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July 31, 2007

Vitter's Close Call

From my "Capital Games" column at www.thenation.com....

Imagine this scenario: A young congressional aide who moonlights for an escort service receives a call from her madam. The woman who owns the service asks her to meet a customer at a certain spot and time. When the aide/escort arrives, she sees that the client is a member of Congress and sits on the very same committee where she works. Embarrassing? Uncomfortable? A potential scandal? They now each know a big secret about the other. She knows he is using an escort service. He knows she is working for that same service. What do they do? Is his--or her--political career in peril?

The records of Deborah Jeane Palfrey, a.k.a. the DC Madam, suggest that Republican Senator David Vitter came close to experiencing such an awkward moment when he served in the House of Representatives. These phone records indicate that Palfrey may have set Vitter up with an escort who was a staffer for a congressional committee that included Vitter as a member. But if the two did meet for an escort experience, Vitter escaped being found out by his (indirect) subordinate.

According to the aide/escort--whose name I'm not revealing--she would not have recognized Vitter. "It's entirely conceivable," she says, "that I encountered him [while working as an escort for Palfrey] and did not know it." This woman notes that she had been with the committee a brief time, had attended only a few of its meetings, and was not familiar with all of its members. "I wouldn't know him if I saw him," she says. Throughout her stint working for Palfrey, this woman notes, "I did not come across anyone I recognized, no public figures....We [escorts] didn't know them. They didn't know us."

Vitter has acknowledged calling Pamela Martin and Associates, the escort service Palfrey ran until 2006. "This was a very serious sin in my past," he said in a statement released to the Associated Press on July 9, after Time magazine notified his office that Vitter's phone number was on Palfrey's billing records. (A Hustler editor contacted Vitter's office minutes after a Time reporter did.) But Vitter, who has campaigned on family values and who argued in 1998 that President Bill Clinton had to be impeached for his immoral conduct, has refused to say anything specific about his use of the escort service, and he has declined to resign from the Senate. Vitter's office did not respond to a request for a comment for this story.

According to Palfrey, this is how her business worked. A prospective client would call a local Washington phone number. She would answer the call at her Vallejo, California, home. (Most of her billing records do not show these incoming calls.) The man would ask for an escort and perhaps make special requests. Palfrey would then phone her employees in Washington to find someone appropriate for the customer. Next, she would call the client back and confirm the session. These long-distance outgoing calls to her escorts and to the customers are listed on her phone bills. As she explains it, in certain instances one can determine which woman was dispatched to a client by looking at the phone numbers that appear before the phone number of the customer. On one phone bill, the number of the aide/escort appears before a phone number for Vitter.

The phone records are not conclusive evidence that this congressional aide and Vitter had a professional meeting outside the committee room. But Palfrey says that would be a reasonable reading of the documents. (Palfrey says she has no direct knowledge that Vitter was a client because she knew most of her customers by first names or aliases. She no longer has detailed records showing which escorts visited which clients.)

I am not naming the aide/escort because this woman, unlike Vitter, has not engaged in public hypocrisy. Also, I have no evidence she broke the law. (Palfrey claims her women engaged in fantasy role-playing with their customers; the government, in its prosecution of Palfrey, maintains she ran a prostitution ring.) This woman left Capitol Hill and Palfrey's business years ago. With the help of investigative reporter Dan Moldea, who first discovered Vitter's number on Palfrey's telephone bills while working with Larry Flynt, I found her. When I contacted her, she was unaware that Palfrey had been busted, that Palfrey had posted the escort service's telephone records on the Internet, or that Vitter had been caught in the scandal. She asked me not to use her name: "It was a long time ago."

It's a curious episode. Vitter might have hired an escort with whom he worked in Congress. In most circumstances, committee aides can recognize the lawmakers they serve. What might have happened had this aide done so with Vitter? Exposure? Intrigue? Danger? "It was apparently a very close call," the woman says. "This could make a great a screenplay." But in this situation--if it did come to pass--Vitter was lucky. He was not on her radar screen. The congressman would have been just another john.

Posted by David Corn at 07:22 AM

July 30, 2007

Whose Failed Leadership?

From a press release the Barack Obama campaign sent out on Monday:

Senator Barack Obama will deliver a speech, "The War We Need to Win," laying out his comprehensive strategy to fight terrorism worldwide in Washington, DC on Wednesday. He will discuss how the war in Iraq and our failed leadership in Washington have made us less safe than we were before 9/11 and outline his plan to start fighting the right war on the right battlefield.

My question: does he consider Hillary Clinton to be part of the "failed leadership in Washington"?

The speech is scheduled for Wednesday morning.

Posted by David Corn at 09:27 PM

Be Back Soon

On the road today.

Posted by David Corn at 06:08 PM

July 29, 2007

So Misunderstood

Serious foreign policy mavens often mock George W. Bush for his black-and-white view of the world and argue that diplomacy requires more sophisticated analysis and awareness. So it was surprising to see my friend Steve Clemons, foreign policy maven supreme at the New America Foundation, engage in binary political analysis. Writing in his blog, Clemons accused me--egads!--of "Hillary-leaning." Why level such a charge? Because I had criticized Barack Obama for vowing to meet with the leaders of North Korea, Iran, Syria, Cuba and Venezuela without preconditions in his first year as president (should he be elected).

I've not endorsed any candidate, and, as far as I can tell, no candidate has been eagerly awaiting such a decision from me. But I've said many times, I'm not a fan of Hillary Clinton, and I would be pleased to see Obama run a marvelous and effective campaign. My own fancies aside, I remain an independent journalist. And I call 'em as I see 'em. If Obama blows an opportunity, I will note that--not to help the Hillaryites, but to be honest and to be of service to my readers. Steve, I write; I don't lean.

In the squabble over Obama's reply to the meet-with-thugs question, several bloggers and commentators (on both sides of the Obama-Clinton divide) have acted more like spinners than journalists, looking to score points for their side. For instance, there's Glenn Greenwald of Salon.

In a recent post, he pointed to my article on Obama's answer and insinuated I was just another member of the inside-the-Beltway media elite. Wow, where's my membership card? Far be it from me to explain to outside-the-Beltway Greenwald that writing a book titled The Lies of George W. Bush, reporting the behind-the-scenes machinations that led to the manipulation of the prewar intelligence on Iraq (for the book I co-wrote with Michael Isikoff, Hubris: the Inside Story of Spin, Scandal, and the Selling of the War), being the journalist who first noted that the CIA leak might be evidence of a White House crime, and writing skeptically of the Iraq war before the invasion hardly makes one a member of Washington's media elite. (I could add much more to that list, including contributing to Salon, as I have done in the past.)

In critiquing my Obama piece, Greenwald huffs,

That is how this works perpetually -- media elites repeatedly masquerade their own conventional wisdom and biases as "American centrism" and any deviation as "extremism" or "unseriousness" or even "craziness."

This is plain silliness (not "craziness"). I do not "masquerade" my own views as "American centrism." They are my views alone. My belief was that Obama's reply was problematic and would be used against him. I wrote that. It had nothing to do with ideology or "extremism."

He goes on:

To be clear, none of this is about whether I personally believe it is a good idea to commit to face-to-face meetings in the first 12 months of a presidency with every hostile world leader regardless of the circumstances.

Come again? If it's not a good idea, why shouldn't a political reporter note that a candidate gave an answer in televised debate that was not a "good idea"?

The real discussion is indeed whether Obama's answer was a sound one. If Bush presented an idea that Greenwald considered unsound, I'm sure he would pounce on it and call on media elites in and out of the nation's capital to publicize the presidential error. After all, sometimes a story about a debate reply is just a story about a debate reply.

In the meantime, I'm late for brunch with David Broder and Tim Russert, where--this week--we're going to figure out how we can push Joe Biden into the top tier of Democratic presidential candidates. We blinded-by-conventional-wisdom media elites like a challenge.

Posted by David Corn at 03:36 PM

July 27, 2007

Teach Thyself

After arguing an invasion of Iraq would trigger a wave of positive change throughout the Arab world, Charles Krauthammer, the neocon columnist, is not in much of a position to lecture anyone on foreign policy. Yet he does so today, making use of my recent article on Barack Obama's flubbed response at the YouTube debate. (See all those posts below). In piling on Obama, Krauthammer notes that after Obama vowed to meet with the leaders of Iran, North Korea, Syria, Cuba and Venezuela, there came

from the Nation's David Corn to super-blogger Mickey Kaus, a near-audible gasp.

That much is true. But pointing to Obama's slip-up, Krauthammer feels compelled to instruct Obama on how presidential summitry works. Next he huffs,

(1) Obama is inexplicably unable to think on his feet while standing on South Carolina soil, or (2) Obama is not ready to be a wartime president..

Obama did oppose the war Krauthammer cheerleaded. Which means he understands better than Krauthammer a key rule of foreign policy: think clearly about the consequences of your actions before acting.

KEEPING GONZO ALIVE. Besieged Attorney General Alberto Gonzales is the Terri Schiavo of the Bush administration: he must be kept alive at all costs. No matter how miserably he performs during congressional appearances and no matter how many times he's caught in a contradiction (or a lie), George W. Bush stands by his man. It's that famous Bush loyalty, some observers say. But Bush has readily bounced people when they became liabilities. It's that famous Bush stubbornness, others opine. But Bush has changed course when political reality dictated a shift. My one-liner on this (suitable for use on TV and radio shows) has been: Gonzales has fixed too many parking tickets for Bush over the years. In other words, he knows too much. And that may partly explain Bush's continuing embrace of Gonzales. But there might be yet another explanation: Bush and Cheney do not want to lose control of the Justice Department.

If Gonzales were to resign, Bush would be forced to nominate a nonpartisan figure of independent standing for the job--that is, someone he and Cheney could not rely upon to do their bidding. With various investigations under way and with Bush and Cheney still seeking to expand presidential power, they need the Justice Department on their side. They cannot afford to let anyone of independence to take its reins. Gonzales has job security.

MIRROR, MIRROR ON THE WALL.... Who's the neocon-est of them all? That is, of the GOP presidential contenders. In a piece in the latest issue of The Nation, I write:

The neoconservatives are not riding high these days. The Iraq War--their number-one cause--is a failure, and the public has turned on the war, George W. Bush and Dick Cheney, their top man in the Administration. Meanwhile, the so-called foreign policy realists appear to have the upper hand against the Administration's dwindling neocon cell in many internal policy squabbles. But the neocons are faring rather well when it comes to the presidential race. The leading GOP contenders are all die-hard fans of the war. And the newest star in the show--Fred Thompson, the former Republican senator from Tennessee, onetime lobbyist and TV actor who has all but officially announced his candidacy--might be the most neoconnish of all.

