A Solo Dialogue
THIS IS A GOOD START -
Justice Launches Criminal Investigation Into Leak
The Associated Press
Tuesday, September 30, 2003; 9:20 AM
WASHINGTON -- The Justice Department launched a full-blown criminal investigation into who leaked the name of a CIA officer, and President Bush directed his White House staff on Tuesday to cooperate fully.
The White House staff was notified of the investigation by e-mail after the Justice Department decided late Monday to move from a preliminary investigation into a full probe.
The White House staff was directed to preserve all materials that might be related to the investigation, said presidential spokesman Scott McClellan. Presumably that would include telephone logs, e-mails, notes and other documents.
"The president has directed the White House to cooperate fully with this investigation," McClellan told reporters. "The president wants to get to the bottom of this."
Senior staff members were told of the investigation at their morning staff meeting, and then White House counsel Alberto Gonzales sent an e-mail to all the staff notifying them of the probe.
Even before the Justice Department investigation was announced, Democrats were calling for the appointment of a special counsel to insure impartiality. McClellan said the decision rests with the Justice Department.
The department notified Gonzales about 8:30 p.m. Monday that it was launching an investigation but said he could wait until the next morning to notify staff and direct them to preserve relevant material, McClellan said.
The investigation stems from a CIA complaint two months ago that one of its agent's identities had been disclosed. Justice gets about 50 such complaints from the CIA each year about the leak of classified information and very few of them ever get beyond a preliminary investigation.
43.6 MILLION WITHOUT HEALTH INSURANCE -
The Washington Post has the details
here. According to the story 15.2 percent of Americans were uninsured last year. That number should be simply unacceptable to most Americans. But I think the storyline that scares most people is that “[f]or the second year in a row, the proportion of people who received insurance through an employer fell, from 62.6 percent in 2001 to 61.3 percent last year. Cost appeared to be the primary reason for the decline.”
This is the hidden story that might propel Howard Dean beyond his "Vermont Liberal" label and allow him to play up the "effective Governor" angle. He has a track record of providing health care to the citizens of Vermont. I don't know all the details, but from what I've heard it has been pretty successful, and displeased both liberals and conservatives in its scope. Remember it wasn't just “the economy” that Clinton won on in 1992, but health care as well.
The rising number of uninsured is a predictable outcome of a soft economy, but it has an emotional affect on a number of voters, especially when the number of employers providing insurance continues to fall. Plus it reminds voters of their overall dissatisfaction with the health care system. Even more so than the economy, which most voters think government can affect only on the edges, I predict health insurance will be a, maybe THE, big issue next year.
A COUPLE OF MILESTONE NUMBERS -
First, last night we had the 1,000th unique visit to the site (according to Site Meter). A number of recent visitors have been from overseas, as well as, Yale, MIT and New Mexico State.
Second, my $1,000, Ebay bought, 1989 Volvo went over 250,000 miles this morning. Yeah, the gas gauge doesn't work, there is a high pitch whine every time you turn on the heat, and it has been known to just stop, but a Quarter Million miles, that is pretty impressive.
NOVAK SPEAKS -
This comment has been attributed to Bob Novak (I haven't heard him say it, but it appears in enough places to assume that it may be true):
'In July I was interviewing a senior administration official on Ambassador Wilson's report when he told the trip was inspired by his wife, a CIA employee working on weapons of mass destruction. Another senior official told me the same thing. As a professional journalist with 46 years experience in Washington I do not reveal confidential sources. When I called the CIA in July to confirm Mrs. Wilson's involvement in the mission for her husband -- he is a former Clinton administration official -- they asked me not to use her name, but never indicated it would endanger her or anybody else. According to a confidential source at the CIA, Mrs. Wilson was an analyst, not a spy, not a covert operator, and not in charge of an undercover operatives'
This still doesn't answer my questions as to why the WH hasn't responded with greater forthrightness. A
prima facia crime was committed by someone high up in the administration, now maybe there are facts that will exculpate this person (or persons), but to me the proper response is to call everyone to the table and demand answers.
