NYT: "Dr. Lester M. Crawford, the former commissioner of food and drugs, is under criminal investigation by a federal grand jury over accusations of financial improprieties and false statements to Congress, his lawyer said Friday."
--Josh Marshall
FBI opens investigation into Missouri Governor Matt Blunt's administration. Blunt is the son of Roy Blunt, House Majority Whip.
--Josh Marshall
ABC News: Limbaugh arrested on prescription fraud charges.
Late Update: This apparently stems from a final resolution or settlement agreement of the on-going investigtion. Limbaugh turned himself in, put up bail, left.
Even Later Update: TPM Reader DK checks in ...
Don't get bamboozled. In criminal cases we don't call them "settlement agreements." They are plea bargains.And while the prosecutor's recommendation to the court will carry great weight, the judge is not obligated to ratify the plea agreement.
Oh, and the money being paid is called a fine. Black can call it reimbursement, but that's BS.
--Josh Marshall
Porter Goss responds to Wilkes-Wade-Cunningham 'hospitality suites' allegations.
--Josh Marshall
Cincy Enquirer: "A unanimous Ohio Elections Commission voted to issue U.S. Rep. Jean Schmidt a public reprimand Thursday for "false statements" - claiming she had a second undergraduate degree from the University of Cincinnati that she never received."
--Josh Marshall
Isn't there something more than vaguely pathetic about the president trying to position himself as the champion of raising fuel efficiency standards?
I mean, it's bad enough to lose public support. But this amounts to betraying what has to be one of the guy's few core principles -- free rein for the oil companies.
Late Update: TPM Reader SC chimes in ...
I don't think the President's statement has anything to do with finding religion about fuel efficiency standards. Please note that he doesn't ask Congress to present legislation for him to sign, he is asking for the authority to set those standards himself. It is just one more effort on his part to consolidate any and all power within the presidency.
--Josh Marshall
So where is this congressional prostitutes proto-scandal going?
As you know, we've been following the Duke Cunningham scandal pretty much since day one. And from the beginning there were rumors -- let's say, more than rumors but less than anyone was willing to go into print with -- of parties over on Duke's yacht with prostitutes and various illicit substances. Later there was more concrete information that Wilkes and Wade (the two key bribers in the case) not only gave cash gifts and antiques to Cunningham but also women in exchange for performing his earmark magic. Nor was Duke the only member of Congress alleged to be in the mix.
At least two and I think three media organizations were on the story of the Wilkes-Wade defense contracting bacchanals. And the story even, very elliptically, made it into print with mentions of the "hospitality suite, with several bedrooms," as the San Diego Union-Tribune put it in one story.
When the Journal went into print with the Duke Cunningham part of the hooker story that opened the floodgates and the Union-Tribune followed up today.
Wilkes was deep into the CIA -- particularly with his high school pal, Dusty Foggo, who Porter Goss made the number three man at the Agency -- as well as being very deep into Duke Cunningham. And the stories that are swirling now are not just about things that happened in the last few years -- they stretch back into the early 1990s.
At the moment we're waiting for word back from the CIA in response to our queries about the latest run of allegations about Foggo and Goss. We'll let you know when we hear more.
--Josh Marshall
In with a bang, out with a bang. Lots more on the emerging congressional prostitution scandal this over at TPMmuckraker.com.
--Josh Marshall
Patrick Fitzgerald will decide Rove's fate in the next "two to three weeks," according to the NY Times. That and other news of the day in today's Daily Muck.
Oh, the rakes are straining under the sheer weight of muck today. More on the Brent Wilkes-Mitchell Wade prostitution ring here and here - and Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour has made his entrance into the New Hampshire phone jamming case.
--Paul Kiel
Sen. Burns (R-MT) is considering having his reelection campaign pay for his Abramoff investigation lawyer "due to the partisan nature of it."
--Josh Marshall
There was a lot of speculation this evening that the kid on the right in the background of that photo of Rep. John Sweeney (R-NY) at the frat party was smoking a joint.
