Last September I wrote about Julie Myers, another abominably bad crony appointment from the Bush administrationto head the US Immigration and Customs Agency, part of the Department of Homeland Security.

Now that Congress is in recess...

Read the rest here

The meeting of the living secretaries of defence and state was an exercise that baffled me. No one could expect any real consultation to occur in the forum, and the photo op itself appears to be meaningless at best, cynical at worst.

If someone would have asked me what the reaction would be to the meeting, I could have predicted that the left and their media lapdogs would declare it "too little, too late". Conservatives on the other hand would simply wonder what the point was--are we upset that the Bush administration didn't consult with Madeline Albright or Warren Christopher?

Actually we all thought that was an extremely positive development.

Of course, there is that large, amorphous, barely-conscious middle in the American electorate who will have paid about five seconds attention to the whole matter, but what impression did a group photo of these illustrious gentlemen (and one woman) leave?

Well, I asked, and frankly, no one I talked to really knew what to make of it.

This is something I would expect to be coming out of Karl Rove's office, but it reeks of young, preening, energetic but clueless interns who would have been fired on The Apprentice. I hope this just means Rove was on vacation.

The Bush Administration continues to try to distance itself from the odor of the Abramoff scandal. The following tidbit from Time's recent cover story is amusing:

Even before DeLay's announcement that he would abdicate his leadership post, top Bush advisers tell TIME, the President's inner circle always treated DeLay as a necessary burden. He may have had an unmatched grip on the House and Washington lobbyists, but DeLay is not the kind of guy--in background and temperament--the President feels comfortable with. Of the former exterminator, a Republican close to the President's inner circle says, "They have always seen him as beneath them, more blue collar. He's seen as a useful servant, not someone you would want to vacation with."

Hm... The Bushies view blue collar types as beneath them, and as useful servants? That doesn't sound like a very warm and fuzzy way to relate to what constitutes a lot of their core voters. Their blue blood heritage is shining through.

Matthew Cowley at The Plank snarks:

Gotta love the Bush family! "It's a pity, but we've had to let the butler go. Caught the fellow pinching from the silver drawer, don't you know. He never did strike us as a fully upright sort anyway. Right, ho!"

Shakespeare's Sister

Bush may be the president a thin majority of Americans would most like to have a beer with, but he doesn’t want to have a beer with them.

Hm... That calls to mind a recent story in The Onion.

The politics of distraction

A lot is being suggested about the upcoming Alito nomination battle.

How much of the whispering in the right's ear is misdirection? Another interesting tidbit from the aforementioned Time article:

Republican officials say they are so worried about the Abramoff problem that they are now inclined to stoke a fight with Democrats over the confirmation of Samuel Alito to the Supreme Court in an effort to turn the page from the lobbying investigation. Outside groups plan to spend heavily, and the White House will engage in some tit for tat with Democrats as the hearings heat up.

Jonathan Singer notes:

This tactic is nothing new for the Bush White House. In July 2005, just as the media began to place increased focus on the investigation into the Valerie Plame leak (it emerged that Karl Rove had spoken with Matt Cooper about Plame, Judith Miller went to jail, and, Bush shifted his position on firing those implicated), Bush announced the nomination of John Roberts to the Supreme Court. Just over two months later, during the same week in which House Majority Leader Tom DeLay was indicted for conspiracy and money laundering and the Security and Exchange Commission commenced a probe into potential insider trading by Senate Majority Leader, President Bush hastily announced that he had nominated Harriet Miers to serve on the Supreme Court.

While it certainly would be unwise to lay down on Samuel Alito without a fight at this moment -- it is essential that Democrats and progressives ensure that a rabid conservative is not allowed to dictate his views from the Supreme Court -- just the same, it would be a strategic mistake to allow President Bush to distract Americans from serious Republican problems. Undoubtedly, a balance can be found between the two to ensure that a sufficient fight is put up against Alito while at the same time the public is educated about the degree to which Washington has become compromised under Republican control.

Dan Cody comments:

Politically, this could be a tough situation for Democrats. On one hand, they need to make sure that Alito faces a tough and thorough confirmation process where some serious questions get asked and answered. But they also have to make sure they don't allow Republicans to make it into a bigger issue than it is just to sweep their growing ethics investigations out of the news cycle.