This saga reinforces my belief that loyalty to the President is the factor that trumphs everything else in this administration. In theory that is nice, but it creates troubling situations in practice, when it overwhelms performance or little things like THE LAW.
I don't know where else this will lead, but my guess it is not simply a three or four day story.
My unsolicited advice to Junior is still the same, cover-ups kill. Find who gave Novak the story, make it public, fire the person. It might even reinforce that public's fading belief that you are willing to sacrifice your own public standing to do the right thing. So not only is it the right thing to do; it can even be spun to your overall political advantage.
QUESTIONS FROM THE NOTE FOR THE WH -
From today's The Note (ABC News Political):
Has President Bush made clear to the White House staff that only total cooperation with the investigation will be tolerated? If not, why not?
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?
Has Bush required that all sign a letter relinquishing journalists from protecting those two sources? Has Bush said that those involved in this crime will be immediately fired? If not, why not?
Has Albert Gonzalez distributed a letter to White House employees telling them to preserve documents, logs, records? If not, why not?
Has Andy Card named someone on his staff to organize compliance? If not, why not?
Good questions all. They added:
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.
There is blood in the water, lets see how quickly the vaunted Rove team move to quash this.
THEY NEVER LEARN -
You would think that the first lesson that they would teach incoming White House residents, and staffers, is that it is never the crime that kills you, it is the cover-up. Especially with the current White House, filled as it is with experienced political and governmental hands, you would expect that they would recognize that confronting an oncoming scandal is going to be less damaging that dodging it. However, you would be wrong.
In case you missed it this past weekend, this
July 14 Robert Novak column is turning out to be quite a headache for the Bush team, because it pretty clearly lays out that someone high up in the White House or the administration broke the law.
In the article, Novak identifies the wife of Ambassador Joe Wilson. (In case you have forgotten, Ambassador Wilson was the person the administration set to Niger to investigate intelligence reports about Iraqi attempts to get enriched uranium. Wilson reported that there was no basis to these reports. He also later was a vocal critic of the Bush administration's attempts to tie the Niger connection as a reason for the invasion of Iraq.) Wilson's wife, Valerie Plame, is identified by Novak as an undercover specialist for the CIA. According to the column, that infromation was provided to him by "two senior administration officials", journalistic code words for someone of cabinet level, or near cabinet level, importance.
The problem with this, of course, is that providing that information violates the law, specifically you cannot reveal the identity of an undercover operative for the CIA, it is a felony. At the time, this created a stir among certain circles, but remained below the radar. But on Friday, the CIA asked the Justice Department to launch an investigation, and the dam was breached. The Washington Post on Sunday quoted an unidentified "senior administration official" as saying two top White House officials called at least a half-dozen journalists and revealed the identity and occupation of Wilson's wife.
A quick
Google search shows that this story is getting substantial coverage from local news. It also brings back into focus the whole Iraq-Niger question, which, I am sure, the White House thought was behind them. That controversy is a little harder to follow, this one is easier. Someone in the administration purposefully blew the cover of a CIA operative.
I would advise the White House to move quickly, and jettison whoever needs to be sacrificed, but so far that does not seem to be the plan. According to today's Washington Post, "aides said Bush has no plans to ask his staff members whether they played a role in revealing the name of an undercover officer ... Asked about the possibility of an internal White House investigation, McClellan said, "I'm not aware of any information that has come to our attention beyond the anonymous media sources to suggest there's anything to White House involvement."
For a President who is seeing his trust level diminishing by the day, it is better to take whatever hit would be coming now, than to wait. But that is just the political reason. The better reason is that someone who is willing to risk the lives of people who are helping the U.S. should not be on the government payroll, no matter how much they may be loyal to the current occupant of the Oval Office.
CORRECTION -
I misidentified Representative Jim Marshall as a Republican
in an earlier entry, when in fact he is a Democrat. I apologize for the mistake, but this does not change my opinion about his poorly written op-ed, or its ludicrous thesis.
HILLARY MANIA -
I've tried to ignore it; I've tried to ignore it; I've pretended it didn't exist; but I can no longer deny reality.
