Go here for the dkospedia entry for Roberts.
Go here to check out his campaign contributions. In an interesting little confluence of newsmakers, Judge Roberts happens to have donated to Peter Fitzgerald’s successful campaign for the Illinois Senate bid in 1998. (For those who may just have awoken from a coma, Peter Fitzgerald is currently the special prosecutor investigating the outing of formerly covert CIA operative Valerie Plame.) Isn’t that an odd little coinkydink? (Sorry, wrong Fitzgerald. The rest is the right Fitzgerald, though.)
You know, I don’t want to get too hopeful here, but Roberts donated to Fitzgerald, who served only one Senate term before foregoing a reelection bid, citing problems dealing with the Republican Party (his seat was won by Barack Obama), and my GOP Senator, Richard Lugar, who isn’t exactly on the same train to nutsville as many of his colleagues (*cough* Santorum *cough* Frist) are. Perhaps Roberts isn’t a total wingnut.
Although, even half a wingnut on the SCOTUS is a pretty unappealing proposition.
More on Roberts
Funny...
...he doesn't look like my worst nightmare.
But I just might be.
And I'm only 50!
Mwah ha ha ha.
Roberts?!
Okay, I've gotten over 300 Google hits in the last hour from people searching for information on John Roberts.
I wrote about him back in February:
Roberts has quite a significant history in trying to undermine abortion rights, including, under the first Bush administration, co-authoring a Supreme Court brief as Deputy Solicitor General for Rust v. Sullivan which argued for the government’s ability to prohibit doctors in federally-funded family planning programs from discussing abortions with their patients.
Among Roberts’ other writings can be found articles in support of a more expansive reading of the Contracts and Taking clauses of the Constitution, holding positions that would restrict Congress’ means for environmental protection.
In addition to his judicial résumé, Roberts also has interesting political qualifications. He has been a political appointee under both Regan and the first Bush administration and is a member of the Republican National Lawyers Association.
Oh boy.
UPDATE: The AP confirms it. It's Roberts.
Fuckity Fuck
ABC's The Note:
Another item: Attorney General Alberto Gonzales cancelled a planned visit to the US Attorney's office in Boston yesterday and sped through an appearance in Portland, Maine to return to Washington for hastily schedule meetings. (He was also seen leaving the White House at 8:16 am ET this morning.)There's a wave of nausea washing over me. Is he going to get the nom tonight?
Question of the Day
While we all nervously await whatever possible SCOTUS disaster may befall us this evening, I thought we could distract ourselves with a Question of the Day, inspired by Zen Comix:
Zen suggests Robert Novak: The Tapeworm of Freedom.
I think I'll go with Blob Lojack: Always Easily Found When Rove Needs to Leak Something.
Pondering Plame
Patrick at Yelladog has some interesting thoughts:
Valerie Plame was the head of the CIA's leash on a giant Petro-Chemical player in the region. Perhaps the "outing" of Valerie Plame was not just punishment for Joe Wilson's revelation in the NY Times that the intelligence was being fixed around the policy.... perhaps it was that and more. It may have been Energy Muscle (who have apparently completely punked the White House) poking out the eye at the keyhole as they prepared to extend their hegemony to the Iraqi oil reserves.
(Read the whole thing for more detail.)
If the Bushies are being manipulated by forces even darker than they are, then heaven help us all.
And if you’re in the mood to peruse another out-there theory, check out this article which asserts that a coup d’etat was attempted by the CIA, and explains how the Plame outing is related. Fun (or crazy or scary, or all of the above, depending on your perspective) discussion going on about this at the Dark Wraith Forums Message Board. BYO tinfoil hat.
SCOTUS Nominee Announcement Tonight
9 pm EST, according to Scotty.
UPDATE: CNN, ABC staffers are being 'waved off' Clement by White House... (via Raw Story) Oh boy.
Keep It Simple, Stupid
Regarding Rove and his naughty indiscretions, the Rude Pundit notes something that’s worth being aware of, not only because it (sadly) probably explains better than just about anything else why the media is willing to pursue it tenaciously, but also because it can and should be used to our advantage: For the first time in Bush’s reign, narrative simplicity is on our side.
Karl Rove outed a covert CIA operative as political payback.
See how easy that was?
Narrative simplicity, combined with a media who’s willing to run with the narrative (since it doesn’t require any of the pesky context and elaborate research that, say, the Downing Street Memos do—ahem), and an American people who are quite angry about the outing of a spy* and following the trail of crumbs back to the White House front door, is a dream issue for any of us who know that this is only one part of a larger pattern of misbehavior and malfeasance. If this is the issue that finally catches everyone’s attention, well, fine—we’ll be patient. In the meantime, let’s keep it simple.
I’m talking to you, Dems.
The last thing the Dems need to do is, well, Dem it all up with a bunch of unnecessary shit that doesn’t need to be there. It’s a one-sentence story, and there’s no need to turn it into a novel.