To read why that is, click here, though you might have to subscribe. And check out the latest edition of the Corn & Miniter webcast, which should be posted on PajamasMedia.com sometime today.

Posted by David Corn at 11:55 AM

July 26, 2007

The Catfight Continues

Who thought the Democratic presidential contest would include a spat on whether or not to invite Kim Jong Il to the White House? After Senator Barack Obama promised to meet directly with the anti-American leaders of Iran, North Korea, Syria, Venezuela and Cuba during his first year as president (should he be elected) without setting any preconditions, Senator Hillary Clinton and her surrogates blasted him for being naive in the ways of foreign policy. As I noted in postings below, I, too, thought his answer lacked the necessary sophistication. An Obama adviser told me, "Of course, it was a mistake, but Hillary has overreacted." Indeed he forces of Hillary have tried to exploit that misstep, and a catfight has ensued.

In this battle between Clinton and Obama, both sides are right. Look at how ABC News depicted the slam-fest:

In interviews with Iowa's Quad City Times Tuesday, both candidates took shots at one another. "I thought that was irresponsible and, frankly, naive to say that he [Sen. Obama] would commit to meeting with Chavez and Castro and others within the first year," Clinton said. "Sen. Obama gave an answer which I think he's regretting today."

Countered Obama: "If anything is irresponsible and naive, it was authorizing George Bush to send 160,000 young American men and women into Iraq -- apparently without knowing how they were going to get out."

Which of these arguments is misguided? Neither. Obama should not have committed to such meetings, and Clinton was wrong to have voted for legislation that allowed Bush to invade Iraq. Certainly, a debate slip-up is not as consequential as okaying a disastrous war. What's unfortunate for Obama (politically) is that he's going on the offensive against Clinton regarding her war vote in order to defend himself for committing an error during the debate. If he's serious about critiquing Clinton's judgment (as evidenced by her war vote), then he should have argued this case earlier. His next best option is to argue it more extensively and vigorously in the months ahead.

I'm not saying this would be a winning formula for Obama. John Kerry also voted for the Iraq war legislation, and though most Democrats in 2004 favored Howard Dean's anti-war stance, the Democrats elected Kerry their nominee and supported him in the general election. But Obama needs to show he's different from Clinton in significant ways. If he believes the war vote is a key distinction (he opposed the Iraq war but was not yet in the Senate), he should focus on that and not on who's coming to dinner at the White House.

I KNEW HENRY KISSINGER, AND SHE'S NO.... Meanwhile, back at my homebase of The Nation, John Nichols used the Clinton-Obama tussle to attack Clinton for being...a clone of Henry Kissinger. I'm no Clinton fan. But Nichols was engaging in historical revisionism regarding an event only three days old. He wrote:

In Monday's night's YouTube debate, candidates were asked it they would be willing to meet "with leaders of Syria, Iran, Venezuela during their first term," Obama immediately responded that, yes, he would be willing to do so. He explained that "the notion that somehow not talking to countries is punishment to them -- which has been the guiding diplomatic principle of this administration -- is ridiculous."

Clinton disagreed in the debate and now her camp is declaring that, "There is a clear difference between the two approaches these candidates are taking: Senator Obama has committed to presidential-level meetings with some of the world's worst dictators without precondition during his first year in office."

....The senator is showing true self when she dismisses the value of presidential engagement with the leaders of foreign lands.

Clinton is playing politics this week. But in a broader sense she is aligning herself with a secretive and anti-democratic approach to global affairs that steers the United States out of the global community while telling the American people that foreign policy is the domain only of shadowy Kissingers.

All Clinton said at the debate--and afterward--is that diplomacy would have to precede any presidential meetings with the thuggish leaders of these states and that she would not commit to such top-level talks without this preliminary work. How does that translate into being "shadowy," "secretive," or "anti-democratic"? I'm all for kicking her for the Iraq war vote. But let's have a fair--and accurate--fight

Posted by David Corn at 10:50 AM

July 25, 2007

Obama Blunder or Not?

My boss didn't like what I wrote about Barack Obama's YouTube debate performance--that is, his promise to meet with the thuggish leaders of North Korea, Iran, Syria, Cuba, and Venezuela in his first year as president (should he be elected). But what's fortunate is that at The Nation website I get to have my say, and then editor Katrina vanden Heuvel can have hers. She writes,

David may well be right that Obama's opponents will try to exploit his response. But from a foreign policy point of view was Obama's response so wrong and Clinton's so right? Her husband's administration generally followed Hillary's approach; during his two terms President Clinton did not meet with Fidel Castro or with Hugo Chavez or with the leaders of Iran, Syria, and North Korea -- while generally pursuing a policy of trying to isolate these countries. But what did the Clinton approach actually accomplish? The respective regimes of Castro in Cuba and Chavez in Venezuela have only grown stronger, and more influential in Latin America. Although Syria was forced to withdraw its military forces from Lebanon last year, the regime of Bashar Assad is as firmly entrenched in power as was his father's. And in spite of the odious politics and qualities of Ahmadinejad, Iran carries more weight in the Middle East than it did doing the early 1990s while American power and standing has declined considerably....

In signaling that he was willing to meet with the leaders of these countries, Obama was signaling that the United States has the confidence in its values to meet with anyone. But he also signaled a certain humility that reflects the understanding that the next president must reach out to the rest of the world and not merely issue conditions from the White House and threaten military force if it does not get its way.

Well, my point was that this was indeed a blunder because it could be used against Obama. Moreover, one need not promise to meet with these heads of state without any conditions in order to eschew Bush unilateralism and to reach out to the rest of the world. Hillary Clinton and John Edwards got the question right. They vowed to mount diplomatic initiatives that could lead to top-level talks. The choice is not a presidential meeting with Kim Jong Il or an invasion of North Korea. And let's make the question a simple one: if there was nothing wrong with Obama's answer (as he gave it), should he continue to say the same thing? Does anyone believe that promising to meet with Ahmadinejad right away will win Obama more votes than it will cost him? I doubt we will hear Obama reiterate this promise. Why? Because he knows the answer to that simple question.

By the way, after the debate, Obama's campaign disseminated a memo saying, "On issues of national security, Obama made clear that making America safer would require using tough diplomacy with countries like Iran and North Korea that have seen dramatic expansions of their nuclear programs during the seven years of the Bush presidency." During the debate, though, that's not how Obama put it. He did not call for "tough" diplomacy and did not raise the issue of Iranian and North Korea nukes. Certainly, "tough" diplomacy does not entail offering presidential meetings before the negotiating begins.

I write the above and the original piece as someone who is not rooting for Obama to fail. But it's clear to me he's going to have to be both bolder in his overall campaign strategy and more careful in his responses to questions about foreign policy, an area in which he has good instincts but not a lot of working experience.

THOSE WHO CAN'T DO.... The back of the front section of Tuesday's Washington Post contained a full-page ad for a Get Motivated seminar scheduled to be held in Washington in September. For $49, you will be able to hear Steve Forbes, Dr. Robert Schuller, Sugar Ray Leonard and Zig Ziglar share their secrets of success. (Steve Forbes: First, be born to a millionaire.) Also on the list of speakers is Colin Powell. The ad says, "Drawing from his experience on the world stage, Gen. Powell shows you precisely what it takes to be a leader, providing strategies for 'taking charge' during times of great change." Moreover, the ad promises that Powell will teach you "How to Improve Processes, Organizations and People," How to Forge Winning Alliances," and "Keys to Creating Diplomatic Solutions."

Hmmm, forging winning alliances and creating diplomatic solutions? Making organizations work better? Seems to me that Powell should have taken courses in all this before becoming Secretary of State and enabling George W. Bush's war in Iraq, which Powell now says he tried to talk Bush out of. (Which means he failed when it came to perhaps the most important task of his career.) Powell, I'm assuming, will receive tens of thousands of dollars for relating pearls of wisdom to the I-wanna-get-motivated crowd. Perhaps he ought to donate his fee to the families of those American soldiers wounded and killed in Iraq.

Posted by David Corn at 11:04 AM

July 24, 2007

An Obama Flub?

From my "Capital Games" column at www.thenation.com....

I can see the ad now: Kim Jong Il, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Fidel Castro, Bashar al-Assad, and Hugo Chavez all strolling into the White House, and a grinning Barack Obama greeting them with a friendly "Welcome, boys; what do you want to talk about?"

If Obama gets close to the Democratic presidential nomination, pro-Hillary Clinton forces could air such an ad. If he wins the nomination, the Republicans could hammer him with such a spot.

And the junior senator from Illinois will not have much of a defense.

At the newfangled YouTube/CNN debate on Monday night--during which YouTubers posed questions to the Democratic candidates via video--a fellow named Stephen Sorta of Diamond Bar, California, asked,

In 1982, Anwar Sadat traveled to Israel, a trip that resulted in a peace agreement that has lasted ever since. In the spirit of that type of bold leadership, would you be willing to meet separately, without precondition, during the first year of your administration, in Washington or anywhere else, with the leaders of Iran, Syria, Venezuela, Cuba and North Korea, in order to bridge the gap that divides our countries?

Obama took the question first. He replied,

I would. And the reason is this, that the notion that somehow not talking to countries is punishment to them -- which has been the guiding diplomatic principle of this administration -- is ridiculous. Now, Ronald Reagan and Democratic presidents like JFK constantly spoke to Soviet Union at a time when Ronald Reagan called them an evil empire. And the reason is because they understood that we may not trust them and they may pose an extraordinary danger to this country, but we had the obligation to find areas where we can potentially move forward.

The crowd responded with applause. His answer seemed fine. It was only moments later that the problem became obvious. Sorta, who was also in the audience, put the same question to Senator Hillary Clinton. She said:

Well, I will not promise to meet with the leaders of these countries during my first year. I will promise a very vigorous diplomatic effort because I think it is not that you promise a meeting at that high a level before you know what the intentions are. I don't want to be used for propaganda purposes. I don't want to make a situation even worse. But I certainly agree that we need to get back to diplomacy, which has been turned into a bad word by this administration. And I will purse very vigorous diplomacy.

And I will use a lot of high-level presidential envoys to test the waters, to feel the way. But certainly, we're not going to just have our president meet with Fidel Castro and Hugo Chavez and, you know, the president of North Korea, Iran and Syria until we know better what the way forward would be.

Then CNN's Anderson Cooper, the moderator, turned to former Senator John Edwards and asked, "Would you meet with Hugo Chavez, Fidel Castro, Kim Jong Il?" Edwards echoed Clinton:

Yes, and I think actually Senator Clinton's right though. Before that meeting takes place, we need to do the work, the diplomacy, to make sure that that meeting's not going to be used for propaganda purposes, will not be used to just beat down the United States of America in the world community. But I think this is just a piece of a bigger question, which is, what do we actually do? What should the president of the United States do to restore America's moral leadership in the world. It's not enough just to meet with bad leaders. In addition to that, the world needs to hear from the president of the United States about who we are, what it is we represent.