Alas, it turns out not to be true.
--Josh Marshall
Rep. John Sweeney (R-NY), Grand Ole Partier.
From the Union College paper, the Concordiensis ...
Congressman John Sweeney, a Republican from the 20th district of New York State, appeared at a registered party at Alpha Delta Phi on Friday, April 22. The Congressman came from Geppetto's Bar and was described by witnesses as being inquisitive and engaging, while also acting openly intoxicated. Longtime friend and owner of Geppetto's Paulie Lichorat accompanied Rep. Sweeney. Lichorat was unavailable for comment regarding this issue.
See the rest.
--Paul Kiel
Mike Pence is on the floor of the House right now with the new GOP message: no true crackdown on lobbyists without major cuts in government programs.
--Josh Marshall
Deroy Murdock gives Tony Snow pointer on how to help the president rebound: Starting attacking the press 24/7.
Possibly even 24/8.
Also leaks should only be provided to WSJ editorial page.
Also, right-wing media will prosper with advance look at new bamboozlement. "By favoring the center-right media, the president will enhance their prestige while the anti-Bush establishment media play catch-up."
Another choice nugget: "I shudder to imagine how much McClellan's haplessness has weakened America's image overseas during wartime."
Tony Snow is necessary to demonstrate American strength abroad.
--Josh Marshall
Rove tells the grand jury that he didn't lie to prosecutors, because it would have been foolish of him to do so. Yes, indeed. That and other news of the day in today's Daily Muck.
--Paul Kiel
The hospitality suites man cometh?
Okay, Eugene O'Neill it ain't. But we've mentioned here and there over the last year that in the mix in the Duke Cunningham scandal were some 'hospitality suites' in DC where the defense contracting fat cats who bribed Duke also got him and other members of Congress prostitutes and other party-related goodies.
Well, looks like that part of the story is about to bust into the open.
--Josh Marshall
TPM Reader PON finds this exchange from White House National Economic Council Director Al Hubbard's briefing yesterday on the president's 'Four Point Energy Plan' ...
Q Just to follow up, though, on one element of that point. The President made the point that had ANWR been approved ten years ago, you'd get about a million barrels a day. Had the Iraq production resumed to the level that had been projected before the war, how much would that contribute today?DIRECTOR HUBBARD: I actually don't know the precise answer to that. What's really most important, though, is that we've become less reliable on overseas sources of crude oil and other sources of energy, and more reliant on energy from within our 50 states [sic].
Q You have no estimate, though, about what Iraqi production could be?
DIRECTOR HUBBARD: I do not have it.
MR. HENNESSEY: We can get back to you.
DIRECTOR HUBBARD: Yes, we can get back to you with that, or --
Q That would be useful. I mean, just -- obviously, since the President has chosen one interesting example in ANWR, the Iraq one would be an interesting one to compare it to, whether that would be more or less than a billion -- a million a day.
DIRECTOR HUBBARD: Yes, we will have to get back to you on that.
Can I get back to you on that? Can I leave now?
--Josh Marshall
Net Neutrality squashed in House Committee vote. Find out who did it in.
--Josh Marshall
It's hard to figure why blowing up the Middle East hasn't had the intended effect of lowering gas prices.
Weird.
--Josh Marshall
Half a year ago, I cataloged what was then Ken Mehlman's most recent batch of lies and then wrote this ...
This hurricane of lies scarcely covers all the false or misleading statements he made in just that one little video clip. So please take a look at the clip and send in any more examples you find of clearly false or intentionally misleading statements.What this country will end up needing is something like a Truth and Reconciliation Commission because what the country needs is not so much for particular people to go to jail but for the lies and the lies to cover up earlier lies to stop. The country can't get past what has happened or move forward until we can get the truth on the table, deal with it and move on.
Just now I got this email from TPM Reader DF in regard to the post below ...
