contentious fiscal debates -- from advocating tax cuts to arguing the merits of private accounts under the Social Security retirement program.
When Bernanke took his current job as chairman of President George W. Bush's Council of Economic Advisers in June, there was speculation the White House wanted to draw him close for scrutiny as a potential Fed candidate out of concern he might prove ideologically out of step.
BUSH LINE
Since landing at the White House, Bernanke has trumpeted the Bush line in a way some analysts think could constrain his ability to take another tack.
Echoing other administration types, he has argued that failure to make the president's first-term tax cuts permanent could sow financial market unease and weigh on economic growth. And he has counseled Congress to take an ax to spending rather than raise taxes to narrow the U.S. budget gap.
"That was sort of his dress rehearsal, so to speak," Wall Street Journal editorial writer and tax-cut advocate Stephen Moore said of Bernanke's tenure at the CEA. "He passed with flying colors. He was very loyal to Bush's agenda."
The one-time Fed governor, however, has kept his own counsel since the president tapped him on Monday to replace Greenspan, who steps down on January 31 after more than 18 years atop the world's most powerful central bank.
The former Fed Governor and Princeton University professor has spoken with a number of members of the U.S. Senate Banking Committee, the panel charged with considering his nomination, as he begins to lay the groundwork for his hoped-for confirmation.
FISCAL ADVISER?
Democratic Sen. Charles Schumer of New York said Bernanke told him by phone on Monday he wanted to steer clear of weighing in on fiscal policy debates.
"I told him he should rethink that," Schumer said, according to the Washington Post. A spokesman for Schumer said Bernanke replied that he would take the suggestion under advisement.
But associates say Bernanke's position may have been misconstrued.
"It's not that he's not going to talk about fiscal issues, but that he's only going to talk about fiscal issues insofar as they affect monetary policy and insofar as they affect price stability and financial stability," said Adam Posen of the Institute for International Economics.
In a June 2004 interview published by the Minneapolis Federal Reserve Bank, Bernanke said he believed the Fed should offer advice when the government lost budgetary discipline.
"The central bank has the responsibility to be a nonpartisan adviser on general matters of macroeconomic and financial stability," he said. "So to the extent that deficits and debt are threatening macroeconomic and financial stability, the central bank is one actor that can provide advice and counsel to fiscal policy-makers."
Arthur Laffer, one of a number of supply-side, tax-cutting advocates to whom Bernanke has reached out in recent months, said he would not worry if Bernanke did decide to speak out.
"If he were hostile to tax cuts, obviously that would be a problem for me, but that's not where he's at," Laffer, a professed Bernanke fan, said.
On the opposite side of the spectrum, former Princeton colleague Paul Krugman was also rejoicing. "There's not a hint in his work of support for the right-wing supply-side doctrine," Krugman wrote in Friday's New York Times.
(Additional reporting by Caren Bohan)
Luttig, Alito contenders as Bush mulls court pick
Reuters
Luttig, Alito contenders as Bush mulls court pick
By Caren Bohan
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President George W. Bush on Saturday was narrowing his choices of Supreme Court nominees to replace Harriet Miers as Republicans said the short list consisted of highly credentialed, solidly conservative judges.
Among the candidates most talked about were appeals court judges Michael Luttig and Samuel Alito. Bush, who is spending the weekend at his Camp David retreat, was expected to unveil his choice within days.
A source close to the selection process who spoke on condition of anonymity said avoiding a battle with Democrats, who have warned Bush about picking a right-wing activist, would not be the president's top priority.
"What we know from the Miers nomination is that people on all sides of the political spectrum wanted the highest quality, and that's what the president will deliver," the source said.
"I think it will be extremely difficult for Senate Democrats to oppose someone who is extraordinarily well qualified and who shares the president's judicial philosophy," the source added.
Conservatives are eager for a conservative in the mold of justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas to replace the retiring Sandra Day O'Connor, a moderate conservative and often pivotal swing vote on the divided court.
Luttig, 51, a judge on the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Richmond, Virginia, worked as a clerk for Scalia when Scalia was an appeals court judge.
He helped in the effort to get Thomas and Supreme Court Justice David Souter -- both nominated to the high court by Bush's father -- confirmed by the Senate. Luttig also has worked in the Justice Department and private practice.
Alito, 55, is sometimes given the nickname "Scalito" -- a comparison to Scalia, who shares his Italian heritage as well as his reputation for conservatism and a strong intellect. He is a judge on the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Philadelphia.
