This afternoon Steven Benen flagged this comment by NBC's Chip Reid in which Reid claimed the Democrats were the "big loser" in the demise of the immigration bill. Now there are a number of things to say about this -- 1) that Reid is parroting Republican talking points on this issue and 2) that no one seems to be raising the fact that, by the definition that prevailed only a year ago, Republicans are filibustering basically everything the comes up in the senate.
Yes to both. Both very important.
But you have to be far more than ordinarily clueless to believe that the Republicans aren't overwhelmingly the losers in this whole debacle. The whole episode is only a little short of a catastrophe for the GOP, indeed, twice over.
The fact that the episode has further revealed President Bush's political impotence is relatively unimportant, given his extreme unpopularity. More important is that the whole run-through has further divided Republicans in the lead up to the 2008 election. But even that isn't the really big deal.
The real fall-out is that this has dealt a massive and probably enduring blow to Republican efforts to at least compete for, if not win over, the growing hispanic electorate. The model here is then-Gov. Pete Wilson's (R) 1994 reelection campaign in California -- a set of events that played out somewhat more amorphously but to real effect across the country in the mid-1990s.
Briefly, Wilson successfully rode the anti-immigration issue to victory, in particular through his embrace of Prop. 187 -- a successful ballot initiative to deny social services to illegal immigrants and get local cops into the business of policing people's immigration status. It helped Wilson get reelected. But it also basically destroyed the California Republican party. Destroyed may be too strong a word. But it put the state's rapidly growing hispanic population firmly into the Democratic camp and played a big part in making California into the solidly Democratic state it is today. (People forget, it didn't used to be that way.)
The kicker here is that at least Pete Wilson won his election. Indeed, anti-immigrant politics, in California and elsewhere, helped fuel the Republican sweep in 1994. In this case, the Republicans didn't even get it together and get a win in the short run. They managed to damage themselves in the short run and deal themselves a massive long term blow. That's great work.
Now, some people might say that Democratic votes in addition to Republican votes helped to scuttle the bill in the senate. But this ignores the salient fact that Republican opposition to the immigration bill -- not just in the senate but across the board -- has been overwhelmingly nativist in character. Democratic opposition has tended to focus either on the guest worker provision or other details of the bill. It's really as simple as that, indeed so simple it barely requires saying.
This whole episode has branded the Republicans as the anti-immigrant party. And that's not good for a party that wants to compete for the votes of America's largest bloc of new immigrant voters.
--Josh Marshall
Glasgow
Even hours after the dramatic scenes at Glasgow's airport, details are still a little sketchy.
A Jeep Cherokee trailing a cascade of flames rammed into Glasgow's airport on Saturday, shattering glass doors just yards from passengers at the check-in counters. Police said they believed the attack was linked to two car bombs found in London the day before.
Britain raised its terror alert to "critical" -- the highest possible level -- and the Bush administration announced plans to increase security at airports and on mass transit.
One of the men in the car was in critical condition at a hospital with severe burns, while the other was in police custody, said Scottish Police Chief Constable Willie Rae. Five bystanders in Glasgow were wounded, although none seriously, police said.
Rae said a "suspect device" was found on the man at the hospital and it was taken to a safe location where it was being investigated. He would not say whether the device was a suicide belt, but British security officials said evidence pointed to the attack being a suicide mission. [...]
"I can confirm that we believe the incident at Glasgow airport is linked to the events in London yesterday," Rae said at a news conference. "There are clearly similarities and we can confirm that this is being treated as a terrorist incident."
That's not exactly an iron-clad connection between the events, but again, officials are still gathering information. And obviously, with the British terror alert now at "critical," the highest level possible, an aggressive investigation is underway. The latest reports indicate that two people were arrested in Cheshire, England, in connection with terrorist incidents in England and Scotland, bringing the total number of people in custody to four.
The BBC has put together an excellent Q&A on the information currently available.