Here's a suggestion, for what it's worth. Many voters are smart enough to distinguish partisan revenge from genuine reform of broken systems. The Democrats should promise that if they regain control of Congress, they will establish a Truth and Reconciliation Commission, similar to the one formed in South Africa after the end of apartheid. It's purpose would not be punishment or vindictiveness - in fact, the Democrats should make clear that they don't seek the prosecution of any current member of the administration. But they should make it clear that we need to know what has happened, why it's happened, and how to prevent similar mistakes from happening again.I don't believe voters want Congress to score partisan points. They want Congress to identify and solve problems. A Truth and Reconciliation Commission, or similar body, could send that message. I think it would be a powerful idea in the upcoming election.
There are a hundred reasons why this won't happen, and more than a few why it probably shouldn't happen. Should the Democrats return wholly or partly to power this November it would be stupid to get bogged down in a lot of Kumbaya bipartisanship talk that the other side will be immediately plotting against. But what the country needs is a cold shower of the truth and a clearing of the webs of lies that have cluttered and fettered our public life. Sending crooks to the slammer is by far a secondary concern.
--Josh Marshall
Bright side for the White House: it can only get worse.
I wrote my column about this this week and I've been giving it a fair amount of thought.
The president is unpopular for a lot of reasons. The biggest reason is probably Iraq -- in all its many manifestations. But a very big reason -- and one that suffuses many of the other reasons -- is a growing sense that the president and his chief advisors are dishonest, incompetent, cynical and possibly corrupt.
That's not great. But when you think about this coming election, and the stakes for the White House, you need to figure that that's all come about without any independent, let alone antagonistic or hostile, investigations into the key issues that have led to this souring view of the president.
Would the president look better after a new look at the Iraq intel bamboozlement that wasn't controlled by Sen. Roberts? How about an investigation into the executive branch side of the Abramoff scandal? What about a look into the Plame affair? What about the folks in Rumsfeld's office who knew about Duke's corruption but looked the other way?
Aggrieved opposition parties can go overboard when they come back into power and damage themselves -- the Republicans in 1946 and 1994 are good examples. But the Bush administration has built up a very big backlog of bad acts.
Get ready for a rough summer and fall. The White House can't afford to lose either house of Congress.
--Josh Marshall
Republican strategists, in their desperate search for someone, anyone to run against Katherine Harris in the Florida Senate primary, have finally found a name that polls better than hers: retired Gen. Tommy Franks. Let the begging begin.
That and other news of the day into today's Daily Muck.
--Paul Kiel
It's hard to know quite how to riff on the Tony Snow appointment since the joke sort of tells itself and it's hard to improve on that. But as TPM Reader JE asks, does Tony have to quit his job at Fox? Or can it be a joint appointment?
And going back to the on-going debate about Valerie Plame, was Tony really a covert at Fox or was he just under light cover?
--Josh Marshall
Rep. John Doolittle (R-CA) says he has evidence that proves he did nothing wrong when he allowed himself and his wife to bag 15% of his campaign contributions. But he won't reveal the evidence.
--Josh Marshall
Sometimes I like passing on headlines because for all their randomness they seem to hint at some broader truth.
Here on the front page of the CNN website we have: "Terror Case Against Ice Cream Salesman Collapses."
--Josh Marshall
You can't make this stuff up.
You'll remember how Sen. Roberts (R-KS), Chairman of the Intel committee, broke up the senate investigation into the Iraq intel debacle into two 'phases' and in so doing managed to push the report about President Bush's role in the bamboozlement out past the 2004 election.
Apparently it worked so well the first time he's going to try it again.
According the to The Hill, Chairman Roberts now wants to take the part of the investigation he split off to get it past the 2004 election and further split up the split off part in to two new pieces. That should help him get it all past the 2006 election.
Got that?
Again, in 2004 Roberts splits the investigation in two, pushing the investigation of the administration's complicity out past 2004, in order to protect President Bush, who instructs Roberts on what to do. He's been sitting on this 'part two' phase ever since.
