I may not have made it to Chicago this year, but I've learned a few things from the tubes about what the Democratic presidential candidates were up to at YearlyKos:
* Hillary Clinton's defense of accepting contributions from lobbyists was probably the day's most controversial comment. She seemed to get to the right answer, but it took a couple of tries.
* John Edwards was in his element today.
* Barack Obama was excellent in his private off-the-record session -- so much so that he probably shouldn't have been speaking off-the-record.
* When Bill Richardson touted his position on the Balanced Budget Amendment and the line-item veto, it may have been "the first fiscal policy booing on record." (YearlyKos attracts a smart crowd.)
* Clinton learned valuable lessons about healthcare in the early '90s, and the issue will be her highest domestic policy priority if elected.
* Chris Dodd was clever enough to hit Rupert Murdoch and Bill O'Reilly in a single answer.
* Dave Johnson types quickly enough to live blog a presidential forum really well.
* Mike Gravel seems to realize that this wasn't the right crowd to pitch a regressive consumption tax.
--Steve Benen
Mo' Money, Mo' Problems
Earlier this afternoon in Chicago 7 of the 8 Democratic 2008 candidates (Biden not present) crossed swords at the Presidential Leadership Forum before a swelling YearlyKos convention crowd. One of the big moments garnering a lot of attention was when Senator Hillary Clinton defended her policy of accepting money from lobbyists. TPMtv was on the scene. Take a gander:
--Ben Craw
A heavily editorializing report on Yearly Kos from the AP's Ron Fournier.
Late Update: TPMtv interviews the very same Ron Fournier:
--Josh Marshall
Following up on an item from today's Election Central Saturday Roundup, I think that Pew poll about Rudy Giuliani is especially significant because it reminds us of a point that's gone largely unnoticed.
A few weeks ago, Gallup conducted a national poll and found that three out of four Republicans (74%) believe Giuliani would make an "acceptable" GOP presidential nominee. None of the other Republican hopefuls came close.
The conventional wisdom suggested that these results, mirrored in other polls, spoke to a key development in Republican politics. Despite Giuliani's support for abortion rights and gay rights as mayor, the GOP faithful apparently no longer consider his social positions a disqualifier in a presidential race.
But the conventional wisdom didn't consider one nagging detail: most Republicans don't know Giuliani's positions on the hot-button, culture-war issues that have driven GOP politics for a generation.
As Eric Kleefeld explained, the new poll from the Pew Research Center found that when Republicans and GOP-leaners "are asked if they can name the Republican presidential candidate who is pro-choice, only 41% could correct name Rudy Giuliani. Among self-described conservatives, the answer wasn't much better at a mere 47% correct."
This is similar to results of a Pew Research poll from June, when fewer than half of Republicans realized that Giuliani has always supported abortion rights.
I haven't seen any data on the subject, but I'd guess that an even higher percentage of the GOP probably doesn’t know that Giuliani supported gay rights and has a record as a thrice-married adulterer, either.
Maybe Republican voters care about this, maybe not. But for every poll that shows the former NYC mayor as the frontrunner, the political world should pause a moment to consider just how many of his supporters appreciate these details -- and how many are likely to hear about them from Giuliani's GOP rivals before voters head to the polls next year.
--Steve Benen
Occasionally, presidential candidates are going to embrace bad, unpopular ideas. That's to be expected, I suppose; no candidate is going to get every issue exactly right.
But Bill Richardson's support for a Balanced Budget Amendment is just bizarre. He not only supports a bad policy, but he brags about it, as if he assumes others are going to agree with him.
Apparently, the New Mexico governor touted his BBA policy at YearlyKos this afternoon.
Oh, man. Bill Richardson just repeated his call for a Balanced Budget Amendment to the constitution. The audience, showing what I think is a pretty impressive level of knowledge of budget policy, erupted in boos. And rightly so. This is a terrible idea. Fortunately, Richardson's not going to be president, but imagine if we'd had such a thing in place during, say, the second world war. I dunno what Richardson thinks he's doing.
Richardson didn't slip up and accidentally mention this today; he frequently plugs his support for a constitutional amendment on this on the stump, and emphasizes his position in interviews.
It's hard to imagine what Richardson hopes to accomplish by endorsing such a remarkably bad idea. Occasionally, deficit spending is absolutely necessary to the health of the economy. Indeed, during a recession or a war, deficits are practically essential.
