I've been out for most of the day enjoying the city with my wife. And I haven't yet had the intestinal fortitude to dive into the Times lengthy and multiple treatment of its role in the Plame Affair. But a lot of attention in the blogs already seems to be focusing on this passage in Judy Miller's apologia ...
Mr. Fitzgerald asked about a notation I made on the first page of my notes about this July 8 meeting, "Former Hill staffer."My recollection, I told him, was that Mr. Libby wanted to modify our prior understanding that I would attribute information from him to a "senior administration official." When the subject turned to Mr. Wilson, Mr. Libby requested that he be identified only as a "former Hill staffer." I agreed to the new ground rules because I knew that Mr. Libby had once worked on Capitol Hill.
Did Mr. Libby explain this request? Mr. Fitzgerald asked. No, I don't recall, I replied. But I said I assumed Mr. Libby did not want the White House to be seen as attacking Mr. Wilson.
I got an email about this. And I've read around the blogs to see other responses. So I thought about <$NoAd$> writing a post trying to give some background about whether this is a normal or accepted practice among reporters.
The first part of an answer is to say, no, I would never agree to that sort of sourcing or those sorts of ground rules. And I can't imagine that many other journalists would either. But I think the more revealing detail is that I do not think I've ever even been asked.
I'm certainly not what you'd call a veteran reporter. But I've been doing this for a living for about eight years and I've reported on a number of quite sensitive intelligence and national security stories in which the revelation of the sources of particular pieces of information could have had very immediate real-world implications. And just off the top of my head, thinking it over this evening, I can't come up with a memory of a situation in which a source has asked me to identify them in this way. And by 'this way' I mean in a fashion that is technically accurately but intentionally and willfully misleading to readers.
What happens very often is that you get in wrestling matches with sources over specificity -- with the reporter always wanting more detail and the source usually wanting to keep things as vague as possible.
Occasionally you will end up with formulations that amount to little more than 'said a human being in Washington who was knowledgeable about this subject.'
That's never a satisfactory solution; but occasionally it's unavoidable. And behind it is almost always -- from my experience at least -- a frustrated calculus the reporter has made that the information is illuminating and revealing enough of the truth of the story to justify not being able to give your readers a very clear idea just where you got it.
These are cases where the reader has to have a lot of trust in the journalist; and the journalist has to be really honest with him or herself.
For instance, such vague sourcing would seldom be justified where the information was subjective description or opinion. Blind quotes of one person trashing another seldom make for good journalism. And if they're used they should always come with at least a reasonably specific return address. Otherwise you're just laundering vituperation or calumny.
The cases where I've agreed to very vague identification of a source have mostly been cases where a particular piece of factual information was known only to a very small number or just a handful of people (think intel and national security reporting) and where providing even very limited description would be tantamount to exposing the source.
Like I said, in those cases you make a judgment about whether the information is probative enough to justify withholding from readers even very general information about its source.
I could spin out numerous hypotheticals. And this is probably already more information than most folks want. But in this case it certainly seems as though the tacit bargain between Miller and Libby was that Libby would provide Miller with information in exchange for her assistance in deceiving her readers. And that violates the rule or principle that amounts to the Occam's Razor of journalistic ethics -- fundamental honesty with your readers.
--Josh Marshall
TPM Reader NT poses an interesting question. What did Harriet Miers know about the White House plan to bulldoze Joe Wilson and reveal his wife's identity?
Even more interesting, what does she know about what the president knew?
As we all know, the cognitive gears of official Washington have ground to a virtual halt waiting to hear just what prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald is going to spring in the next two weeks. Karl Rove went back before the grand jury this morning for one final attempt to slip the noose. And we're also told that Fitzgerald's investigation has now ventured back well before Joe Wilson's Times OpEd piece was published on July 6th, 2003.
Now, let's line up Miers' timeline with that one.
On June 27th, 2003 Ari Fleischer announced that President Bush was promoting Miers to the post of Deputy Chief of Staff for Policy. Prior to that she served as the president's staff secretary.
According to a March 24th, 2003 profile in Texas Lawyer, Miers' position gave her "more one-on-one contact with the president than nearly any other staff member in the West Wing" and made her "the ultimate gatekeeper for what crosses the desk of the nation's commander in chief."