Now he wants to break up part two into two new parts -- that should provide enough delay to kick it out past 2007. (Actually, The Hill article is a bit unclear about whether Roberts is now proposing two chunks or three. But who's counting. Remember how the Dems shut down the senate last fall and forced the Roberts to move ahead with phase two? Guess that didn't pan out.)
And the kicker? Ranking Member Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D-WV) won't oppose Roberts' new gambit.
He's been a patsy for Roberts for so long time I guess it's hard to change.
--Josh Marshall
We have a decent number of active duty Air Force readers. Can someone tell me if there's anything to this?
--Josh Marshall
The race to succeed Duke Cunningham gets really, really ugly, courtesy of the National Republican Congressional Committee. That and other news of the day in today's Daily Muck.
--Paul Kiel
Larry Johnson: "There is a fundamental moral and ethical difference between someone who leaks information in order to serve the public good and someone, like George Bush, who authorizes leaks only for the purpose of saving his sorry political ass."
--Josh Marshall
The post below is one of those shots of indictment and outrage mixed with a few literary detours. But somehow I feel the mood of the moment, the truth of the moment, is less outrage as it is surreality.
Consider this exchange between Defense Secretary Rumsfeld and Laura Ingraham from a few days ago ...
INGRAHAM: Are you confident that that estimate of a few days ago of being five years or perhaps even ten years away is realistic and accurate given the fact that in the past we've certainly underestimated nuclear capabilities?SECRETARY RUMSFELD: No.
INGRAHAM: No which part?
SECRETARY RUMSFELD: No, I'm not confident.
INGRAHAM: Uh huh.
SECRETARY RUMSFELD: I think it's a very difficult target for our intelligence community. They work hard at it and they're fine people, but it's a difficult thing to do. Our visibility into their circumstance is imperfect. I would add that if one is asked the question how long would it take them to do certain things totally, alone, on an indigenous basis without assistance from other countries you'd get one answer. If you said to them, if you said what if they were able to get ballistic missiles from North Korea, as they have, and what if they were able to acquire fissile material from somebody? How long would it take? I think you'd get a somewhat different answer.
They work hard at it and they're fine people.
I guess you might call that The Unbearable Arrogance of an Unmatchable Failure.
This is right out of 2002, the snide and contemptuous pats on the back to the fuddy-duddies in the intelligence agencies who lack the 20/20 masculinity and ass-kicking philosophy to see what needs to be done and do it.
I guess Rumsfeld didn't catch the last three years or notice that we're in the springtime of an unfolding national catastrophe due in large measure to the last time he chose to talk out of his behind with, it would seem, either no idea what he was talking about or a complete indifference to the truth of what he was discussing.
Like I said, bizarre.
Is anyone taking him seriously the second time?
--Josh Marshall
Marx tells us that history happens first as tragedy, and then a second time as farce. But he leaves us entirely at sea when it comes to the seventh or eighth time. So, really, what are we to make of the news that James A. Baker is leading an elder-statesman fact finding mission to Iraq to "generate new ideas on Iraq."
Perhaps we need Nietzsche's Eternal Recurrence more than Eighteenth Brumaire because, haven't we been through this movie before?
Didn't we do this back in like 2003? Baker was going to kick everything into shape on Iraqi debt forgiveness. Not quite sure whatever became of that.
The Times bandies about the comparison between 
this Baker mission and Lyndon Johnson's calling back of Dean Acheson as he, Johnson, began to seriously question and eventually abandon his policy in Vietnam. The Times concedes that the analogy is "far from perfect." But that seems like rather an understatement.
Johnson eventually halted the bombing of North Vietnam and announced he wouldn't run for reelection. In effect, he resigned the presidency, though he remained to serve the remaining ten months of his constitutional term of office. It's probably the closest thing you'll ever see in American politics to an admission of failure followed by an intentional act of political self-immolation.
Does anyone imagine anything even remotely like that in the offing?