Hillary will run for President in 2004 . . .
if Republican political operatives chose the nominee.
But they can't, so she won't.
The theories about HRC running in '04 are coming from
Bill Safire,
Carl Crawford,
Dick Morris,
the Washington Times, Rudy Gulliani, apparently the entire staff of the National Review and, of course, my own favorite conservative. The common thread that ties all of these sources together is that not a single one of them will be voting in a Democratic Primary.
Republicans love the Hillary Theory because it confirms what they firmly believe about her and about Democrats -- that she is a power hungry bitch, and that Democrats besides having no core principles or beliefs do not care about lying.
There is little enthusiasm about a HRC run on the Democratic side, except as an alternative to what is out there right now. Most Democrats recognize that a run by her in 2004 would be disastrous. Voters are always dissatisfied with their choices at this point in an electoral cycle, even though they have not really look at them very hard. That is why Wes Clark is doing well. The polling numbers about her support in the Democratic primary are as meaningless as the poll numbers that have Clark beating Bush.
One of the things I always liked about Hillary was their ability to drive conservatives toward frothing incoherent madness. Nice to see she hasn't lost that magic touch.
She is not running.
And I will take whatever bets anyone would like to place on it.
METROSEXUAL -
Are you a Metrosexual?
Take the quiz.
RIDICULOUS -
I don't know anything about Rep. Jim Marshall (R-GA), but
this op-ed about his recent trip to Iraq does not reflect well on him. He buries, and then doesn't support his thesis, that the media is responsible for the death of American soldiers in Iraq. It is stupid on so many levels that there simply is not time to go into them now. But, if you are going to make such outrageous charges, at least provide a little backing for your opinion.
I know that conservatives simply accept that THE MEDIA is big, bad and liberal, but I just don't get how THE MEDIA bares the blame for any American deaths, and Rep. Marshall, beyond making his blanket allegations, has not provided any enlightenment to my mystification.
USA TODAY/CNN/GALLUP POLL -
You can read the story
here. The headlines deal with Wesley Clark, but the more amazing number is that John Kerry is now out polling President Bush in a head to head match-up. After a real down summer, this has to pick up some faces in Boston.
REDISTRICTING REFORM IN CA? -
Schwarzenegger said that he would try to calm the intensely partisan atmosphere in California by seeking an amendment to the state constitution that would transfer the redrawing of political districts away from the legislature and to a panel of randomly chosen retired judges. "This is my plan to clean up Sacramento," he said.
It would be a great start, maybe he can run for governor of Texas next.
WAR WITH FRANCE? -
Tom Friedman has decided that we are at war with France (or that France may be at war with us, or, at least, wish us poorly.) I will not defend France's actions, but we must accept our fair share of the blame. We cannot control another country’s stupid actions, but we can control ours.
We have acted as the bully. We have taken every opportunity to tell other countries what they should do, but have put our fingers in our ears anytime anyone else has done the same. In short, we have not exerted leadership.
Leadership means listening to your underlings. Leadership means listening to their criticisms and to their ideas, because you recognize that you do not have a monopoly on either. True leaders get people (or countries) to do things that they are not inclined to do and is willing to allow credit to go to others instead of themselves.
It is amusing to me that George W. Bush is considered by the American public to be a strong leader, because any objective analysis of both his domestic and foreign policies would show that his attempts at leadership have been a complete failure.
It is easy to confuse success with leadership. Junior has seen success. He rammed his tax cuts through Congress and he presided over successful wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. But he has not led. He has exerted power, and when you are the most powerful that means you will win. But the US cannot "win" the world. We cannot "win" a safer world. We can, however, help create a safer world. (The key word in that sentance is "help,” sometimes even the biggest and strongest needs help.)
True world leadership is required in our current times. This leadership means that sometimes we will have to compromise, sometimes we will have to take a back seat to another country, and it also means that sometimes we will have to act unilaterally, but that afterwards we will need to go back to our friends and explain our actions, and ask for their continued help. The US could have done exactly what we have done in the last two years, but a different tone would have changed how those actions were perceived and how our future actions will be viewed.