Don't let the Alito hearings become a side show. Yes it's important, yes there may be some legitimate questions to be raised. But keep the main focus where it belongs, on the ethical lapses.

Crossposted from Gregprinceblog

What's the Bush Administration's worst domestic policy?

The other day I posted the Justice Departments explanation of the legal powers of the president to conduct warrantless eavesdropping of terrorists.

The liberal response has been along the lines of "why not use the FISA courts?" I didn't cover that, but Gen. Michael Hayden did:

Gen. Michael Hayden said the NSA program was more effective than the FISA system because investigators were able to target suspected communications if they had "reason to believe" that someone is connected to Al Qaeda, rather than the "probable cause" standard required by the FISA court. The difference, he said, is that the detection methods don't target individuals but trap communications. The probable cause standard, on the other hand, relates to individuals.

Hayden made clear NSA has often used FISA, especially after Sept. 11, but that in some cases, it is not as effective.

"The purpose of all of this is not to collect reams of intelligence, but to detect and prevent attacks. The intelligence community has neither the time, the resources nor the legal authority to read communications that aren't likely to protect us. And NSA has no interest in doing so. These are communications that we have reason to believe are Al Qaeda communications," Hayden said.

He also noted that in addition to numerous Justice Department lawyers having said the new program was legal, three senior lawyers at NSA were separately asked about the legality of it before it began. They all said that it was legal and he noted these were people who had rejected some techniques in the past and were not people in the habit of "giving hall passes."

Hayden argued that had the NSA program been in place before the Sept. 11 attacks, the government may had been able to identify the hijackers before they struck.

"You know, I actually find this a little odd. After all the findings of the 9/11 commission and other bodies about the failure to share intelligence, I'm up here feeling like I have to explain pushing data to those who might be able to use it," he said.

Someone should explain the concept of restrain to the Crat leadership. There are generally plenty of things any administration does that merit genuine criticism, and those are the ones you can get the best traction on. On the other hand, indiscriminate criticism is highly problematic, particularly when you get shot down so easily.

Two recent examples of indiscriminate criticism are the entire Alito hearing and of course this NSA leak. The Crats end up looking like losers and worse, fools. On the other hand, the Abramoff scandal is something you can and should work with, unfortunately the final answer to this question is not something the Crats can really deal with--reducing the size of the federal government and moving responsibilities and revenues to the states.

It’s been amusing watching the White House spin away, downplaying the relationship between the Bush White House and disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff. As if.

Read More:

Gen. Michael Hayden, the principal deputy director of national intelligence said today the administration wasn't going through telecommunications records for data mining, but unfortunately his explanation doesn't go a long way toward clearing things up. If anything, it makes it worse for the administration.

At Kos, it's pointed out that he doesn't even have the constitutional principles right.

Kevin Drum observes:

Unless I've missed something along the way, this is important news. Hayden is saying that the NSA program isn't some kind of large-scale data mining operation that the authors of the FISA act never could have foreseen. Rather, it's "targeted and focused" and involves "only international calls and only those we have a reasonable basis to believe involve al Qaeda or one of its affiliates."

In other words, it's precisely the kind of monitoring that the FISA court already approves routinely and in large volumes. Another few hundred requests wouldn't faze them in the least.

The Carpetbagger Report

Hayden's remarks in DC today were supposed to be a key part of the administration's defense of the program. As far as I can tell, it makes the controversy worse, not better.

Also:

Thomas Paine's Corner

Doug Miller

A Stitch in Haste

Hockey Town 4 Ever

from GregPrinceBlog

p>Ongoing reports of administration incompetence in the Iraqi reconstruction effort continue to boggle the mind. From the New York Times:

A new audit of American financial practices in Iraq has uncovered irregularities including millions of reconstruction dollars stuffed casually into footlockers and filing cabinets, an American soldier in the Philippines who gambled away cash belonging to Iraq, and three Iraqis who plunged to their deaths in a rebuilt hospital elevator that had been improperly certified as safe.

This type of stuff is stupefying. There are a lot of us who are willing to give the President due credit where appropriate in the war formerly known as on terror, and who are in agreement that a Saddam-free world is a better place.

But somehow, it grows increasingly apparent that nobody of influence in the administration ever asked the question, "OK, now Saddam's gone, what now?"