Obama had suggested he would sit down with these leaders willy-nilly, no preconditions. Clinton and Edwards explained that that they would use diplomacy to try to improve relations with these nations and that such an effort could lead to a one-on-one with these heads of state.

Obama had responded from the gut, working off a correct critique of the Bush administration's skeptical approach toward diplomacy. But his answer lacked the sophistication of Clinton's and Edwards' replies. And this moment illustrated perhaps the top peril for the Obama campaign: with this post-9/11 presidential contest, to a large degree, a question of who should be the next commander in chief, any misstep related to foreign policy is a big deal for a candidate who has little experience in national security matters.

Clinton, with her years as First Lady and her stint as a member of the Senate armed services committee, and Edwards, with his tenure on the Senate intelligence committee, are steeped in the nuances, language, and minefields of foreign policy. (Among the second-tier candidates, Senator Joe Biden, Senator Chris Dodd, and New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson can boast extensive national security experience.) Though Obama was against the Iraq war before he was a senator, he has not developed his foreign policy chops. That's understandable; he's only been on the national scene for two years. (Prior to that, he was doing admirable work as a state legislator, a civil rights attorney, and a community organizer.) So he is more prone to commit mistakes in this area--perhaps stupid mistakes--that can be easily exploited by his opponents. And in the post-9/11 era, there's not much room in national politics for such errors.

During the 2004 Democratic presidential contest, Howard Dean had the foreign policy positions that resonated most with Democratic voters. He was opposed to the Iraq war; Senator John Kerry had voted to let George W. Bush invade Iraq. But Dean, like Obama, had not spent years talking and doing foreign policy. He made some dumb gaffes. On Meet the Press Tim Russert asked Dean this question:

Let's talk about the military budget. How many men and women would you have on active duty?

Dean flubbed his response:

I can't answer that question. And I don't know what the answer is.

Later in the race, Dean repeatedly referred to Russia as the "Soviet Union," a country that had not existed for 13 years.

Such remarks were not the downfall of Dean. But they did allow others to suggest he was not ready for prime time regarding national security matters. (Of course, neither was George W. Bush, but he had the good fortune of running in the last pre-9/11 election.) About Dean, Kerry said, "All the advisers in the world can't give Howard Dean the military and foreign policy experience, leadership skills...necessary to lead this country through dangerous times." Obama is obviously susceptible to a similar attack--from a Democrat or a Republican.

For Obama to have a chance of toppling front-running Clinton, he will have a near-perfect performance from now until the actual voting. During the YouTube debate, Obama generally did fine. But he did not differentiate himself from Clinton in a significant manner. After all, there is not much difference between their current positions. He did take a strong shot at her during a series of questions about the Iraq war:

One thing I have to say about Senator Clinton's comments a couple of moments ago. I think it's terrific that she's asking for plans from the Pentagon, and I think the Pentagon response was ridiculous. But what I also know is that the time for us to ask how we were going to get out of Iraq was before we went in. And that is something that too many of us failed to do. We failed to do it. And I do think that that is something that both Republicans and Democrats have to take responsibility for.

The crowd cheered, but one swing at Clinton does not a campaign make. Yes, there are months to go in the preprimary maneuvering, but at some point--probably sooner than later--Obama is going to have to make a move. Meanwhile, he also has to avoid such mistakes as promising to open the doors of the White House without conditions to Kim Jong Il and others of that ilk. He cannot let Stephen Sorta of Diamond Bar, California, trip him up again.

Posted by David Corn at 12:22 PM

July 23, 2007

How Low Can Bush Go?

George W. Bush has hit a new low in his presidential approval rating. From the American Research Group:

A total of 71% of Americans say they disapprove of the way George W. Bush is handling his job as president according to the latest survey from the American Research Group.

Among all Americans, 25% approve of the way Bush is handling his job as president and 71% disapprove. When it comes to Bush's handling of the economy, 23% approve and 73% disapprove.

Among Americans registered to vote, 27% approve of the way Bush is handling his job as president and 70% disapprove. When it comes to the way Bush is handling the economy, 23% of registered voters approve of the way Bush is handling the economy and 72% disapprove.

This is the highest level of disapproval and lowest level of approval for the Bush presidency recorded in monthly surveys by the American Research Group....

Overall, 25% of Americans say that they approve of the way George W. Bush is handling his job as president, 71% disapprove, and 4% are undecided.

My question: how low can he go? Has Bush's kisser hit the floor yet? Or is there room for--as he might say--disimprovement? At his worst, Jimmy Carter fell to 22 percent in a Harris Poll, establishing a modern-day record. Can Bush top (or bottom) Carter? How many stick-with-him-no-matter-what GOPers are out there?

If you have any predictions, observations, or wry observations, send them to cornblog@hotmail.com.

Posted by David Corn at 05:24 PM

About Time

After years of calling for the United States to attack Iraq (prior to the 2003 invasion) and after years of defending the invasion of Iraq and after claiming that significant progress is underway there, Bill Kristol left on Sunday for his first trip to Iraq.

Which reminds me, in the editing process of my recent Washington Post rebuttal to Kristol's article (in which Kristol claimed George W. Bush will win the Iraq war and end up a successful president), a line was cut. I had snarkily asked, "By the way, how many staffers and interns of the Weekly Standard has Kristol encouraged to postpone their journalistic careers and sign up for Bush's war in Iraq?" I understand how such a remark can come across as a little too personal and too sharp for punditry purpose, and I have no complaints whatsoever with the editing of the article. But there is a serious point here.

If one only has to sit in an armchair and bark out demands that others go to war, doesn't that make it a bit too easy to launch a military action? And if the war in Iraq is essential for the survival of the United States--as Kristol and other neocons contend--shouldn't they be pushing the people they know to sign up for the battle? When the leftist of the 1930s argued that the United States should support the Spanish government against the attacks of Franco and his forces, many of those leftists went overseas as part of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade to help the Spaniards. They placed their bodies were their principles were: in the foxhole. Where are the young neocons and young Republicans these days? is there a Ronald Reagan Brigade out there? (Check out Max Blumenthal's recent and popular video about the latest generation of rightwing chickenhawks.)

In any event, Kristol did all he could to make sure that American soldiers would lose lives and limbs for a policy he had been pushing for years. Seems to me that if he were a serious fellow, he would have been publicly urging everyone who qualified for miliary service--including relatives and workplace colleagues--to join in this grand sacrifice for his noble cause. But, as far as I can tell, he hasn't.

I wish him a safe trip to Iraq.

Posted by David Corn at 10:31 AM

July 20, 2007

Tom DeLay: The Sequel

On Thursday, while I was filming the latest episode of the Corn & Miniter Show, which should be posted sometime Friday on PajamasMedia.com, I spotted Tom DeLay strolling by. We interrupted the show to ask the former House majority leader (who is still facing criminal charges) a few questions. What are you up to these days? I inquired. Trying to be the "Democrats' worst nightmare," he answered with a grin. But, I replied, didn't you do that already? Why not set a new personal goal? DeLay noted he was endeavoring to build conservative groups to take on the Democrats. One source tells me he's trying to find conservative billionaires who could finance a George Soros-like operation of the right. As for who he likes in the Republican presidential contest, he says, no one yet--though DeLay did say he'd like to see Newt Gingrich run. Now what could be better for Democrats than to have Gingrich and DeLay back in the ring? Maybe Jack Abramoff could give them advice from jail.

NEXT BIG THING...OR GIMMICK? On Monday YouTube and CNN will sponsor a debate for the Democratic presidential wannabes. Anderson Cooper and other CNNers will choose questions from hundreds of video queries submitted to YouTube. Will this debate mark a turning point in how the Internet interacts with politics? Probably not. Andrew Polsky, a poli-sci prof at Hunter College, says, "The pseudo-populist trappings of the YouTube formula will not make this debate any different. The questions will be posed and the candidates will still answer with their planned responses, often not to the point of the question." He's probably right. If a YouTuber asks, "My insurance company won't pay for a bone marrow transplant that my six-year-old daughter needs within the next two months, so I want to know what can be done tomorrow so my child might live," each candidate will express concern and plug in his or her 60-second healthcare spiel. And with CNNers picking the question, this is not much of a break from earlier debates when moderators chose questions from the audience--after vetting the questions and questioners.

I'd like to see the candidates air-dropped into town hall meetings in various locations across the United States--including inner cities, border areas, and towns hit by factory shutdowns. Open Mike Night, in a way. Of course, they all would do fine. They're trained to do fine in such circumstances, and they would indeed resort to their planned responses. Ever try to get a politician off-message? I have. It's damn hard. They are genetically programmed to say what they want to say--regardless of the question. In other words, the format doesn't matter. Still, it would be more entertaining--and perhaps a tad more informative--to see them interact in an unscripted fashion with voters on matters of substance.

Which reminds me; I have a friend who used to live in New York City who tells me that one morning she spotted Rudy Giuliani campaigning for mayor at a subway stop. She was no fan of his, but she went over to shake his hand. He took one look at her, said sharply, "You're not going to vote for me," and dismissed her. (She was not wearing a "Screw the State" t-shirt or anything like that; she was off to work at an ad agency.) I'd like to see more of that Rudy during this campaign. Which reminds me: if you haven't seen the video of Rudy Giuliani making fun of a man with Parkinson's disease, click here.

SHOCKED. Toe-sucking political consultant and professional Hillary-basher Dick Morris has a new book out titled: Outrage: How Liberals, Congress, Unions, Drug Companies, Big Oil, Banks, Lobbyists, Corporations, the United Nations the World Bank, the INS, the TSA, and the Democratic Party Are Ripping Us Off....and What To Do About It. Whew, that's some list. Did you notice that Morris leaves something out of the equation? The Republicans. How have Big Pharma, Big Oil, Big Banks, assorted corporations and lobbyists been able to rip "us" off? With the help of GOPers on Capitol Hill and in the White House. Talk about selective outrage.

PHAT. Yesterday I heard a troubling fact: within eight years 86 percent of all black women will be obese....Meanwhile, former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee, the social conservative, creationism-favoring Republican presidential candidate who a few years ago dropped 110 pounds and has made obesity an issue in this campaign, held a "Meet Mike Huckabee" campaign event yesterday at the Pizza Ranch in Marshalltown, Iowa.

Posted by David Corn at 11:07 AM

July 19, 2007

Bush to Medicare, Medicaid and S-CHIP: Drop Dead?