The BBA is a rather cheap gimmick and an awful policy, which is why the audience was less than receptive today. The sooner Richardson drops the proposal from his repertoire, the better.
--Steve Benen
We've known for quite a while that the political affairs office at the White House conducted partisan, political briefings, despite the Hatch Act's prohibitions on politicking in government buildings with government employees.
In April, we learned there were at least 20 private briefings on GOP electoral prospects before last November's elections, for senior officials in at least 15 government agencies -- all of which are covered by federal restrictions on partisan political activity. In July, the story got slightly worse when we learned the campaign briefings were also given to the Bush administration's top diplomats, several ambassadors, and officials at the State Department and the Peace Corps.
With all of this in mind, Sen. Ted Kennedy (D-Mass.) asked Attorney General Alberto Gonzales last week whether "the leadership of the Department of Justice" had participated in any of these political briefings.
"Not that I'm aware of.... I don't believe so, sir," Gonzales said.
Oops.
Justice Department officials attended at least a dozen political briefings at the White House since 2001, including some meetings led by Karl Rove, President Bush's chief political adviser, and others that were focused on election trends prior to the 2006 midterm contest, according to documents released yesterday.
If political norms still had any meaning, this might be the kind of revelation that would force an Attorney General to resign. After all, a) there's no legitimate reason for Karl Rove to brief DoJ employees on individual congressional races; and b) Gonzales testified that he didn't believe the briefings happened at all.
Of course, political norms lost their meaning a few years ago, so there will probably be no adverse consequences for this whatsoever.
--Steve Benen
A new poll finds that most GOPers -- and less than half of self-described conservatives -- still don't know that Rudy is pro-choice. That and other political news of the day in today's Election Central Saturday Roundup.
--Greg Sargent
Two years ago, Rep. Tom Tancredo (R-Colo.) raised more than a few eyebrows -- here and around the world -- when he publicly suggested bombing Mecca. On a talk show, the host asked Tancredo how the U.S. should respond to a domestic nuclear terrorist attack. "Well, what if you said something like -- if this happens in the United States, and we determine that it is the result of extremist, fundamentalist Muslims, you know, you could take out their holy sites," Tancredo answered.
When the host asked if he was talking about destroying Mecca, Tancredo said, "Yeah."
Not surprisingly, Tancredo's comments were quickly disseminated in the Middle East, where audiences that are already pre-disposed to distrust the West heard that a U.S. lawmaker from the president's political party was talking openly "taking out" the most sacred of Islamic holy sites.
This week, Tancredo's was at it again: "If it is up to me, we are going to explain that an attack on this homeland of that nature would be followed by an attack on the holy sites in Mecca and Medina," the GOP presidential candidate said.
Yesterday, Bay Buchanan, a senior Tancredo adviser, defended the comments, insisting that Tancredo's approach "shows that we mean business."
Tom Casey, a deputy spokesman for the State Department, told CNN that Tancredo's comments were "reprehensible" and "absolutely crazy."
I think it's nice that in these contentious, politically-divisive times, Democrats and Bush administration officials can put aside their differences and agree that Tom Tancredo is a loony.
--Steve Benen
It's been a dispiriting week in Iraq. The largest Sunni Arab bloc quit the Maliki government. Defense Secretary Robert Gates was admittedly discouraged over the lack of political progress in Iraq and conceded the administration "might have misjudged the difficulty of achieving reconciliation between Iraq's sectarian factions." Chairman of the Joint Chiefs nominee Navy Adm. Michael Mullen acknowledged "there does not appear to be much political progress" in Iraq. Asked about success, Mullen added, "[B]ased on the...lack of political reconciliation...I would be concerned about whether we'd be winning or not."
Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, meanwhile, is "increasingly unable to pull the government out of its paralysis," and is frequently "consumed by conspiracy theories." What's more, Maliki, who vowed in November that Iraqi security forces would be fully ready to take control by June 2007, now concedes he suspects U.S. troops may be needed in Iraq for at least another five years.
Even Michael O'Hanlon and Ken Pollack, the right's two new favorite thinkers, have backpedaled away from their controversial New York Times op-ed that had been quickly embraced by the GOP establishment.
With all of this discouraging news coming just within the last several days, it should come as no surprise that William Kristol is now completely convinced that he has the momentum on his side.