--Steve Benen
HRC poll
I'm generally suspicious of these kinds of national polls, particularly at this stage of a presidential race, but the latest results from Mason-Dixon have received quite a bit of attention.
More than half of Americans say they wouldn't consider voting for Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton for president if she becomes the Democratic nominee, according to a new national poll made available to McClatchy Newspapers and NBC News.
The poll by Mason-Dixon Polling and Research found that 52 percent of Americans wouldn't consider voting for Clinton, D-N.Y.... Clinton rang up high negatives across the board, with 60 percent of independents, 56 percent of men, 47 percent of women and 88 percent of Republicans saying they wouldn't consider voting for her.
The concern among Democrats over a poll like this is perfectly understandable. Obviously, it's tough for any candidate to win a general election if a majority of the country a) dislikes the candidate; and b) has already decided, more than a year in advance, not to vote for him or her.
But I think this Mason-Dixon data is getting a little too much play. A few days before these results were published, a national Newsweek poll showed Clinton (and other top-tier Dems) with healthy leads over all of the leading Republican presidential hopefuls. In each instance, her support topped 50%. (In a hypothetical match-up against Romney, she's at 55%.) There are other recent polls showing similar results.
Obviously, something is askew. Either a majority of Americans have ruled out backing Clinton under any circumstances, or a majority of Americans are prepared to support her against a GOP rival. It can't be both. And given that there are more polls for the latter than the prior, I'm not necessarily prepared to write her off as a viable general-election candidate quite yet.
Are concerns about Clinton's "electability" legitimate? Of course; it's probably her most important campaign hurdle to clear, and there are still quite a few Dems who still need convincing. But let's not take one Mason-Dixon poll too seriously.
--Steve Benen
Bush and Putin
In light of this weekend's historic get-together between President Bush and Russian President Vladimir Putin...
Now, for less than 24 hours starting Sunday afternoon, the U.S. president is hosting his Russian counterpart at the Bush family's summer home on the craggy Maine coast. No other leader has received such a rarified invitation.
...Swopa passes along a classic anecdote.
One gem which the audience enjoyed was the retelling of Powell and President Bush's first encounters with Russian President Vladimir Putin. As Powell recalled it after the meeting he and Bush were reviewing events and comparing notes and seemingly they disagreed. At one point Bush looked at his Secretary of State and said (with a suitable Texas twang) "Powell, I looked into Putin's eyes and I saw his soul" to which Powell replied: "Mr. President, I looked into President Putin's eyes and I saw the KGB".
--Steve Benen
Obstructionism
Reporters covering the Hill really ought to know better than this.
On the June 29 edition of MSNBC Live, NBC News congressional correspondent Chip Reid asserted that after the failure of a June 28 cloture motion on the Senate immigration bill, "[t]he Democratic Congress is a big loser because, more and more, Republicans are accusing them of being a do-nothing Congress."
Republicans may be accusing Dems of coming up short, but NBC viewers might benefit if they knew whether those accusations are accurate.
There's a context that goes missing from most reports about congressional progress, or lack thereof: Senate Republicans are blocking everything that moves.
For the last several years, Republicans, with a 55-seat majority, cried like young children if Dems even considered a procedural hurdle. They said voters would punish obstructionists. They said it was borderline unconstitutional. They said to stand in the way of majority rule was to undermine a basic principle of our democratic system.
And wouldn't you know it; the shameless hypocrites didn't mean a word of it. As Roll Call reported this week, 239 separate bills have passed the House, only to find Senate Republicans "objecting to just about every major piece of legislation" that Harry Reid has tried to bring to the floor, whether it enjoys bi-partisan support or not.
Indeed, Senate Republicans -- the ones accusing Dems of being a "do-nothing Congress" -- are proud of their efforts. Senate Minority Whip Trent Lott boasted, "The strategy of being obstructionist can work or fail. So far it's working for us."
Voters are understandably frustrated about the lack of legislative achievements thus far, but the explanation is surprisingly straightforward: Republicans won't allow up-or-down votes on anything of significance.