From everything we know, the Joe Wilson matter provoked intense concern within the White House well before he went public on July 6th. It seems pretty likely the president would have heard or read something about what was going on. But proving it is another matter entirely.
Given her role at the White House at the time, Miers would seem uniquely placed to give some read on just what he knew and when he knew. Indeed, what she knew and when she knew it.
Has anyone asked her about this topic? Has she appeared before the Fitzgerald grand jury? Has she been asked whether she's appeared before the Fitzgerald grand jury?
--Josh Marshall
As some of you may have noticed, we've gotten into a long-distance back and forth with the campaign manager of Mark Green (R), sitting US congressman and now candidate for Governor of Wisconsin.
Earlier this month I posted a roster of congressional staffers given tickets for a WWF event at the Abramoff skybox back in October 2000. One of the names on the list was Mark Graul, who was then Green's Chief of Staff and is now his campaign manager.
A Wisconsin political newsletter Wispolitics.com (which is available only to subscribers, unfortunately) followed up with Graul and asked him what the deal was. Graul jocularly denied he ever went to the event.
As Wispolitics.com reported it ...
Graul admits to being a former pro wrestling enthusiast but says he hasn't been to a match since the early '80s, when he saw The Crusher take on Baron Von Raschke at the Mecca in Milwaukee. "I did not go (to the WWF Raw is War)," says Graul, who was in Wisconsin at the time of the event. "I never went to a WWF event in D.C., don't recall ever being asked to go to the event, and I've never met Jack Abramoff in my life. He could come up and punch me in the face and I wouldn't know. I don't know why I'm on that list."But said Graul, "I cannot claim I was never a fan of WWF.'' He then rattled off the names of favorites Koko B. Ware and Ricky "The Dragon" Steamboat. "But when they made Hulk Hogan into Hollywood Hogan and turned him into a bad guy, I lost interest," he said.
A few days after that we followed up.
We noted that we had no way of knowing whether Graul actually showed up at the skybox, only that Preston Gates emails (Abramoff's firm at the time) show him being given tickets to attend. Moreover, those emails describe him repeatedly getting, or at least requesting tickets, to events. No fewer than six times by our count over the course of 2000, the last year Abramoff was at the firm. The events ranged from basketball games to more professional wrestling to a concert by Limp Bizkit.
Wispolitics.com again got in touch with Graul. And this is what they heard ...
While Graul says he knows Jennifer Calvert, the Abramoff staffer Marshall identifies as getting the tickets for Graul, he says he never asked her or anyone else for freebies. "I never asked for tickets to anything when I was in Washington," he said.As further evidence, Graul offers that he moved back to Wisconsin after getting married in May 2000, and was rarely in Washington on weekends. The NBA All-Star game was held in Washington on Feb. 11, 2001, after Graul said he moved from the D.C. area.
And, he said, mosh pits are not his style. "If you ask anybody who knows me well, the idea of me at a Limp Bizkit concert is pretty funny," said Graul. "I couldn't name one song by any of those people, if they even have songs."
Graul said he did attend a Wizards-Milwaukee Bucks game while in Washington, which he said was well-attended by many Hill staffers from Wisconsin, but said he couldn't recall how the tickets came to him. "I can't remember. I'm not saying it's impossible, but I have no clue if that was with Jennifer or not. I never asked for tickets for anything. Oftentimes people who had tickets would offer them."
Here, as you can see, we're into sorta kinda non-denial denials of several sorts. He never 'asked' for tickets? Was he given them anyway? As for Limp Bizkit, maybe he's not a fan, but did he go to the concert in the Abramoff skybox? It's really not a hard question to answer.
(In case you're wondering, I've tried to contact Graul myself. But he hasn't gotten back to me.)
As you can see, with the Wizards-Bucks game he concedes he was there, but goes for what you might call the limited, modified Woodstock response. As in, yeah, I got some. But those were crazy days. And I don't remember how I got it or who I got it from.
It seems possible that Graul's memory might be a bit better with the Wizards-Bucks game because in the letter in question, Calvert specifically says she planned to host him at the event in person.
Now, it's been suggested that maybe Graul didn't go to all these events himself. Maybe he requested them for junior members of the staff or even allowed them to put in the requests in his name. In at least one of the emails, Calvert seems to make it pretty clear the request came directly from Graul.