'A COMPETING HEADLINE'
The decision comes as Bush seeks to embark on a fresh start after a series of problems exposed a lack of sure-footedness by normally disciplined White House aides.
The latest blow to a president whose approval ratings have already fallen to all-time lows was Friday's indictment and resignation of top vice presidential aide Lewis Libby in the CIA leak investigation.
Larry Sabato, professor of politics at the University of Virginia said the president might reach out to his conservative supporters by generating "a competing headline" to get the focus away from the leak investigation.
"He needs to restore his Republican base and this is the way to do it," Sabato said of the court pick.
In addition to Luttig and Alito, Bush is also said to be looking at appeals court judges Michael McConnell, Edith Jones and Alice Batchelder.
Priscilla Owen and Janice Rogers Brown are also possibilities, although the two judges -- who were named to the appellate court by Bush -- were initially blocked by Senate Democrats before making it through on a compromise deal.
The list Bush is reviewing is similar to the one he focused on just before the surprise pick of Miers on October 3.
Miers, who withdrew her candidacy on Thursday, is with Bush at Camp David advising him in the deliberations. Her candidacy for the Supreme Court triggered a revolt by conservatives who thought the White House counsel and longtime friend of the president lacked the credentials and clear record needed to move the court firmly to the right.
White House spokesman Scott McClellan told reporters on Friday that Bush was already "familiar with a number of potential nominees and so he has a foundation to start with."
The writings and rulings of whomever Bush chooses will be looked at closely for hints on their views of contentious social issues like abortion.
In a letter to Bush, Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, a Nevada Democrat, and Vermont Sen. Patrick Leahy, top Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee, urged him not to pick "an activist" with an ideological agenda.
(Additional reporting by Steve Holland)
Governor faults White House over rebuilding
Reuters
Governor faults White House over rebuilding
By Michael Depp
BATON ROUGE, Louisiana (Reuters) - Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Blanco, flanked by veteran Democratic activists and a union leader, criticized the Bush administration on Saturday for allowing hurricane rebuilding contracts to go to out-of-state firms and low-wage workers.
Speaking to a rally of about 1,000 union members and activists from the steps of the state Capitol, Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton also charged the White House with using the crisis to remake the state's political map by discouraging the return of displaced blacks.
Jackson urged residents of the overwhelmingly black Lower Ninth Ward of New Orleans to return.
"Somebody is accountable," he said. "Don't give up. You have the right to return, the right to reclaim and the right to reconstruct."
Blanco, a Democrat who has faced criticism for her own response to the August 29 hurricane, attempted to deflect widespread anger from local workers who complain they have been shut out of federal contracts in favor of larger, better-connected companies.
Noting some $300 million in unemployment insurance had been paid out in the state since the storm, Blanco said the initial White House decision to suspend wage protections had compounded the Louisiana problems.
"We had already been devastated by a hurricane," she said. "We did not need to be hurt to out-of-state companies giving incredibly low wages to workers outside of Louisiana. I must have said that long enough and hard enough because this week President Bush changed his mind."
Earlier this week, President George W. Bush lifted an emergency order that had allowed federal contractors rebuilding after Katrina to pay less than the area's prevailing wage.
In September, Bush waived provisions of the 1931 Davis-Bacon Act that requires federal contractors to pay, at a minimum, an area's prevailing wage.
The suspension of the prevailing wage protection prompted protests from Republican and Democratic lawmakers.
POLITICAL VICTORY
AFL-CIO President John Sweeney hailed the reversal as a political victory, but said the Bush administration had "broken faith with the God-fearing hard-working families of our country."
"While New Orleans workers and their families were trapped in filthy shelters, they doled out billion of dollars for no-bid contracts so out-of-state companies could import low-wage workers to jack up their profits," Sweeney said.
Some black New Orleans residents, including those from the devastated Lower Ninth Ward, have charged their concerns have been overlooked in a rebuilding effort dominated by business interests, a theme taken up by both Jackson and Sharpton, who also accused the White House of seeking to change the state's political make-up.
"The crisis is not an opportunity to change the character of Louisiana's political order. We must not use the crisis to turn Louisiana into a red state -- this is a rainbow state," Jackson said.
Speaking of Bush's senior adviser Karl Rove, Jackson said, "His agenda is political restructuring."
Sharpton said, "It is hypocritical to mourn the death of Rosa Parks and then try to relocate Rosa Parks' children." Parks, a black seamstress who helped spark the civil rights movement by refusing to give up her bus seat to a white man 50 years ago, died on Monday.
