Via Glenn Greenwald:

Evidently, [the President] wants to shield virtually any communications that take place within the White House compound on the theory that all such talk contributes in some way, shape or form to the continuing success and harmony of an administration. Taken to its logical extreme, that position would make it impossible for citizens to hold a chief executive accountable for anything. He would have a constitutional right to cover up. . . . Most of us want no part of a president who is cynical enough to use the majesty of his office to evade the one thing he is sworn to uphold -- the rule of law.

Hear hear Tony! . . . Oh wait . . . Signing off folks. Until tomorrow.

Progressives are saps. Blue Dogs know how to fight better. Case in point:

The Blue Dogs get an Iraq funding bill tailored for them and one of their leaders says:

Tanner, the Blue Dog representative on the chief deputy whip's team, had been undecided until yesterday morning. Now that he is on board, he hastened to add that he is not about to start leaning on his Blue Dog colleagues. "I don't ask people to vote on the leadership's behalf, particularly on a vote like this," he said.

A progressive, who got figuratively spat on by the Dem leadership, says:

Schakowsky, like Waters, is one of nine chief deputy whips, and her early statements of opposition had stunned leaders. She pledged yesterday to press liberal members of the House Out of Iraq Caucus and Progressive Caucus to fall into line.

On February 26, I wrote a post titled Fast Forward: 2008 . . . What have Dems Done To End the War in Iraq?, I said:

And now we come to some practical realities - the Congress can only end the Iraq Debacle by NOT FUNDING IT. It may scare some people to say those words - I think it is an unfounded fear as I have explained many times. But let me give them a political scenario that is scarier -- come 2008 -- when faced with the question "What did a Democratic Congress do to end the Iraq Debacle?", when the answer is nothing, what do you think the voters are going to say? Spineless Dems ALWAYS lose. Always.

Recent polling should send a shiver down the Dems' spine:

A new poll finds that the approval rating of the Dem-controlled Congress is on the skids among not just Republicans, but Democrats, too -- and the pollster speculates that the Dems failure to "do anything substantive" on Iraq could be the reason why.

So here we are:

President Bush and Senate Democrats clashed angrily this afternoon, as the president said he would not allow his key aides to testify under oath about the dismissal of United States attorneys, while the Democrats insisted they would settle for no less.

So Congress issues the subpoenas. BushCo officials defy them. What next? Congress seeks to enforce them in United States District Court for the District of Columbia. But if this to be fought in the court, it'll end up in the Supreme Court. Kagro notes it is the Department of Justice that usually represents the Congress in cases of enforcing subpoenas. Obviously, it won't here. Independent counsel will be retained or current Congressional lawyers will. What is the state of the law on this issue? And the issue will be executive privilege. I wrote a post on this a few days ago. Short version - it won't be decided by law. It will be the politics of this that decides it. To wit - who ever loses the political battle with the American People will give in the most. Right now, the Dems have a great hand to play. Let's hope they don't screw it up. But if you insist on a little more law on the matter, I have some on the flip.

As always I speak for me only and kudos to Bob Fertik for speaking the truth

Chris Bowers continues the MYDD approach of arguing by assertion the DC Dem Establishment position, while, to his credit, NOW acknowledging that he is not arguing the PROGRESSIVE position:

At this point, there are very few Republicans who will vote in favor. From what I hear, there are also currently more Progressives opposed to the bill than there are Blue Dogs. Given this, the politics of the supplemental fight, which will continue for some time even after the House votes on this bill, now make it clear that it is extremely important progressives do not join with Republicans in order to defeat this legislation at this time. The simple fact is that if this bill is defeated in the House, then there will be another--weaker--funding bill. . . .

It is ironic that while reporting that THIS bill is in grave danger of not passing, Chris assures us that a WEAKER bill WILL pass. What is he saying here? It is this - the DEMOCRATIC Leadership will accomodate REPUBLICANS before it will accomodate Progressives. What an indictment of the Dem leadership in the House. I could not have said anything more damning than Chris has just done.

The jury was sworn in this morning in the insider trading trial of Qwest former CEO Joseph Nacchio.

I'm over at 5280.com live-blogging opening arguments from the courthouse.

As always, I speak only for me

In an e-mail to its members (except me, I got neither the one to vote on the House bill, or this latest), Move On says:

Some of you have asked whether we support the Lee Amendment, a proposal that would accelerate the end of the war. Of course we do—we'd love for the proposal to bring our troops home sooner, and MoveOn members are pretty clear on that point. We've been fighting for as strong a bill as possible. Right now, the Lee Amendment is not being offered, but if it comes up, we'll definitely encourage Congress to vote for it.

If you support funding the war through September 2008 (which mean funding it past that because only a fool thinks the Congress will cut off funding 2 months befoe an election) you do NOT support the Lee Amendment. This is just nonsense from Move On. The Lee Amendment would be moot if the House funding bill becomes law. Let's hope it does not so Move On can ACTUALLY support the Lee Amendment.