More amazing, it's not as if the US has no experience in rebuilding countries. And now of all times, this type of incompetence and bungling when not outright corruption is something we can ill afford.

The Carpetbagger gives Bowen kudos for the work he's been doing.

When the White House tapped Bowen for the job in January 2004, Bush critics were deeply disappointed — Bowen was widely recognized as a close Bush ally, so few expected him to be thorough and aggressive.

The critics were wrong.

As Bush confidants go, Bowen was in tight. He was a senior member of Bush's gubernatorial campaign team in 1994, he served alongside Alberto Gonzales in Bush's office in Austin, and during the Florida recount debacle in 2000, it was Bowen who spent 35 days in the state, serving as deputy counsel to the Bush transition team. From there, Bowen was an associate counsel in Bush's White House before becoming a powerful DC lobbyist. For Dems hoping for a strong, independent voice to exercise real oversight of Iraqi reconstruction, Bowen's resume offered little encouragement.

And yet, as the NYT report makes clear, Bowen has not only taken his job as inspector general seriously, he's been the leading figure in exposing fraud and corruption. The Wall Street Journal reported in July that Bowen "has become one of the most prominent and credible critics of how the administration has handled the occupation of Iraq," and considering his record, it's a more-than-fair description. The guy even took on Halliburton.

Other voices:

Sarah Ellen Parsons

This is NOT just routine levels of mismanagement, so I don't want to hear excuses about the scale of the project. The Marshall Plan was administered effectively. This is fraud and theft on ENRON levels.

Politics Defined

Iraqi oil production fell by 8% last year, calling into question the nation's ability to support itself and fund reconstruction efforts as U.S. assistance is scaled back.

Also see:

Cherkoee Sage Woman

Huffington Post

Nevada Thunder

Crossposted from GregPrinceBlog

Bush has jumped 5% in the polls from the mid 40s to 50% over the past week according to Rasmussen reports. The last time the President was this high was just after the January elections in Iraq last year.

There hasn't been any particularly good news for the President this past week except that the Alito nomination is going to be a confirmation tomorrow, but that really shouldn't affect his polling numbers all that much.

I'll straightup admit that I don't have a clue, but if I'm guessing, I figure that the Democrats jumped the shark on Alito and damaged their credibility (perhaps fatally? We can only hope...). Such sudden changes in people's views usually come when they have an epiphany--my husband is cheating on me, the coworker I consider a friend is undermining me, or something else that turns your perceptions around on a dime.

The Democrats had such a moment with the 16 words in the SoTU speech (merited or not).

Perhaps the Alito hearings have provided such a moment for the Democrats, but its hard for me to tell because the Crats had no credibility with me to begin with.

I've been listening to the prebuttal all day. Every network and every newspaper has sought to contribute as much doom and gloom as possible in order to offset the brightness of the SOTU spotlight on President Bush. Its rather amusing to see fat and happy millionaire television show hosts and prosperous pundits moan and groan about "the homeless" and the "shakey economy" or the "sacrifices" being made in Iraq (not by them...)

Do you notice how every year when the president is announced, the aisle is full of Democrats? Sheila Jackson must be in her seat at 10:00 AM in the morning.

Its a hell-raising speech. For a president that the liberal-left has pronounced dead, he doesn't seem to know it. He is in-your-face on security issues and announcing some surprisingly bold initatives. The energy-independence issue has come front and center and Bush has staked out the top of the hill--lots of money for energy research, and again surprisingly, for zero-emissions coal-fired power plant and--ta da!--nuclear power.

That is brilliant political jiu jitsu--the Democrats have been beating the drums on energy independence for months now, and Bush has called their bluff. Time to piss or get off the pot.

I am wondering if Senator Byrd's enthusiastic support of Judge Alito doesn't have something to do with this coal initative...

Mrs. Bush looks fabulous, absolutely stunning.

This is a very good speech. It doesn't gloss over the difficulties, but asserts confidence in American character and actions. It wasn't so much an optimistic speech as it was forward-looking, ambitious but without overreaching. Somebody should take the speechwriters out for a nice dinner.

Bush carried into the speech his push back on controversial issues like terrorist surveillance, while stepping gingerly around the issue of reform in Washington.