"Just like Rosa Parks wouldn't move, you can't move. Keep your seat. Bechtel's trying to take your seat. Sit in your seat," Sharpton said.
The Federal Emergency Management Agency awarded a unit of San Francisco-based Bechtel Corp. a no-bid contract with a $100 million ceiling for rebuilding after Katrina. FEMA said last month the contract would be opened to competition.
Democrats criticize oil industry subsidies
Reuters
Democrats criticize oil industry subsidies
By Julie Vorman
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - House Republicans recently pushed through legislation that would give more federal subsidies to the oil industry instead of trying to help U.S. consumers cope with sharply higher energy prices, the top Democrat on the House Commerce Committee said on Saturday.
Rep. John Dingell of Michigan said Congress should focus on Democratic proposals to punish gasoline profiteering, invest in new energy technology, and encourage more energy efficiency.
"We must respond to the needs of the American consumers who are seeing the prospect of $4 a gallon gas and $1,000 monthly heating bills," he said in the Democrats's weekly radio address.
On October 7, the U.S. House of Representatives narrowly passed a bill that would give federal insurance to oil refiners whose expansion projects are delayed by lawsuits or regulatory snags. It also put the Energy Department in charge of permits for new refinery projects as a way to speed up approvals.
The bill was approved, 212-210, after Republican leaders held a five-minute vote open for more than 40 minutes to persuade some party members to change their votes.
Democrats opposed the bill, saying the industry had plenty of its own money to pay for new refineries and did not deserve a government hand-out.
A similar Senate bill was blocked by Democrats.
"What was the Republican answer to the hurricanes? More subsidies to the oil industry," Dingell said, referring to the bill's sponsors who said the help was needed because of damage to refineries from recent Hurricanes Katrina and Rita.
Democrats are targeting "the immediate problems of gasoline prices and the anticipated increases in natural gas and home heating oil prices," Dingell said.
Long an ally of the energy industry, senior Republican lawmakers reversed direction during the past week and began calling for possible new controls on oil companies.
Their change in views came the same week that Exxon Mobil reported a $9.9 billion quarterly profit and other major oil companies also saw big increases.
The head of the Senate Budget Committee, Republican Judd Gregg said he look at some kind of windfall profit tax on the oil industry.
Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist ordered a November 8 hearing for top executives of major oil companies to explain why prices are so high. Frist also said he might endorse a bill banning oil price profiteering -- an approach favored by Democrats -- if evidence of wrongdoing was found.
U.S. President George W. Bush has said he opposed any new tax on the oil industry. But his energy secretary, Sam Bodman, said the energy industry had a "responsibility" to expand refineries to make more U.S. gasoline and heating oil.
Dingell said Democrats were concerned that high crude oil, natural gas, gasoline, and heating oil prices have a ripple effect throughout the U.S. economy.
"To meet our energy needs, we do not need to weaken protections for clean air and clean water, or spend your tax dollars to help out the oil companies," he said.
"We need to start investing more in energy innovation and stop showering tax cuts upon the wealthy. And we must protect consumers against price gouging ... while fully funding the low-income home energy assistance program," he said.
The U.S. government recently forecast that natural gas heating costs in the U.S. Midwest this winter will soar by 61 percent to an average $1,377. Heating oil bills in the Northeast will rise by nearly 30 percent to an average $1,607.
Less than three months ago, the president signed into law a Republican-written energy bill giving $14.5 billion in tax breaks and incentives to the energy industry.
Saturday, October 29, 2005
GAO confirms key 2004 stolen election findings
freepress.org
Powerful Government Accounting Office report confirms key 2004 stolen election findings
by Bob Fitrakis & Harvey Wasserman
As a legal noose appears to be tightening around the Bush/Cheney/Rove inner circle, a shocking government report shows the floor under the legitimacy of their alleged election to the White House is crumbling.
The latest critical confirmation of key indicators that the election of 2004 was stolen comes in an extremely powerful, penetrating report from the General Accounting Office that has gotten virtually no mainstream media coverage.
The government's lead investigative agency is known for its general incorruptibility and its through, in-depth analyses. Its concurrence with assertions widely dismissed as "conspiracy theories" adds crucial new weight to the case that Team Bush has no legitimate business being in the White House.
Nearly a year ago, senior Judiciary Committee Democrat John Conyers (D-MI) asked the GAO to investigate electronic voting machines as they were used during the November 2, 2004 presidential election. The request came amidst widespread complaints in Ohio and elsewhere that often shocking irregularities defined their performance.