Robert Borosage of the Campaign For America's Future is launching a campaign to challenge and bring more attention to Senate obstructionism. It's a worthwhile effort -- most Americans probably don't even know what a filibuster is. When they see headlines that say, "Congress comes up short again," they need to know who's responsible.
--Steve Benen
Deadliest quarter yet
As of yesterday, three years to the week after the president triumphantly proclaimed, "Let freedom reign," we are now seeing the end of the deadliest quarter for U.S. forces in Iraq since the war began.
As reader W.B. noted via email, using this data, we're also ending the deadliest four-month period and the deadliest five-month period. For all the talk from war supporters about "progress," the fatality rates are sobering.
That is, if you consider these rates important. Outgoing Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Peter Pace said the other day that violence in Iraq is a "self-defeating approach to tracking results." He recommends a more sensitive approach.
"What's most important is do the Iraqi people feel better about today than they did about yesterday, and do they think tomorrow's going to be better than today?
"If the answer to those two questions is yes, then we're on the right path. If the answer to those two questions is no, then we're not doing it right and we need to adjust our processes."
First, why Iraqis' sanguinity is a more reliable "metric" than U.S. fatalities is apparently only clear to Pace.
Second, even if we're playing by Pace's rules, Iraqis aren't feeling better today than yesterday: "The optimism that helped sustain Iraqis during the first few years of the war has dissolved into widespread fear, anger and distress amid unrelenting violence":
And third, we're measuring success in a war based on a population's feelings? Isn't that the kind of thing conservatives usually dismiss as namby-pamby liberalism?
--Steve Benen
Seeping out of Iraq
The New York Times report on the defused bombs in London included this disconcerting graf:
[T]he idea of a multiple attack using car bombs -- a departure from the backpack suicide attacks of the London bombings of July 2005 -- raised concerns among security experts that jihadist groups linked to Al Qaeda may have imported tactics more familiar in Iraq.
It is, unfortunately, immediately reminiscent of a Times report from a month ago.
The Iraq war, which for years has drawn militants from around the world, is beginning to export fighters and the tactics they have honed in the insurgency to neighboring countries and beyond, according to American, European and Middle Eastern government officials and interviews with militant leaders in Lebanon, Jordan and London.
Some of the fighters appear to be leaving as part of the waves of Iraqi refugees crossing borders that government officials acknowledge they struggle to control. But others are dispatched from Iraq for specific missions. In the Jordanian airport plot, the authorities said they believed that the bomb maker flew from Baghdad to prepare the explosives for Mr. Darsi.
Estimating the number of fighters leaving Iraq is at least as difficult as it has been to count foreign militants joining the insurgency. But early signs of an exodus are clear, and officials in the United States and the Middle East say the potential for veterans of the insurgency to spread far beyond Iraq is significant.
Insurgents are treating Iraq as some kind of Terrorism School, and are applying the lessons they've learned after graduation.
Here's a crazy idea: we could withdraw from Iraq, deny terrorists a "cause celebre" for jihadists, and stop making it harder to combat terrorism.
As Ryan Powers noted, the State Department has acknowledged the war in Iraq "has been used by terrorists as a rallying cry for radicalization and extremist activity that has contributed to instability in neighboring countries." There's additional evidence of tactics from Iraq being exported to Europe.
The longer we stay, the worse it gets.
--Steve Benen
Election Central Saturday Roundup
Usually, for security purposes, VIP trips to Iraq are kept secret until the visit actually occurs. But that hasn't stopped John McCain from boasting about his upcoming excursion. That and other political news of the day in today's Election Central Saturday Roundup.
--Steve Benen
Giuliani on school prayer
During his recent visit to TV preacher Pat Robertson's Regent University, Rudy Giuliani also sat down with Robertson's Christian Broadcasting Network to discuss some of the issues on the minds of Christian conservatives.
CBN: How do you feel about some of these previous Supreme Court rulings, way back in the day, about school prayer in public schools and the fact that the Supreme Court ruled that unconstitutional?