For the Iraq war's opponents, July began as a month of hope. It ended in retreat. It began with Democratic unity in proclaiming the inevitability of American defeat. It ended with respected military analysts -- Democrats, no less! -- reporting that the situation on the ground had improved, and that the war might be winnable. It began with a plan for a series of votes in Congress that were supposed to stampede nervous Republicans against the continued prosecution of the war. It ended with the GOP spine stiffened, no antiwar legislation passed, and the Democratic Congress adjourning in disarray, with approval ratings lower than President Bush's.
It takes a special kind of worldview that leads a person to look at one discouraging development after another, and conclude, "Finally, everything's going my way!"
--Steve Benen
Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.) sat down this week with Salon's Walter Shapiro, which was a bit of a surprise, given that the magazine and the senator probably don't agree on too much right now.
Most of Lieberman's comments were about what you'd expect, but one exchange stood out.
JL: I worry that whoever gets the Democratic nomination will have a hard time scampering back to assure people that they're prepared to take on the Islamist extremists and [any] other nation that threatens our security.
WS: Turning to another thing --
JL: They don't use that. You'll have to check it. But they don't use the term "Islamist extremism" or "Islamist terrorism" in the debates.
WS: Are you saying it's "political correctness" on the part of the Democrats?
JL: You've got to acknowledge the problem.
This, of course, is the tack Rudy Giuliani has enthusiastically embraced. It's not enough to support aggressive counter-terrorism measures; for Lieberman and Giuliani, a person's fealty to the cause is based largely on whether he or she is willing to use the words "Islamic" and "terrorism" next to each other.
I'm curious, then, what Lieberman and Giuliani have to say about the Bush White House, which John Dickerson noted this week, also refrains from using the phrase.
Are Bush and Cheney excessively "politically correct" in Lieberman's eyes? And to what extent does he see that as "the problem"?
--Steve Benen
Yglesias at Yearly Kos
TPM alum Matt Yglesias discusses blogger status anxiety and other topics at Yearly Kos ...
--Josh Marshall
It's disappointing, but not surprising. After the president scuttled a compromise between Director of National Intelligence Mike McConnell and congressional Democrats, Senate Dems did what many expected they would do: they caved.
The Senate bowed to White House pressure last night and passed a Republican plan for overhauling the federal government's terrorist surveillance laws, approving changes that would temporarily give U.S. spy agencies expanded power to eavesdrop on foreign suspects without a court order.
The 60 to 28 vote, which was quickly denounced by civil rights and privacy advocates, came after Democrats in the House failed to win support for more modest changes that would have required closer court supervision of government surveillance. The legislation, which is expected to go before the House today, would expand the government's authority to intercept without a court order the phone calls and e-mails of people in the United States who are communicating with people overseas.
Bush is getting practically everything he asked for. Indeed, under Bush's warrantless-search program launched in 2001, the administration could conduct oversight-free surveillance only if it suspected someone on the call was a terrorist. Under the bill passed by the Senate yesterday, that condition no longer exists.
As Gregory Nojeim, senior counsel at the Center for Democracy and Technology, said, "If this bill becomes law, Americans who communicate with a person abroad can count on one thing: The NSA may be listening."
As for the deal struck by Dems and McConnell, the Speaker's office told the Washington Post, "We did everything [McConnell] wants, and now he says he doesn't like the bill. They didn't move the goal post; they moved the stadium."
Harry Reid emphasized that yesterday's measure is temporary, and that the Senate will revisit the issue in six months. That's not exactly reassuring. For one thing, Dems will be just as fearful in February as they are now. For another, that's six months of the administration having largely unchecked surveillance power.
--Steve Benen
Four Great New Interviews from Yearly Kos on TPMtv
Juan Cole of Informed Comment ...
David Sirota , who needs no introduction ...
Peter Leyden of the New Politics Institute ...
Ramona Oliver of Emily's List ...
--Josh Marshall
TPMtv Talks to Wesley Clark
TPM's Andrew Golis interviews ret. Gen. Wesley Clark fresh off his speech at Yearly Kos. Don't miss this. Good stuff ...
--Josh Marshall
Associated Press reports that Obama's terrorism speech sparked burning of American flags in Pakistan. That and other political news of the day in today's Election Central Happy Hour Roundup.
