by TChris

Karl Rove, we're told, strives to turn a politician's weaknesses into strengths. George Bush has given him plenty to work with.

One presidential weakness has been an inability to obey the law or to respect fundamental human rights. And so his administration has whisked people away to secret prisons in foreign lands, all the while (for the sake of national security) refusing to acknowledge that it has done so. Until now.

Now the president wants to turn his use of secret detentions (probably accompanied by torture) into a virtue. He did it to protect us. So why isn't national security imperiled by yesterday's admission that his administration has held detainees in secret prisons? All fourteen detainees just happen to have exhausted their intelligence value in the same week, and so they're off to Guantanamo. Fourteen bad guys had to be hidden away to protect us, but now it's time to bring them out into the open so they can go on trial before one of the sham tribunals the president wants the legislature to endorse.

Why the sudden reveal of the gang of fourteen? The president's party is in danger of losing complete control of the government. It's time to convince the public that the president has saved our hides from dangerous terrorists. Hauling the evildoers to Guantanamo -- sort of a terrorist perp walk, without the cameras -- shows us that all the human rights violations, all the law-breaking, was worth it.

Don't think about it too hard, and maybe you'll believe that lawless presidential behavior is good for a democracy.

Hold your praise for Bush's turnaround on the overseas detention of suspected terrorists. The ACLU explains why:

"The president also proposes to gut enforceability of the Geneva Conventions by amending the War Crimes Act to completely immunize from prosecution civilians who subjected persons to horrific abuse that may have fallen short of the definition of 'torture.' As a result, government officials and civilian contractors who authorized or carried out waterboarding, threats of death, and other abuse would get a 'get out of jail free' card under the president's bill. The nation's soldiers and sailors would remain liable under the Uniform Code of Military Justice, but civilians would be immune from prosecution under the only statute that applies to many of these acts. That is simply wrong.

"The new Army Field Manual avoids some of the worst problems with earlier drafts and clarifies that those held by the military or at military facilities must be afforded the protections of the Geneva Conventions. However, it then creates loopholes for so-called 'unlawful combatants' by depriving them of the same protections--and specifically authorizes holding persons in isolation. And, the new manual does not apply to those held by the CIA. The Bush proposal is lip service unless the executive branch actually holds people accountable for violating it.

Former Illinois Governor George Ryan, who had the courage to commute the sentences of all death row inmates in the state to life imprisonment without parole after so many of them were found to have been wrongfully convicted, was sentenced today to 6 1/2 years in federal prison on bribery charges. The Judge threw out two charges against him, and the prosecutors had asked for 8 to 10 years, but at 71, and suffering from Crohn's disease and diabetes, the sentence will undoubtedly take from Ryan the most productive years he has left.

The case was prosecuted by Patrick Fitzgerald's office, the special counsel in the Valerie Plame investigation. As TalkLeft commenter Scribe noted in an e-mail to me earlier today:

The last line is telling about Fitz: of 79 people charged, 75 were convicted, 68 sentenced, 2 were fugitives, 1 case was dismissed. Regardless of what one thinks about prosecutors or cops, any lawyer with that kind of record in a complex, major case has to know what he's doing So, what is it the Republicans are talking about when they say Fitz ran around abusing his discretion?

TChris wrote earlier today about why Congress should reject gutting FISA. A bipartisan group of senators has sent a letter to Judiciary Committee Chairman Arlen Specter (R-PA) urging him to hold additional hearings before taking action on legislation regarding the NSA warrantless electronic surveillance program. In their letter, Senators Craig, Durbin, Sununu, Feingold, Murkowski, and Salazar express serious concerns about Specter's bill to authorize the NSA program:

We believe that additional information is necessary before the Senate can responsibly consider legislation that would dramatically alter FISA and significantly expand the surveillance authority of the executive branch. ... We are concerned by provisions in the newest version of your bill that suggest that the executive branch could conduct wiretaps and physical searches without the court orders currently required by FISA, and that would amend FISA to authorize "program warrants." In addition, we believe that Congress needs far more information about the newest section of your bill, which contains numerous complex amendments to FISA that appear to rewrite that law significantly.