GIULIANI: I thought some of them went too far in the direction of over-emphasizing separation of church and state, and underemphasizing the free exercise of religion.
I suppose that's about what we should expect from a GOP candidate trying desperately to appeal to a far-right base with which he agrees on very little. Pandering can be an ugly game.
But in this case, it's the kind of response that deserves a little follow-up -- in Giuliani's opinion, which Supreme Court rulings on school prayer went too far?
CBN, in asking the question, referred to school prayer cases from "way back in the day." There are two seminal cases on the issue: Engel v. Vitale in 1962 and Abington v. Schempp in 1963. In Engel, the Court said it was unconstitutional for a public school district to write its own official prayer for use in classrooms. Students could still pray on their own, but the state had to stay out of it.
In Abington, the Court said it was unconstitutional for a public school to mandate school-sponsored Bible readings in classrooms. Students could still read scripture on their own, but the state couldn't interfere.
Giuliani, an accomplished attorney, told Pat Robertson's television network that "some" of these rulings went "too far." Maybe some enterprising political reporter could ask the former mayor a simple question: which one?
--Steve Benen
CBS poll
If there's any good news for the White House or its allies in the latest CBS News poll, it's hiding well. (via Atrios)
More Americans than ever before, 77 percent, say the war is going badly, up from 66 percent just two months ago. Nearly half, 47 percent, say it's going very badly.
While the springtime surge in U.S. troops to Iraq is now complete, more Americans than ever are calling for U.S. forces to withdraw. Sixty-six percent say the number of U.S. troops in Iraq should be decreased, including 40 percent who want all U.S. troops removed. That's a 7-point increase since April.
Fewer than one in five thinks that the troop increase is helping to improve the situation in Iraq, while about half think the war is actually creating more terrorists.
The poll has bad news for President Bush, too. His job approval rating slipped to 27 percent, his lowest number ever in a CBS News poll -- 3 points less than last month and 1 point below his previous low of 28 percent in January. His disapproval rating is also at an all-time high of 65 percent.
A stunning 75 percent of respondents believe the country is headed in the wrong direction, while 19 percent think the U.S. is on the right track. It's the most lopsided response since CBS News first started asking the question in 1983.
The results, obviously, are awful news for Bush -- NYU's Paul Light said, "I think his presidency is essentially over" -- and it's just as bad for a field of Republican presidential hopefuls who are offering voters more of the same.
--Steve Benen
NYT on Siegelman
The editorial page of the New York Times picks up on the Siegelman story, and calls for congressional intervention.
The idea of federal prosecutors putting someone in jail for partisan gain is shocking. But the United States attorneys scandal has made clear that the Bush Justice Department acts in shocking ways. We hope that the appeals court that hears Mr. Siegelman's case will give it the same hard look that another appeals court recently gave the case of Georgia Thompson. Ms. Thompson, a low-level employee in a Democratic administration in Wisconsin, was found to have been wrongly convicted of corruption by another United States attorney.
Congress, though, should not wait. It should insist that Mr. Canary and everyone on the 2002 call, as well as Mrs. Canary and Mr. Rove, testify about the Siegelman prosecution. In standing by Attorney General Alberto Gonzales throughout the attorneys scandal, the Bush administration has made clear that it does not care about the integrity of the Justice Department. By investigating Mr. Siegelman's case, Congress can show that it does.
It's a story with legs....
--Steve Benen
For your weekend enjoyment. One of Doug Feith's stovepipers holds out for the Iraq-al Qaida relationship in a new column for the Washington Post.
--Josh Marshall
Ouch.
McClatchy reports from NH ...
When Fred Thompson made his debut on the presidential stage here this week, he left some Republicans thinking he needs more work before his nascent campaign matches the media hype it's gotten in advance.The former Tennessee senator with the baritone drawl showed up Thursday in New Hampshire, the site of the first primary voting, and gave a speech that lasted only nine minutes, skipping over hot-button issues such as Iraq and immigration to invoke platitudes about freedom and strength.