The president is stuck on telling us that Don Rumsfeld has done a bang up job as defense secretary.
And even with the rising chorus of retired generals calling for Rumsfeld's ouster, isn't this just displacement? Don Rumsfeld works for the president. This is the president's administration in more than just the obvious, literal sense. These are his policies. It's his denial, his indifference to the failure of his policies and the incompetence of his subordinates. As David Remnick put it recently in The New Yorker, the man in the Oval Office "does not much believe in science or, for that matter, in any information that disturbs his prejudices, his fantasies, or his sleep."
The president is accountable, not just in the sense that the president is by definition accountable, but because these failures are his failures. They stem from his weaknesses -- his inability to summon the courage to make tough decisions, his addiction to sycophants, his penchant for denial.
We'd be fools to expect any change when the president lacks the guts to recognize his failures let alone try to fix them.
--Josh Marshall
Different worlds.
An email from someone who appears to be new to the site ...
Enough already. What you are citing was a minority opinion. How minority? Try in contradiction to the assessment of every major intelligence agency, including the CIA, which was headed by Clinton appointee Tenet. This effort, where you take the opinion of a single analyst, based on a single source, and try to claim that this proves against all relevant disclosures of the predominate pre-war intelligence that the pre-war intelligence squares with apparent post-war relevations is a very shoddy type of revisionism. It depends on making the entire Clinton administration disappear. (Even Clarke and McCarthy remain of the view, to cite a single example, that the Sudan pharmaceutical plant was part of the Iraq WMD program. If I recall that was in 1998.) Democratic world view is that what was indisputably a bipartisan fact until at least 2002 when the question of actual war emerged, and what remained a predominate opinion even among the Clintonians, can be conjured away and voters like me, who used to vote Democrat, never bothered to read a newspaper in the interim. What it all amounts to is playing games with issues of national security.
--Josh Marshall
Last week I mentioned that there's a very bad bill moving through Congress. It's supported overwhelmingly by Republicans but also by a lot of Democrats too. Basically the bill would turn over the control of the Internet to the phone companies -- though 'phone companies' is probably now an antiquated phrase for Verizon and AT&T and other such outfits. There's a lot more underlying complexity to it of course. But the change could make it much harder to access TPM or any source of news or entertainment that isn't owned by some big corporation or, more likely, have the inside track with one of the phone companies. If you're cool with AT&T deciding the sources of use you can access then you probably won't mind. But if you like making those decisions yourself, you may want to speak up.
Here's one group mobilizing against the bill: savetheinternet.com. Another group that is on the case is publicknowledge.org.
This isn't some obscure issue of interest only to policy wonks. It may seem like it, but it's not. It's a very big deal and I strongly encourage you to find out what's going on.
We tend to take for granted how the Internet evolved. For all its shortcomings, it is a remarkably level playing field where all sorts of voices -- the strong and the weak, the popular and the despised -- can all make their voices heard. Yes, Viacom's voice is louder than TPM's or Atrios's or Newsmax's. But if you want to read TPM, we're right here, just as easy to visit as the media giants.
But it won't necessarily stay that way.
The Internet could have evolved very, very differently. It could have turned in to one or two big proprietary networks -- maybe AOL and Compuserve, or AOL and MSN, each closed, each controlled by one company, without the dynamism, freedom and entrepreneurial magic we associate with the web. The big media offerings would be easy to get to and easy to download while the blogs and other moderately funded alternatives, right and left, had to make do with second or third tier access. Or maybe Verizon decides that anti-Verizon content just won't run on their network.
Think of it like Cable TV. Anybody can start a cable channel. But if you can't get on TimeWarner Cable here in Manhattan, for me you might as well not even exist. The Internet could work like that.
It could have been that way. And it could still become that way. That's what this new debate is about. Find out more about it. And see what you can do to make your voice heard.