According to CNN, the U.S. House Judiciary Committee received "more than 57,000 complaints" following Bush's alleged re-election. Many such concerns were memorialized under oath in a series of sworn statements and affidavits in public hearings and investigations conducted in Ohio by the Free Press and other election protection organizations.
The non-partisan GAO report has now found that, "some of [the] concerns about electronic voting machines have been realized and have caused problems with recent elections, resulting in the loss and miscount of votes."
The United States is the only major democracy that allows private partisan corporations to secretly count and tabulate the votes with proprietary non-transparent software. Rev. Jesse Jackson, among others, has asserted that "public elections must not be conducted on privately-owned machines." The CEO of one of the most crucial suppliers of electronic voting machines, Warren O'Dell of Diebold, pledged before the 2004 campaign to deliver Ohio and thus the presidency to George W. Bush.
Bush's official margin of victory in Ohio was just 118,775 votes out of more than 5.6 million cast. Election protection advocates argue that O'Dell's statement still stands as a clear sign of an effort, apparently successful, to steal the White House.
Among other things, the GAO confirms that:
1. Some electronic voting machines "did not encrypt cast ballots or system audit logs, and it was possible to alter both without being detected." In other words, the GAO now confirms that electronic voting machines provided an open door to flip an entire vote count. More than 800,000 votes were cast in Ohio on electronic voting machines, some seven times Bush's official margin of victory.
2. "It was possible to alter the files that define how a ballot looks and works so that the votes for one candidate could be recorded for a different candidate." Numerous sworn statements and affidavits assert that this did happen in Ohio 2004.
3. "Vendors installed uncertified versions of voting system software at the local level." 3. Falsifying election results without leaving any evidence of such an action by using altered memory cards can easily be done, according to the GAO.
4. The GAO also confirms that access to the voting network was easily compromised because not all digital recording electronic voting systems (DREs) had supervisory functions password-protected, so access to one machine provided access to the whole network. This critical finding confirms that rigging the 2004 vote did not require a "widespread conspiracy" but rather the cooperation of a very small number of operatives with the power to tap into the networked machines and thus change large numbers of votes at will. With 800,000 votes cast on electronic machines in Ohio, flipping the number needed to give Bush 118,775 could be easily done by just one programmer.
5. Access to the voting network was also compromised by repeated use of the same user IDs combined with easily guessed passwords. So even relatively amateur hackers could have gained access to and altered the Ohio vote tallies.
6. The locks protecting access to the system were easily picked and keys were simple to copy, meaning, again, getting into the system was an easy matter.
7. One DRE model was shown to have been networked in such a rudimentary fashion that a power failure on one machine would cause the entire network to fail, re-emphasizing the fragility of the system on which the Presidency of the United States was decided.
8. GAO identified further problems with the security protocols and background screening practices for vendor personnel, confirming still more easy access to the system.
In essence, the GAO study makes it clear that no bank, grocery store or mom & pop chop shop would dare operate its business on a computer system as flimsy, fragile and easily manipulated as the one on which the 2004 election turned.
The GAO findings are particularly damning when set in the context of an election run in Ohio by a Secretary of State simultaneously working as co-chair of the Bush-Cheney campaign. Far from what election theft skeptics have long asserted, the GAO findings confirm that the electronic network on which 800,000 Ohio votes were cast was vulnerable enough to allow a a tiny handful of operatives -- or less -- to turn the whole vote count using personal computers operating on relatively simple software.
The GAO documentation flows alongside other crucial realities surrounding the 2004 vote count. For example:
# The exit polls showed Kerry winning in Ohio, until an unexplained last minute shift gave the election to Bush. Similar definitive shifts also occurred in Iowa, Nevada and New Mexico, a virtual statistical impossibility.
# A few weeks prior to the election, an unauthorized former ES&S voting machine company employee, was caught on the ballot-making machine in Auglaize County
# Election officials in Mahoning County now concede that at least 18 machines visibly transferred votes for Kerry to Bush. Voters who pushed Kerry's name saw Bush's name light up, again and again, all day long. Officials claim the problems were quickly solved, but sworn statements and affidavits say otherwise. They confirm similar problems in Franklin County (Columbus). Kerry's margins in both counties were suspiciously low.
# A voting machine in Mahoning County recorded a negative 25 million votes for Kerry. The problem was allegedly fixed.
# In Gahanna Ward 1B, at a fundamentalist church, a so-called "electronic transfer glitch" gave Bush nearly 4000 extra votes when only 638 people voted at that polling place. The tally was allegedly corrected, but remains infamous as the "loaves and fishes" vote count.