In his acceptance speech at the 2004 Republican presidential convention, George W. Bush said:

America's children must also have a healthy start in life. In a new term, we will lead an aggressive effort to enroll millions of poor children who are eligible but not signed up for the government's health insurance programs.

At the White House on Wednesday, Bush said:

I believe government cannot provide affordable health care.

He said so in defending his threat to veto bipartisan legislation that would reauthorize and expand the State Children's Health Insurance Program, which provides health coverage to 6.6 million poor children. So does Bush really believe what he says--that government cannot deliver on health care? Then does Bush want to shut down Medicaid and Medicare?

That remark was more evidence of Bush's sloppy thinking. It's pretty clear that Medicare and Medicaid have done a better job of providing health coverage for the poor (young and old) than the private sector. (Economics 101: it's hard for private industry to help you if you don't have much money.) And S-CHIP has also been a success. Bush vowed he would expand it in 2004. Now he dismisses government healthcare programs.

As for the current S-CHIP debate, a bipartisan Senate majority--including Republicans Orrin Hatch and Charles Grassley--wants to add $5 billion a year to the program to cover more of the children already eligible for it and to expand the program to assist children not now eligible. Bush has offered to increase the program by only $1 billion a year, which would leave many kids out in the cold. And he apparently would rather stop the whole program than see Republican and Democratic lawmakers enlarge it.

Bush said that the debate of S-CHIP represents a "philosophical divide." Well, he's going to make millions of kids pay for his government-can't-do-healthcare philosophy. So much for compassionate conservatism.

HANDCUFF AWAY. Whenever Congress debates the Iraq war, Bush-backers on and off Capitol Hill argue that Congress does not have the authority to micromanage the commander in chief. Actually, there's a bit of hypocrisy on this point. When House Democrats tried to attach various conditions to funding for the Iraq war earlier this year, their Republican antagonists decried the move as micromanaging. Yet when the Democrats recently pushed a measure calling for withdrawing troops within 120 days, some Republicans slammed the legislation for being too vague. In any event, fans of the Iraq war often cry foul when congressional foes try to infringe upon Bush's prerogatives regarding the war. Now comes the Congressional Research Service, the nonpartisan research arm of Congress, to say, Hey, if the House and the Senate want to legislate a president's options during a war, there's nothing wrong--constitutionally speaking--with that.

The new report notes:

It has been suggested that the President's role as Commander in Chief of the Armed Forces provides sufficient authority for his deployment of troops, and any efforts on the part of Congress to intervene could represent an unconstitutional violation of separation-of-powers principles. While even proponents of strong executive prerogative in matters of war appear to concede that it is within Congress's authority to cut off funding entirely for a military operation, it has been suggested that spending measures that restrict but do not end financial support for the war in Iraq would amount to an "unconstitutional condition." The question may turn on whether specific proposals involve purely operational decisions committed to the President in his role as Commander in Chief, or whether they are instead valid exercises of Congress's authority to allocate resources using its war powers and power of the purse...

The report provides historical examples of measures that restrict the use of particular personnel, and concludes with a brief analysis of arguments that might be brought to bear on the question of Congress's authority to limit the availability of troops to serve in Iraq. Although not beyond debate, such a restriction appears to be within Congress's authority to allocate resources for military operations.

Tip of the hat to Secrecy News for bringing this to our attention. You can read the full report here.

Posted by David Corn at 11:20 AM

July 18, 2007

Bring the Dollars Home

They may not be able to end the war in Iraq, but Senate Democratic freshmen are going after the war profiteers. Here are portions from a press release Senator Jim Webb, one of those newcomers, put out today:

Senate Democratic freshmen today introduced a bill to establish an independent, bipartisan Commission on Wartime Contracting to investigate U.S. wartime contracting in Iraq and Afghanistan. The Commission would significantly increase transparency and accountability and generate important solutions for systematic contracting problems, potentially saving taxpayers billions of dollars.

The Commission will study and investigate the impact of the government's growing reliance on civilian contractors to perform wartime functions. It will assess the extent of waste, fraud, abuse, and mismanagement of wartime contracts, and the extent to which those responsible have been held accountable....

"We are outsourcing this war in ways we've never seen," [said] Webb. "Defrauding the government of millions of taxpayer dollars should not be considered 'the cost of doing business." It's time for Congress to stand up on behalf of the American people and say: 'We want our money back.'"

"During World War II, President Franklin Roosevelt said, 'I don't want to see a single war millionaire created in the United States as a result of this world disaster.' And so Missouri's own Senator Harry Truman created a committee that investigated and uncovered millions of dollars in wasteful, wartime spending," Senator McCaskill said.

"We know that the cost plus contracts used in Iraq and Afghanistan are nearly blank checks to private defense contractors, primed for waste, fraud and abuse. We need a new investigatory body, inspired by the Truman Committee, to protect our tax dollars and bring better accountability to the way we do business while at war," continued McCaskill....

In Tuesday's USA Today story entitled "Largest Iraq Contract Rife with Errors," government auditors reviewing contractor KBR Inc.'s annual cost estimate for services in Iraq discovered that the company proposed $110 million in charges for housing, food, water, laundry and other services on bases that had been shut down. (http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/iraq/2007-07-16-iraq-auditors_N.htm)

An audit conducted by the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction found that the Parsons Company received $186 million over the past three years to construct 142 health-care centers in Iraq. As of May 10, only 15 centers had been completed--and only eight were open to the public...

There are now more contractors (180,000) than military personnel (156, 247) in Iraq. A list of companies contracted in support of Operations Iraqi and Enduring Freedom does not exist. Figures on how much the government is paying contractors does not exist.

No doubt, tight-with-a-tax-dollar, fiscally responsible Republicans will rush to support this bill.

Posted by David Corn at 04:45 PM

On the Information Superhighway

I'm told by the Post that my retort to Bill Kristol (see below) is the most emailed piece on WashingtonPost.com at the moment.

Also, you can check out an essay I wrote on the new Don Cheadle film, Talk To Me, a biopic about Petey Greene, who brought black power to Washington radio in the 1960s, here.

Posted by David Corn at 10:57 AM

July 17, 2007

Bill Kristol, Wrong Again

This past Sunday, the "Outlook" section of The Washington Post published an absurd piece by neocon godfather Bill Kristol, who declared the odds are good that George W. Bush will end up a successful president. The Post then invited me to rebut Kristol's delusional thesis. And I did. My counter--headlined (by an editor), "Why Bush Is A Loser"--was posted on Tuesday night. Here's a taste:

Who knew Bill Kristol had such a flair for satire?

How else to read his piece for Outlook on Sunday, in which he declared, "George W. Bush's presidency will probably be a successful one"? Surely Kristol, the No. 1 cheerleader for the Iraq war, was mocking himself (and his neoconservative pals) for having been so mistaken about so much. But just in case his article was meant to be a serious stab at commentary, let's review Kristol's record as a prognosticator.

On Sept. 18, 2002, he declared that a war in Iraq "could have terrifically good effects throughout the Middle East." A day later, he said Saddam Hussein was "past the finish line" in developing nuclear weapons. On Feb. 20, 2003, he said of Saddam: "He's got weapons of mass destruction.... Look, if we free the people of Iraq we will be respected in the Arab world." On March 1, 2003 -- 18 days before the invasion of Iraq -- Kristol dismissed the possibility of sectarian conflict afterward. He also said, "Very few wars in American history were prepared better or more thoroughly than this one by this president." He maintained that the war would cost $100 billion to $200 billion. (The running tab is now about half a trillion dollars.) On March 5, 2003, Kristol said, "We'll be vindicated when we discover the weapons of mass destruction."

After a performance like this -- and the above is only a partial review; for more details, click here -- Kristol, a likable fellow, ought to have his pundit's license yanked. But he's back again with a sequel: W. will be seen as a wonderful president. His latest efforts should be laughed off op-ed pages. But in the commentariat, he's still taken seriously. So assuming the joke is indeed unintended, I'll examine Kristol's most recent fantasy as if it's real.

Next, I--point by point--dissected Kristol's argument that Bush has done a fine job on Iraq, Afghanistan, the economy, foreign policy, terrorism and other matters. Then came the big finish:

It's remarkable what Kristol leaves out of his bizarro-world view of Bush the Great: Hurricane Katrina, the collapse of the Justice Department, global warming, and much else. An American city was practically destroyed on Bush's watch, but that merits no consideration in Kristol's case for Bush. The Justice Department -- run by Bush cronies accused of corruption, incompetence, or both -- is in tatters. (A former department official tells me the administration is having a hard time finding people willing to fill the vacancies at the top.) And though Bush begrudgingly conceded that global warming is underway and human-induced, he has taken no significant steps to redress this pressing problem. If one wants to peer into the future, it could well be that Bush will be judged a failure more for his inaction on global warming than for his action in Iraq. Vetoing stem cell research legislation, commuting Scooter Libby's prison sentence, rewriting clean air rules to benefit industry, pushing tax breaks for oil companies, suppressing the work of scientists, enhancing government secrecy -- Bush has repeatedly placed parochial interests over the public interest.

The Bush-Cheney years have been marked by ineptitude, miscalculation, and scandal. A successful presidency? Bush will be lucky if he gets a public elementary school in his adopted hometown of Crawford, Tex., named after him. He has placed this country in a hole. Yet Kristol, with shovel in hand, points to that hole and says, Trust me -- we're about to strike oil!

If it's true that history repeats first as tragedy and then as farce, Kristol has short-circuited the process and gone straight to parody. His Bush boosterism -- an act of self-justification -- would be amusing were it not for all the damage he has helped Bush to cause.

Think Kristol will keep the debate going with a counter-reply? You can read the full piece here.

Posted by David Corn at 10:27 PM

Still Waiting

Republican Senator David Vitter's position: I apologize for "actions from my past," but I'm not going to say what those actions were. That's the line Vitter took during a rather brief press conference on Monday in Louisiana--his first public event since he was outed last week as a client of the DC Madam. Vitter, who said he would continue on as U.S. senator, did not address the issue of whether he was holding himself to a different standard than he sought to apply to Bill Clinton during the impeachment days. Back then, as I disclosed recently, Vitter wrote an op-ed contending that because Clinton had engaged in immoral conduct he ought to be thrown out of office. Why doesn't that rule apply to Vitter? Perhaps he'll explain that in another press conference.

COMING SOON. No more postings today. The Washington Post Outlook section has invited me to respond to a silly Bill Kristol article that argues Bush will be seen as a successful president. I'm putting the finishing touches on that rebuttal now. It should be posted by the Post this evening or tomorrow.

Posted by David Corn at 10:10 AM

July 16, 2007

I'm Clearing Brush

No posts today. Come back soon.