--Greg Sargent
Bush: My Spy Chief is Soft on Terror
Check out the exclusive Spencer Ackerman just posted at TPMmuckraker.com. Contrary to what President Bush said today, Director of National Intelligence Mike McConnell and congressional Democrats were able to work out a compromise today on revising the FISA law. Then President Bush stepped in and overruled his own spy chief.
--Josh Marshall
Top Generals Join Dems in Opposing Troops
From the Chicago Tribune, Rep. Mark Kirk (R-IL) describing his decision to vote with Dems on the non-binding resolution opposing the surge ...
Unlike his two Illinois colleagues and other congressmen opposed by the anti-war group, Kirk has more than a voting record on the conflict in Iraq.As an intelligence officer in the U.S. Navy Reserve, Kirk is the only member of Congress who spends one weekend a month inside the Pentagon, where the day-to-day military operations in Iraq are decided.
"It's an awesome experience because you're with the troops," said Kirk, whose only vote against the war effort came in February when he supported a non-binding bill opposing the recent troop surge in Iraq. "When the proposal for that operation came in, the senior commanders didn't like it, and I sided with them against the president," Kirk said.
--Josh Marshall
Bush in 2008?
A thought: How long a speaking slot does President Bush get at the 2008 RNC Convention? And when in the evening?
--Josh Marshall
Sad
I wouldn't normally link to an RNC web ad. But I will in this case because this RNC hit piece on Yearly Kos is so feeble -- both in concept and execution -- that I find it telling about the current state of the Republican party.
I'm inclined to think it's the kind of thing that damages the GOP more than the intended targets. Most of it is a paean (enabled by Ron Fournier) to the now-thoroughly hollowed out DLC. And I think, at a telling level, it confirms what I wrote earlier.
--Josh Marshall
Scott Thomas Beauchamp
In case you missed it, take a look at the unfolding media story of The New Republic's Scott Thomas Beauchamp diaries.
These were reports from a soldier in the field in Iraq reporting on some of the uglier sides of the US military's footprint on the ground in Iraq. Imagining that every story that doesn't kowtow to the Bush personality cult is another Rathergate in the making, the rightwing blogosphere exploded with a wave of accusations and fabrications, all alleging in one fashion or another that the stories were made up. The charges even got recycled and trumpeted in the Washington Post.
Unfortunately for them, TNR did a in-depth re-fact-check of the pieces (which given the Glass backstory, was, I am sure, extremely thorough) and with the exception of one relatively minor error they all check out.
And it turns out that the Weekly Standard, which did one of the slimiest hatchet-jobs under the byline of Michael Goldfarb, relied in large part on the word of a former porn star-cum-prostitute (who is currently being investigated by the Marine Corps for soliciting private donations to fund a deployment to Iraq he apparently never made) to level its charges that the TNR pieces were fabrications.
No word on whether the Standard does investigations of pieces that have run in their pages. Maybe the Standard's Executive Editor Fred Barnes can enlighten us.
Media Matters has a good wrap up of the whole story here.
--Josh Marshall
What It All Means
E.J.Dionne has a very good column today about Kos, Yearly Kos and seeing all of this in a longer-term context of partisan mobilization and new media. Dionne's point of comparison for Kos is Rush Limbaugh, and while it's easy to blanch at that comparison on its face, I think it's also a very apt one when you judge it in functional terms.
The average age of TPM Readers is actually a bit older than most people think. At 38, I'm probably pretty close to our average reader in age terms. Still, there are a lot of you who don't have a clear recollection of the political mood of the late 80s and early 90s. And even if you were old enough, perhaps you just weren't interested in politics back then.
But all the other differences and parallels aside, the two eras seem very similar to me at the intersection of political mobilization and new media.
Nowadays, of course, 'new media' is the web or even Web 2.0, as it's called. But twenty years ago talk radio was definitely 'new media'. Not a new technology. But very much new media. There was a similar mix of bizarreness and uncanny novelty that a guy with a radio show could be standing toe-to-toe on the national stage with the biggest political players in Washington.
It's important to separate out whatever we think of Limbaugh himself from, functionally, the role he played in the politics of the period, particularly from about 1990 through the middle of the decade. Back then the Democrats seemed pathetically wrong-footed or out of date on all these new ways of mobilizing and connecting with voters. And today the inversion seems pretty near complete. I wouldn't want to compare Limbaugh to Kos or the rest of the progressive blogosphere on substance. But when you set aside Rush's buffoonishness, racism and complete indifference to the truth, there is an important comparison on the level of novel ways of pulling in or at least energizing and empowering whole new political constituencies.