--Josh Marshall
Yesterday evening I noted the Tyler Drumheller inteview on 60 Minutes and asked why little or none of what he had to say had made it into 
the reports of either the Robb-Silbermann Commission or the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence reports on Iraqi WMD intelligence. As I reported in that post, Drumheller was interviewed by the Robb-Silbermann Commission three times prior to the issuance of its report and twice by the Senate Committee, though in the latter case only after its summer 2004 report came out.
Now, a number of readers have written in to ask whether it might not be the case that only staffers or investigators on the Robb-Silbermann Commission interviewed in Drumheller. In that case, perhaps his information never made its way up to the Commissioners themselves.
Not so.
I called Drumheller back today and asked him who from the Robb-Silbermann Commission interviewed him.
He told me that at his main interview -- where he discussed everything he discussed on 60 Minutes -- he was interviewed by the entire commission. That means Sen. Robb was there, Sen. McCain, Judge Silbermann, everybody. (You can see the complete commission roster here.)
On two other occasions, said Drumheller, he was interviewed by commission staffers. But he estimated that his interview before the full commission went on for between two and three hours. And he assured me that they heard everything that 60 Minutes viewers heard yesterday evening and more.
Why his account didn't get into their report is something they can answer. But they can't say they didn't hear it.
--Josh Marshall
Josh noted earlier that CIA Official Tyler Drumheller spoke with the Bush-appointed WMD Commission. They don't seem to have paid attention.
--Paul Kiel
In order to "make lobbying reform legislation a better candidate for passage," House Republicans further dilute that nasty "reform" part of the bill. That and other news of the day in today's Daily Muck.
--Paul Kiel
On Friday, Jon Landay 
had a piece on the latest Iran bamboozlement out of the Bush administration. The State Department's top arms control guy, Robert Joseph, says "We are very close to that point of no return" on Iran's nuclear weapons program.
Remember though, in last gig at the NSC, Bob Joseph was the guy charged with browbeating the CIA into letting the president use the Niger-uranium story in his 2003 state of the union address, even though Agency officials told him and other White House officials repeatedly that there was nothing to it.
Just no reason to take anything Bob Joseph says even remotely seriously on this question. His credibility is shot.
--Josh Marshall
By now you've probably seen or heard about the 60 Minutes segment with the interview with Tyler Drumheller, the now-retired CIA officer who was head of covert operations in Europe during the lead up to the Iraq War.
I just got off the phone with Drumheller. But before we get to that, let's run down the key points in the story.
First, Drumheller says that most folks in the intelligence community didn't think there was anything to the Niger-uranium story. We knew that in general terms; but we hadn't heard it yet from someone so closely involved in the case itself. Remember, the CIA Station Chief in Rome, the guy who first saw the documents when they were dropped off at the US Embassy in October 2002, worked for Drumheller.
Second, Drumheller told us a lot more about the case of Naji Sabri, Iraq's Foreign Minister, who the CIA managed to turn not long before the war broke out. Drumheller was in charge of that operation. The White House, as Drumheller relates it, was really excited to hear what Sabri would reveal about the inner-workings of Saddam's regime, and particularly about any WMD programs. That is, before Sabri admitted that Saddam didn't have any active programs. Then they lost interest.
Now, if you didn't see the episode you can catch most of the key facts in this story at the 60 Minutes website.
But here's an angle I'm not sure we're going to hear much about.
Drumheller's account is pretty probative evidence on the question of whether the White House politicized and cherry-picked the Iraq intelligence.
So why didn't we hear about any of this in the reports of those Iraq intel commissions that have given the White House a clean bill of health on distorting the intel and misleading the country about what we knew about Iraq's alleged WMD programs?
Think about it. It's devastating evidence against their credibility on a slew of levels.
Did you read in any of those reports -- even in a way that would protect sources and methods -- that the CIA had turned a key member of the Iraqi regime, that that guy had said there weren't any active weapons programs, and that the White House lost interest in what he was saying as soon as they realized it didn't help the case for war? What about what he said about the Niger story?
Did the Robb-Silbermann Commission not hear about what Drumheller had to say? What about the Roberts Committee?
