Lots of liberals are ticked off today by Nicholas Kristof's column in the New York Times in which he writes:

So I find myself repulsed by the glee that some Democrats show at the possibility of Karl Rove and Mr. Libby being dragged off in handcuffs. It was wrong for prosecutors to cook up borderline and technical indictments during the Clinton administration, and it would be just as wrong today.

Here's Trey Ellis at Huffington Post. Atrios calls Kristof the "wanker of the day."

My favorite is Bourbon Street's author Leonce Gaiter's "Kristof Wants to Be a Virgin." Here's a snippet:

by Last Night in Little Rock

President Bush today named his top economic advisor, Ben Bernanke, to replace Allen Greenspan when Greenspan's retirement becomes effective at the end of January.

One of the architects of the "No Millionaire Left Behind" economic strategy that has left the middle class in ruins (see here on why it matters to the middle class), we are sure that the Republican controlled Congress will approve, unless, of course, the Republicans in Congress have revolted against the administration after Rovegate hits the fan.

With a $7T deficit, and the Administration spending money like the Rapture will avoid responsibility for the debt and China buying T-Bills like they intend to own us, no Bush economic advisor is worthy of anything.

by TChris

One might think that the president who represents "the party of personal responsibility" would accept responsibility for his failures. Not so, according to this article. Instead, the president is peevish about the failures of others within his administration.

Bush is so dismayed that "the only person escaping blame is the President himself," said a sympathetic official, who delicately termed such self-exoneration "illogical."

Logic was never the president's strongest asset. Divine inspiration has served in its stead, but reality has produced bad news, so the president's staff is feeling his wrath.

by TChris

Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist in 2003 (during a CNBC interview):

"I think really for our viewers it should be understood that I put this into a blind trust," Frist replied. "So as far as I know, I own no HCA stock." He added that the trust was "totally blind. I have no control."

The truth:

Two weeks before that interview, M. Kirk Scobey Jr., a Frist trustee, informed the senator in writing that one of his trusts had received HCA stock valued at between $15,000 and $50,000.

It doesn't sound like Vice President Dick Cheney is very concerned about being indicted. He'll be fundraising in Denver Monday evening for a Republican candidate.

Vice President Dick Cheney will be in Denver Monday to attend a reception for congressional candidate Rick O'Donnell -- who's running for the seat being vacated by fellow Republican Bob Beauprez.

Cheney will speak at a gathering at Invesco Field at Mile High Stadium. O-Donnell is executive director of the Colorado Commission on Higher Education. He's seeking the Republican nomination in the Seventh Congressional District.

Colorado Pols and the Rocky Mountain News reports the event is in the evening. The Washington Daybook listed the appearance on Friday.

by TChris

An activist who wanted to make a media splash with his demonstration in favor of a proposed Georgia law that would deny state benefits to undocumented aliens couldn't find enough supporters to join his protest, so he paid fourteen homeless people $10 each to hold signs at a rally.

by TChris

eLottery, a company that wanted to sell lottery tickets online, hired Jack Abramoff to lobby for the defeat of the Internet Gambling Protection Act in the House of Representatives. Abramoff’s first task was to buy off conservative groups to stifle their opposition to gambling while using their clout to influence Republican representatives.

In May [2000], eLottery hired Abramoff's firm, Preston Gates & Ellis LLP, for $100,000 a month, according to lobbying reports. In the following months, Abramoff directed the company to pay hundreds of thousands of dollars to various organizations, faxes, e-mails and court records show. The groups included [Grover] Norquist's Americans for Tax Reform; [Rev. Louis] Sheldon's Traditional Values Coalition; companies affiliated with [Ralph] Reed; and a Seattle Orthodox Jewish foundation, Toward Tradition.

by TChris

John Podesta debunks former FBI Director Louis Freeh’s attempt to rewrite history by shifting blame for the FBI’s failures to Congress and Bill Clinton.

From the embarrassment of the Russian mole Robert Hanssen to the bungling of the Wen Ho Lee investigation to the wasting of hundreds of millions of dollars in a failed attempt to build a modern, computerized case management system, the bureau under Freeh's leadership stumbled from one blunder to the next, with little or no accountability. The nadir, as the nation knows too well, was reached in the astonishing string of failures that helped leave America vulnerable to the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.

In the face of this record, Freeh has now published "My FBI," a book distinguished by its shameless buck-passing. Nothing, it seems, was ever Louis Freeh's fault.

Does anyone else get an ominous feeling from reading this article about Bush's creation of a new spy agency? After deciphering the sci-fi jargon, it sounds downright creepy.

President George W Bush has approved the creation of a national clandestine service within the Central Intelligence Agency to oversee all US espionage operations, the government said on Thursday.

CIA Director Porter Goss has been named the Manager of National Human Intelligence. John Negroponte is in charge and has been named the Director of Human Intelligence.

by TChris

After enduring eight years of (mostly) unwarranted attacks against President Clinton – every new scandalous allegation reported with utter conviction on the right wing airwaves – it is easy to feel a not-quite-guilty pleasure in the accusations of misconduct directed at Tom DeLay, Bill Frist, Karl Rove, and every other miscreant in the reigning Republican government. They might all be innocent, but it is difficult to sympathize with those who built their careers by denouncing the invented transgressions of their political enemies.

Lanny Davis (quoted in this NY Times article) is correct that a “presumption of guilt culture … has come about in Washington in the last 10 or 15 years.” A presumption of guilt culture extends across the entire country. The presumption of guilt has been nurtured by the “get tough on crime” crowd, a movement spearheaded by right wing politicians, although plenty of Democrats have played along. It isn’t fair, but it isn’t unique to this administration. Accused Republicans may feel their guilt has been unfairly presumed, and maybe it has, but they played a part in building a culture that condemns on the basis of accusation, without awaiting due process or the testing of evidence by confrontation and counter-evidence.

Here’s Davis talking about his experience in the Clinton administration:

by TChris

Senator Sam Brownback wants to be the next faith based president. To prove his mettle (and to increase his name recognition), he's taken on the role of "the Republican most publicly questioning the Supreme Court nomination of Harriet E. Miers." Is Brownback prepared to take on Pat Robertson?

"They're going to turn against a Christian who is a conservative picked by a conservative president, and they're going to vote against her for confirmation?" Mr. Robertson said Wednesday on his television program. "Not on your sweet life, if they want to stay in office."

At the last Republican National Convention, Brownback "rallied a closed-door meeting of Christian conservatives with calls for a 'cultural war.'" It sounds like Brownback will soon be at war with his own culture.

TChris wrote yesterday about developments in Senator Bill Frist's stock deal. Today, the Washington Post reports the SEC has subpoenaed his records.

Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-Tenn.) has been subpoenaed to turn over personal records and documents as federal authorities step up a probe of his July sales of HCA Inc. stock, according to sources familiar with the investigation.

The Securities and Exchange Commission issued the subpoena within the past two weeks, after initial reports that Frist, the Senate's top Republican official, was under scrutiny by the agency and the Justice Department for possible violations of insider trading laws.