# In Franklin County, dozens of voters swore under oath that their vote for Kerry faded away on the DRE without a paper trail.
# In Miami County, at 1:43am after Election Day, with the county's central tabulator reporting 100% of the vote - 19,000 more votes mysteriously arrived; 13,000 were for Bush at the same percentage as prior to the additional votes, a virtual statistical impossibility.
# In Cleveland, large, entirely implausible vote totals turned up for obscure third party candidates in traditional Democratic African-American wards. Vote counts in neighboring wards showed virtually no votes for those candidates, with 90% going instead for Kerry.
# Prior to one of Blackwell's illegitimate "show recounts," technicians from Triad voting machine company showed up unannounced at the Hocking County Board of Elections and removed the computer hard drive.
# In response to official information requests, Shelby and other counties admit to having discarded key records and equipment before any recount could take place.
# In a conference call with Rev. Jackson, Attorney Cliff Arnebeck, Attorney Bob Fitrakis and others, John Kerry confirmed that he lost every precinct in New Mexico that had a touchscreen voting machine. The losses had no correlation with ethnicity, social class or traditional party affiliation---only with the fact that touchscreen machines were used.
# In a public letter, Rep. Conyers has stated that "by and large, when it comes to a voting machine, the average voter is getting a lemon - the Ford Pinto of voting technology. We must demand better."
But the GAO report now confirms that electronic voting machines as deployed in 2004 were in fact perfectly engineered to allow a very small number of partisans with minimal computer skills and equipment to shift enough votes to put George W. Bush back in the White House.
Given the growing body of evidence, it appears increasingly clear that's exactly what happened.
GAO Report:
http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d05956.pdf
Friday, October 28, 2005
Libby pushed case for war
Reuters
Libby pushed case for war
By Caren Bohan
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Lewis Libby, Vice President Dick Cheney's top aide, has been a quiet yet powerful force in shaping the Bush administration's policies and helped build the case for the Iraq invasion.
Libby, 55, resigned on Friday after he was indicted on charges of perjury, making false statements and obstruction of justice in the probe of the leak of covert CIA operative Valerie Plame's identity to reporters.
Cheney said in a statement that he felt "deep regret" in accepting the resignation of Libby, a former attorney known by colleagues for his analytical mind and loyalty to his boss.
A specialist in national security, Libby had logged long hours in his office near the West Wing of the White House, steeping himself in subjects like counterterrorism, bioweapons defense and energy policy.
Libby held three titles: chief of staff and national security adviser to the vice president and assistant to President George W. Bush -- a sign of his broad influence.
But outside the halls of power, Libby has a literary side -- he published a mystery novel, "The Apprentice," in 1996.
Set in rural Japan in 1903, the book was praised by Publishers Weekly for achieving "a sense of mystery and claustrophobia through pared-down prose and minimalist characterization."
Libby goes by his nickname, "Scooter," but many people also refer to him as Dick Cheney's Dick Cheney.
"He is to the vice president what the vice president is to the president," said Mary Matalin, who worked with Libby as an adviser to Cheney during Bush's first term.
She described Libby as a deep thinker and problem-solver who gives "discreet advice."
Libby shares the vice president's hawkish views on national security and his penchant for operating behind the scenes.
"He doesn't grandstand," said World Bank President Paul Wolfowitz, Libby's friend and mentor.
REPORTER'S SOURCE
While Libby is rarely quoted in the press, his private conversations with reporters became a focus of prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald's investigation of the Plame case.
Among those he spoke to was New York Times reporter Judith Miller, who testified in the case and spent 85 days in jail for initially refusing to reveal her source.
Central to the five-count indictment against Libby is his involvement in the response to diplomat Joseph Wilson's accusation that the administration twisted the facts to justify the Iraq war. Wilson is Plame's husband.
In the war's run-up, according to journalist Bob Woodward's book "Plan of Attack," Libby presented a document to top officials citing evidence of weapons of mass destruction and possible contacts between Iraqi officials and a ringleader of the September 11, 2001, attacks.
The weapons were never found and the administration has since backed away from the idea of a connection between Saddam's government and the September 11 attacks.
Libby got his nickname Scooter as a child after the Yankees baseball player Phil "Scooter" Rizzuto. Born in Connecticut, he attended Phillips Academy, a private school in Massachusetts.
He graduated magna cum laude from Yale University and has a law degree from Columbia University.