Posted by David Corn at 01:21 PM

July 13, 2007

Sad John McCain/Sad Harriet Miers?/A Conservative for Justice

We're pushing on. All the way. Gonna win. Really. Gonna win. Really.

That's Senator John McCain's campaign message of the moment--after his now-impoverished presidential effort dumped its chairman and McCain's chief strategist. But this sounds like happy-talk covering up despondency. A former McCain adviser tells me that s/he met with McCain not too long ago and concluded the Republican senator was "depressed." This source says, "He was depressed about the war, depressed about how the war had been screwed up, depressed about us being stuck in Iraq, And he didn't know what to do about it. And I do mean depressed." McCain looked tired and worn out, his former adviser reports: "Sad. It was sad." By the way, McCain's campaign rhetoric is similar to his Iraq war rhetoric. Two causes--each faring the same. Coincidence?

SAD HARRIET? Consider the case of Harriet Miers. She worked for George W. Bush in Texas and wrote all those obsequious notes to him: Great job, boss! She was rewarded with a series of White House jobs, rising to the high position of White House counsel. Then she was nominated to be a Supreme Court justice. It doesn't get any better than that in the legal profession. Yet that didn't quite work out for her. And now, as AP reports, "House Democrats on Thursday took the first step toward holding former White House counsel Harriet Miers in contempt of Congress after she defied a subpoena--at President Bush's order--and skipped a hearing on the firing of U.S. attorneys." From Supreme Court nominee to being charged with contempt, that's some fall for Miers. Might she regret the day she met a fella named Bush?

CONSERVATIVES FOR JUSTICE? Was Bush's commutation of Scooter Libby's 30-month sentence a victory for conservatives? Jeffrey Hart does not believe so. For decades, Hart, a professor of English literature at Dartmouth, was a leading light of the Right. He was a prominent contributor to the National Review. And he worked for Ronald Reagan and Richard Nixon. The conservative Dartmouth Review was born in his living room in 1980. As a conservative, he has attacked George W. Bush for, among other misdeeds, misleading the nation into the Iraq war. For some time, Hart and I have been corresponding by email. The other day, the 77-year-old Hart sent me a note summing up his feelings regarding the Libby commutation. Hart writes,

Conservative principle has always stressed the importance of obeying the law. Some will remember that Eisenhower even dismissed his chief of staff Sherman Adams for accepting an expensive fur coat from a Boston businessman. In 1968, when I was a speechwriter for Nixon during his presidential campaign, I wrote his law-and-order speech, delivered in Philadelphia. Our theme was "the silent majority that obeys the law and plays by the rules." Even though Nixon didn't take his own advice, that core principle remains true. Cheney's chief of staff, I. Lewis Libby is a convicted perjurer who also lied to the FBI, obstructing justice. His sentence was within the guidelines for such offenses. With his intervention in the Libby case, Bush violated core conservative principles as I have understood them since I voted for the first time in 1952 for Eisenhower.

Who ever thought Bush could make Nixon look not so bad?

Posted by David Corn at 07:50 AM

July 12, 2007

DC Madam Records Lead to...Pat Moynihan?

Was Senator Pat Moynihan, the Democratic statesman from New York state who died in 2003, a client of the DC Madam?

Short answer: probably not. But some conservative bloggers are chortling over this possibility--or the possibility that a Moynihan aide was a client--because one of the two unidentified Senate phone numbers that I dug out of Deborah Jeane Palfrey's phone records (and posted yesterday) has been linked to Moynihan's office.

Several readers (and others) did a search of Google Groups for the number and came across a March 1999 New Jersey environmental newsletter that said:

The Ocean Dumping act states that dumping in the water is the last resort, all other alternatives must be exhausted. The bad precedent established by the actions of these New England agencies threatens all national waters. Senator Daniel Patrick Monyhian [sic] has joined the fight. In a scathing letter to Army Corps of Engineers' Chief of the Regulatory Branch, Joe Seebode, Monyhian [sic] wrote, "I believe that (the Corps) has violated the spirit of the law by combining the permits. The Senator has also asked for a detailed explanation from the Corps regarding the criteria used to dump material at a site not formally designated under the law. To commend Senator Moynihan call (202) 224-9557.

That's the second of the unidentified Senate numbers. But is this a smoking gun? According to Palfrey's phone records, a call was made to this number on October 1, 1999. So the dates are close. But there are other factors to consider. Usually when an advocacy group asks people to call a lawmaker to praise or decry his or her actions, it provides the main number of that person's office. At that time, Moynihan office number, according to the Almanac of American Politics, was 202-224-4451. Note that the author of this newsletter twice misspelled Moynihan's name. Moreover, my assistant and readers who have written me have attempted to find other references to the 224-9557 number (with or without a tie to Moynihan), and they have come up empty. (The Senate phone directory from that period lists very few numbers that begin 224-9.) If the 224-9557 number was associated with Moynihan in a public manner back then, it probably should have appeared elsewhere--not just in this newsletter. A fair-minded person would have to judge the research suggesting a Moynihan connection inconclusive.

This shows how tough it can be to pin a number to a person. As one Capitol Hill aide told me, "I work in an office pod with several other people. We all have access to the same phone lines. One of my fellow workers could be using one of these lines for who-knows-what, and such a call could technically be traced back to the phone on my desk." And the fact that a phone call occurred between Palfrey and a person in a Senate office does not prove what happened. According to Palfrey, standard operating procedure was for her clients to call her and ask for a woman. She would then call them back and confirm the appointment. So a quick call to a Senate office could have been confirmation of an appointment. Or she might have been talking to an employee. Or perhaps she was calling to complain about taxes. Obviously, these numbers are leads, not the full story.

One conservative blogger has had fun pointing out that a Google search of a 1994 phone number on Palfrey's bills led him to a reference to Bill Clinton and the White House. But that Clinton listing was dated July 2001--a time when Clinton was not in the White House. The same listing also noted that Edwin Meese was at the White House in 2000. (Meese, of course, was President Ronald Reagan counselor from 1981 to 1985.) More important, using a reverse-phone directory (which is probably more reliable than a Google search), I found the number in question was registered to a woman at Howard University in 1999. Now it belongs to a hotel. Bottom-line: who knows?

Researching the DC Madam's phone numbers can turn up unambiguous results. See David Vitter. But often more legwork is required. I hope people continue to dig.

Posted by David Corn at 11:25 AM

July 11, 2007

Another Senate Phone Number for the DC Madam

Scores of readers have written to me with ideas on how to find out who was at the other end of the phone call between the DC Madam and a number in the U.S. Senate (see item below). Several have scoured old congressional directories--so far with no luck. But now we have a second chance. Another Senate number has been dug out of the phone records of Deborah Jeane Palfrey. Here it is:

202-224-9557

For those looking for a pattern, the first number after the 224 prefix is a 9--just like the first Senate number. This call was made on October 1, 1999 at 4:12 pm. It lasted for a minute and a half. The number is now disconnected. I encourage those who have searched congressional directories for the first number to add this number to their list--and look again. Send me your results at cornblog@hotmail.com.

Posted by David Corn at 04:56 PM

Looking for Johns in All the Right Phone Records

Like others, I've been perusing the phone bills of the DC Madam. So far, I've found no other Republican senators--and nobody of note. I have, though, unearthed an intriguing phone number. More on that in a moment.

The telephone records of Deborah Jeane Palfrey list thousands of numbers and cover eleven years. I've looked at particular stretches, plugging the numbers into various reverse-number search services. Most of these searches produced no names. Many of the numbers are unlisted. Many are cell phone numbers, and the names of the owners are not available. Many numbers track back to hotel switchboards. (Most escort firms, I assume, do much, if not most, of their business with out-of-towners in hotel rooms who find the escort services the old-fashioned way. The Washington, DC, yellow pages contains nine pages of listings for escort firms.) I was lucky if I got one name for every ten to twenty numbers I looked up.

None of these names belonged to anyone of prominence. There was a former Army colonel working for a military contractor, a local dentist, a realtor, a medical firm executive, and a concierge at a fancy Washington hotel. I also found the home number for a female congressional aide who worked for the Republicans on a House subcommittee. (Perhaps she was working for the DC Madam on the side.) The most intriguing number I came across was this:

202-224-9655

There was a brief call between someone at this number and Palfrey the day after Christmas in 1998. What's interesting is that 224 is the prefix for Senate phone numbers. The obvious question, then, is, who in a Senate office was talking to the DC Madam? Could it have been a senator? Senator David Vitter, a Louisiana Republican who has acknowledged calling her service, was not elected to the Senate until 2004. Or was it a Senate aide looking to take advantage of her services? Or was it a Senate employee working for the escort service? Or did someone dial a wrong number?

On-line searches of the number have yielded no clues. And I have yet to discover a searchable Senate phone directory from 1998. Thus, this clue remains just a clue.

There are plenty of bloggers and journalists examining the phone records. Perhaps they will get as lucky as Dan Moldea, my friend and occasional colleague, who found the Vitter needle in this gigantic haystack. But it is tough slogging. And I've found that many of the phone numbers listed in these bills have been changed or disconnected. Bottom-line: don't expect many more Republican lawmakers. And most are probably not as dumb as Vitter, who called the escort from his own phone.

Meanwhile, if you have any ideas on how to run down that 224 number down--or if you want to claim it as your own--contact me at cornblog@hotmail.com. And if you've missed the posting on Vitter below, check it out.

Posted by David Corn at 11:38 AM

July 10, 2007

A Blast from Vitter's Past

From my "Capital Games" column at www.thenation.com....

In the fall of 1998, David Vitter felt compelled to weigh in on the national debate over the possible impeachment of President Bill Clinton for lying about sex. Vitter was not yet a member of Congress; he was a Republican state representative. And in an October 29, 1998, opinion piece for the New Orleans Times-Picayune, Vitter took issue with a previous article, written by two law professors who had argued that impeachment "is a process of removing a president from office who can no longer effectively govern; it is not about punishment." Given that Clinton was still a capable chief executive, they had maintained, impeachment was not in order.

Vitter, a graduate of Harvard University and Tulane law school and a Rhodes scholar, was aghast at this amoral position. He blasted the law professors for criticizing those congressional Republicans pushing for Clinton's impeachment. Their argument that impeachment is "not primarily about right and wrong or moral fitness to govern," he wrote, was utterly wrongheaded. He continued:

Some current polls may suggest that people are turned off by the whole Clinton mess and don't care -- because the stock market is good, the Clinton spin machine is even better or other reasons. But that doesn't answer the question of whether President Clinton should be impeached and removed from office because he is morally unfit to govern.