I asked Drumheller just those questions when I spoke to him early this evening. He was quite clear. He was interviewed by the Robb-Silbermann Commission. Three times apparently.
Did he tell them everything he revealed on tonight's 60 Minutes segment. Absolutely.
Drumheller was also interviewed twice by the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence (the Roberts Committee) but apparently only after they released their summer 2004 report.
Now, quite a few of us have been arguing for almost two years now that those reports were fundamentally dishonest in the story they told about why we were so badly misled in the lead up to war. The fact that none of Drumheller's story managed to find its way into those reports, I think, speaks volumes about the agenda that the writers of those reports were pursuing.
"I was stunned," Drumheller told me, when so little of the stuff he had told the commission's and the committee's investigators ended up in their reports. His colleagues, he said, were equally "in shock" that so little of what they related ended up in the reports either.
What Drumheller has to say adds quite a lot to our knowledge of what happened in the lead up to war. But what it shows even more clearly is that none of this stuff has yet been investigated by anyone whose principal goal is not covering for the White House.
--Josh Marshall
Dionne: "Here's the real meaning of the White House shake-up and the redefinition of Karl Rove's role in the Bush presidency: The administration's one and only domestic priority in 2006 is hanging on to control of Congress."
Another choice graf from E.J.'s Friday column ...
As one outside adviser to the administration said, the danger of a Democratic takeover of at least one house of Congress looms large and would carry huge penalties for Bush. The administration fears "investigations of everything" by congressional committees, this adviser said, and the "possibility of a forced withdrawal from Iraq" through legislative action.
This is the issue. Talk of impeachment, real or play-acted, is beside the point. Even having their hand pushed on Iraq is to them, I believe, a matter of far secondary importance. The key is subpoena power.
Little of what's happened in the last five years would have been possible were it not for the fact that there was no political institution with subpoena power in Washington not under the control of the White House. Obviously, that doesn't apply to pure policy objectives as much as what used to be known as congressional oversight and, particularly, investigations of wrongdoing. Yes, the Democrats briefly controlled the Senate. But that was always a marginal control, and as far as tough oversight it was almost immediately engulfed by 9/11.
The White House and the entire DC GOP for that matter is just sitting on too many secrets and bad acts. The bogus investigations of the pre-war intel is just one example, if one of the most resonant and glaring. Keeping control of the House and the Senate is less a matter of conventional ideological and partisan politics as it is a simple matter of survival.
They have too much to cover up. They could not survive sunlight.
--Josh Marshall
Yeah, I think David and Kevin have it just right. The Post buried the lede in its piece today on the continuing fall out from the firing of CIA officer Mary McCarthy.
Says the Post in the second to last graf ...
The White House also has recently barraged the agency with questions about the political affiliations of some of its senior intelligence officers, according to intelligence officials.
CIA officers don't work under the same civil service rules as most government employees. But I still don't think this sort of political purge activity is permitted.
Not that we should be surprised about this. When Porter Goss took over as DCI he brought over with him a number of GOP political operatives. Take the CIA head of Public Affairs Goss installed: Jennifer Millerwise Dyck. She was a flack from the Bush-Cheney 2004 campaign. Before that she worked for Goss on the Hill. And before that she worked for Ari Fleischer at the House Ways and Means Committee.
The administration's response to the ills of the intelligence agencies has been to further politicize them, to put them under more reliable political control. And that's not surprising either since, from the White House perspective, the failures of the intelligence agencies weren't not getting it right on WMD and other issues. It was getting it more right and then wrong and then talking about what had happened to the press.
Now as the consequences of their policies grow more severe and catastrophic and the news gets worse and worse, it's batten down the hatches time. We should be surprised that a deeper purge is underway.
Just because the White House was trying to root out all but loyalists that doesn't mean they didn't catch McCarthy in a fireable offense. I don't know. But this latest abuse of power from the White House deserves much more than a passing reference.
--Josh Marshall