"I got a request from Mark Graul, COS for Rep. Green, for tickets for the NBA all star game and the dunk contest that is apparently going to be at the MCI Center in early February," she wrote Abramoff and his assistant Susan Ralston on November 28th, 2000. "Can we honor his request?"
I tried to contact Calvert herself, who left Preston Gates a couple months later for Washington Strategies, to find out what the story was. But she hasn't returned my call.
--Josh Marshall
Sheesh! It never rains but it pours. A criminal referral in the Armstrong Williams goofball propaganda case?
AP: "Investigators at the Education Department have contacted the U.S. attorney's office regarding the Bush administration's hiring of commentator Armstrong Williams to promote its agenda."
--Josh Marshall
Hmmm.
NYT: "Karl Rove nosed his Jaguar out of the garage at his home in Northwest Washington in the predawn gloom, starting another day in which he would be dealing with a troubled Supreme Court nomination, posthurricane reconstruction and all the other issues that come across the desk of President Bush's most influential aide."
ABC's The Note: "Deputy White House Chief of Staff Karl C. Rove arrived this morning at the federal courthouse around 8:45 am ET, walking through the Third Street entrance to appear before the grand jury working with special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald to determine if any laws were broken in conjunction with the disclosure of CIA employee Valerie Wilson's name. He apparently arrived in a tan Toyota Camry."
A secret car switcheroo? Yet more Note mumbojumbo? Or even more of an international man of mystery than we thought?
(ed.note: Special thanks to TPM Reader TP. Also, note that the Times piece refers to Rove's Wednesday morning departure for work while the ABC mention is about his arrival this morning at the grand jury. But CNN has an AP photo of Rove's depature this morning. You be the judge of what he's driving. Maybe he decided that showing up at the court house in his Jag to make his final plea wasn't the right optics.)
Late Update: Here's an even better picture of our man Karl in the Quartz colored Jaguar S-Type this morning. TPM Reader GH snags the credit for this one.
--Josh Marshall
Interesting question. TPM <$NoAd$> Reader JO checks in ...
In his NYT op-ed, former Bush speechwriter Matthew Scully writes, "It is true that Harriet Miers, in everything she does, gives high attention to detail. And the trait came in handy with drafts of presidential speeches, in which she routinely exposed weak arguments, bogus statistics and claims inconsistent with previous remarks long forgotten by the rest of us. If one speech declared X "our most urgent domestic priority," and another speech seven months earlier had said it was Y, it would be Harriet Miers alone who noted the contradiction."So does that mean she OK'd the 2003 SOTU reference to Saddam's attempts to get yellowcake from Africa, notwithstanding the fact that it had been deleted from another speech months before? Seems like a fair question for her confirmation hearing.
Sounds worth asking to me too.
--Josh Marshall
Earle can throw elbows too?
From the Austin American-Statesman: "Travis County prosecutors want to know how U.S. Rep. Tom DeLay purchased a 2004 Toyota Sienna, subpoenaing all records surrounding the transaction, plus telephone records from DeLay, his campaign and his daughter."
--Josh Marshall
Another great Bush administration moment.
In this morning's gaggle, <$NoAd$>Scott McClellan got asked whether the teleconference the president had with troops in Tikrit was scripted. Here's what he said ...
QUESTION: How were they selected, and are their comments to the president pre-screened, any questions or anything...MCCLELLAN: No.
QUESTION: Not at all?
MCCLELLAN: This is a back-and-forth.
Here's how the pool report (i.e., from the designated reporter on the scene) described what happened.
The soldiers, nine U.S. men and one U.S. woman, plus an Iraqi, had been tipped off in advance about the questions in the highly scripted event. Allison Barber, deputy assistant to the Secretary of Defense for internal communication, could be heard asking one soldier before the start of the event, "Who are we going to give that [question] to?"
Oh well ...
--Josh Marshall
TPM Reader TM checks <$NoAd$>in ...
What do you think of some of the speculation out there that Harry Reid suggested Harriet Miers as an effort to sabotage Bush politically? It makes a lot of sense to me - she's not very formidable, yet Reid knew Bush would like the idea of picking someone who's such a close ally/bootlicker (you pick). It's kinda like this: Say you have a colleague at work you can't stand and you know has terrible judgment. This colleague just bought a bunny suit and keeps telling everyone how he can't WAIT to find some occasion to wear it. So you sidle up to him and encourage him to wear it to the company's annual black-tie banquet. "Hey, buddy, I just want you to be happy. Would I steer you wrong?"