And the essential distinction -- a very encouraing one for the progressive community and the Democratic party -- is that what's happening today is vastly more participatory and distributed, in the most concrete of terms, than anything happening back then.
The key to understanding all this, I think -- and I'll leave this to another post -- is to get a proper handle on the interplay between the media technologies, the wave of organizational fervor that they are both helping to generate and also being sustained by, and the ideological shifts that seem to be sweeping over the body politic.
Like then, I think you can hear the rumbling over the horizon.
--Josh Marshall
TPMtv at Yearly Kos (Dean Speaks)
DNC Chairman Howard Dean gets things rolling in Chicago ...
--Josh Marshall
A new poll finds that the race for Iowa is a three-way dead heat among the top Dem contenders. That and other political news of the day in today's Election Central Morning Roundup.
--Greg Sargent
Today's Must Read
The director of national intelligence makes a counter offer to the Democrats for legislation on the wiretapping program.
--Paul Kiel
What a Mess
According to the Post, the reason for the administration's feverish effort to get legislation to expand its surveillance powers under FISA is that earlier this year a FISA Court judge declared a key portion of the administration's program illegal. The ruling of course was secret. And it seems that until now the White House had kept this information hidden from Congress.
So why are we finding this out now? Well, that's another interesting story. Minority Leader John Boehner (R-OH) went on Fox News Tuesday night and discussed the whole thing. But the very existence of the ruling is highly classified. So it seems he publicly revealed highly classified information.
Needless to say, his flack disagrees: claims that Boehner leaked classified secrets on Fox News are "just plain wrong and distracts from the critical task at hand -- fixing FISA to close the serious intelligence gaps that are jeopardizing our national security."
--Josh Marshall
Bloomberg Cracks Down on TPMtv!
So, if the new regulations Mayor Bloomberg wants go through, we'll have to get a permit to take our little TPMtv video camera out in front of our office to shoot the intro to one of our shows. I guess we'll have to be in-door only from now on. It sounds silly and like it's a joke but it's not. We'd have to get one just like Spielberg if he showed up filming Godzilla 9.
Here's a site where you can find out more and sign a petition to help to stop this silliness.
--Josh Marshall
McJoan on TPMtv
Our intrepid TPMtv video crew lands in Chicago to greet the Orange Satan and talks with McJoan (aka Joan McCarter) of Daily Kos ...
--Josh Marshall
Dem Minnesota Senate candidates Al Franken and Mike Ciresi suspend campaign activity in wake of bridge collapse -- while the RNC continues on with its Minneapolis summer meeting. That and other political news of the day in today's Election Central Happy Hour Roundup.
--Greg Sargent
Over the Wires
Just out from Roll Call (sub.req.) ...
Capitol Police officials have stepped up the department’s security presence on Capitol Hill in response to intelligence indicating the increased possibility of an al-Qaida terrorist attack on Congress sometime between now and Sept. 11.The August-to-Sept. 11 time frame was confirmed by a Capitol Police source who said Congressional security officials were recently made aware of the potential threat by federal anti-terrorism authorities. The Capitol Police department has a liaison from the Homeland Security Department working in its Capitol Hill command center.
On Thursday afternoon, Senate Sergeant-at-Arms Terrance Gainer, who currently serves as chairman of the Capitol Police Board, acknowledged the noticeable increase in Capitol Police presence on the Hill but declined to discuss any specific threat or dates.
--Josh Marshall
Bridge to the 1920s
Just back from his chat with President Bush, Neal Boortz explains how Democrats are "praying" for America's defeat.
--Josh Marshall
MuckNacht?
Sen. Larry Craig (R-ID) says that the tactics the FBI are using against fellow Senator Ted Stevens (R-AK) are "a bit Gestapo-like".
Here's the not completely coherent statement The Politico got from the senator ...