Really, I can't say I'm surprised. It's not that I think Thompson is such a disaster. It's just that it's not at all clear why he should be more than a mid-tier GOP presidential contender, at best. It is only Republican desperation that has spun him into some sort of dream candidate.
Just ain't so.
--Josh Marshall
I shoulda figured there'd be another Friday DOJ resignation before I sent everyone home for the day.
Rachel Brand, assistant attorney general in the Office of Legal Policy, is out.
Of course, pretty soon, virtually no one will be left from the Purge crew beside Alberto Gonzalez. But c'mon. That's the Bush system. Mistakes were made.
--Josh Marshall
Senator Jim Webb to ratchet up role against Iraq War. That and other political news of the day in today's Election Central Happy Hour Roundup.
--Greg Sargent
Elizabeth Edwards explains to Wolf Blitzer as clearly as possible exactly what's wrong with Ann Coulter.
--Greg Sargent
Rep. John Doolittle (R-CA) cheerleads the Justice Department's investigation of... him.
--Paul Kiel
Everyone in Washington keeps telling us that the big drop-dead political moment on Iraq will come when General Petraeus gives us his report in September.
But Spencer Ackerman points to some compelling evidence suggesting that the far more significant Iraq assessment may come in an accompanying report from U.S. Ambassador to Iraq Ryan Crocker -- whose report, Ackerman theorizes, may undercut Petraeus and help the antiwar cause.
--Greg Sargent
Hillary and Bill unveil new plan to deliver personal video reports directly to your computer screen from the campaign trail in Iowa.
--Greg Sargent
Conyers and Leahy make the next move in the battle with the White House over the U.S. attorney firings.
Yesterday, the White House asserted a blanket claim of executive privilege for everything the House and Senate judiciary committees were seeking. Today, Conyers and Leahy have responded with a letter asking for a more specific response. If they don't get it, they say, then the fight goes to the next level.
--Paul Kiel
Uh, oh -- real trouble ahead for Mitt.
The worst story yet for the Romney campaign goes national.
--Greg Sargent
It's back to the Supreme Court again for the administration's detainee policy. This time, it might mean the closure of Gitmo as a preemptive measure. And you know how accomplished they are at preemption.
--Paul Kiel
Ely Ratner returns from a walk in Tiananmen Square to argue for a more empathetic and nuanced view of China in this week's Book Club.
--Andrew Golis
Yesterday David Broder wrote a column which one TPM Reader, more or less fairly, described as Broder's expression of shock, shock at just what Dick Cheney has been up to over the last six-plus years. And this is a good opportunity to say that the Post's 'Angler' series seems to be becoming the trigger for that transition moment where consensus establishment opinion goes from seeing the vice president as the powerful administration heavy with a sometimes creepy but largely comic penchant for secrecy to an altogether more nefarious force who has used his unprecedented power as vice president to advance an agenda of official secrecy, non-accountability, untrammeled executive power, legitmized torture and general degradation of the rule of law.
But this is far too easy. Because the simple fact is that we've known almost all of this for years.
Don't get me wrong. I'm not knocking the series, which is quite good. In journalism, details, the specifics are all. But the story in general has been out there for years, as well as a good number of the specifics, strewn over hundreds, probably thousands of newspaper and magazine articles, online and off.
In other words, when it comes to recognizing Cheney's profoundly damaging effect on American constitutionalism as well as his guiding role in essentially all of the administration's most disastrous policies, the train already left the station some time ago.
Sorry.
--Josh Marshall
The new Dem Congress -- does the public like it or hate it?
A new poll takes a stab at answering that question in a bit of detail.
--Greg Sargent
Today's Must Read: Bush is a lame duck president with nothing left to lose -- which makes him a formidable stonewaller.
--Paul Kiel
John Edwards uses last night's debate to rebut Times article alleging he started poverty nonprofit to advance his political career. That and other items in our Election Central Debate Roundup.