At Yale, Libby took a political science course with Wolfowitz, who tapped him to serve in the State Department in the Reagan administration and later in the Pentagon.
Wilson has said he believed Libby was part of a White House campaign to "smear" him. But Wolfowitz said Libby has never been "a rabidly partisan political type."
"There is a difference between people who focus on policy and people who believe it's my party right or wrong -- that's not Scooter," he said.
Before he worked for Cheney, Libby was a managing partner at the international law firm Dechert, Price and Rhoads.
One of his clients was Marc Rich, the billionaire fugitive pardoned by President Bill Clinton in 2001.
Libby has two children with his wife, Harriet Grant, a former lawyer on the Democratic staff of the Senate Judiciary Committee. In addition to writing, he likes to ski.
A September letter that Libby sent to Miller in jail showed his literary side. Urging her to testify, he wrote: "Out West, where you vacation, the aspens will be turning. They turn in clusters, because their roots connect them. Come back to work -- and life."
Thursday, October 27, 2005
U.N.: 2,200 Companies Gave Iraq Illicit Funds
Yahoo! News
U.N.: 2,200 Cos. Gave Iraq Illicit Funds
By EDITH M. LEDERER, Associated Press Writer
About 2,200 companies in the U.N. oil-for-food program, including corporations in the United States, France, Germany and Russia, paid a total of $1.8 billion in kickbacks and illicit surcharges to Saddam Hussein's government, a U.N.-backed investigation said in a report released Thursday.
The report from the committee probing the $64 billion program said prominent politicians also made money from extensive manipulation of the U.N. oil-for-food program in Iraq.
The investigators reported that companies and individuals from 66 countries paid illegal kickbacks using a variety of ways, and those paying illegal oil surcharges came from, or were registered in, 40 countries.
There were two main types of manipulation: surcharges paid for humanitarian contracts for spare parts, trucks, medical equipment and other supplies; and kickbacks for oil contracts.
Among the companies that paid illegal surcharges were South Korea's Daewoo International and Siemans SAS of France. On the oil side, contractors listed included Texas-based Bayoil and Coastal Corp., and Russia's oil giants Gazprom and Lukoil.
Russian companies were contracted for approximately $19.3 billion in oil from Iraq, which amounted to about 30 percent of oil sales, by far the largest proportion among all participating countries.
Germany-based automaker DaimlerChrysler, meanwhile, appears to have paid just $7,000 on a contract worth $70,000. DaimlerChrysler said it was aware of the report but declined to comment because of an ongoing investigations by the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Justice Department.
In July, DaimlerChrysler said it had been asked for a statement and documents regarding its role in the oil-for-food program, according to documents filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission.
The report said, for example, that Brussels-based Volvo Construction Equipment paid $317,000 in extra fees to Iraq on a $6.4 million contract. Volvo Construction is part of Swedish-based Volvo Group, which referred all questions to Volvo Construction Equipment's headquarters in Brussels. The group is separate from Volvo automobiles, which is owned by Ford.
Beatrice Cardon, a Volvo spokeswoman, said she was unaware the company was listed in the U.N. report, or what the alleged payments were for. "This is the first I hear about it," she said.
The report alleged that Jean-Bernard Merrimee, France's former U.N. ambassador, received $165,725 in commissions from oil allocations awarded to him by the Iraqi regime. He is now under investigation in France.
Merrimee "began receiving oil allocations that would ultimately total approximately 6 million barrels from the government of Iraq," the report said.
Other so-called "political beneficiaries" included British lawmaker George Galloway; Roberto Formigoni, the president of the Lombardi region in Italy, and the Rev. Jean-Marie Benjamin, a priest who once worked as an assistant to the Vatican secretary of state and became an activist for lifting Iraqi sanctions.
Vladimir Zhirinovsky, who heads Russia's Liberal Democratic Party, received millions of barrels of oil he could turn around and sell for a profit, the report said. Iraqi Oil Ministry records show that 4.3 million barrels were allocated to Alexander Voloshin, who at the time was chief of staff in the administration of Russia's president. Both Voloshin and Zhirinovsky have denied any wrongdoing.
Thursday's final report of the investigation led by former Federal Reserve chairman Paul Volcker strongly criticizes the U.N. Secretariat and Security Council for failing to monitor the program and allowing the emergence of front companies and international trading concerns prepared to make illegal payments.
In a letter to Secretary General Kofi Annan, the committee said its task had been to find mismanagement and evidence of corruption, and "unhappily, both were found and have been documented in great detail."