What I think is that these sorts of triple bankshots seldom turn out to be true, and seldom work when they are true. But seldom isn't never. And it's fun to speculate.
--Josh Marshall
And watch the presidential ambitions swirl down the drain: Frist subpoenaed by the SEC (aka the Martha police).
Says the Post: "Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-Tenn.) has been subpoenaed to turn over personal records and documents as federal authorities step up a probe of his July sales of HCA Inc. stock, according to sources familiar with the investigation."
Actually, you know what he's thinking: If I knew this was gonna happen I never would have had to demean myself in front of those Justice Sunday whackjobs!
Life's a bitch.
Speaking of which, back to atoning.
--Josh Marshall
I wonder if in his comments today about Harriet Miers the president hasn't finally brought his presidency to a sort of implosive harmonic convergence.
We are, needless to say, engaged in a vast, shambling and tragic occupation of Iraq, the nominal aim of which is to create a secular, rule-of-law-based democracy which would end the cycle of repression, fanaticism and violence which spilled onto America's shores four years ago.
At the same time, President Bush argues for Miers' confirmation neither on the basis of her 'judicial temperament' nor her judicial philosophy or ideology but because she is a staunch evangelical Christian.
The fact that many of the president's more theocratic supporters don't seem to believe him just adds a level of irony or entertainment for those of us still holding out for the Enlightenment tradition.
But doesn't the juxtaposition really show the game is up at some level?
A year ago, in light of one of White House's many wag-the-dog stunts, I noted "how truly important it is that we democratize the Middle East. Because once we have, some of them will be able to come back here and redemocratize us."
Perhaps the same goes for ending theocracy over there. Sooner the better, so they can bring modernity to us too.
--Josh Marshall
Over at the blog of Reason Magazine, Editor Nick Gillespie has posted a list of how much each two-term president increased spending going back forty years. Specifically, the list measures increases in discretionary spending over five successive budgets, adjusted for inflation.
Here are the numbers ...
LBJ: 25.2%
Nixon: -16.5%
Reagan: 11.9%
Clinton: -8.2%
Bush: 35.2%
Now, clearly, this exercise means different things to Libertarians like the folks at Reason than it might to readers of this website.
But I think this only represents half the picture. And probably not the more important half.
There are enduring disagreements between the moderate right and moderate left in this country over the ideal size and scope of the federal government. But the truth is that the country can do fine with relatively small government or relatively large government so long as things don't get too out of hand in either direction. What it can't withstand for very long is a radical and growing disjuncture between spending and revenue, money out and money in.
That is the problem we face today. And that's why we're probably in for a long ten years as all of this hits the fan.
--Josh Marshall
Wingerdammerung.
Pat Robertson on Republican senators who may not salute and stand at attention for Harriet Miers: "These so-called movement conservatives don’t have much of a following, the ones that I’m aware of. And you just marvel, these are the senators, some of them who voted to confirm the general counsel of the ACLU to the Supreme Court, and she was voted in almost unanimously. And you say, ‘now they’re going to turn against a Christian who is a conservative picked by a conservative President and they’re going to vote against her for confirmation.’ Not on your sweet life, if they want to stay in office."
--Josh Marshall
Protecting their own. According to Roll Call (sub.req.): The Free Enterprise Fund is set to start running "saturation" anti-Ronnie Earle TV ads in Austin before taking the ads nationwide.
--Josh Marshall
Interesting snippet in Fineman's latest column: "I expect that any GOP 2008 hopeful who wants evangelical support — people like Sam Brownback, Rick Santorum and maybe even George Allen — will vote against Miers's confirmation in the Senate."
--Josh Marshall
Annals of interesting coincidences.
I mentioned earlier that the assignment of new DOJ attorneys to the New Hampshire phone-jamming case -- particular a Public Integrity section lawyer -- may be tied the ever-expanding Abramoff investigation in DC.
Along those lines, we wanted to note two entries in the New Hampshire GOP's receipts ledger in the days just before the phone-jamming plan came off. $5000 a pop from two of Jack Abramoff's main piggy banks -- the Agua Caliente Band of Cahuilla Indians and the Mississippi Band of Choctaw Indians.