Aside from what appeared to be classic Bush, there was a lot that looked like classic Clinton--lots of little things. That may well be a concession to the reality that in his second term he won't be getting big things like social security reform.

Tim Kaine is unwatchable, but he's actually better than the Reid and Pelosi show was. If Kaine is going to move up in the food chain, he is going to have to learn how to do television. As it is, he could profit from some tips by Dick Nixon. Lots of "we can do better" and no specifics of course.

UPDATE: Cindy Sheehan was actually in attendance briefly at the invitation of Rep. Lynn Woolsey D-CA. She wore an anti-war T-shirt that she had covered up during her entry. After being "unresponsive" to entreaties by Capitol Hill police, she was frog-walked in handcuffs to the local station and released on her own recognizance

I've seen the clip of the Democrats standing and applauding at the point where President Bush in commenting on the failure of his social security reform last year at least half a dozen times today--I don't think too many people were impressed.

Hillary Clinton's beaming smile at the recollection of having perpetuated the biggest boondoggle in U.S. history is a golden opportunity for a future campaign spot.

For me, it was just a reminder at how closely the Democrats resemble the Mafia. As a matter of fact, I simply don't know whether the Mafia copied their exploitation of the Teamster's Pension fund from the Democrats plan for Social Security, or the other way around.

George Pataki was on television a few moments ago mouthing platitudes that make me wretch--"the American people are sick and tired of the atmosphere of partisanship in Washington..."

A guy with clearly no clue about what the American people want should just forget about running for president.

From my observation, what Americans want is tied to their support of a specific set of policies. They in fact want obstructionism when those favored policies are threatened and cooperation when those policies are being advanced. Nobody cares whether Ted Kennedy and Bill Frist get along or not.

Finally, the moaning about record profits for Exxon is simply ridiculous. While the liberal-left were quick to point out who got hurt when Enron collapse, they conveniently ignore the fact that these are also the people who are clicking their heels and walking with a spring in their step when they got the news. Democrats are calling for Exxon to give the money back, but to who? The money belongs to millions or ordinary American shareholders who deserve a return on their investment. The whole thing is made even more outrageous by the fact that oil companies are taxed like crazy to begin with. The profit on a gallon of gasoline amounts to a nickel or so. If you dismantle Exxon tomorrow, you'll pay 2.25 a gallon instead of 2.30 (Actually you'd probably pay more since reduced competition drives up prices...)

Fundamentally, politics is all about this group, that group, this party, that party, this politician or that politician exploiting your colossal ignorance, your fear or your greed. We can't do much about the latter to, but it occurs to me that that bloggers do the most good when they make a sincere effort to educate and persuade (by legitimate means).

Andy McCarthy writes at NRO that thinks he found evidence of a partisan Crat agenda is contradictory legal opinions of the Presidency's plenary (unqualified or absolute) power.

Several former Clinton administration officials are among the group of “scholars of constitutional law and former government officials” who last week submitted a letter to Congress – posted on the New York Review of Books website – asserting that the Bush administration had “fail[ed] to identify any plausible legal authority” for the NSA program that does not comply with the warrant procedure mandated by Congress in FISA (the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978). One of those former Clinton administration officials is Walter Dellinger.

But in 1994, Dellinger was singing a different tune. As the Assistant Attorney General in the Clinton Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel, Dellinger explained in a written opinion to the White House, that: “The President has enhanced responsibility to resist unconstitutional provisions that encroach upon the constitutional powers of the Presidency.”

The Clinton administration in fact used this view to direct the Justice Department not to enforce an obscure provision in the Telecommunication bill that would have criminalized placing information about how to obtain an abortion on the internet on the basis that it was unconstitutional on its face.

McCarthy notes an excellent and quite readable legal opinion by H. Bryan Cunningham of Morgan Cunningham in Colorado on the matter. It is interesting to contrast it with a dueling opinion by Professor Peter Swire at Ohio State University and fellow at American Progress--a liberal outfit.

Implicit in Peter Swire's argument is an unspoken premise--there is no crisis. This has been characterized as a pre-9/11 or 9/10 view of the world.