It said responsibility should start with the U.N. Security Council, which is dominated by its five permanent members: Britain, China, France, Russia and the United States.
"The program left too much initiative with Iraq," the letter said. "It was, as one past member of the council put it, a compact with the devil, and the devil had means of manipulating the program to his ends."
The oil-for-food program was one of the world's largest humanitarian aid operations, running from 1996-2003.
It allowed Iraq to sell limited and then unlimited quantities of oil provided most of the money went to buy humanitarian goods. It was launched to help ordinary Iraqis cope with U.N. sanctions imposed after Saddam's 1990 invasion of Kuwait.
But Saddam, who could choose the buyers of Iraqi oil and the sellers of humanitarian goods, corrupted the program by awarding contracts to — and getting kickbacks from — favored buyers, mostly parties who supported his regime or opposed the sanctions.
Tracing the politicization of oil contracts, the report said Iraqi leaders in the late 1990s decided to deny American, British and Japanese companies allocations to purchase oil because of their countries' opposition to lifting sanctions.
At the same time, it said, Iraq gave preferential treatment to France, Russia and China, which were perceived to be more favorable to lifting sanctions and were also permanent members of the Security Council.
Volcker's previous report, released in September, said lax U.N. oversight allowed Saddam's regime to pocket $1.8 billion in kickbacks and surcharges in the awarding of contracts during the program's operation from 1997-2003.
According to the new findings, Iraq's largest source of illicit income from the oil-for-food program was the more than $1.5 billion from kickbacks on humanitarian contracts.
Volcker's Independent Inquiry Committee calculated that more than 2,200 companies worldwide paid kickbacks to Iraq in the form of "fees" for transporting goods to the interior of the country or "after-sales-service" fees, or both.
Tables accompanying the report give a detailed look at the value of each company's contracts and the amount of money it paid in kickbacks.
According to the findings, the Banque Nationale de Paris S.A., known as BNP, which held the U.N. oil-for-food escrow account, had a dual role and did not disclose fully to the United Nations the firsthand knowledge it acquired about the financial relationships that fostered the payment of illegal surcharges.
The report chronicles Saddam's manipulation of the program and examines in detail 23 companies that paid kickbacks on humanitarian contracts including Iraqi front companies, major food providers, major trading companies, and major industrial and manufacturing companies.
According to the findings, the program was just under 3 years old when the Iraqi regime began openly demanding illicit payments from its customers. The report said that while U.N. officials and the Security Council were informed, little action was taken.
The report is the fifth by Volcker and wraps up a year-long, $34 million investigation that has faulted Annan, his deputy, Canada's Louise Frechette, and the Security Council for tolerating corruption and doing little to stop Saddam's manipulations.
The smuggling of Iraqi oil outside the program in violation of U.N. sanctions poured much more money — $11 billion — into Saddam's coffers in the same period, according to the report.
___
On the Net:
http://www.iic-offp.org/
Meirs Withdraws
President Bush's choice for Supreme Court Justice has withdrawn her nomination. The excuse revolved around lawyer-client priveledged communications. The reality is that members of the Senate, on both sides of the aisle, would have voted her down. The further truth is that Bush was receiving extreme pressure, including televised ads, from the extreme right wing of the republican party, to withdraw Meirs from consideration.
Eyes Only and Lies Only...Let's Make Sure the Story is Told...
huffingtonpost.com
Eyes Only and Lies Only...Let's Make Sure the Story is Told...
Brad Friedman
As the TreasonGate storm rolls towards D.C., let's not forget how it all began. Had George W. Bush been honest with the Congress and the American People we might not have been mourning our 2,000th lost troop today. Or perhaps we would.
The Administration knew what we (and Congress) didn't. That the war was built on lies.
The Downing Street Memos, which have still gone virtually unreported by the Corporate Mainstream Media, hold the key to the entire fine mess.
(See the Complete Set of Downing Street Documents here:
http://www.afterdowningstreet.org/?q=node/840 )
Unfortunately, too many Americans are still completely unaware of what those "Eyes Only" documents tell us quite clearly; The administration had long ago planned to "remove Saddam, through military action, justified by the conjunction of terrorism and WMD. But the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy."
In other words, the war was going to happen. No matter what. No matter who had to die. No matter whose lives would need to be trashed in order to "justify" it.
The outing of covert CIA agent Valerie Plame/Wilson in hopes of trashing her husband Ambassador Joe Wilson who questioned the "fixed" facts and intelligence was a key part in that effort to ensure "the policy" would move ahead at all costs.