The writings of the Founding Fathers are very instructive on this issue. They are not cast in terms of political effectiveness at all but in terms of right and wrong -- moral fitness. Hamilton writes in the Federalists Papers
(No. 65) that impeachable offenses are those that "proceed from the misconduct of public men, or, in other words, from the abuse or violation of some public trust."

In considering impeachment, Vitter asserted, Congress had to judge Clinton on moral terms. Decrying the law professors' failure to see this, Vitter observed, "Is that the level of moral relatively [sic] and vacuousness we have come to?" If no "meaningful action" were to be taken against Clinton, Vitter wrote, "his leadership will only further drain any sense of values left to our political culture."

Strong words. Now that Vitter, who entered the House of Representatives in 1999 after winning a special election to fill the seat of Representative Bob Livingston (who resigned after being caught in an adultery scandal) and who was elected senator in 2004, has admitted he placed a phone call to the so-called DC Madam, his constituents can only wonder if he will hold himself to the same standards he sought to apply to Bill Clinton.

Vitter, who is married with four children, has been a vigorous advocate of family values, championing abstinence-only programs and calling for a ban on gay marriage. In a statement his office rushed out on Monday night--before he could be outed by Hustler magazine--Vitter said he had committed a "serious sin" and claimed that "several years ago, I asked for and received forgiveness from God and my wife in confession and marriage counseling." I seem to recall that Bill Clinton took a similar stance after he acknowledged his affair with Monica Lewinsky. That, though, did not prevent Vitter from calling for Clinton's forcible removal from office.

Perhaps Vitter ought to revisit the issue of whether the absence of moral fitness is a firing offense for a public official.

Posted by David Corn at 11:10 PM

McCain, R.I.P.?

Is it over for John McCain? His campaign just sent out a press release containing statements from his two chief campaign aides:

"This morning I informed Senator McCain that I would be resigning from his presidential campaign, effective immediately. It has been a tremendous honor to serve Senator McCain and work on his campaign. I believe John McCain is the most experienced and prepared candidate to represent the Republican Party and defeat the Democratic nominee next year." - Terry Nelson, Campaign Manager

"As of today, I have resigned my position as chief strategist to John McCain's presidential campaign. It has been my honor and a distinct privilege to serve someone who has always put our country first. I believe that most Americans will come to the conclusion that I have long known there is only one person equipped to serve as our nation's chief executive and deal with the challenges we face, and that person is John McCain." - John Weaver, Chief Strategist

Nelson hailed from the George W. Bush crowd and failed to use those connections to raise big bucks for McCain. His departure makes sense. (The market works!) Campaign managers do come and go. But Weaver is McCain's Rove. And note that Weaver, who has been at McCain's side for years, was not reshuffled into another position. He's totally out of the campaign. If he's gone, there's not much left--besides the candidate. It's hard not read this as the death knell for the McCain campaign.

Posted by David Corn at 11:49 AM

Snow: Everyone's for the Surge!

From Tony Snow's press briefing Monday at the White House:

Q: I'm asking you to respond to a growing feeling that there's a question, at least, being raised that I think people want a very straight answer to: Either the administration is engaged in intensifying discussions about reducing the number of troops, or it's not.

MR. SNOW: There is no intensifying discussion about reducing troops. What there is, is a -- again, you are talking about a surge that literally just got completed, in terms of troop complements, two weeks ago. And so the idea --

Q: And all you -- asked Republicans to wait to give that a chance. And there's an ever-increasing number of Republicans who aren't waiting.

MR. SNOW: I'm not sure that's an accurate rendition of what they're saying. Again, if you take a look at the comments, there is anxiety about the political atmosphere, which has been reflected in your questioning, but on the other hand, there is also a recognition that you've got to succeed in Iraq. And I don't think it's inconsistent -- again, the President has been talking about getting to different configurations, exactly what Senator Lugar said. He wants to do it as quickly as possible. That's one of the reasons why you have the surge.

The surge is not an open-ended commitment that says -- it's not an occupation, it's a surge. It's designed to create space so that we can achieve as swiftly as possible some of those basic necessities for the Iraqi people to be able to step up and stand in the lead. And then at that point, the Americans step back into less visible, more support positions, which was recommended by Baker-Hamilton. As a matter of fact, the surge is part of Baker-Hamilton, for heaven's sake.

For heaven's sake, the surge is part of the report of the Iraq Study Group led by former Secretary of State James Baker and former Representative Lee Hamilton? Well, that's easy to factcheck. Everyone, take out your copies of the Baker-Hamilton report released last December. Skip past the first page--where the Baker-Hamilton group says, "The situation in Iraq is grave and deteriorating"--and go to page 38. Here, the bipartisan commission observes, "Sustained increases in U.S. troop levels would not solve the fundamental cause of violence in Iraq, which is the absence of national reconciliation." Okay, the group was naysaying a "sustained" boost in U.S. troops. What about a temporary increase? Flip ahead to page 73--skimming by the point where the group notes, "There is no action the American military can take that, by itself, can bring about success in Iraq"--to the point in the recommendations section where the commission discusses a surge. Baker, Hamilton, and their colleagues write,

Adding more American troops could conceivably worsen those aspects of the security problem that are fed by the view that the U.S. presence is intended to be a long-term "occupation." We could, however, support a short-term redeployment or surge of American combat forces to stabilize Baghdad, or to speed up the training and equipping mission, if the U.S. commander in Iraq determines that such steps would be effective.

That's hardly an endorsement of the surge. In fact, the detailed plan the Baker-Hamilton group proposes does not include the surge. But at the time their report was released, Baker and Hamilton knew that Bush was considering a surge. They and their comrades decided to be polite and not oppose Bush's surge outright. But for Snow to suggest that the surge is part of the Baker-Hamilton plan is disingenuous.

Moments later in the press briefing, Snow did it again.

Q: What does the President say to Republicans like Senator Lugar, who say we can't wait [to compose a Plan B for Iraq]? What is his response to that?

MR. SNOW: Again, I'm just not sure Senator Lugar is saying we can't wait. What he's saying is, he's concerned about the political atmosphere in this country, and he's trying to make sure that we don't rip ourselves apart politically short of achieving the goals. If you look at what Senator Lugar has said about the surge so far, he says it's working. His comments indicate that he thinks it's working.

Did Senator Dick Lugar, the senior Republican on the foreign relations committee, really say the surge is "working" during his recent speech, in which he declared, "our course in Iraq has lost contact with our vital national security interests in the Middle East and beyond"? You don't have to take Snow's word for it. Here's how Lugar put it:

The prospects that the current "surge" strategy will succeed in the way originally envisioned by the President are very limited within the short period framed by our own domestic political debate....

In my judgment, the current surge strategy is not an effective means of protecting [U.S.] interests. Its prospects for success are too dependent on the actions of others who do not share our agenda. It relies on military power to achieve goals that it cannot achieve. It distances allies that we will need for any regional diplomatic effort. Its failure, without a careful transition to a back-up policy would intensify our loss of credibility. It uses tremendous amounts of resources that cannot be employed in other ways to secure our objectives. And it lacks domestic support that is necessary to sustain a policy of this type.

Yes, more disingenuousness from the White House.

Before Snow took over as White House press secretary, I sent him a note that simply said, "Don't do it." I'd worked with Snow at Fox News Channel and had found him to be a reasonably fair and convivial host. He had been fun and easy to work with. And I subsequently explained to him--after he took his job--that I did not believe he (or perhaps anyone) could do this job without trampling the truth. Yesterday was just one of many examples of truth-bending that borders on lying.

Posted by David Corn at 10:48 AM

July 09, 2007

Now He Tells Us

From the London Times:

THE former American secretary of state Colin Powell has revealed that he spent 2 1/2 hours vainly trying to persuade President George W Bush not to invade Iraq and believes today's conflict cannot be resolved by US forces.

"I tried to avoid this war," Powell said at the Aspen Ideas Festival in Colorado. "I took him through the consequences of going into an Arab country and becoming the occupiers."

Powell has become increasingly outspoken about the level of violence in Iraq, which he believes is in a state of civil war. "The civil war will ultimately be resolved by a test of arms," he said. "It's not going to be pretty to watch, but I don't know any way to avoid it. It is happening now."

He added: "It is not a civil war that can be put down or solved by the armed forces of the United States." All the military could do, Powell suggested, was put "a heavier lid on this pot of boiling sectarian stew."

A simple question: why didn't Powell tell the American public this before the 2004 election. If Powell believed the war was wrong and that Bush had ignored important advice before invading Iraq, he had a duty--perhaps a patriotic duty--to let his fellow citizens know this. And another question: only two and a half hours? That's less time than a football game.

Posted by David Corn at 11:27 AM

First Brooks, Then Kinsley

It seems there's almost a career--though not a well-paid one--in correcting columnists who write about the Scooter Libby case for The New York Times. First came conservative David Brooks' reaction to George W. Bush's commutation of Libby's 30-month prison sentence (see the item below). Then there was liberal Michael Kinsley's defense of the commutation. Kinsley, who I respect (and sometimes envy) as a talented columnist and magazine editor, maintains that the vice president's chief of staff was caught in a "perjury trap," much like Bill Clinton during the days of Monica madness. And Kinsley doesn't fancy such entrapment, whether the prey is a Democrat or a Republican. Libby, he argues, deserved to be placed in a corner no more than Clinton did. Consequently, Kinsley continues, Bush was right to spare Libby time in the slammer.

Kinsley writes:

So when Mr. Libby was questioned by federal investigators pursuing the leaks, he too was caught in a perjury trap. He could either tell the truth, thereby implicating colleagues and very possibly himself, in leaking classified security information (the identity of Mr. Wilson's wife), or he could lie. In either case he would be breaking the law or admitting to having done so, and in either case he could have gone to prison. Mr. Libby, like Mr. Clinton, made the wrong choice.

There is nothing wrong with a perjury trap, as long as both sides of the pincer are legitimate. The abuse comes when prosecutors induce a crime (lying under oath) by exploiting an action that is not a crime.

But Kinsley's argument is faulty. Clinton was literally the target of a trap. Political foes of the Clinton administration (remember the "elves"?) pushed the Paula Jones civil lawsuit against the president in order to put Clinton in the position where he would have to answer questions under oath regarding his extracurricular sexual activities (beyond his alleged conduct in the Jones matter). He was trapped by design. Due to this civil lawsuit, he had two rather unpleasant alternatives: acknowledge his sexual interactions with Monica Lewinsky (and see his answers publicized) or lie about them (and be vulnerable to a perjury charge). This was an orchestrated dilemma. Clinton chose the lying course, and his opponents got what they wanted--grounds for impeachment.