In the section named "What is at Stake", consider what Swire views as the salient matters:

Widespread violation of the criminal law is serious in its own right. It is far better to change the law than to break it, and Congress has amended FISA often, including approving the changes the Administration has proposed since September 11. I write briefly to suggest a partial list of other sorts of concerns raised by the NSA wiretapping program:

1. Jeopardizes ongoing investigations. When laws are broken, the legal system imposes consequences. Revelations about the NSA wiretapping program throw into doubt a wide range of investigations and prosecutions in the fight against terrorism. In criminal cases that can put terrorists behind bars, judges now have to worry that evidence was based on illegal wiretaps....

Note here that terrorism is treated in classic Clintonian terms--as a police matter. The aim is to apprehend and prosecute terrorists. The 9/11 attacks were not an act or war, but simply a violation of criminal statutes. Frankly if the Bush administration was merely trying to catch criminals, I could agree with Professor Swire's view but when it is seen as a matter of war, in which we are trying to prevent attacks on this country--the hell with prosecutions, we just want to find these guys and kill them before they kill us. This is the very nature of executive power--TO ACT. I'll make this real simple--when you have a problem that can't be resolved by established protocols, don't you automatically refer the matter to a manager--an executive? Everybody has done this at least once when "the system" is inadequate to deal with your particular problem. Notably, the Bush administration has used FISA courts and continues to use FISA courts, but still found exceptional circumstances where that system was inadequate. Is that really that hard to imagine in the war on terror?

2. Wastes valuable investigative resources. A January 17 story in the New York Times highlighted the huge amount of time and resources devoted to the program, apparently with minimal results. In the days after 9/11, the FBI decided to follow up on every lead, an understandable response to the urgent threat. Long lists of phone numbers continued to be generated by the NSA program...

This is just plain disingenuous because it does NOT to refer to the product of the warrantless wiretaps, but to the NSA activities in general, and only in the immediate aftermath of 9/11 where we were understandably less efficient in addressing the problem of terror communications into this country. The reality is that we don't know much if anything at all about the warrantless wiretaps because ITS SECRET.

3. Undermines the effectiveness of the NSA. FISA was a reaction to scandals in the 1970s, when it was learned that the NSA was routinely monitoring the international communications of Americans. In addition to phone company cooperation, Operation Minaret involved telegram companies that gave the NSA a large fraction of the telegrams entering or leaving the United States. FISA was passed in response to these revelations...

...In response to these revelations, a key concern is that the long-range effectiveness of the NSA will be undermined. Once trust is lost, it is hard to restore. Morale of career officers may suffer as their hard work is called into question. Needed initiatives may be placed on hold because of fear of Congressional second-guessing. Well-intentioned reforms may get in the way of helpful actions.

The revelations of recent weeks are big news. The Administration has risked the long-term effectiveness of the NSA by going behind Congress’ back.

After reading this portion, what would you consider Swire's definition of "effectiveness" to be? There is no mention here of the NSA's actual job of efficient and effective intelligence gathering, only comments relative to the careers of NSA officials and the "trust" of Congress. Let's be honest here--the only people who don't trust the NSA right now are Democrats, and that lack of trust is related completely to their political ambitions.

4. Threatens the constitutional system of checks and balances. The current Administration is claiming executive power far beyond our historical understanding. Here are three recent examples: it can wiretap without a warrant in the United States, contrary to FISA (the NSA program); it can torture, contrary to international law and the recent statute championed by Senator McCain; and it can hold a U.S. citizen in detention forever, with no judicial review, simply because the President says the citizen is an “enemy combatant.” It is hard to see any limits to the President’s claims – the entire PATRIOT Act has become essentially irrelevant because the President claims he would have the powers without the law. And these extremely broad powers would go on for years to come, so long as there are terrorists in the world who oppose the United States.

There doesn't seem to much thinking going on in this think-tank. There is no evidence that the U.S. has tortured anyone--lots and lots of claims by terrorists, terrorist sympathizers, anti-Americans and Democrats, but no evidence of torture. Of course, some people have conveniently redefined the concept of torture to mean serving burnt toast every morning. Swire of course fails to mention that while there was no judicial review, there was in fact Congressional review--the warrantless wiretaps were reported to Congress on several occasions, a fact admitted by Congressional Democrats.

This rather over-the-top conclusion by Swire is best refuted by the contrast of Bryan Cunningham's views on the matter.