Our country is the shining beacon of freedom; we are the most successful nation in the history of the world. Being more humble won’t change any of that. A true leader would understand that.
WES CLARK IN OR OUT? -
Wes Clark spokesman Mark Fabiani told the Associated Press, "He's made his decision and will announce it tomorrow in Little Rock."
9TH CIRCUIT DECISION -
You can read it for yourself
here.
It has a nice history of the punch card ballot, and its many problems and gives a couple reasons for its controversial ruling. But most significantly, this decisions cites
Bush v. Gore as precedence for its decision, saying that the
Bush case gives the Federal courts the ability to look at this state matter. This court is saying that what
Bush v. Gore did is allow the Federal judiciary to investigate, and judge, the voting practices and methods of the states.
In a rational world, the Ninth Circuit would have no business telling California how it must conduct its elections. The proper response is to defer the question to the California Supreme Court, which has already ruled that the election can go forward. But because the Supreme Court opened the door in
Bush, the Ninth Circuit, which is clearly the most liberal of the Circuit Courts, has pushed through that opening and, in effect, federalized a state election.
The interesting question is what the Supreme Court does now. Ideologically, they are most likely to overrule and allow the election to go forward in October. But to do that they will have to, at least partially, repudiate their decision in
Bush. And that will make the
Bush decision look even more politically motivated than it already does. It won't have much, if any, effect on the politics of today (besides pissing off some Democrats even more), but it will certainly be a major black spot in the eyes of history, and Supreme Court Justices always have one eye on history.
Time is of the essence here. California cannot go a week or longer without knowing if the election will be in October or in March, so events will move quickly. My guess is that the election goes forward in October, but that the Supremes will not enjoy the mess that exists. But as your Mom always told you, if you make a mess, you have to clean it up.
RECALL ON HOLD -
Apparently the October California recall elections has been delayed by the U.S. Court of Appeals. More details to come.
WASH POST POLL -
Line 1 of this
Washington Post/ABC poll looks better for Junior (approval at 58%, up 2%), but the details of the poll will cause some heartache for Karl Rove and Co. According to this latest poll Junior has better approval than disapproval in the specifics areas of Iraq, the environment, education, homeland security, terrorism, international affairs, military spending, gun control, abortion, campaign finance reform. That looks pretty good in the abstract, but Democratic attacks will drive down his numbers for everything but homeland security, military spending, and maybe abortion.
It may not be 1992 again, but in the end jobs will be key. More have been lost than created and unless he can convince the voters that he has a plan to get them back, he will lose.
ISABEL-
There appear to be at least 2 or 3 computer models that have it bearing right down on the NYC area. I'm buying tape tomorrow.
GREGG EASTERBROOK -
He has a new blog on The New Republic website, I am sure it will be a must read every day. (A link to it has been provided to it on the right.) He is also looking for possible names, although I think "Name that Blog" is pretty good in its own right.
GO SAWKS-
Tom Boswell is one of the best baseball writers around, but I am worried that either he is giving away the Red Sox secret this year, or that
during a trip to New England he drank the Kool-Aid.
Either way hope springs eternal among the faithful-- GO SOX!
WMDs? -
The furor over their mysterious disappearance does seem to have died down a bit. (See
this Washington Post story about the different message the administration is now sending over why we went to Iraq in the first place.) However, I think that unless the President forthrightly addresses this issue at some point it will come back to haunt him, not just among Democrats, who don't trust him anyway, but among Independents and moderate Republicans. One of the primary reasons that Junior is President today is that he made enough people believe that Al Gore had a problem with the truth, and that conversely, he was an honest guy. This same honesty issue will show up against him in 2004.