That's not what happened with Libby. No one sought to snare him. FBI agents investigating the CIA leak routinely questioned him, as they did other senior officials of the Bush administration. They were looking for whatever information they could obtain on the leak that disclosed information identifying Valerie Plame Wilson as an undercover CIA officer. The leak--as far as the investigators were concerned--had two outlets: the Robert Novak column of July 14, 2003, that first revealed Valerie Wilson's CIA identity and a Time magazine web piece that appeared three days later that confirmed her CIA position.

Though the FBI investigators knew at the time of their first interview with Libby that Richard Armitage, then the deputy secretary of state, had been one source for Novak, they were still looking for whatever info they could find on all the sources for the Novak column and the Time.com article.

As we now know, in the course of his interviews with the FBI (and then during two grand jury appearances), Libby denied knowing about Valerie Wilson's CIA employment at the time of the leak (though--oddly--he acknowledged he had known about it weeks earlier), and he denied passing any hard information on her to reporters. He claimed that days before the leak he had heard about her CIA connection from Tim Russert as gossip and then slipped that scuttlebutt to reporters.

That claim was, as a jury found, not true. Libby had sought and had received information from various government officials on Valerie Wilson's CIA connection several times before sharing it with Judith Miller, then of The New York Times, and with Matt Cooper, then of Time. It took the FBI a little while to sort all that out. But soon after Libby told the FBI about his purported conversation with Russert, the lead FBI investigator on the case called Russert, and the Meet the Press anchor told the FBI man that he had said no such thing to Libby. Russert explained that it would have been impossible for him to have shared gossip about Valerie Wilson with Libby because he had not known anything about her until after the leak became public.

The FBI gumshoes now confronted a difficult issue--and Patrick Fitzgerald inherited it when he was appointed special prosecutor in late 2003. The FBI had apparently caught the vice president's chief of staff in a lie. They had not endeavored to set him up. They had gone to him looking for just the facts. Now Fitzgerald and the FBI agents had a choice: pursue a perjury case or not. And--just as important--they also had to wonder why Libby had lied to them. Was he covering up evidence of a crime? Fitzgerald elected to investigate the possible perjury.

Kinsley's definition of a perjury trap is quite broad if it includes these circumstances--and so broad that anyone who lies to federal investigators in a case in which there may or may not be an indictment can cry, "I was trapped!" The investigation of the CIA leak was a good-faith endeavor. Though the law prohibiting government officials from disclosing information about secret CIA officers was poorly written and has a hard-to-meet threshold for prosecution, there was nothing wrong with the FBI--responding to a CIA request--examining these circumstances to determine if the law did apply. Like Kinsley and other journalists, I worry about the going-after-reporters precedent that was established. But Libby was not defending reporters' rights when he lied to the FBI and a grand jury. There was no trap.

Libby was indeed in a tough spot. He had been involved in the leak. He and his boss had gathered information on Valerie Wilson, as part of their efforts to discredit her husband. The White House had said that anyone who leaked would be booted out of the administration. Libby had reason to lie to the investigators in order to keep himself and Dick Cheney out of the crosshairs. He thus fell into a trap of his own making.

Now I hope the Times will stop running apologia for Libby, and I can get back to blogging about other affairs of state and punditry.

Posted by David Corn at 11:07 AM

July 03, 2007

A Memo for David Brooks

MEMORANDUM
From: Copy Desk
To: David Brooks
July 3, 2007

Mr. Brooks, our apologies. There was a snafu yesterday, and we neglected to send you the edited version of your latest column, which contained several queries from us. What appeared in today's Times was the copy you initially filed--with all those queries obviously unaddressed. Again, we apologize for the error and hope this did not cause you any trouble or embarrassment. For the record, below is the marked-up version of your column.

By DAVID BROOKS

In retrospect, Plamegate was a farce in five acts. The first four were scabrous, disgraceful and absurd. Justice only reared its head at the end. [Powerful opening. Setting the bar high. Must be proved.]

The drama opened, as these dark comedies are wont to do, with a strutting little peacock who went by the unimaginative name of Joe Wilson. [Pot calling kettle back, Mr. Brooks? Besides, do most "dark comedies" open with plain-named birds. Query Mr. Rich?]

Mr. Wilson claimed that his wife had nothing to do with his trip to investigate Iraqi purchases in Niger, though that seems not to have been the case. [Chronology problem? Mr. Wilson did not "open" this "comedy" with such a claim. He began the episode by publishing an op-ed--on the very same page your column appears--that accused the administration of having "twisted" the prewar intelligence. The issue of his wife's involvement in his mission to Iraq came later.] He claimed his trip proved Iraq had made no such attempts, though his own report said nothing of the kind. [He did not claim his trip had "proved"--your word--the matter. He wrote that after speaking with past and present officials of Niger and "people associated with the country's uranium business," he had concluded that "it was highly doubtful that any such transaction had ever taken place." (We can forward you a copy of his op-ed.) And, as you know, columnists of the Times are not fact-checked. But we would point out that in his Times op-ed, Mr. Wilson did not claim, as you state, that "his trip proved Iraq had made no such attempts" to purchase uranium. He maintained that "there's simply too much oversight over too small an industry for a sale to have transpired." And--not to belabor what might be a fact-checking issue--according to a Senate intelligence committee investigation, the report written by the CIA on Mr. Wilson's trip "described how the structure of Niger's uranium mines would make it difficult, if not impossible, for Niger to sell uranium to any rogue states."]

In short order, Wilson established himself as the charming P.T. Barnum of the National Security set, an inveterate huckster who could be counted on to wrap every actual fact in six layers of embellishment. [An idea: explain the "actual facts" and then list the "six layers of embellishment."] His small part in the larger fiasco of the Iraq war would not have registered a micron of attention had the villain of the epic--the vice president--not exercised his unfailing talent for vindictive self-destruction. [We suggest you peruse some of the clips of that time. Mr. Wilson's op-ed and his concurrent appearance on Meet the Press generated more than a "micron of attention"--and that occurred before the vice president responded to Mr. Wilson's charges.]

Act Two opened with a cast of thousands crowding the stage, filling the air with fevered vapors and gleeful rage. Perhaps you can remember those days, when the Plame story pretended to be about the outing of an undercover C.I.A. agent. [How can a story pretend to be something? And, if memory serves, there was indeed an outing of an undercover CIA official.] Perhaps you can remember the howls of outrage from our liberal friends, about the threat to national security, the secret White House plot to discredit its enemies. [For the reader's benefit, you might want to note Ms. Wilson's position at the time of her outing: operations chief for the Joint Task Force on Iraq, a unit of the Counterproliferation Division of the CIA's clandestine operations directorate. And you might want to note that her primary duty was overseeing covert operations designed to gather intelligence on WMDs in Iraq. Then again, you might not want to note this. Also, you seem to be suggesting there was no secret White House action to discredit Mr. Wilson. Are you aware that Mr. Libby met with Judith Miller, a former employee of this paper, and passed her classified information that he hoped would discredit Mr. Wilson? Are you aware that Mr. Libby conveyed classified information about Ms. Wilson to Ari Fleischer, then the White House press secretary, and Mr. Fleischer says he shared this information with reporters as part of an effort to undermine Mr. Wilson's charges?]

Perhaps you remember the media stakeouts of Karl Rove's driveway, the constant perp-walk photos of Rove on his way to and from the grand jury, the delirious calls from producers (The indictment is coming today! The indictment is coming today!). [Our readers might also remember that Mr. Rove leaked to Matt Cooper, then of Time, classified information regarding Ms. Wilson's covert employment at the CIA. As Mr. Cooper noted in an email, Mr. Rove did so "on double super secret background." They might possibly also recall that Mr. Rove confirmed Ms. Wilson's status as a CIA employee for Robert Novak, the first journalist to disclose her CIA identity.]

There were media types so eager to get Rove, so artificially appalled at the thought of somebody actually leaking classified information, they were willing to forgive prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald for throwing journalists in jail. [You cite many unnamed characters in this "dark comedy." Perhaps you ought to consider naming some of these "media types."] It was like watching a city of Ahabs getting deliriously close to the great white whale. [No one on our desk has read that classic recently. But a quick question: was Moby Dick ever suspected of having committed a crime?]

That was back when everybody thought Rove was the key leaker. But then it turned out he wasn't. Richard Armitage was, as Fitzgerald knew from the start. [See our note above. Mr. Rove did leak to Mr. Cooper and Mr. Novak. It was only because Time held its story for several days that Mr. Novak had the "scoop" and beat out Time. Had that not happened, Mr. Rove might have won the title of chief leaker.]

By the start of Act Three, nobody cared about the outing of a C.I.A. agent. [Nobody? We are relatively sure that the Wilsons cared, that CIA officials cared, that Mr. Fitzgerald cared, that congressional Democrats cared, and that thousands of Americans who followed this story in the media cared.] That part of the scandal disappeared. And all that was left of Joe Wilson and Valerie Plame were the creepy photos in Vanity Fair. [You might want to consider describing the photos. A blonde in a convertible might not come across as "creepy" to all.]

Act Three was the perjury act, and attention shifted to the unlikely figure of Scooter Libby. [What is "unlikely" about a White House aide accused of lying?] As Joe Wilson was an absurd man with a plain name, Scooter Libby was a plain man with an absurd name. [What's in a name?] And the odder thing was that Libby was the only normal person in the asylum. [Have you read the sex scenes in his one novel? A girl with a bear?] People who knew him thought him discreet, honest and admirable. [We hear he was also a quiet man. Mention that?] And yet the charges were brought and the storm clouds of idiocy gathered once more. [We're not lawyers, but we do believe that there are instances when criminal charges are filed against people who other people consider admirable. You might want to explain why a special prosecutor should not file obstruction of justice charges against an official suspected of lying to investigators.]

Republicans who'd worked themselves up into a spittle-spewing rage because Bill Clinton lied under oath were appalled that anybody would bother with poor Libby over lying under oath. [Is there a continuity issue here? Above you contend that the charge was a product of idiocy. Shouldn't that justifiably cause Republicans to be appalled?] Democrats who were outraged that Bill Clinton was hounded for something as trivial as perjury were furious that Scooter Libby might not be ruined for a crime as heinous as perjury. [You seem to be skating past the case the Democrats made: lying to the FBI during a national security investigation is different from lying about sex in a civil proceeding.] It was an orgy of shamelessness. The God of Self-Respect took sabbatical. [Any word on what the God of Thou Shall Not Lie did at this time?]