Jack at CommonSenseDesk points to a great post by Michael at The Mighty Middle, who takes the Dems to task for mis- or over-telling everything:
Dear Democrats: of course it matters how you tell a story you imbeciles. It's always mattered. It always will matter. It matters how you tell the story, and it matters who tells the story, and it matters how often you tell the story and when and under what circumstances. Here's an idea: fire some of your pollsters and your lawyers and your political-hacks-turned-media-gurus and hire some writers. Everything you have just discovered over the course of decades and at a cost of millions and the loss of every branch of government was already known to anyone who has ever told a story. You need writers and you need soldiers because you don't get storytelling and you don't get strategy.YES!
It matters how you tell the story and it matters what the fucking story is. If the story is Romeo eats a wheel of Parmesan, you know what? It's not going to matter how you "frame" it, it's still not going to be as good as Romeo bangs Juliette [sic]. It matters what you believe. It matters what you want to do. It's not just style, you overeducated post-modern twits, it's still story, story, story. It's still: what does the hero propose to DO?
You can take my word for it, or you can dick around for another decade or so until some new academic comes and explains it to you with a hot new book and a hot new lexicon.
There. Have I framed that clearly enough?
And I hope with every molecule of my being that this story continues to be repeated as simply as possible, as often as possible, while the GOP and their hacks and their goons and their whores spin and stutter and stammer and spew legalese, sounding for all the world like their arch enemy Clinton and those who love him.
---------------------
* Just why are Americans so mad about this, in particular?
The Rude Pundit has a theory—and I’m convinced it’s a good one, because I said the same thing (ha ha) to Mr. Shakes when I first heard about the outing of Valerie Plame, although I was predicting Americans’ reactions when it was inevitably traced back to the White House, and the Rude Pundit uses it to explain that very reaction now...
If the powers that be didn’t want all but the most fixated, delusional, GOP party-line ideologue Americans seething with outrage over the outing of a CIA agent, they probably shouldn’t have embarked on a plan 30 or so years ago to flood the pop culture landscape with examples of government spies who are utterly, unflappably cool—and always the good guys with America’s best interests at heart—to distract and inoculate the drooling, teevee-addicted populace against the reality that sometimes our covert operatives do really shitty things, and not always in our best interest. Now the masses love spies, maybe even more than the president, because spies aren’t corruptible, not the likes of James Bond, Jack Ryan, or Jason Bourne, anyway, and Rove might as well have pissed on one of them.
Bad idea. We lurrrrves us some spies, Turd Blossom. And what kind of code name is that, anyhow?
Presented Without Comment (Well, maybe one)
Who would be worse for the U.N.?
or...
(Odd little thing... when I tried posting this, instead of showing the picture of the Vogon, it kept showing the Bolton picture twice. I guess even Blogger can't tell the difference.)
(When my baby...when my baby smiles at me I go to cross-post...)
Pluck Your Magic Twanger, Froggy
G.D. Frogsong over at Blaton's and Ashton's has a great post today on Rove, Republicans, and the meaning of it all. Quoth the Amphibian:
Rove's conduct, whether criminal or not, is just another symptom in the widespread Culture of Corruption; Republican voters need to take a good, hard look at what has happened to their party, decide who is worth keeping and who is not, and chuck the corrupt buggers out. The current leadership of the Republican Party in Washington is drunk with power and seems to seek a one-party system in which one party dominates the politics of the entire nation and the other side gets a couple of token representatives who are unable to conduct any business on behalf of their constituencies.
-snip-
It seems as though the Republican Party is entirely dominated by politicians these days, with so few statesmen and stateswomen that finding them is nearly impossible. Karl Rove, the political advisor to Chauncey, is a prime example of this. He doesn't care about government at all. His entire focus is on obtaining more and more power, and he'll destroy the government if it gets him the power. The Republican leadership in Congress is the same way. Senator Trent Lott once said he'd be happy to use the so-called "nuclear option," a phrase he coined, because it would blow up the Senate. That doesn't show a heck of a lot of concern for the people's business or the proper conduct of government. It does, however, demonstrate an absurd fondness for power.
Very true. As time goes on and the Bush Administration gets more and more dirty, I find it increasingly difficult to separate the voters from the Administration. But as Frogsdong states, it's not necessarily the Republican voters that are the problem, it's the loons in power claiming to be Republicans that are causing all the nonsense (although, let's face it, they did help put these lunatics in power). Case in point:
A new ABC News poll is out and there is no good news in there for President Chauncey. More than half of the respondents are following the investigation at least "somewhat closely" (53%). 75% say it is a "somewhat serious" or "very serious" matter. The big story in the poll for the major news organizations is this: only 25% believe that Chauncey and company are cooperating fully with the investigation, while 47% say that Chauncey and company are not cooperating fully with the investigation.