"I think some people say, 'Ah, but for the grace of God go I.' Especially when you have the allegatiatons, you have the judicial segment of our government, the executive branch, out raiding the homes of senators, that is a very frightening propostion. It is a bit Gestapo-like in its style and tactics ... When the FBI was offered a key and invited into the home, they chose publicize it to make sure the media was there first, and they broke in. That is gamesmanship. That makes senators very, very angry when they attempt to cooperate when for reason they are caught in these webs and yet they are denied that for the sake of the jduciary’s publicity. That is wrong.’’
Ahhh, there but for the grace of God goes my house renovated by fatcat CEOs who've now pled guilty to bribing my son and other pols ...
--Josh Marshall
An Anti-Obama Faction?
Does Obama have higher negatives among Democrats than Hillary? That's what a new poll seems to say.
--Josh Marshall
Lotta Muck Under This Rock
Yesterday we noted that a person identified as Sen. Stevens (R-AK) 'bookkeeper' had testified before a federal grand jury investigating Stevens. Later we learned that this 'bookkeeper' was also a senate staffer who was apparently managing Stevens' personal finances.
Now, whenever we get into a situation like this it is always helpful to know not just what the rules are and what is (by whatever standard) appropriate, but also what the common practices are. In this case, I think it's probably not that uncommon for certain congressional staffers to do the occasional task that is probably personal in nature. And I would not be at all surprised if some of the older and long-serving members of the House and Senate are still operating by 'old school' rules in which one or two staffers help the member out a lot with personal stuff. That's not saying it's okay. I think it's just important context. I think if you look at some members that have been there since like the 60s or even 70s you'll probably find some workplace norms that wouldn't stand a lot of scrutiny today.
One other point is worth noting. There are some members who have a staffer who they also pay personally because some of their work bleeds into personal stuff.
So with all that context, let's look at Sen. Stevens and staffer Barbara Flanders. Roll Call has a story on this in today's paper. The reporter doesn't say so explicitly. But the article suggests that not only does Flanders do Stevens' bookkeeping but that she may also not have any actual senate duties. In addition, her job title at the Commerce Committee, 'financial clerk', doesn't exist anywhere else in the senate.
And what else probably won't surprise you, she makes a pretty decent salary -- about a $150,000 per annum.
I don't think it was terribly surprising to people on the hill that Stevens might have a staffer who helped him make sure his bills got paid on time and his check book stayed balanced. But if it's true that Flanders actually had no senate duties, I think that's going to be another real problem for Stevens.
--Josh Marshall
TPM Daily Digest
Would you like to get a daily briefing from TPM every morning, including links to our most popular stories, the latest polls, a list of the coming days political events and more? That's what we send out to about 10,000 TPM Readers every weekday morning in our TPM Daily Digest.
It's free. And we don't sell, share, barter or do anything else with your email address other than send you our Daily Digest.
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If you don't sign up today, you can always sign up in the regular sign up form down below the news headline section on the right side of the site.
--Josh Marshall
Heckuva Job
From Roll Call ...
Sen. Ted Stevens (R-Alaska) has used a Senate employee as his personal bookkeeper but does not appear to have paid her for those services out of his own funds, even as the aide collected more than a quarter-million dollars in federal pay, according to Senate records and the aide’s financial disclosure forms.Barbara Flanders, who has worked for Stevens since at least 2004, has been paid as an employee of the Senate, first as a staff assistant on the Appropriations Committee and in Stevens’ personal office and, since October 2005, as a “financial clerk” on the Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee.
--Josh Marshall
Today's Must Read
Democrats and the administration go back and forth on how to provide oversight of surveillance of suspected terrorists.
--Paul Kiel
A new report details Rudy's politically useful two-decade friendship with Fox News chief Roger Ailes. That and other political news of the day in today's Election Central Morning Roundup.
--Greg Sargent
TPMtv: Alaska Mucktacular!
When you've got three members of your congressional delegation and they're each in the middle of a major public corruption scandal, there's just nothing else to call it but a mucktacular.
In today's episode of TPMtv we bring you the latest on the scandals of Stevens, Young and Murkowski -- special house raid and mink attack included! ...
--Josh Marshall
House progressives sink Jack Murtha's plan for Iraq pullout because it lacks a "date certain" for completion of withdrawal. That and other political news of the day in today's Election Central Happy Hour Roundup.
--Greg Sargent
Run It By Alberto
Just to make you feel better, the White House plan to 'reform' FISA takes the oversight for domestic surveillance away from the FISA court and gives it to the highly trustworthy Alberto Gonzales.