--Greg Sargent
Former Gov. Siegelman (D-AL) sentenced to seven years and four months.
Here's our run-down on the case from this morning and Karl Rove's alleged involvement in spurring the prosecution ...
Here's our earlier coverage of the case at TPMmuckraker.com.
--Josh Marshall
That should go over well. (from the AP ...)
Hed: Bush cites Israel as model for IraqPresident Bush held up Israel as a model for defining success in Iraq, saying Thursday the U.S. goal there is not to eliminate attacks but to enable a democracy that can function despite violence.
With his Iraq policy under increasing criticism from the public and lawmakers in both parties, Bush went to the U.S. Naval War College to declare progress and plead for patience. At the same time, his top national security went to Capitol Hill to hear out Republican critics.
We'll have succeded in Iraq when it's like Israel.
Where do they come up with these guys? Which speech writer wrote that? Sometimes stupidity rises to the level of a high crime.
--Josh Marshall
Lieberman says surge has enemy "on the run." That and other political news of the day in today's Election Central Happy Hour Roundup.
--Greg Sargent
Fielding throws a change-up, makes deal with Waxman for security officials' testimony.
--Josh Marshall
Sen. Arlen Specter (R-PA) on the White House's stonewalling: let's take what we can get, and then take another run at the wall if we don't like it.
--Paul Kiel
In case you missed it, the esteemed Dean Baker of The American Prospect's Beat the Press joined the Coffee House today.
His first contribution: Deflating the Housing Bubble.
--Andrew Golis
Bush sinks to record low in Fox News poll.
Late Update: The Fox poll also asked what may be the most insanely jingoistic question ever in a Fox survey -- and the answer was even more startling.
--Greg Sargent
Feds continue investigation of Rep. Tom Feeney's (R-FL) link to Jack Abramoff.
--Paul Kiel
Nathan Newman and M.J. Rosenberg respond to the Supreme Court's decision to strike down race-based assignment policies used to desegregate schools.
--Andrew Golis
Did Karl Rove sic the Justice Department on former Alabama Gov. Don Siegelman (D)?
We look at the evidence in today's episode of TPMtv ...
--Josh Marshall
Here's video of Rep. Rahm Emanuel (D-IL) on the House floor today, offering an amendment to defund our branchless vice president.
--Paul Kiel
Taking heavy incoming fire from Elizabeth Edwards, Ann Coulter finally cracks up under pressure.
--Greg Sargent
Have you ever seen such a sad-sack president?
It's President Bush reacting to the second and presumably final death of his rotten immigration bill. And lecturing Congress on what it needs to prove to the American people. He almost looks and sounds like someone has literally knocked the wind out of him (take a look and tell me if you don't agree) ...
--Josh Marshall
He's not ready for prison; but prison's ready for him. Scooter Libby gets an inmate number.
--Paul Kiel
Michael Bérubé has the inside story of a Giuliani family road trip. Highlight: Judith Nathan attacked by ferrets.
--Andrew Golis
House Republicans denounce Democratic "stonewalling" of U.S. attorney investigation. Yeah, you read that right.
--Paul Kiel
And here's Senate Judiciary Chairman Patrick Leahy (D-VT) on the administration's "Nixonian stonewalling": "in America no one is above law."
--Paul Kiel
Two new polls find that GOP Senator John Sununu of New Hampshire is extremely vulnerable to a Dem challenge in 2008.
--Greg Sargent
Conyers responds to White House stonewall, says they'll press on "to enforce the rule of law set forth in these subpoenas."
Update: Rep. Linda Sanchez (D-CA) adds: "It's tough to get lectured on the Constitution from the same Administration that said the Vice President is his own branch of government."
--Paul Kiel
OK, now it gets ugly. In response to a congressional subpoena for White House documents and testimony related to the U.S. attorney firings, the administration is invoking executive privilege. We'll have more soon.
Update: Here's the White House's letter invoking executive privilege.
