September 2003 Archives

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Regarding the revelation that someone in the White House outed a CIA agent (a federal crime), the good fellows at The Note want to know the answers to some questions:

1. Has President Bush made clear to the White House staff that only total cooperation with the investigation will be tolerated? If not, why not?

2. Has he insisted that every senior staff member sign a statement with legal authority that they are not the leaker and that they will identify to the White House legal counsel who is?

3. Has Bush required that all sign a letter relinquishing journalists from protecting those two sources?

4. Has Bush said that those involved in this crime will be immediately fired? If not, why not?

5. Has Albert Gonzalez distributed a letter to White House employees telling them to preserve documents, logs, records? If not, why not?

6. Has Andy Card named someone on his staff to organize compliance? If not, why not?

White House officials who might have legal or political exposure on this are going to have to decide whether to hire lawyers or not, and the White House counsel's office is going to have to decide what legal help they can and should provide to officials if and when the DOJ wants to talk to them.

That means that the '90s practice of every Washington bureau of calling members of the bar to see who has hired whom is about to heat back up.

The first one to report someone hiring a criminal lawyer wins a prize, as does the first person who develops that lawyer as a source on all this.

A reminder that students of recusal politics will have to consider the Rove-Ashcroft history.

Condi Rice knows nothing. Colin Powell knows nothing. NBC's Andrea Mitchell knows ... well, whatever she knows, she ain't talkin'.

Mike Allen of the Post adds this at the end of his story:

Democrats e-mailed a quotation from former president George H.W. Bush, a former CIA director, who said in 1999 at the dedication of the agency's new headquarters that those who expose the names of intelligence sources are "the most insidious of traitors."

Recently Dean Esmay referred to an interview with Milton Friedman that he enjoyed reading. I read an excerpt of the same interview at Kevin Drum's blog.

Click below to hear my two cents:


Listen to Ara

(Audio by InstantAudio)

Click here for more EPluribusAudio(tm).

Click below to hear today's EPluribusAudio.

Listen to Ara

(Audio by InstantAudio)

Click here for more EPluribusAudio.

We saw houses falling from the sky
Where the mountains lean down to the sand
We saw blackbirds circling 'round an old castle keep
And I stood on the cliff and held your hand

We walked troubles brooding wind swept hills
And we loved and we laughed the pain away
At the end of the journey, when our last song is sung
Will you meet me in Heaven someday

(Chorus) Can't be sure of how's it's going to be
When we walk into the light across the bar
But I'll know you and you'll know me
Out there beyond the stars

We've seen the secret things revealed by God
And we heard what the angels had to say
Should you go first, or if you follow me
Will you meet me in Heaven someday

Living in a mansion on the streets of gold
At the corner of Grace and Rapture Way
In sweet ecstasy while the ages roll
Will you meet me in Heaven someday

In sweet ecstasy while the ages roll
Will you meet in Heaven someday

---Johnny Cash, Meet Me In Heaven Someday

William Saletan writes this about John Kerry:

Much of Kerry’s problem is superficial. He’s as stiff as a GI Joe.

He’s infatuated with the 1960s. He keeps talking about “our generation” to an electorate that is no longer of his generation.

He speaks the language of the Kennedys, which now sounds flowery and phony. He adorns his prose with words like “lavish” and “astonishing.” He calls the audience “my fellow Americans.” He tells them he’s “honored to join you in this endeavor.”

For the thousandth time, he begins a sentence with the pointless preface, “And I say to you today …” At another point, he proclaims, “Let me put it plainly: If Americans aren’t working, America’s not working.”

This is what audiences always have to wade through to get at whatever it is Kerry is trying to say: Nuggets of nothing, wrapped in pretentious rhetoric, compounded by the pretense of plain speaking.

My fifteen-year-old son spotted this in Kerry a year ago. "He looks like Lurch."

On the other hand, he was keen-on-Dean right from the start.