Taken to its logical extreme, the Critic's position would fundamentally alter the system of separation of powers and checks and balances created by our Constitution, transforming our governmental institutions into one in which Congress alone rules supreme in virtually all spheres of government action.

aye--there's the rub.

A pattern emerges when see in conjunction with the Alito nomination--the Democrats, unable to actually elect a president, have simply decided to abolish the position, or at least give it the old college try.

While most readers will already know this--some of the telltales of a fallacious arugment are equivocation (torture becomes burnt toast or sleeping on cold floors rather than hacking off digits and applying electric shocks to the genitals...). Another is best expressed with a quote from John Stuart Mills from "On Liberty"

"He who knows only his own side of the case, knows little of that. His reasons may be good, and no one may have been able to refute them. But if he is equally unable to refute the reasons on the opposite side; if he does not so much as know what they are, he has no ground for preferring either opinion."

Swire's FAQ in notable in that it simply fails to address the arguments made by his opponents. Consider this:

Q: Do you agree with the Administration position on AUMF? A: No. Congress did not authorize wiretaps in the U.S. against U.S. persons when it passed the Authorization to Use Military Force. Q: Are there any independent assessments of the legal arguments about AUMF? A: Yes. Independent assessments have found that the Administration is wrong about the AUMF:

Swire simply asserts his position without proving it in the first instance, and in the second he offers a "sexed-up" argument to misleading authority. He quotes the Congressional Research Service, and then a number of current and former Republican office-holders. For a thinking person, none of these could be considered authoritive sources and its clear that they are selected for their allegedly non-partisan quality rather than authority.

The courts are of course the real authority, which explains why the Crats sought to undermine Judge Alito's credibility during the nomination process. Unable to block his confirmation, they have engaged in another rhetorical device--namely "poisoning the well". Should the NSA wiretap issue come before the Supreme Court and rule in favor of the administration, the Crats can claim a "rigged game" due to Justice Alito's alleged propensity to favor the executive branch.

The Crats know they can't win this argument, so they've settled for planting some political IEDs in the administration's path.

Its good politics--stinky, but clever.

In an investigation that has been characterized as "aggressive" and "fast-moving", the FBI has interviewed officials in their own agency, the NSA and others, and is working to determine who legitimately had access to the NSA wiretap information--no doubt as part of a process to determine who did not have legitimate access.

"An outgrowth of the Fitzgerald investigation is that the gloves are off in leak cases," said George J. Terwilliger III, former deputy attorney general in the administration of the first President Bush. "New rules apply."

How aggressively prosecutors pursue the new case involving the N.S.A. may depend on their assessment of the damage caused by the disclosure, Mr. Terwilliger said. "If the program is as sensitive and critical as it has been described, and leaking its existence could put the lives of innocent American people in jeopardy," he said, "that surely would have an effect on the exercise of prosecutorial discretion."

Recently, federal authorities have used espionage statutes to move beyond prosecutions of government officials who disclose classified information to indict private citizens who receive it. In the case of a former Pentagon analyst, Lawrence A. Franklin, who pleaded guilty to disclosing defense secrets, federal authorities have charged Steven J. Rosen and Keith Weissman, formerly representatives of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, a pro-Israel lobbying group.

The two men have been indicted on charges of turning over information obtained from Mr. Franklin to a foreign government, which has been identified as Israel, and to journalists. At Mr. Franklin's sentencing hearing in Alexandria, Va., Judge T. S. Ellis III of Federal District Court said he believed that private citizens and government employees must obey laws against illegally disseminating classified information.

"Persons who have unauthorized possession, who come into unauthorized possession of classified information, must abide by the law," Judge Ellis said. "That applies to academics, lawyers, journalists, professors, whatever."

The Times and other major media are insisting they have "powerful" arguments for media privilege in these matters. Perhaps they do, but in a balancing act between rights, it appears to me that national security trumps press privilege every time.

Michael Stickings has a piece entitled "Bush's malfeasance: The politicization of intelligence and the fabricated case for war in Iraq."

He relies heavily on a Paul R. Pillar piece in Foreign Affairs. Money quote:

The Bush administration disregarded the [intelligence] community's expertise, politicized the intelligence process, and selected unrepresentative raw intelligence to make its public case.