--Josh Marshall
Okay, maybe I'm willing to be a bit bolder now (though probably late for the party) and say that no, I'm not at all clear that Harriet Miers is ever going to sit on the Supreme Court. The Times today quotes a staff lawyer to one Republican member of the Judiciary Committee saying: "Everybody is hoping that something will happen on Miers, either that the president would withdraw her or she would realize she is not up to it and pull out while she has some dignity intact."
Down further into the article we find out that Judiciary Republicans actually have their staffs working on anti-Miers research. If the Times report at all accurately reflects what's going on up there, that is a very big deal.
Clearly, at this point Miers has significant, if still silent, Republican opposition in the Senate. They want her gone. But they're not yet willing to have it be at the expense of dealing the president a major political reverse.
So how many Republicans will prove willing to come out against her? And which ones?
One interesting dimension of this Kabuki theater exercise is that it's not even completely clear which part of the Republican caucus open defections could come from. The White House now seems to be banking everything on the claim that Miers is a down-the-line evangelical Christian (I guess we might call this 'extreme originalism'). But Sen. Brownback, one of the most staunch pro-lifers in the Senate, seems to be most out in front questioning whether she should be on the Court.
As I wrote a few days ago, I think the real issue is not that there's yet that much focused and public opposition to Miers. The issue is just who the White House can find to champion this nomination or defend it. So far, I don't think I've heard one senator come out strongly for her. Pretty much the same thing with the standard GOP pressure groups on the outside.
With so little force propelling this pick forward, it won't take much to knock it back for good.
--Josh Marshall
There are certainly a lot of hints, allegations and murmurs out there tonight, particularly on the bloggier part of the web, about what might be coming down the pike from Patrick Fitzgerald. My favorite is this snippet from Hardball -- caught and excerpted on John Aravosis' Americablog -- which has Howard Fineman describing an alleged pre-indictment (political) death struggle pitting Karl Rove against Andy Card.
Gotta love that. Whether it's true or not, who knows?
In any case, an article (sub.req.) in tomorrow's Wall Street Journal contains this pleasant sounding sentence: "Mr. Fitzgerald's pursuit now suggests he might be investigating not a narrow case on the leaking of the agent's name, but perhaps a broader conspiracy."
And then further down there's this: "Lawyers familiar with the investigation believe that at least part of the outcome likely hangs on the inner workings of what has been dubbed the White House Iraq Group. Formed in August 2002, the group, which included Messrs. Rove and Libby, worked on setting strategy for selling the war in Iraq to the public in the months leading up to the March 2003 invasion. The group likely would have played a significant role in responding to Mr. Wilson's claims."
First of all, it did play a big role. That's where the push back came from.
If this description is accurate, it must have many folks at the White House in cold sweats.
If Karl Rove goes down in this investigation it'll be a disaster for the president, both in terms of the damage occasioned by such a high-level White House indictment and, frankly, because he needs the guy like most of us need legs.
But this WHIG thing is a whole 'nother level of hurt.
This group was the organizational team, the core group behind all the shameless crap that went down in the lead up to the Iraq war -- the lies about the cooked up Niger story, everything. If Fitzgerald has lassoed this operation into a criminal conspiracy, the veil of protective secrecy in which the whole operation is still shrouded will be pulled back. Depositions and sworn statements in on-going investigations have a way of doing that. Ask Bill Clinton. Every key person in the White House will be touched by it. And all sorts of ugly tales could spill out.
--Josh Marshall
Back in the old days a congressman arrested for a DWI was a pretty big deal. But with half of the political establishment in DC about to be indicted, I guess this sort of thing just doesn't show up on the radar.
--Josh Marshall
Does this just-moved AP piece on Karl Rove look a bit like a political obit?
--Josh Marshall
A friend in need is a ...
October 19, 2005 6:00 PM-7:00 PMPlease Join Congressman Mike Conway for a Reception with Special Guest Congressman Tom DeLay Independent Insurance Agents & Brokers 412 First Street, SE, 3rd Floor
$1000 per PAC $500 per Individual
Please RSVP to David Bowser or Amber Burton at 703-xxx-xxxx or email info@keelencomm.com
As it happens, the NRCC misspelled his name. It's Rep. Mike Conaway (R-TX). He's one of the freshman Republicans from Texas elected by DeLay's redistricting scam. Also was Treasurer of Arbusto, one of President Bush's many failed business ventures.
