by TChris

Dana Milbank observes that the president, particularly when confronted with uncomfortable questions (and what questions in his disastrous fifth year aren’t uncomfortable?), has been fidgeting like a grade school kid with a serious attention deficit problem.

[D]uring Bush's 14-minute pre-sunrise interview [with Matt Lauer] … [t]he president was a blur of blinks, taps, jiggles, pivots and shifts. Bush has always been an active man, but standing with Lauer and the serene, steady first lady, he had the body language of a man wishing urgently to be elsewhere.

by TChris

Bill Frist apparently hasn't given up his dream of running for president, as evidenced by this "exploratory meeting with local power brokers" in Miami. While he's on the campaign trail, he'll have plenty of opportunities to explain his ethical missteps.

Investigators are already questioning Frist's suspiciously timed stock sale, which occurred despite his assurances that his family stock was held in a blind trust so as not to influence his Senate votes. The trust wasn't as blind as he wanted voters to believe, but now the AP reveals that his brother controlled a family investment partnership that accumulated HCA stock. Frist owns a share of that partership and earned more than a quarter million dollars from it over a recent four year period.

Does the Associated Press know something we don't know? Check this out, what else could it be besides a political obituary?

[Via Josh Marshall and TL reader Squeaky]

John Byrne of Raw Story reports:

The chief spokesman for Vice President Dick Cheney, Steve Schmidt, left the United States Oct. 3 and won't return until Oct. 26, well after the investigation into who outed a covert CIA agent wraps up, RAW STORY has confirmed.

Schmidt has left for Iraq. A RAW STORY email sent to Schmidt's private White House address Tuesday yielded this reply: "I will be out of the country from October 3rd through October 26th and will have VERY limited email access. For assistance, please contact Jon Berrier at 202-XXX-XXXX. Thank you."

What does this mean? I have no clue. It could mean Cheney is expecting no indictments, so there is no need to have a spokesman around, other than one to say "we expected this result all along."

On a related note, Attytood reports its theory that Bush and Cheney are no longer getting along. I'm not sure of that, even though at the time of Katrina, I speculated that Cheney's absence was due to being fed up with Bush. I now think Cheney's health may be a bigger problem. How are Cheney and Libby getting along these days? Any friction there?

Raw Story reports:

Vice President Dick Cheney was noticeably absent from a landmark dinner held last Thursday for the 50th anniversary of the conservative National Review magazine, Roll Call will report in Tuesday editions.

While guests raved about the gourmet food served at the National Review’s 50th anniversary party Thursday night, they couldn’t take their minds off who wasn’t there: Vice President Cheney. His absence dredged up the question that dominated the blogosphere in recent months: Where’s Dick? “Not here,” was the short answer. “Scheduling conflict,” the party line.

Cheney was supposed to speak at the dinner at 7:30. For health reasons, he wanted to move his slot to 7:00. They couldn't change it, and he ended up not going.

The speculation: Is his health worse than we've been led to believe? Or is it because Libby's problems appear to be worsening?

by Last Night in Little Rock

Theodore Roosevelt Heller's obituary in today's Chicago Tribune showed he was a man of high character. When he was wounded in WWII, he forced his way back into the Illinois National Guard "insisting no one tells [me] when to serve [my] country."

Even in death, Heller showed still continues to serve his country:

by TChris

If Karl Rove is indicted, will he lose his job?

The evolution of Mr. Bush's statements on the CIA leak case indicate how loath he is to lose the man he has described as his political "architect." Early on in the controversy over the disclosure of Ms. Plame's identity, the president vowed to fire anyone involved. Later, after testimony implicating Mr. Rove became public, Mr. Bush expressed a looser standard, saying he would remove aides who committed crimes. Last week, amid speculation that Mr. Rove might face charges from special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald, Mr. Bush wouldn't say whether he would remove an aide under indictment.

Maybe, like Brownie, Rove will resign, only to be hired back on contract to investigate what the administration "did right and what it did wrong" regarding Valerie Plame.

by TChris

A new AP-Ipsos poll shows that the president's base is increasingly disappointed with his job performance:

The number of people who strongly approve of Bush's job performance has eroded over the last year, most notably among key groups like evangelical voters, down from 49 percent who strongly approved in January to 33 percent now; Republican men, down from 57 percent to 42 percent; Protestants, down from 36 percent to 25 percent; and Southerners, down from 32 percent to 22 percent.

by TChris

It is increasingly uncomfortable for Republics to act like, well, Republicans. House Republicans today narrowly passed the kind of bill that, in better times, would have easily prevailed. Clouded in the political cover provided by Hurricane Katrina, Republicans claim the bill will encourage oil companies to build new refineries. Among other obnoxious provisions, it requires citizen's groups that challenge new refineries to pay the refinery's hefty legal bills, win or lose.

Ignoring the rules once again, Republicans held open the vote until they could lobby enough party members to change their votes. Democrats, finally showing signs of life, chanted "shame, shame" as Republicans rejected demands to close the vote. Democrats held together, unanimously opposing the bill.

Finally, long after the vote had been scheduled to close, two GOP votes switched, providing the Republican victory.

Final vote to provide outrageous giveaways to Republican-friendly oil companies: 212-210.

Tom DeLay has moved to dismiss the Indictments against him on grounds of misconduct by prosecutor Ronnie Earle:

DeLay's attorney, Dick DeGuerin, alleged in a court motion that Travis County District Attorney Ronnie Earle unlawfully participated in grand jury deliberations when he went to a second grand jury last week to seek a second indictment against the congressman.

DeGuerin also alleged that Earle "attempted to browbeat and coerce" the second grand jury to change its decision not to indict DeLay so there would be no public record of a rejection. DeGuerin said the indictment forced DeLay to step down from his job as majority leader, the No. 2 position in the U.S. House, for a crime that did not exist in Texas law.

It's pretty amazing that Texas doesn't have a law gagging grand jurors until after the case is over.

Great news. President Bush has withdrawn Timothy Flanigan's nomination for Deputy Attorney General. (Background here.) Senator Dick Durbin has just released this statement (received by e-mail.)

“Earlier this week, I asked for a follow-up hearing on the nomination of Timothy Flanigan to be Deputy Attorney General because serious concerns had been raised about his relationship with indicted lobbyist Jack Abramoff and about his role in crafting the Bush administration’s policies on torture. I wanted to make certain that no conflicts of interest would have prevented Mr. Flanigan from performing his duties.”

“While Mr. Flanigan’s nomination has been withdrawn, troubling questions remain about the Bush administration’s torture policies and Abramoff’s dealings with the administration and the Republican leadership of Congress. We have to answer these questions in order to restore the trust of the American people’s trust in their government. I encourage the President to nominate an individual of unimpeachable integrity as Deputy Attorney General. At this difficult time, the American people deserve no less.”

Stirling Newberry has a DeLay fundraising memo with subsequent e-mails attached that, by virtue of the bates stamped numbers at the bottom, appear to be official. Don't forget to scroll down through the e-mails.