Uh... "duh" comes to mind.

But Stickings' piece is a must read, well worth the time. Check it out.

Crossposted

I had the good fortune to miss Cheney's love fest with Fox News, but it appears he might have accidentally said something interesting. Something that, at any rate, merits additional investigation.

Hume: Let me ask you another question. Is it your view that a Vice President has the authority to declassify information?

Cheney: There is an executive order to that effect.

Hume: There is.

Cheney: Yes.

Hume: Have you done it?

Cheney: Well, I've certainly advocated declassification and participated in declassification decisions. The executive order –

Hume: You ever done it unilaterally?

Cheney: I don't want to get into that. There is an executive order that specifies who has classification authority, and obviously focuses first and foremost on the President, but also includes the Vice President.

Interesting indeed...especially since multiple reviews of the order he cites don't give him that authority. As we read at The Carpetbagger Report:

The VP has some fairly broad authority to classify materials, but the VP can't be his own declassification machine. Cheney wouldn't respond to the question yesterday about whether he has unilaterally exercised this power, but it's clear the VP was arguing that he could.

You'll recall Libby's statements that he had been authorized to share classified material? All of a sudden this matters big time.

Others commenting:

Connect Left

...has Cheney -- the de facto President the past 6 years, simply forgotten that he's actually second-in-command?

Transparent Grid should be read in full.

Because the Vice President does not appear to be the “originating authority,” Cheney did not seem to have the authority to declassify the NIE since the agency that classifies has the responsibility to determine whether to declassify for the public interest. In this case, the White House selectively disclosed portions of the NIE to make its case to make war on Iraq and there is no indication that the CIA or National Intelligence Council authorized its disclosure.

Andrew Sullivan:

The first print mention of Wilson's dissent from the White House line was in May 2003. So the time-line for a clear connection doesn't work. All we can say is that Cheney's new authority to leak classified information came at a time when the administration's claims about WMDs were beginning to look weak. Not long thereafter, Plame was outed.

David Corn:

It seems as if Cheney might not be free to declassify, on his own say-so, a National Intelligence Estimate so an aide can slip portions of it to a reporter to help the White House politically. But there is some ambiguity here. Which is why it might be useful for a congressional committee to examine the issue. But I'm not expecting any Republican committee chairman to invite Cheney to testify about this any time soon.

Crossposted

The furor over UAE interests acquiring P&O ports and thus gaining operational control over six sea ports here in the U.S. is getting criticized not for any real threat to security (the Coast guard continues to maintain security at these and other ports), but for "bad optics".

This is probably just a straightforward commerical transaction and the elephant in the room is that Arabs are involved.

While its good politics to raise the Arab boogey-man, its bad policy. Arabs are not congenital terrorists and treating them as such robs us a vital--I say again, vital allies in fighting Islamoterrorism.

The bottom line is that this puts the administration in the vise, which was undoubtedly the purpose of the furor in the first place--play politics and piss off important strategic allies, or commit what the Crats hope is political suicide.

There is no question that this was badly played, but I suspect that with some care, it can be salvaged.

Of course when Jimmy Carter agrees with you, its no favor.

This is funny!

A lot of people have been writing about the US Ports/UAE connection. You'll have to forgive me, but it seems to me there's less there than meets the eye. Yes things deserve scrutiny, but the dockworkers in the trenches are and will remain US union workers. And US customs, the Coast Guard, etc. who traditionally are responsible for security and entry aren't going away. And port protocols aren't exactly secrets to begin with.

Frankly, what's more interesting is what the story reveals about the White House and its standard modus operandi - deny, threaten, entrench, and basically flail about impotently.

And of course there's the issue that there may be some under the table maneuvering going on wrt UAE, trade agreements, etc., and that type of corruption also needs to be exposed if that's truly the case.

But most of all, why on earth is the White House acting so surprised and put out over this? After five years of screaming "the sky is falling" and finding terrorist operatives under every bed, are they surprised to find resistance at turning over any aspect of American security to middle eastern interests? It's a quagmire of their own making.

Others blogging:

The Reaction

The Carpetbagger Report

Kos

Kevin Drum

Michelle Malkin

Pam Spaulding

Americablog

UNCoRRELATED

Crossposted

So funding established pensions is optional, if you're the government?