Previously, I noted that the rationale behind the House bill seems to me to be Ending the Iraq Debacle . . . After the 2008 Election. I think this post, along with Move On's ironic ad evidence my point:

In a recent vote, the Republican members of the House Appropriations Committee unanimously opposed requiring that the troops sent to Iraq be properly prepared for their mission and protected with armor. Again.

But does the House proposal "require[] that the troops sent to Iraq be properly prepared . . ."? Uh no, as the SAME blogger aptly pointed out:

At the moment, it appears that the political calculus hinges on what happens with those "teeth." That is, the leadership's math goes like this: they figure they get and keep more Blue Dog votes by removing the ability to enforce the benchmarks than they lose from the Progressive Caucus, who think the president can't be trusted and will game the benchmarks and continue to humiliate and embarrass Congressional Democrats. So as things stand now, the language is out, because by the leadership's count, there were more Blue Dogs at least implicitly threatening to vote against a bill that included it than there were Progressive Caucus members threatening to vote against a bill that excluded it.

The enforcement language is out says this blogger. But we can STILL beat up on Republicans. Dems will end the Iraq Debacle, we are told, but AFTER the 2008 elections.

Bumped -BTD

Who watches the FBI as the FBI watches you? Nobody, as it turns out. Certainly not the Alberto Gonzales Justice Department, where oversight has been out of sight.

As TalkLeft reported earlier this month, the FBI repeatedly used its Patriot Act authority to issue "national security letters" demanding financial, telephone, and internet records (among others), without the bother of a judicially approved warrant, in violation of the agency's own rules. The chief inspector at the Justice Department acknowledged today, in testimony before the House Judiciary Committee, that the FBI's failure to set limits on the agency's information gathering authority was "unacceptable and inexcusable."

Democrats said that Fine's findings were an example of how the Justice Department has used broad counterterrorism authorities Congress granted in the wake of the Sept. 11 attacks to trample on privacy rights. "This was a serious breach of trust," said Rep. John Conyers, D-Mich., the Judiciary chairman. "The department had converted this tool into a handy shortcut to illegally gather vast amounts of private information while at the same time significantly underreporting its activities to Congress."

As usual, I speak for me only

Let me first be clear on this - John Murtha is NOT the problem with the House Dems. But his post at Huffington Post is not favorable for the proposed House supplemental funding bill. I think it is actually an indictment:

. . . We must insist that before we send our battle weary warriors back into intense combat, we give them the time they need to rest and reconstitute and the time they deserve to spend with family and loved ones.

During this year, the Bush Administration has requested $1 trillion for the Department of Defense. $9 billion a month is being expended for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan . . . Over 3,200 of our sons and daughters have lost their lives in Iraq and close to 25,000 have been wounded, to include thousands of traumatic brain injuries and hundreds of limb amputations.

. . . Meanwhile in Iraq the situation remains dire. Benchmarks established by this Administration are elusive and routinely ignored.

. . . After four years of incompetence and mismanagement, this Administration must come to the realization that Iraq's civil war can only be solved by the Iraqi people and that stability in Iraq can only be accomplished when U.S. and coalition forces end the occupation and redeploy.

Hard then to justify the House bill's funding of the Iraq Debacle through September 2008 in the face of that Representative Murtha. As you say, Bush routinely ignores benchmarks. He'll certainly ignore the House's.

The Senate has Senate voted to repeal the secret Midnight Patriot Act provision that granted AG power to appoint interim US Atty's without Senate confirmation:

The Senate voted overwhelmingly Tuesday to end the Bush administration's ability to unilaterally fill U.S. attorney vacancies as a backlash to Attorney General Alberto Gonzales' firing of eight federal prosecutors.

. . . With a 94-2 vote, the Senate passed a bill that canceled a Justice Department-authored provision in the Patriot Act that had allowed the attorney general to appoint U.S. attorneys without Senate confirmation.

. . . Essentially, the Senate returned the law regarding the appointments of U.S. attorneys to where it was before Congress passed the Patriot Act, including the unilateral appointment authority the administration had sought in the wake of the 9/11 terror attacks.

More on the bill from Jeralyn.

Baseball fans know that whenever a manager gets a public vote of confidence, a firing is just around the corner. George Bush has a baseball background of course. Indeed, the biggest tragedy of the last 20 years for our nation was when Major League Baseball did not name Bush as Commissioner. Think of the heartache and tragedy we would have avoided the last 6 years.

Well, is this a baseball vote of confidence?

“The president spoke to the attorney general around 7:15 a.m. from the Oval Office,” said Dana Perino, a White House spokeswoman. “They had a good conversation about the status of the United States attorney issue. The president also reaffirmed his strong backing and support for the attorney general.” Mr. Bush’s call to Mr. Gonzales, an old friend from Texas, could dampen speculation that the attorney general’s job is at stake, at least in the immediate future.