Not a word

Does W ever speak a word that's not a lie?

Hack Pack

Nedra Pickler strikes again. Maybe she's trying out for The Politico.

The emerging GOP minority

Tick, tick, tick

Why they did it

McClatchy:

Last April, while the Justice Department and the White House were planning the firings, Rove gave a speech in Washington to the Republican National Lawyers Association. He ticked off 11 states that he said could be pivotal in 2008. Bush has appointed new U.S. attorneys in nine of them since 2005: Florida, Colorado, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Iowa, Arkansas, Michigan, Nevada and New Mexico. U.S. attorneys in the latter four were among those fired.
Rove thanked the audience for "all that you are doing in those hot spots around the country to ensure that the integrity of the ballot is protected." He added, "A lot in American politics is up for grabs."
... Despite the GOP concerns, Bud Cummins, the Republican-appointed U.S. attorney in Arkansas who was fired, said he had "serious doubts" that any U.S. attorney was failing to aggressively pursue voter fraud.
"What they're responding to is party chairmen and activists who from the beginning of time go around paranoid that the other party is stealing the election," Cummins said. "It sounds like to me that they were merely responding to a lot of general carping from the party, who had higher expectations once the Republican appointees filled these posts that there would be a lot of voting fraud investigations.
"Their expectations were unrealistic."

It's only paranoia in the case of the GOP. They know they can only win by cheating

Rovian theory

Froomkin:

Rovian theory suggests the following: The eight U.S. attorneys were fired not only to purge the Justice Department of some prosecutors who were insufficiently willing to use the power of their offices to attack Democrats and protect Republicans -- but also to install favored people who wouldn't have such scruples. And, thanks to a provision snuck into law by a Bush administration henchman (who has since been granted a job as -- you guessed it -- a U.S. attorney) there would be none of those pesky safeguards to prevent those jobs going to unqualified hacks.

People are connecting the dots.

Griles

Crooked:

WASHINGTON (AP) - Former Deputy Interior Secretary Steven Griles has decided to plead guilty to one count of obstruction of justice in the Jack Abramoff corruption investigation, The Associated Press has learned.
Griles, an oil and gas lobbyist who became an architect of President Bush's energy policies while at the Interior Department between July 2001 and July 2005, is the highest ranking Bush administration official implicated in the Washington lobbying scandal.

Highest ranking, so far.

Something's missing

In a 3,000-page document dump, there's an 18-day gap right before the U.S. attorneys were fired. Did they think no one would notice?

Predictable

Atrios:

My bet is that this will be one of his "stamp my feet and declare I'm the decider" speeches, one of the mini-tantrums he confuses with leadership.

Yep.

Movement conservatism has failed

The NYT gets it

Editorial:

In its fumbling attempts to explain the purge of United States attorneys, the Bush administration has argued that the fired prosecutors were not aggressive enough about addressing voter fraud. It is a phony argument; there is no evidence that any of them ignored real instances of voter fraud. But more than that, it is a window on what may be a major reason for some of the firings.
In partisan Republican circles, the pursuit of voter fraud is code for suppressing the votes of minorities and poor people. By resisting pressure to crack down on "fraud," the fired United States attorneys actually appear to have been standing up for the integrity of the election system.
... There is no evidence of rampant voter fraud in this country. Rather, Republicans under Mr. Bush have used such allegations as an excuse to suppress the votes of Democratic-leaning groups.
... Missouri Republicans have long charged that St. Louis voters, by which they mean black voters, registered as living on vacant lots. But when The St. Louis Post-Dispatch checked, it found that thousands of people lived in buildings on lots that the city had erroneously classified as vacant.

They want to use the law enforcement apparatus -- among other forms of cheating -- to win elections. Why would voters want to be governed by dishonest people?

Smile

Anne Schroeder:

Meanwhile, today on the Hill, Rep. Jean Schmidt (R-Ohio) was scene making a spectacle of herself when the unlucky lawmaker slipped and fell in what we're told was vomit, in a bathroom in Cannon.(Someone nice female dealing with the repercussions of Jason Roe's going away party by chance?) "She made THE biggest scene in the hallway," says a staffer who escaped the, um, regurgitation. "It's literally all down her back."

via Atrios.

Shrum

Dear Dems:
Don't hire this moron again.

On the move

To On the Rocks. Same time, new place.

Etiquette

Maryscott O'Connor, of all people, lectures Atrios.

Gonzo

Presser in one hour. Maybe he'll resign.

Abu Gonzales is in trouble

Accountability's a bitch.

Duh

Mort Kondracke:

"If Fox was embarrassingly right wing or something like that, it would be plain for all to see."

What were they thinking?

In any case, they came to their senses.

Most wonderful time of the year

College basketball tourneys -- especially the SEC (until the Hogs lose). Tennessee/LSU was a glimpse of madness to come.

The U.S. attorney purge

Josh & Co. are all over this ongoing story.

This would be a major pain in the ass

Arkansas House:

HB 2456, Berry -- To prevent identity theft and to require photograph identification for credit card transactions.

Libby

Guilty:

WASHINGTON (AP) - Former White House aide I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby was convicted Tuesday of obstruction, perjury and lying to the FBI in an investigation into the leak of CIA operative Valerie Plame's identity to reporters. Libby, former chief of staff to Vice President Dick Cheney, was acquitted on just one of five charges after a trial that focused renewed attention on the Bush administration's claims of evidence about weapons of mass destruction in the run-up to the Iraq war.

The pardon is probably only awaiting W's signature.

Some of the people all of the time

These wankers' heads will explode if Hillary is elected president.

Browser cache cleared

That took a while.
Next: More file cleanup necessary.

Wow

McClatchy kicks ass.

Something new every day

In Sidney Blumenthal's latest in Salon, he writes, referring to Waziristan:

Taliban and al-Qaida flags fly side by side throughout the region.

Huh? Al-Qaida has a flag? Turns out, it does. The Taliban's is here.