Late Update: As long as we're on the subject, given past experience, Conaway looks like a pretty good shot for Fed Chair.
--Josh Marshall
Just out from Murray Waas in National Journal: "In two appearances before the federal grand jury investigating the leak of a covert CIA operative's name, Lewis (Scooter) Libby, the chief of staff to Vice President Cheney, did not disclose a crucial conversation that he had with New York Times reporter Judith Miller in June 2003 about the operative, Valerie Plame, according to sources with firsthand knowledge of his sworn testimony. Libby also did not disclose the June 23 conversation when he was twice interviewed by FBI agents working on the Plame leak investigation, the sources said. Special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald apparently learned about the June 23 conversation for the first time just days ago, after attorneys for Miller and The New York Times informed prosecutors that Miller had discovered a set of notes on the conversation."
--Josh Marshall
As I suspected it would, my post from earlier today about the Iraq spurred a storm of emails, many heated and indignant. But there also seemed to be more than a bit of confusion about just I was trying to say -- no doubt because of my lack of clarity.
So, on the main issue: We never would have gotten inspectors back into Iraq without a credible threat of force. But once the inspectors were in, they quickly began undermining the case that there was any serious WMD program or capability in Iraq. Had we pursued the inspections process in good faith, which we would have done had our true goal been eliminating WMDs (or confirming they weren't there), we probably would have avoided this current mess because the war never would have started.
That was my point.
--Josh Marshall
An article by James Cramer in New York magazine predicting what has been obvious since 2002: that President Bush's fiscal profligacy is pushing the nation toward a harrowing economic crisis.
--Josh Marshall
Matt Yglesias has a shrewd post on the on-going meta-debate about the what ifs and coulda shouldas of Iraq. Matt is advancing the increasingly convincing argument that even under the most competent and well-supplied management the entire Iraq endeavor may have been doomed to failure.
I said some of my piece on this question last month. But let me suggest another fold of the debate that seems seldom discussed nowadays.
All of our reasoning on this subject today is governed by the fact that it has proven an immensely challenging, perhaps impossible task. That weighs against the fact that the key casus belli -- the presence of weapons of mass destruction -- turned out to be false.
So we have an immensely difficult, even impossible, challenge that we embarked on -- let's be frank -- for no good reason. And you don't have to be a genius to add up the pros and cons of that one.
But what if there had been weapons of mass destruction? Some in place and an active program under way?
Yes, I know this is a counter-factual which you may think has no particular point or reason now. But bear with me.
The notional reason for what happened in 2002 and early 2003 was not to overthrow the Iraqi government but to eliminate its weapons of mass destruction program. To many it seemed that the latter almost necessarily required the former. And under the erroneous information then considered conventional wisdom, that reasoning had a certain logic.
But here's the key. If our goal had actually been the elimination of a dangerous weapons of mass destruction program -- the one challenge that might conceivably have merited the mess we've gotten ourselves into -- we might well not be in this situation at all.
Support for war really could be contingent on this question. And forcing intrusive inspections could have -- indeed, it was in the course of demonstrating that the WMD threat was bogus and that war was unnecessary. That was the reason the White House was so eager to launch the war when it did. Their rationale was in the midst of being cut out from under them.
The difficulty of the situation we're in can't be evaluated without an accounting of whether we had a good reason to get ourselves into this mess. And I guess I'm saying that there was a way we could have had our cake and eaten it too.
Now, some of you will say that my argument here is an effort to rationalize or justify my one-time, contigent support for war. And to some degree that is certainly right. In a case like this everyone's motives and biases deserve scrutiny. Still I think this part of the equation gets too little attention today. There is another part of this puzzle beside easy reconstruction vs. disastrous reconstruction and WMDs vs. no WMDs.
Of course, this leaves aside the folly of intentions that I think was the liberal hawks' greatest error.
--Josh Marshall
The Times has a piece in tomorrow's paper about "more than 2,000 pages of [Harriet Miers'] official correspondence and personal notes made public on Monday by the Texas State Library and Archives Commission in response to open-records requests."