The trial and sentencing, Act Four, was, to be honest, somewhat anticlimactic. Fitzgerald, having lost all perspective, demanded Libby get a harsh sentence as punishment for crimes he had not been convicted of. [We realize you were not in the courtroom during the trial, but news reports and transcripts show that Mr. Fitzgerald argued that committing perjury during a national security investigation was a serious matter and that a stiff sentence was warranted for that crime.] The judge, casting himself as David against Goliath, demonstrated an impressive capacity for talking about himself. [Ditto the previous remark. Again, we do not fact-check columnists for the Times, but one of us did call--merely out of curiosity--several reporters who covered the case, and they told us that Judge Reggie Walton did not cast himself as a David-type figure, nor did he talk about himself more than the average federal district court judge. You might want to reconsider a characterization not supported by actual eyewitnesses.]

And finally, yesterday, came Act Five, and a paradox. Scooter Libby emerged as the least absurd character in the entire drama, and yet he was the one who committed a crime. [Another continuity problem? If the chief of staff to the vice president commits a crime, shouldn't there be a thorough investigation and even a rigmarole?] President Bush entered the stage like a character from another world, a world in which things make sense. [A world like Baghdad?]

His decision to commute Libby's sentence but not erase his conviction was exactly right. It punishes him for his perjury, but not for the phantasmagorical political farce that grew to surround him. It takes away his career, but not his family. [Fact: after Mr. Libby was indicted and resigned from Mr. Cheney's staff, he was named a fellow at the Hudson Institute, a conservative think tank. The Washington Post reported that his salary is probably at least $160,000--perhaps more. Most readers would think that with such a position Mr. Libby's career is not over.]

Of course, the howlers howl. That is their assigned posture in this drama. They entered howling, they will leave howling and the only thing you can count on is their anger has been cynically manufactured from start to finish. [Once again, continuity. If Mr. Libby did commit a crime--which you bravely acknowledge he did--then shouldn't anger be an appropriate response. Who are the howlers whose anger was "cynically manufactured"? And who did that manufacturing? Specifics would help.]

The farce is over. It has no significance. Nobody but Libby's family will remember it in a few weeks time. Everyone else will have moved on to other fiascos, other poses, fresher manias. [Good teaser of an ending. It's as if you expect another Bush aide to be caught lying under oath.]

I'm celebrating Independence Day by taking a breather. I'll be back soon.

Posted by David Corn at 10:24 PM

Today....

The neocons are crowing--while many commentators (including the prowar editorialists of The Washington Post) are pointing out that George W. Bush's commutation of Scooter Libby's prison sentence is dishonest. Bush said he respected the jury's verdict but then wiped out entirely the punishment, arguing the 30-month-long prison sentence was "excessive." (The fine hardly counts.) If the senence was indeed excessive, he could have cut the length of the jail stay. Instead, he gave Libby a pass. In any event, I'm traveling. More postings to come.

Posted by David Corn at 09:12 AM

July 02, 2007

Bush Rescues Libby

From my "Capital Games" column at www.thenation.com....

It's appropriate.

The president who led the nation into a disastrous war in Iraq by peddling false statements and misrepresentations has come to the rescue of a White House aide convicted of lying by commuting his sentence. Before the ink was dry on today's court order denying Scooter Libby's latest appeal--a motion to allow him to stay out of jail while he was challenging his conviction--George W. Bush commuted Libby's sentence. Libby will no longer have to serve the 30-month prison sentence ordered by federal district court Judge Reggie Walton. He will, though, have to pay the $250,000 fine that was part of the sentence.

The commutation--which is not a pardon and does not erase Libby's conviction--is a reminder that Bush and his crew do not believe in accountability. Bush has been rather stingy in the use of his pardon power. And regulations issued by his Justice Department note that recipients of pardons should serve their sentences and demonstrate contrition before obtaining presidential absolution. (Libby had expressed no remorse and was not scheduled to report to jail for several weeks.) Yet with this commutation, Bush ducked those requirements, and he is allowing Vice President Dick Cheney's former chief of staff, who was found guilty of lying to federal investigators in the CIA leak case, to go unpunished. The fine will be no problem for Libby. His neoconservative friends and admirers will kick in to cover that tab. (Perhaps even Cheney will send a check.)

Libby had become a symbol of the Bush White House's problem with the truth. After all, his lies had been designed to block FBI agents and federal prosecutors from learning the full truth of a White House effort to discredit a critic who had accused the Bush administration of twisting the prewar intelligence. And now the final act in the long-running CIA leak scandal--Bush's commutation--stands as another symbol of this grand theme: lying doesn't really bother this crowd. In the 2000 presidential campaign, Bush claimed he would bring responsibility to the White House and, as a PR stunt, he dubbed his campaign jet Accountability One. Yet with this commutation, he takes the position that in his administration an aide who purposefully misleads government officials investigating a possible national security crime need not be held fully accountable.

This is no shocker. Early on in the CIA leak affair, the White House announced that anyone involved in the 2003 leak that disclosed the CIA employment of Valerie Wilson, an undercover Agency officer, would be booted out of the administration. But Karl Rove, who had disclosed classified information about Valerie Wilson to two reporters and who apparently lied about his actions to White House press secretary Scott McClellan, was not pink-slipped. Bush has never acknowledged this broken promise. (Libby left the White House only after he was indicted in the fall of 2005.)

Bush shielded Rove, and now--better late than never--he's doing the same for Libby. Ever since Libby's conviction in March, neoconservative and conservative Libby partisans have been urging--or demanding--that Bush pardon Libby. They have cried that his indictment, his conviction, and his sentence were travesties of justice. They blasted Bush for declining to intervene in the proceedings, branding the president (their pal!) a coward. They acted as if Bush's refusal to pardon Libby was a personal betrayal of each and everyone of them. They showed more concern for Libby than any of the civilians who have perished in Iraq in the years since they, Libby and their allies engineered the invasion of Iraq. Libby was their cause; he was one of them.

Once again, Bush, being nudged by the neocons, has sent a clear message: telling the truth doesn't matter. Bush has refused to acknowledge that he, Cheney, and other administration officials--to be polite about it--stretched the truth about Iraq and the threat it posed before the war. Today, he says that if you lie to protect the White House (especially the vice president), you can escape retribution. But if Bush, Cheney and the others could get away with big untruths about war, why shouldn't Libby get away with small lies about a cover-up? Fair's fair, right?

The foundation of a democratic judicial system is that the sentence fits the crime. In this instance, the commutation fits the administration.

Posted by David Corn at 07:58 PM

Bush Saves Scooter

Before the ink was dry on the denial of Scooter Libby's latest appeal, George W. Bush wiped out the convicted felon's 30 month sentence. The neocons win! A liar gets off. I'll have more on this later...

Posted by David Corn at 06:20 PM

Libby Turned Down Again

From my "Capital Games" column at www.thenation.com....

Is Scooter Libby really going to jail now? Today a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals in Washington, DC, turned down Libby's request to remain free on bond while his attorneys appeal his conviction on obstruction of justice charges. In a two-sentence ruling, the three judges said that Libby "has not shown that the appeal raises a substantial [legal] question." This means that Libby will have to report to a federal penitentiary as soon as the Bureau of Prisons finds a spot for him, and that could occur within weeks.

Libby's defenders--the folks who claimed he was wrongfully investigated, then wrongfully indicted, then wrongfully convicted by a jury, then wrongfully sentenced to 30 months and a $250,000 fine--will no doubt say this matter was wrongfully decided by these three judges (one of whom was a Ronald Reagan appointee and one of whom was a George H.W. Bush appointee). But (hopeless) legal arguments aside, this ruling will cause the neocons (and their conservative allies) to intensify the campaign for a Libby pardon. (I recently detailed the Let Libby Go crusade here.) Now the Libby Lobby will pump up the volume, pressing George W. Bush to intervene.

Libby's champions seem to be motivated, in part, by an intense sense of personal betrayal. Libby partisans have essentially accused Bush of being an ingrate and coward for not rushing to the rescue of Vice President Dick Cheney's former chief of staff. With the clock ticking on Jail Day for Libby, the Save Scooter advocates can be expected to voice further their frustration and resentment.

Will Bush yield? There's no telling. So far he's kept his distance from the Libby case--which stands as a reminder that Bush led the nation to an unpopular war on the basis of misrepresentations and false statements. But one thing's for sure: if Bush doesn't pardon this former White House aide, he will receive plenty of abuse from people who once hailed him for initiating the war they had craved for years. The pro-war neocons often appear distant from the disastrous consequences of the invasion of Iraq, including the civilian casualties of the war. But when it comes to the plight of Libby, an architect of the war convicted of lying, they feel his pain so passionately. We are all Scooter!, they practically proclaim. And in a way, they're right.

Posted by David Corn at 01:01 PM

Wolfowitz To Go to AEI....Duh!

This morning I received the following (and very unsurprising) press release from the American Enterprise Institute:

AEI president Christopher DeMuth announced today that Paul Wolfowitz has joined the American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research (AEI) as a visiting scholar. Mr. Wolfowitz joins AEI after spending more than three decades in public service and higher education. Most recently, he served as president of the World Bank and deputy secretary of defense. As ambassador to Indonesia, Mr. Wolfowitz became known for his advocacy of reform and political openness and for his interest in development issues, which dates back to his doctoral dissertation on water desalination in the Middle East.

At AEI, Mr. Wolfowitz will work on entrepreneurship and development issues, Africa, and public-private partnerships.

Did you notice that it said not one word about Iraq? Instead, the press release touts Wolfowitz's graduate school work on desalination. Now, why wouldn't AEI boast about landing one of the architects of the Iraq war? Well, we can say this: the neocons do take care of their own. Wolfowitz left the Pentagon after landing the United States in a fiasco in Iraq. Then he left the World Bank after creating a scandal there. Still, he's welcomed warmly at AEI. Let's hope he has better luck there.

Posted by David Corn at 10:51 AM

July 01, 2007

Oh Boy, Obama

Reuters reports:

Sen. Barack Obama announced on Sunday he had raised $32.5 million for his presidential campaign in the past three months, the biggest quarterly fund-raising for any Democrat ever in a pre-election year.

The Illinois senator said more than 154,000 donors had contributed to his campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination in the April-June period, bringing his total donor list to more than 258,000.

Obama and Sen. Hillary Clinton of New York led all Democrats in the first quarter of the year with the former first lady edging out Obama, $26 million to $25 million. Only Republican President George W. Bush has raised more in the year before a presidential election.

Clinton, who leads Obama in national opinion polls, had not immediately released her figures but her campaign last week said she expected to raise $27 million to $28 million in the second quarter.

Now for the sophisticated political analysis: Wow.

And what to expect next: The Wrath of Hillary--that is, the Clinton campaign is going to ratchet up its anti-Obama operations. For the political operatives running HRC's campaign, money talks, and these fundraising numbers will--and should--scare them (no matter what they say in public). They will act accordingly.

Posted by David Corn at 11:26 PM