You can read the entire letter here. I also recommend the ACLU's statement today opposing amending FISA.

(Guest Post by Big Tent Democrat)

The firestorm over ABC's Path to 9/11 is best exemplified by the right wing Accuracy in Media's review of it:

This is the first Hollywood production I've seen that honestly depicts how the Clinton administration repeatedly bungled the capture of Osama Bin Laden. One astonishing sequence in "The Path to 9/11" shows the CIA and the Northern Alliance surrounding Bin Laden's house in Afghanistan. They're on the verge of capturing Bin Laden, but they need final approval from the Clinton administration in order to go ahead. They phone Clinton, but he and his senior staff refuse to give authorization for the capture of Bin Laden, for fear of political fall-out if the mission should go wrong and civilians are harmed.

Of course, the depiction is actually completely and utterly dishonest:

[Guest Post by Big Tent Democrat]

Hugh Hewitt got an e-mail from, I believe the Wingnut producer of ABC's "Paths to Truthiness," (Think Progress says an ABC "insider," but I think they have misread the e-mail, which is clearly written from the perspective of someone who does not work for ABC). The funniest part for me is this:

The story here is the backlash that the Disney/ABC execs experienced was completely unexpected and is what caused them to question themselves and make these changes at all. Had this been the Bush Admin pressuring, they wouldn't have even taken the call. The execs and studio bosses are dyed in the wool liberals and huge supporters of Clinton and the Democratic Party in general. They had no idea any of this could happen. As I understand this, the lawyers and production team spent literally months corroborating every story point down to the sentence.

Down to the sentence? The fictional, dramatization sentence you mean? Let me put it this way - if this is true, and I believe it is completely false, or if you will - a "dramatization" - then ABC needs some new lawyers - as the central scene involving the Clinton Administration is utterly and completely false. Did the ABC lawyers decide that it was "fake but accurate"? How do they know? Apparently , NOT based on the 9/11 report or the first hand accounts of Richard Clarke, Roger Cressy, Bill Clinton, Madeline Albright or Sandy Berger.

Seems like ABC's source material for "Paths to 9/11 Truthiness" was the comments section at Little Green Footballs. The law firm of Moe, Larry, Curly and the GOP (I think Chalabi and Bolton made partner this year) was good to go -"Fake But Accurate."

by TChris

In the few remaining legislative days before the November election, the president would like nothing more than the enactment of a law authorizing his continued wiretapping of Americans without being bothered to get a warrant (unless it would be a law authorizing him to use sham tribunals to justify the continued indefinite detention of individuals at Guantanamo).

Topping the to-do list is passing legislation officially sanctioning the National Security Agency's secret wiretapping of suspected terrorist communications. The eavesdropping has been carried out without warrants since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. A federal judge in Detroit recently ruled the program illegal. ...

The Senate Judiciary Committee will consider as many as four contradictory bills on the issue tomorrow and could approve all of them.

The Specter-Cheney proposal is probably the worst of the bills, but none are necessary. Republican legislators (as well as Democrats who are willing to sell out freedom for fear that they will otherwise appear "soft on security") need to know that we value our right to be free from warrantless invasions of our private communications. They'll know that when they hear from you. Some Republicans are already getting the message, but many of those still advocate changing FISA, even if the changes are less sweeping than those proposed by Sen. Specter. The message they need to hear is: There's no need to fix what ain't broke.

The Wall St. Journal (free link) reports the Justice Department is now examining whether Tom DeLay's wife got paid for a no-show job.