Honestly? A lot of it sounds like that Harriet Miers parody blog everyone's been linking to.
"You are the best governor ever - deserving of great respect."
--Josh Marshall
Recently, conflicts, or supposed conflicts between science and religious belief have again and again taken center stage in our public debates -- from Terri Shiavo to stem cell research, "intelligent design" to the Supreme Court confirmation hearings and the topic of abortion which seems so often the all-pervading subtext. So over at TPMCafe, we're having "Faith and Science Week."
At Table for One, we'll be joined by Dr. Jeremy Gunn, director of the ACLU's Program on Freedom of Religion and Belief. Dr. Gunn will be discussing the on-going Dover case and the public debate on the teaching of evolution and so-called 'Intelligent Design.'
And at the Book Club, author Chris Mooney is discussing his new book, The Republican War on Science.
--Josh Marshall
A few days back we posted this list of congressional staffers who got tickets to watch professional wrestling at one of Jack Abramoff's skyboxes back on October 2nd, 2000.
One of the worthies on the list was Mark Graul, then Chief of Staff to Representative Mark Green (R) of Wisconsin.
Green is now running for Governor. And Graul is his Campaign Manager.
I know this because a Wisconsin political blog has picked up our story and asked Graul what the deal was.
And Graul denied the whole thing.
Wisopinion.com reports that Graul said he did not attend said wrestling smackdown in the Abramoff skybox and: "I've never met Jack Abramoff in my life. He could come up and punch me in the face and I wouldn't know. I don't know why I'm on that list."
Now, do we have proof that Graul showed up at the skybox that night?
No.
What we have are Team Abramoff emails saying he was one of the lucky Hill staffers who they gave tickets to. I'll let you draw your own conclusions.
Now, I noticed that Graul didn't deny he and his boss were on the Abramoff gravy train. He just said he didn't go to the skybox that night and that he's never met Abramoff -- presumably meaning he never met him in person.
So I looked back through the emails to see if Graul shows up on other occasions. And it turns out that his name shows up in the Team Abramoff emails getting skybox seats again and again.
So for instance on January 12th, 2000 Team Abramoff's Jennifer Calvert emailed Susan Ralston to get Mark tickets to see the Wizards-Bucks game on February 22nd.
"May I get four tickets to this game for Mark Graul, COS for Rep. Green? If that works, I'd like to get two for myself as well, to host Mark. Thanks."
"Ok w/Jack" Ralston wrote back the following morning.
A month later, Calvert got Graul two tickets for the upcoming Wizards-Suns game.
Graul wasn't just up for basketball games and wrestling either. In November we see Calvert putting him in for two tickets to see Limp Bizkit, Godsmack and DMX at the MCI Center. ("I'll add [them] to the list. Will confirm shortly," Ralston replied.)
I won't bore you with all the examples of Graul partying it up on Jack Abramoff's dime. And it wasn't like he got tickets every time he asked.
For instance, here on November 28th, 2000 Calvert wrote again to Ralston and Abramoff with another Mark Graul request.
"I got a request from Mark Graul, COS for Rep. Green, for tickets for the NBA all star game and the dunk contest that is apparently going to be at the MCI Center in early February. Can we honor his request? I'd also like to request 2 more tickets for a big basketball fan, Byron Patterson with Representative Don Young."
This time Jack left Mark hanging.
Abramoff himself wrote back: "We don't know yet what we are going to do with the suite that night. Put him on the list and we'll figure it out."
Who knows how that one worked out. But it sure seems like Graul was a regular with Team Abramoff.
--Josh Marshall
As we've been discussing Ronnie Earle's case against Tom DeLay in Texas, many have asked why it is that the RNC appears in the indictment as a party to the money-laundering but not as a target of the indictment itself. Good question. And in that particular case I have no inside knowledge of why that would be so. But there are a number of different criminal investigations now underway connected to Republican pols in different parts of the country. And we should be aware that several of them are becoming connected in ways that are not yet clear.
Take, for instance, the 2002 New Hampshire election tampering case which has been dragging on now for almost three years. The former Executive Director of the New Hampshire Republican party and Republican political consultant Allen Raymond have already taken pleas and gone to prison. James Tobin, who then worked as the Northeast political director for Bill Frist's National Republican Senatorial Committee and the RNC, is now awaiting trial for his role in the scheme.