--Paul Kiel
We'll probably have more on this at Election Central later today. But this is a very telling little nugget from the ARG poll about how the senate looks in 2008 and particularly the striking and on-going transformation of New Hampshire politics.
According to the just-released ARG poll, Jeanne Shaheen -- who I don't think is even an announced candidate yet -- is beating Sen. Sununu by 57% to 29%. Tellingly, Shaheen is pulling 30% of the self-identified Republican vote.
That would be a rematch of what I can personally testify was a heart-breaking race back in 2002 in which Sununu pulled it out in the end.
I mean, a sitting senator polling 29% against a named candidate. That's real bad.
--Josh Marshall
A new poll finds that roughly half of Republicans favor universal health care and gays in the military. That and other political news of the day in today's Election Central Morning Roundup.
--Greg Sargent
If the Vice President thinks that there is no authority to which he reports, then he has committed a high crime against this nation and its democracy.
--Andrew Golis
Today's Must Read: an "insubordinate" U.S. attorney asks the attorney general to spend more than 5 to 10 minutes on the question of whether a man should be put to death. The nerve. No wonder he was fired.
--Paul Kiel
David Gregory: Strip away Coulter's inflammatory rhetoric to get to the underlying trenchant political analysis.
--Josh Marshall
Rockin' it in the Granite state!
Bush's approval rating in New Hampshire at healthy 14%.
--Josh Marshall
A new poll finds Al Gore leading in New Hampshire. That and other political news of the day in today's Election Central Happy Hour Roundup.
--Greg Sargent
Rudy's dissembling on Bill Clinton's anti-terrorism record becomes so obvious that even Tucker Carlson calls him out on it.
--Greg Sargent
The head of the South Carolina NAACP blasts Rudy Giuliani in an interview for appointing Arthur "National Association of Retarded People" Ravenel as his campaign co-chair in the state.
Late Update: We've just unearthed another choice quote from Rudy's new South Carolina co-chair, this time on his love for the Confederate battle flag.
--Greg Sargent
Waxman, Conyers put the squeeze on Gonzales.
Six months ago, the National Archives asked the Justice Department for its opinion on Dick Cheney's "fourth branch" theory, which he invoked to escape oversight by the Information Security Oversight Office. They're still waiting. Waxman and Conyers want to know why.
--Paul Kiel
The clock hands continue to move closer to midnight for Rep. John Doolittle (R-CA).
Earlier this week, his former chief of staff revealed that he was turning over documents to federal investigators.
Today, a second former aide says he's been contacted by investigators and will talk.
--Paul Kiel
Questions mount about the prosecution of Democratic former Alabama governor Don Siegelman (D).
--Paul Kiel
Here's more on those subpoenas -- what the committee wants, when they want it, and who they want to see testify.
--Paul Kiel
From the AP:
The Senate Judiciary Committee subpoenaed the White House and Vice President Dick Cheney's office Wednesday for documents relating to President Bush's warrant-free eavesdropping program.Also named in subpoenas signed by committee Chairman Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., were the Justice Department and the National Security Council.
We'll have more soon.
--Paul Kiel
Former division commander in Iraq takes administration to task for attributing most violence in Iraq to al-Qaeda.
--Paul Kiel
This week's Book Club on China's Charm Offensive is going strong with 13 posts so far from a distinguished group of scholars.
For those looking to catch up on the debate so far, we've put together a quick summary here.
--Andrew Golis
Did you know that Dick Cheney is so hardcore about secrecy and security that he won't let the White House officials in charge of security into the West Wing? No that's not a Daily Show joke. It's actually true. Maybe that's why he's already had one (now convicted) spy caught working out of his office. And, no, I'm not talking about Scooter Libby.
We run through all the comically ridiculous details in today's episode of TPMtv ...
Late Update: For a transcript of today's episode, click here.
--Josh Marshall
GOP Senator Voinovich joins Lugar in call for military disengagement from Iraq. That and other political news of the day in today's Election Central Morning Roundup.