He could inoculate himself, at least partially, by coming out and admitting that the administration and the intelligence community were mistaken, but that it was an honest mistake made by a number of countries (and the Clinton Administration) and one that Saddam had continual opportunities to correct. (You can occasionally hear the faint outlines of this admission by some non-administration neo-cons) He would take an initial political hit for this admission, but it wouldn't be fatal, and would even be helpful in some circles, because people want to believe this guy. He has an almost unprecedented reservoir of support for him, and if he were to lose in 2004 it will be because he used this support for limited ideological issues (tax cuts, war in Iraq) rather than issues that concern the nation as a whole (economy, education, health care).
The WMDs were always the second weakest of the arguments for going into Iraq (the weakest being that Iraq had something to do with 9/11, which the administration has never explicitly made, but hasn't done much to dispel either.) Admitting that we wrong about the WMDs would be an unprecedented act for an administration that never admits it did anything wrong. But if it could be done soon, and handled correctly, it would restore some of his reservoir of support and certainly help Junior in 2004.
LOCAL NEW COVERAGE-
I made the local paper on Monday for
this important story.
MIGUEL ESTRADA -
Let me strongly recommend
Lawrence Solum's blog for its thorough and non-partisan epilogue to the Miguel Estrada affair.
The results of this new found power of the minority are threefold: 1) future judicial nominations on the extreme of either ideology will be in trouble; 2) ideology is now on the table as a legit reason for voting for or against a nominee; and 3) nominees will be expected to honestly answer questions about more controversial topics -- for example, no one can realistically believe that Miguel Estrada, who is clearly an intelligent legal scholar and has lived in Washington for at least 10 year, never formed an opinion on Roe v. Wade. None of these are bad, as far as I am concerned.
NEW ZOGBY NUMBERS -
The
latest Zogby Poll is certainly bad news for the President; his re-elect number is down to 40%, with 47% voting for a generic Democrat. Junior's approval is at 45%, with 54% disapproval. (In August the numbers were 52% positive, 48% negative.)
As always, looking at any one poll is a problem, because the poll could be an aberration. (Zogby always has numbers which are more dramatic than other polls) Additionally, polls can be either leading or trailing indicators, but there are a couple reasons why this polling data will cause a great deal of agita at the White House.
First, this poll was taken between September 3rd and 5th, after the Labor Day holiday, which means more people are home to answer pollsters phone calls, and people have begun to focus on "real life", as opposed to "summer life." So things like Iraq, gas prices, jobs, and Democratic presidential candidates actually make an impact on the public’s thinking.
Second, having a re-elect number at 40% is a real danger indicator. Traditionally, an incumbent at, or under, 50% is viewed as vulnerable. Today, the country is 50/50, so having 50% might be okay, but 40% is not. 40% means that you are getting the GOP vote, and not much else.
To me, the most interesting number is that 63% of likely Democratic primary voters said it is somewhat or very likely that President Bush will be re-elected in November 2004, regardless of how they intend to vote. These numbers reflect the easy to feel the discouragement among Democrats; the feeling that Junior has been very bad for the country (and the world), but that his re-election is almost a given at this point.
This feeling, reflected by the 63%, has resulted in a lethargic Democratic Party that is going through the motions. Democratic voters may know intellectually that Junior is vulnerable, but they don’t have that gut feeling and, with the exception of Howard Dean's insurgency, the Party has been pretty passionless. But if the loyalists begin to feel that the country is coming around to their way of thinking, the energy level will begin to grow. And as the Democratic energy and enthusiasm grow (and presumably, the GOP’s shrink) the press coverage, which has been remarkable pro-inevitable reelection, will begin to shift.
Junior still has the money, still has the almost fanatical devotion among GOPers (although I have begun to notice some below the radar cracks, including some questioning by my favorite right-winger), has the power if the incumbency, and the country is still 50/50, so he holds lots of good cards. But if his “inevitability” cracks, he will have lost his most significant advantage.
(The week after Labor Day is hellish for school kids and lawyers, so I was pretty light last week. I’ll try to make it up this week with some comments on Alabama politics, and why it is bad for Junior, and disgraceful for liberals; the California recall, and why it is bad for Junior; and the Democratic primary, which hasn’t been bad for Junior.)
"
Fox attacks girl in her bedroom" - I think she should have just changed the channel.