Shortly, the political firestorm to come will no doubt overshadow the facts of how we got into this shameful mess to start with. VelvetRevolution.us (an organization I co-founded, bringing together more than 100 progressive organizations) has released our third print ad today in our effort to ensure that the facts are no longer "fixed" and that the truth is finally understood by the American People.
Please help us continue to counter the media noise with the real messages that need to be understood by this country.
Revolution begins at home...
GOP senators push for more on Miers
Yahoo! News
GOP senators push for more on Miers
By Kathy Kiely, USA TODAY
Republican senators stepped up their calls Tuesday for more information on Supreme Court nominee Harriet Miers. They said there should be documents the White House can release without violating executive or attorney-client privilege.
President Bush seemed to shut the door Monday on the such requests, saying that releasing documents by Miers, a close friend who serves as White House counsel, "would breach very important confidentiality" and make it more difficult for his advisers to give him candid advice.
But senators, including a number from the president's party, say there are less sensitive materials the White House can release without infringing on Bush's right to confidential counsel.
"The Senate has not asked for anything falling under executive privilege," said Senate Judiciary Chairman Arlen Specter, a Pennsylvania Republican who will preside over Miers confirmation hearings starting Nov. 7.
Sen. John Cornyn, a Republican from Miers' home state of Texas, suggested it would be wise for the White House to try to comply. "I trust that they are doing that," he said. Other Republicans publicly urging the White House to provide more paperwork on Miers include Sam Brownback of Kansas, Susan Collins of Maine, Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, Chuck Grassley of Iowa and Trent Lott of Mississippi.
The senators contend that it's important for the White House to make documents available because Miers has never served as a judge and doesn't have a series of written public opinions that senators can study.
A questionnaire that Senate Judiciary Committee leaders asked Miers last week to revise is due today. Specter and the top Democrat on the Judiciary Committee, Sen. Patrick Leahy of Vermont, called her first response "inadequate." Among other information, they want a list of major issues on which Miers gave Bush legal advice.
The senators said such a list would help them determine how often Miers might have to recuse herself from Supreme Court arguments. Among the controversial Bush administration decisions that could come before the Supreme Court: a dispute over the constitutionality of military tribunals for foreign terrorism suspects and a case that tests the legal rights of a U.S. citizen suspected of terrorist activities.
Ken Duberstein, a former chief of staff for President Reagan, used a golf analogy to underscore the importance of Miers' revised questionnaire. "You only get one do-over, one mulligan," said Duberstein, who helped shepherd the confirmations of Justices David Souter and Clarence Thomas for the first President Bush.
Some GOP senators reacted sharply to new websites by conservative groups, including Americans for Better Justice, urging Miers' withdrawal. "You ought to give her an opportunity to appear before the committee," said Grassley, a Judiciary member.
"I am puzzled by calls for Harriet Miers to withdraw," Collins said. "It's premature."
In a sign of the discontent on the GOP's conservative flank, Miers is focusing largely on Republican senators in her courtesy calls. On Tuesday, she met with two Republican conservatives, John Ensign of Nevada and Johnny Isakson of Georgia, but only one member of the Judiciary Committee, Russ Feingold, D-Wis. Miers has not yet met with two of the panel's most senior Democrats, Joseph Biden of Delaware and Edward Kennedy of Massachusetts.
Danforth Criticizes Christian Sway in GOP
Yahoo! News
Danforth Criticizes Christian Sway in GOP
By DANIEL CONNOLLY, Associated Press Writer
Former Sen. John Danforth said Wednesday that the political influence of evangelical Christians is hurting the Republican Party and dividing the country.
Danforth, a Missouri Republican and an Episcopal priest, commented after meeting with students at the Bill Clinton School of Public Service, a graduate branch of the University of Arkansas on the grounds of the Clinton presidential library.
"I think that the Republican Party fairly recently has been taken over by the Christian conservatives, by the Christian right," he said in an interview. "I don't think that this is a permanent condition, but I think this has happened, and that it's divisive for the country."
He also said the evangelical Christian influence would be bad for the party in the long run.
Republican National Committee spokeswoman Tracy Schmitt declined to comment on Danforth's remarks.
Danforth, who recently served as ambassador to the United Nations, made similar criticism of the party in an opinion article published by the New York Times in June. In that article, he called for religious moderates to take part in public life.
Danforth, considered a conservative on social issues, was elected to the U.S. Senate in 1976 and served three terms.
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