--Greg Sargent
Today's Must Read: finally given an opportunity to expound on the "fourth branch" theory of the vice presidency, Cheney's lawyer backs down. Looks like Sen. John Kerry (D-MA) called his bluff.
--Paul Kiel
Hardball (from the Post ...)
Iraqi law enforcement officials stretched a dragnet over the Green Zone and other parts of the capital Tuesday, seeking to arrest the country's culture minister in connection with an attempted political assassination two years ago in which three people were killed, Iraqi officials said.Government spokesman Ali al-Dabbagh said an arrest warrant had been issued for Culture Minister Asad Kamal al-Hashimi in the February 2005 attempted assassination of Mithal al-Alusi, a newly elected independent member of parliament who had been harshly criticized by many politicians here after he visited Israel in 2004. Alusi was not injured in the attack, but two sons, Ayman, 22, and Jamal, 30, were killed, as was a bodyguard.
--Josh Marshall
The front blurb on the new CNN Iraq poll is sufficiently to-the-point that I'm going to quote it in its entirety ...
Public support for the war in Iraq has fallen to a new low and Republican support is beginning to waver, a poll published Tuesday found. In the latest CNN-Opinion Research Corporation poll, 69 percent of those polled believe things are going badly in Iraq, and anti-war sentiment among Republican poll respondents has suddenly increased.
Dick Lugar's very public pulling of the plug on the president's policy is an indicator of the trend.
The number referenced toward the end is 38% -- the number of self-identified Republicans who say they oppose the war. (I wasn't able to find a partisan break-out of the numbers in the CNN data. So I'm not clear what the number jumped up from.)
This all puts in stark terms the intense anxiety now palpitating Republican hearts in Washington, DC. One number is 38%. Another number is 17, the number of months before the 2008 election.
President Bush gives every indication that he intends to keep troop deployments at their current level through January 2009. Sure, if everyone chills out in Iraq and finally throws him the parade the president is holding out for, he'll begin bringing the troops home. But on planet Earth it's stay through course through 1/09.
The president's ability to pull that off -- both in terms of raw votes and public sentiment -- rests almost entirely on a solid phalanx of support among congressional Republicans and 2008 Republican presidential aspirants. They don't have to be for the president's war or his conduct of it. But they need to stay resolutely opposed to Democratic efforts to end it.
As long as that's the case, as long as the vast majority of Republicans oppose Democratic attempts to end the war, that will keep Democrats (not saying it's right, just observing the dynamics) from really going to the mat over it. And as long as Democrats don't force a major confrontation that keeps it all sort of murky in the public mind who's for or against. But eventually -- maybe as soon as September -- public opposition will become so overwhelming that the Democrats may be willing to really force the matter and not worry about lacking any bipartisan cover. Or maybe by September enough Republicans will see the numbers and give in and give the Democrats their veto-proof majorities.
However it happens, whatever gives way first, the trend is unmistakable. And even if the Republicans can maintain unity and defy political gravity through 2008 they can see as well as anyone what will happen if they go into the 2008 election with sub-30% support on the defining issue of the day.
The key is -- for some liminal period over the next several months -- there's still a paradoxical safety in numbers for Republicans, sticking with the president. But no one wants to be the last one to the door. If you're a Republican congressman and you've been carrying the president's water on Iraq for years you don't want to be on the losing side when the Congress finally ends the war in spite of the president. At that point, even if you flip flop and start saying we've got to change course and try to get on the right side of public opinion, then you're probably just doubly screwed. And if it's mid-2008 at that point you're really not in a good place.
Someone better versed than I in the intricacies of game theory could suss out all the dynamics. But the key is that folks are getting nervous and they're quite right to do so.
The truth is that the president is playing a very high-stakes game of chicken with his fellow Republicans. He's driving a hundred miles an hour toward the cliff, way too fast to jump out of the car without risking serious injury. But as the cliff gets closer, they'll start to jump.
--Josh Marshall
FBI talked to fisherman about Alaska senato