In the last few weeks, Federal Bureau of Investigation agents have interviewed several people at the Alexander Strategy Group lobbying firm to determine if Christine DeLay was being paid $3,200 a month -- a total of $115,000 over three years -- but not earning it. In a series of interviews last month, investigators questioned people who used to work at Alexander Strategy as well as people who worked in the same building as the now-defunct firm. "They wanted to know how often she came to the office? What did she do there? How long was she there?" said one person who was interviewed by the FBI.

This isn't suprising. TChris and I wrote about it in April. So did Christy at Firedoglake.

Will this now break DeLay and cause him to cop a plea and cooperate in exchange for saving his wife from indictment? Or is the new investigation a sign it's too late for that?

Speaking of fear-mongering (see post below), check out Huffington Post's new page, Becoming Fearless.

Among the many well-written articles on the page: Arianna's take on Bush: "Why We Need an Epidemic of Fearlessness to Counter the Fearmonger-in-Chief"

President Bush made another stop on his Fall of Fear Tour Monday, delivering a thunderingly obvious speech in which he repeatedly, strenuously, and desperately tried to convince us of something we're already convinced of -- that terrorists are not nice people. Thanks for the heads up, Mr. President. What's next, a compelling argument that fire is hot? That K-Fed can't sing? The question in 2006 isn't whether terrorists are evil; it's what is the most effective way to fight them. A hint: it isn't staying the course in Iraq.

I happened to catch some of Bush's speech Monday while waiting for my flight to take off. My response to President Bush: I'll take a chance a terrorist with a bomb is seated next to me. Stop the insane airport security measures.

I'm no statistician but I'll bet I had a one thousand time greater chance of dying in a car crash driving back from Aspen on Monday than I did of being on a flight yesterday with a terrorist onboard poised to commit mayhem.

How absurd has flying become? Let me describe my morning yesterday. I drove to the airport and headed to the departure level where Denver's nice police officers let you leave your car running at the curb while you get out and hand your bag to the skycap for checking. Normally, particularly with Frontier, there's no waiting. Monday, the line was so long there were ropes corralling people. Why? Because everyone is checking luggage now that you can't bring anything from toothpaste to shampoo on board. There was no way could I leave my car unattended at curbside so long, not to mention I'd miss my flight, so I headed to valet parking.

(Guest Post by Big Tent Democrat)

The DLC needs to drop the D as long as the Dem hater and smearer Marshall Wittman remains on their payroll:

For months, the Moose has observed that if you seek anti-Semitic and anti-Israel filth on the internet, look to the left side. Comment threads and diariists regularly rant against Jews and the Jewish state. What is striking is the degree to which it is tolerated and the "respectability" these sites receive from the Democratic establishment.

Well, there has been a significant development of awareness in the Jewish community about this rancid phenomena. The Anti-Defamation League has submitted a letter to MoveOn protesting the anti-Semitic hate that was found on their site.

Of course, the bloggers will defend themselves by suggesting that they are not responsible for the comments on their site. Perhaps, just perhaps these so-called "progressives" could pause from their efforts to purge centrists and take some time to wipe their site clean of hate.

The question is why Democratic leaders continue to collude with the anti-Semitic appeasing left? This should be a time for introspection for a party that relies heavily on Jewish support.

First, Wittman, as he always does, lies. As I pointed out earlier, Move On did remove the comments 3 weeks ago.- and long before Joe Lieberman asked Abe Foxman to discredit the ADL with his misguided letter against Move On.

by TChris

Since Hillary Clinton is a lock to be reelected to her senate seat, it's difficult to understand why the GOP candidates battling for a primary win are being so vicious to each other.

[John] Spencer and [Kathleen] McFarland have engaged in one of the strangest primary campaigns the state has seen in recent years - a frothy and often torrid soap opera that has delighted New York's infamous tabloids while puzzling political observers. The contest has been dominated by tales of adultery, child sexual abuse, elitism and nepotism, with a bit of teenage shoplifting thrown in.

Is the answer that Republican candidates are so mean-spirited by nature that they can't resist being nasty, turning a meaningless primary faceoff into "a pointless exercise in personal humiliation"?