Here's Sen. Leahy's response ...
Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy has been working closely with Intelligence Committee Chairman Jay Rockefeller, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and other Democratic House and Senate members to develop a responsible, targeted reform to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) that would address an immediate need with our nation’s foreign intelligence collection. Below is Chairman Leahy’s comment on the reform.
Comment of Senator Patrick Leahy, D-Vt.,
Chairman, Senate Judiciary Committee
On FISA Fix Proposal
August 1, 2007“The Congress is willing and able to responsibly reform FISA when changes are needed, and now is such a time. In the last decade alone, Congress has amended FISA on many occasions, and I believe we should make this targeted and responsible fix now. The reform we have proposed to the Administration will improve the government’s ability to collect intelligence, while protecting the civil liberties of Americans by maintaining oversight of the FISA Court when calls to or from the United States are involved. The Administration, instead, would shift this oversight role and additional authority away from the expert FISA Court to the Attorney General. It is essential to preserve the crucial role of the FISA Court in protecting civil liberties of Americans while providing our intelligence agencies the flexibility they need. It is not wise to expand the authority of this Attorney General – or any Attorney General – in this regard. I urge the Administration to support this reasonable solution that ensures checks and balances while strengthening our national security.”
--Josh Marshall
Vitter Gets a Whack
Not a happy development for Sen. Vitter (R-LA). According to DC's WTOP, the escort whom DC Madame Deborah Palfrey calls "a favorite of Mr. Vitter's" is scheduled to testify as a prosecution witness at Palfrey's trial.
--Josh Marshall
Vitter Takes a Whack
Today the president threatened to veto the $21 billion reauthorization of the Water Resources Development Act, which among other things would spend billions of dollars to improve hurricane protection along the Gulf Coast.
This provided an opportunity for semi-disgraced Sen. David Vitter (R-LA) to pop his head up to take a whack at the President Bush ...
"I am stunned by the President's WRDA veto threat. And I have one basic response - I will enthusiastically work to override his veto," said Sen. David Vitter, R-La., in an unusually harsh rebuke to the leader of his own party. "Considering the well-publicized criticism of the way the administration handled this (Hurricane Katrina) disaster, I'm stunned. I'm afraid the promise the president made to the nation in Jackson Square comes across as hollow today."
--Josh Marshall
Confusion? Not So Much.
The most recent controversy about Alberto Gonzales telling lies centers on the apparent contradiction between his sworn testimony and that of FBI Director Robert Mueller. Gonzales and his partisans appear to be basing their defense of the AG on the notion that there's a narrow, semantical distinction about what constitutes the 'terrorist surveillance program' that gets him off the hook for perjury. And there's even some lingering question about whether Mueller really said what he appeared to say in his congressional testimony.
Maybe we're over-interpreting what said or perhaps the strictures of classification made him speak at a level of generality that has confused people about whether he was really contradicting his nominal boss.
Indeed, Gonzales' flack at the Justice Department is making exactly this claim. "Confusion is inevitable" when public officials discuss highly classified programs, DOJ spokesman Brian Roehrkasse told reporters.
But folks at the FBI seem to be saying, no. No confusion.
This little snippet comes from a piece that ran in Monday's New York Daily News ...
Justice spokesman Brian Roehrkasse said "confusion is inevitable" when officials discuss classified activities in public.FBI officials bristled at that.
"If you read the [FBI] director's testimony, it is anything but confusing," said a top Mueller ally at the FBI.
In other words, the folks around Mueller seem pretty clear: Gonzales perjured himself.
--Josh Marshall
Obama giving big counterterrorism speech today in Washington. That and other political news of the day in today's Election Central Morning Roundup.
Late Update: The full speech and some analysis of it is right here.
--Greg Sargent
Today's Must Read
Parsing the director of national intelligence's "weasel words" on Alberto Gonzales' testimony.
--Paul Kiel
TPMtv, Dick Cheney: Lying Liar Edition
One thing we learned last night is that not only is Dick Cheney a big liar, he's also probably lousy at poker. Because the guy has a classic tell. If you watch when he lies to Larry King, he can't make eye contact. Once you know what to look for it's really jarring and obvious.
In today's episode of TPMtv, we give you all the key highlights of last night's fibfest on Larry King Live (special bonus no-eye-contact moment comes toward the end) ...