The Treasury Department has started drawing from the civil service pension fund to avoid hitting the $8.2 trillion national debt limit. The move to tap the pension fund follows last month's decision to suspend investments in a retirement savings plan held by government employees.

In a letter to Congress this week, Treasury Secretary John W. Snow said he would rely on the Civil Service Retirement and Disability Fund to avoid bumping up against the statutory debt limit. He said the Treasury is suspending investments and will redeem a portion of the money credited to the fund.

Once Congress raises the debt limit, the Treasury will "restore all due interest and principal" to the pension fund as soon as possible, Snow said. He made a similar promise when the Treasury announced that reinvestment of some assets in the Thrift Savings Plan's government securities fund, or G Fund, had been suspended.

Now I'll be the first to admit pension law isn't exactly my area of expertise, but given the public failure of so many pensions right now this isn't exactly good politics. And I'm pretty sure they couldn't arbitrarily do this in private industry without consequences.

Other voices:

TMV:

Does this concern anybody else? Any the supply siders out there...are we really okay with this debt celing being raised again and again to pay for tax cuts and confusing entitlement programs?

Michael Williams

How about "once Congress stops spending more than it takes in"? Congress never pays its bills, and no consumer credit company would keep raising its credit limit! But rather than insisting that Congress live within our means, Treasury Secretary John Snow just enables their overspending by moving money around.

Vigilant Investor

“I know that you share the president’s and my commitment to maintaining the full faith and credit of the U.S. government,” Treasury Secretary John Snow said in his recent letter to congress.”

To us, that quote has a laughable ring to it. How can one have any faith in the full faith and credit of a Government which is proving itself utterly incapable of controlling it’s own finances?

Driftglass

Episode MMCIII -- "Just find the black queen and we'll give you your future back. -- in which...Enron Executives the Bush White House loots the pension fund rather than give back their obscene bonuses tax cuts.

Crossposted

Joe Gandelman is dubious that the Bush administration is going to clean house.

I actually think Bush should get rid of people who aren't serving him well. By most accounts, the White House is and some pretty talented people have burned out in less than two years at the pace things go in there. If people won't go themselves, they might need a little push.

Joe may be making too much of Bush's insouciance--its not really Bush's job to keep the wheels spinning smoothing in the West Wing--its Andrew Card's. Card should give some serious thought to his effectiveness and ask himself the question about whether the President would be better served with a new general manager.

I tried to shoe horn a lot of blogging into a little time today, so forgive the typos and other grammatical errors I usually try to clean up with a second and third read-through.

A couple of things I meant to discuss but didn't get around to. Laura Ingraham's interview on NBC this morning and George W. Bush's press conference.

I have been somewhat ambivilent on Ms Ingraham, having considered that she was pandering on more than one occasion, but anyone who sticks it to David Gregory is OK by me a the end of the day.

Ingrahams performance was even more remarkable when you consider how the networks prep the interviews to give themselves the upper hand. It was a masterful and beyond merely turning the tables in a rigged game, she nailed Gregory and NBC in a way that Gregory himself could only dream of doing with the President. Cover the Iraq war with some integrity--get off the damned hotel balcony and go show us what is actually going on in Iraq.

Katie Couric makes 16 million dollars a year on the Today Show and it generates 250 million dollars in profit for the network--surely they can spare a few thousand dollars to send a reporter and a camera crew for the grand tour.

Good on you honey--I'll never say another bad thing about ya.

I only caught a part of it, and then the replays of some of his responses, but Bush's press conference today was rather remarkable, if for no other reason that he has never done one like this before. I suppose, depending on your view of the Bush administration, you could take this as a sign of desperation, or alternately as exasperation followed by determination. I though Bush came off rather well in an environment that most people thought he just couldn't handle--the hostile, open forum.

The obvious question is why hasn't he done this before?

I think he probably should have, and I expect he'll be doing it more often. Bush was never very comfortable in spontaneous public discussions and it was clear that he was going to avoid them whenever possible, but I think he has become more comfortable with extemporaneous speaking with the years, more familiar with the arguments.

Most importantly, Bush needs to get out and show his heart to the American people. I just don't think you can take the left's conspiracy theories very seriously when you sit down with the man and realize who he is.