That isn't the story as far as I am concerned. The real poll story is in the question of whether Rove should be fired if he leaked classified information? For all respondents, 75% say yes and 15% say no. For Republicans, 71% say yes and 17% say no.
Excellent. I'm having serious doubts that Rove will ever be fired, what with Chimpy playing with words so he hopefully won't have to lose his puppeteer. However, all of this Rove stickiness is definitely keeping attention on the illegal acts of his Administration, and it looks like many Republicans are getting sick of eating a shit sandwich daily to protect their "elected" man-child.
Bush and his team do not hold the core beliefs that their party was based upon. Many Republicans are, I believe, going to start demanding accountability, if for no other reason than to keep the name of their party from being dragged through any more filth. There will always be idiot Republicans. But it's the ones that have control over the purse strings that really matter in this day and age, and I think they're getting pretty damned fed up.
And it would be incredibly delicious if Bush was ultimately brought down by his own party.
Update: Pam shows the veterans aren't too amused either.
(Bolds mine. I wear my cross-posts at night...)
SCOTUS Nomination to Come Today?
The White House thinks the press can only cover one story at a time (let’s hope they’re wrong), so they’re going to deflect attention away from Rove with an announcement of O’Connor’s replacement.
Reuters reports that Judge Edith Clement of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit in New Orleans is a leading candidate, and by all accounts, she’s not only the leading candidate, but the likely one.
It seems safe to assume that her nomination will be announced sometime today, although I just did a cursory bit of research on her, and didn’t immediately find anything so heinous I wanted to immediately start projectile vomiting all over my office, which makes a change from the other possibilities whose names have been floated, so maybe she’s a red herring to lull us into non-hysteria before the announcement of the nomination of Judge Attila T. Hun. Or maybe not.
Don’t get me wrong; she’s objectionable all right. But anyone who Bush nominates will be to one degree or another. I think she might be pro-choice, though, which would certainly be a relief.
What’s Wrong With CNN?
I know. Lots of things. The thing in particular I have in mind at the moment is the announcement of their decision to stand by Robert Novak—also known as Boob Novakula: Traitorous Shitheel, so-named by Maru the Crankpot (scroll up)—in spite of his willingness to aid and abet the commission of a crime by reporting the name of a covert CIA operative.
For a moment, let’s forget that he may well be part of a criminal conspiracy that reaches all the way to the upper echelons of the White House (and believe me, CNN is all too willing to forget, or at least deny, invoking the same bullshit “wait and see, ongoing investigation, blahbiddy blah blah” statement as McClellan offers on a loop), and instead focus on the fact that Novak is a tool of the administration. Whether he was feeding info to Rove, or Rove was feeding info to him, or whether they were both feeding each other marshmallows roasted on sticks in the fireplace of a romantic getaway in the Appalachians to the sound of Dueling Banjos, doesn’t really matter a whit. Novak is a pawn and an administration mouthpiece—that much is evident without necessitating any formal investigation. So why does CNN want people like that working for them?
Credibility schmedibility. Who needs it when you’re racing Fox to the bottom of the scum-covered barrel?
Others on Boob Novakula: Traitorous Shitheel…
Pam notes Novakula Gets to Keep His Coffin and features a lovely picture of the undead commentator care of Radical Russ.
Billmon goes completely haywire on Novakula, to hugely entertaining results:
One industry insider speculated that CNN would use advanced refrigeration technology to try to keep Novak's corpse from completely falling apart while it waits for Larry King to pass over into the undead state.Read the rest here.
Have you forgotten you're a Serf?
Guess you'll think twice next time you try to peaceably assemble. Both of you.
IOWA CITY, Iowa - Federal prosecutors, citing government immunity from lawsuits, have asked a judge to dismiss a claim by two women who were arrested at a Bush campaign rally and strip-searched at a county jail.
Alice McCabe and Christine Nelson, both teachers in their 50s, last spring sued the Secret Service, Linn County, and the Iowa State Patrol and two of its officers.
The suit claims officers violated their rights to free speech and free association.
The women said they were standing on a sidewalk next to a public park in Cedar Rapids, where President Bush was holding a campaign rally last September, when Secret Service agents asked them to leave.
The women said they left the sidewalk and moved to a nearby parking lot, but moments later were asked to move again.
After challenging the order, the women say they were arrested by state troopers and taken to the county jail, where they were strip-searched and charged with criminal trespass — a charge that later was dropped.
So, forced away from a public park because you might hold opinions that differ from those of Dear Leader, taken to jail, strip searched for no other reason than to degrade and humiliate you, and get charged with criminal acts.
...Which are cheerfully dropped once Chimpy is safely away from these two horribly dangerous teachers in their 50's.
...And then have your complaints more or less jeered by the courts.
"Government immunity from lawsuits." Sweet zombie Jesus.