--Josh Marshall
Murkowski Comes out in Defense of Stevens
Statement released by Sen. Murkowski (R-AK) ...
“Senator Stevens has served his country and the State of Alaska with distinction for over 60 years. With the current investigation underway, it is not appropriate to jump to conclusions until the process is complete. Senator Stevens has the right to have the facts established in this matter.”
--Josh Marshall
Rotten to the Core
Just out from the Post ...
The night before the government secured a guilty plea from the manufacturer of the addictive painkiller OxyContin, a senior Justice Department official called the U.S. attorney handling the case and, at the behest of an executive for the drugmaker, urged him to slow down, the prosecutor told the Senate Judiciary Committee yesterday.John L. Brownlee, the U.S. attorney in Roanoke, testified that he was at home the evening of Oct. 24 when he received the call on his cellphone from Michael J. Elston, then chief of staff to the deputy attorney general and one of the Justice aides involved in the removal of nine U.S. attorneys last year.
Brownlee settled the case anyway. Eight days later, his name appeared on a list compiled by Elston of prosecutors that officials had suggested be fired.
What will Rush Limbaugh say?
--Josh Marshall
Timesmen crib TPMmuckraker
You learn something new every day.
The Murkowski land deal story just appeared in Wednesday's Times as though by Virgin Birth. They don't seem to realize that TPMmuckraker broke this story about two weeks ago.
What's weird is that the Times reporters were apparently listening to the same Anchorage talk radio station interview Laura McGann was listening to in which Murkowski's husband, Verne Martell, admitted that Lisa Murkowski thought the deal might "come back to bite us."
Ms. Murkowski, who was appointed to the Senate in 2002 by her father, Frank Murkowski, a former senator who was then governor, was apparently aware that the land deal might draw unwelcome scrutiny. Her husband, Verne Martell, said two weeks ago in a radio interview in Alaska that “when we signed the loan, Lisa signed on it and said, ‘This might come back to bite us.’ ”
That's uncanny because that's the passage of the interview Laura transcribed in this July 23rd post.
To the folks at the Grey Lady, all we can say is, We're Glad We Could Be of Assistance.
--Josh Marshall
Better Days, Better Days
President and Mrs. Bush welcome Sen. Stevens (R-AK) and his wife for a dinner in Stevens' honor at the White House, May 23rd, 2007.
--Josh Marshall
Rock the Casbah
Tancredo: Threat to blow up Muslim holy sites in Mecca and Medina is best deterrent against terrorism.
--Josh Marshall
Cheney Lied to Me and All I Got Was This Lousy T-Shirt
This is classic. In the interview to run tonight, Larry King asked Dick Cheney whether he ordered the Ashcroft hospital room visit. Cheney's answer: "no recollection."
But the priceless bit is Larry's commentary from this afternoon on CNN, which I interpreted as 'Cheney lied to me and wasn't even very good at it.'
Take a look ...
--Josh Marshall
In potential blow to Edwards, Big Labor may not make an endorsement in the Dem Presidential primary. That and other political news of the day in today's Election Central Happy Hour Roundup.
--Greg Sargent
Tubular!
As we're reporting over at TPMmuckraker.com, a Commerce committee clerk who helps keep Sen. Stevens' personal financial affairs in order has testified before the grand jury investigating Stevens' ties to VECO corporation, the oil services outfit that helped him out renovating his pad back in Alaska.
But why does a senate staffer help a senator pay his personal bills exactly?
The AP seemed to have a similar question ...
Flanders is a longtime aide who helps ensure that Stevens' bills are paid and his personals affairs are in order, the attorney said. She was questioned about the improvement project and how the bills were paid.Reached by telephone Tuesday, Flanders would not discuss her testimony or describe her duties involving Stevens' personal accounts.
"I work for the Commerce Committee," she said. "I don't have any comment on any other issues."
At first I thought that they were saying that Flanders helped make sure Stevens' senate disclosure filings were in order. But here it sounds much more like she acts as his personal bookkeeper. Anyone up on the Hill want to drop us a line about how common this is? Or if you know anything more about it?
I think I recall that there are some senate staffers who are paid a portion of their salaries from the government payroll and some other portion by the member personally. But my recollection on that is hazy and I may misremembering that entirely.
Anyway, if you can add more to this, drop us a line.
--Josh Marshall