Through the life of the case, Justice Department lawyers have never seemed in a particular hurry to move the case along or to work it higher up the food chain of those who might have been involved. But that now appears to be changing.
For the duration of the case, the prosecution had been in the hands of Todd Hinnen, a Justice Department prosecutor from the Criminal Division's Computer Crimes Section. At the end of July, however, Hinnen was pulled from the case and reassigned. He's now reportedly working on cyberterrorism issues at the White House.
At the time, observers in New Hampshire thought this might be another example of the DOJ's lack of total commitment to the case. After two and half years, and just before the big trial, they were pulling the lead attorney from the case and starting over with someone new.
But the opposite now seems to have been the case.
Hinnen was replaced by another attorney from the Criminal Division's Computer Crimes Division and, significantly, an attorney from the Public Integrity section. That is, after all, what you'd expect in a case that is about political corruption. The tempo and zeal of the investigation appears to have picked up since the reassignment. And there is reason to believe that the new vigor behind the prosecution and the assignment of a Public Integrity section lawyer to the case has come about because the New Hampshire case has become tied to the ever-expanding Abramoff investigation.
--Josh Marshall
Mulligan: 'Wingers urge president to withdraw Miers' nomination and try again.
Specter on the fence.
--Josh Marshall
Did 60 Minutes feel the need to run a bogus anti-Clinton story to even the score? Is it the new balance?
--Josh Marshall
I don't much like to flack for the Times new behind-the-curtain content. But Sunday's Frank Rich column is really good, as all of his stuff has been of late on the unravelling of the Bush presidency.
Two points grabbed my attention.
He hits on the tight connection in everything we're seeing between incompetence, state mendacity and incipient authoritarianism. They're not paradoxically or counter-intuitively combined. The connection is natural and self-reinforcing.
Also on the point of Harriet Miers. Something has happened here on the right that cannot be explained simply by Miers' unfitness for the job. Not after all we've seen over going on five years. The president has lost his credibility with them too.
On Friday I asked who would put down odds on whether Miers would ever make it on to the court. It wasn't a rhetorical question. I asked in genuine curiosity. But many readers wrote in shocked that I would even seriously suggest the possibility that this may prove a failed nomination.
I have no idea whether Miers will be seated. If I had to bet I guess I'd bet on her squeaking through. But for me it's like one of those questions or future unknowns where I really have a difficult time imagining either possibility, though one must happen.
As the US has trundled down into the status of fiscal basket case over the last few years, that much-vaunted Republican fiscal discipline has been the dog which has never barked. A few meaningless remarks, the occasional hand-wringing from a conservative columnist. At the end of the day though every part of American conservatism has saluted and enabled the infamy.
But something is different here. Besides James Dobson this nomination has no supporters outside of the senate and the White House. And the conservative opposition isn't just opposing, it's contemptuous -- and critical in ways that mimic the long-expressed criticism from the other side of the aisle.
Nominations can have dynamics similar to those of political scandals.
We tend to think that the real key to a scandalee's fate is how many mobilize against him or her. Usually, though, the key issue is whether and how quickly they can find some committed group to mount a defense. If that happens, and quickly, a scandal equilibrium can be reached, and an embattled pol can often withstand merciless attacks and revelations. With no true base of support, however, a career can rapidly collapse even if the opposition itself isn't all that intense.
Miers' nomination could fail in a similar way.
Sure, only a few Republican senators have expressed serious misgivings. But who is it exactly, either in or out of the senate, who is going to fight hard for this nominee? What argument are those senators going to make on the floor? That the country needs Harriet Miers on the Court? That the criticisms of her nomination are frivolous?
John Bolton is a revealing counterpoint. Democrats were universally opposed. Privately, a great number of Republican senators would have preferred the nomination had never been made. But the nomination had a core of zealous supporters on and off the Hill. The misgivings of the moderates and the institutionalists in the senate paled in comparison to the intensity of his supporters.
Once again, I'm not saying Miers' nomination will fail. I'm not predicting it. I am simply saying that her bid could be defeated, not because opposition is so widespread or intense, but because I have real doubts that she or the White House will be able to find forces to mobilize a spirited defense.
--Josh Marshall