(Bolds mine. Black cross-post and that little boy's smile...)
Important Announcement
John Howard, the Australian Prime Minister, supports the war on terror as it is currently being waged. John Howard, the author of the hottest blog on the internets, does not.
RIP Westmoreland
Retired General William Westmoreland, who commanded U.S. forces during the Vietnam War from 1964 to 1968, has died.
I don’t know that much about Westmoreland, to be honest. I know that he tried to fight a conventional war in unconventional circumstances, which wasn’t a good idea, and that he was famous for offering optimistic platitudes (light at the end of the tunnel) that were in complete contradiction to the images and news coming out of Vietnam, and that he never conceded that the US lost the Vietnam War.
A lot of people say he was a good man who really believed he was doing the right thing. But as they say, the road to hell is paved with good intentions. It’s unfortunate that the current administration seems to have learned nothing from his troubled legacy.
Quote of the Day
I don't know all the facts. I want to know all the facts. The best place for the facts to be done is by somebody who's spending time investigating it.
-- President Bush, when asked yesterday if he were "displeased that Karl Rove told a reporter that Ambassador Joe Wilson's wife worked for the Agency on WMD issues."
(Just a question: how exactly are facts 'done'?)
30+1
The Press Continues to Feast on the Raw Tushy of Scott McClellan
Yikes. They’re really going to town:
Q What is [the President’s] problem? Two years, and he can't call Rove in and find out what the hell is going on? I mean, why is it so difficult to find out the facts? It costs thousands, millions of dollars, two years, it tied up how many lawyers? All he's got to do is call him in.Unspoken completion to his answer: Because the last time I prejudged the outcome, I told you Rove and Libby weren’t involved, and that turned out to be total bullshit, which you found out, so from now on, I’m keeping my trap shut tighter than Guckert’s ass clamped on a chain of anal beads.
MR. McCLELLAN: You just heard from the President. He said he doesn't know all the facts. I don't know all the facts.
Q Why?
MR. McCLELLAN: We want to know what the facts are. Because –
Q Why doesn't he ask him?
MR. McCLELLAN: I'll tell you why, because there's an investigation that is continuing at this point, and the appropriate people to handle these issues are the ones who are overseeing that investigation. There is a special prosecutor that has been appointed. And it's important that we let all the facts come out. And then at that point, we'll be glad to talk about it, but we shouldn't be getting into –
Q You talked about it to reporters.
MR. McCLELLAN: We shouldn't be getting into prejudging the outcome.
Meanwhile, their strategy is working just swell. Fully 25% of Americans think the Bush administration is cooperating fully with the oft-cited ongoing investigation. Wow, pretty stellar numbers there, Georgie. Considering that’s probably approximately the same number of Americans who also believe the earth is flat and that Craig Kilborn is funny, I’d say you’ve got the unwavering support of the unbearably stupid all wrapped up in your corner.
Colin, Ari, and the State Department Memo
On July 6, 2003, Joe Wilson published his now-infamous column in the NY Times about his trip to Niger, in which he also debunked the Saddam-is-seeking-uranium story and accused the Bush administration of ignoring his findings. The same day, then-Secretary of State Colin Powell requested a report from the Bureau of Intelligence and Research detailing how Wilson came to be dispatched to Niger, and what the role of his wife in said trip was. This memo has been reported as having been taken aboard Air Force One on a trip to Africa shortly thereafter, where Powell and then-White House Press Secretary Ari Fleisher are reported to have reviewed it.
Bloomberg reports (hat tip AMERICAblog):
The memo, prepared by the State Department on July 7, 2003, informed top administration officials that the wife of ex-diplomat and Bush critic Joseph Wilson was a CIA agent. Seven days later, Wilson's wife, Valerie Plame, was publicly identified as a CIA operative by syndicated columnist Robert Novak.It’s really starting to seem like there was no one in the White House who didn’t know about this. Neither Cheney nor Bush have yet to be implicated, but it’s common knowledge that they run an inordinately tight ship, and I find it totally inconceivable that a coordinated effort to discredit Wilson could have involved just about everyone in their immediate circle without their being aware of it. Dodgy stuff, this.
On the same day the memo was prepared, White House phone logs show Novak placed a call to White House Press Secretary Ari Fleischer, according to lawyers familiar with the case and a witness who has testified before the grand jury. Those people say it is not clear whether Fleischer returned the call, and Fleischer has refused to comment.
The Novak call may loom large in the investigation because Fleischer was among a group of administration officials who left Washington later that day on a presidential trip to Africa. On the flight to Africa, Fleischer was seen perusing the State Department memo on Wilson and his wife, according to a former administration official who was also on the trip.
In addition, on July 8, 2003, the day after the memo was sent, Novak discussed Wilson and his wife with Rove, who had remained in Washington, according to the New York Times.
