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Paul Kiel | January 31, 2008, 9:56AM

When someone comes out with a book called The Commission: The Uncensored History of the 9/11 Investigation, you know it's not going to be a fawning portrait of the commission's thoroughness and objectivity. And indeed the book, by New York Times reporter Philip Shenon, has some revelations that are sure to challenge its reputation.

The book is being closely held until its release next month, but Max Holland, a D.C. area blogger and author, was somehow able to snag an advance audio copy at his local bookstore.

A lot of what has been "censored," it turns out, revolves around the commission's executive director Philip Zelikow. According to Holland, Shenon reports that Zelikow 1) hid the depth and breadth of his relationship to key members in the administration, 2) had a number of private conversations with Karl Rove (funny how he keeps popping up) while he was on the panel, and 3) succeeded in softening the final report's judgment on the Bush Administration's responsibility.

Star ABC muckraker and TPM alum Justin Rood confirmed Holland's account, and got Zelikow's response.

But on to the revelations. First, about what Zelikow failed to disclose. He was a former aide to Condoleezza Rice, and had a long relationship with her. That was well known. But:

According to Shenon, however, Zelikow failed to disclose several additional and egregious conflicts-of-interest, among them, the fact that he had been a member of Rice’s NSC transition team in 2000-01. In that capacity, Zelikow had been the “architect” responsible for demoting Richard Clarke and his counter-terrorism team within the NSC. As Shenon puts it, Zelikow “had laid the groundwork for much of went wrong at the White House in the weeks and months before September 11. Would he want people to know that?”

Zelikow denies this and says he recused himself from anything to do with the NSC transition. Update: Sorry for the lack of clarity here. Zelikow is not denying that he was on the transition team; that fact was reported by The Wall Street Journal as far back as 2003. He's denying that he hid that fact from the commission.

Second, about those phone calls. Shenon reports that not only did Zelikow frequently talk to Rove, but that he tried to hide it, even requesting that his secretary not take messages. Zelikow denies this, too, and tells Justin, "I never discussed the 9/11 Commission with him, not at all. Period."

And then there's Zelikow's influence on the final product:

Even after his recusal, Zelikow continued to insert himself into the work of “Team 3,” the task force responsible for the most politically-sensitive part of the investigation, counter-terrorism policy. This brief encompassed the White House, which meant investigating the conduct of Condoleeza Rice and Richard Clarke during the months prior to 9/11. Team 3 staffers would come to believe that Zelikow prevented them from submitting a report that would have depicted Rice’s performance as “amount[ing] to incompetence, or something not far from it.”

On this count, Zelikow has a glass half-full view of things:

Out of 85 staffers, half a dozen were disgruntled, Zelikow told ABC News. "Under the circumstances, that was a pretty low fraction," he said. "But they all talked to Shenon."

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Paul Kiel | January 30, 2008, 9:37AM

Last time around, Attorney General Michael Mukasey had more than a little trouble telling the Senate Judiciary Committee whether waterboarding is torture. "If it amounts to torture, then it is not Constitutional" just wasn't cutting it.

But this time, he's coming ready. He laid it all out in a letter to the panel last night. When he sits down for his hearing this morning, he'll say... I can't tell you if it's torture, because we're not doing it now anyway and there's no use talking about it if we're not even doing it -- which doesn't mean that we won't do it, but we really probably won't.

Or as he puts it, if I may quickly summarize his 3-page letter:

"[I] have concluded that the interrogation techniques currently authorized in the CIA program comply with the law.... I have been authorized to disclose publicly that waterboarding is not among those methods. Accordingly, waterboarding is not, and may not be, used in the current program.... It is precisely because the issue is so important, and the questions so difficult, that I, as Attorney General, should not provide answers absent a set of circumstances that call for those answers. Those circumstances do not present themselves today, and may never present themselves in the future."

The clear intended message here for the Democrats on the panel is that Mukasey would never approve waterboarding, but they're not going to get him to say why. Somehow I don't think they'll be completely satisfied. Especially if he repeats this line from his letter:

"There are some circumstances where current law would appear clearly to prohibit the use of waterboarding. Other circumstances would present a far closer question."

So -- what's up? Marty Lederman, a former lawyer in the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel, speculates that what's really driving Mukasey's refusal to address the question is that "such a repudiation would undermine the legal basis for other of the 'enhanced' CIA interrogation techniques" -- techniques such as stress positions, inducing hypothermia, sleep deprivation and the like.

Remember also that Mukasey has expressed confidence in Steven Bradbury, the current head of the Office of Legal Counsel, who has reportedly approved all these techniques (and waterboarding). And in his statement today, Mukasey seems to be saying above that he's approved them too (minus waterboarding). He supports the current system and doesn't want to rock the boat. With the most controversial technique eliminated, all this unwanted scrutiny will hopefully recede.

We'll be providing live updates of Mukasey's hearing, which starts at 10 this morning.

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Paul Kiel | January 29, 2008, 9:35AM

It was the ghost of State of The Unions past. Five years ago, President Bush used the SOTU to forcefully make the case for war with Iraq. Remember "the British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa?" Those were the days.

The USA Today headline for last night's speech? "Bush Tries to Show That He's Still on The Job." Ouch.

Nothing was a bigger tell of the desperation here than the heroic centerpiece of Bush's address. It's pretty safe to say that before the Bush administration, most Americans had no idea what an earmark was. But Bush, the earmark president, the man who presided over and enabled the Republican Congress during the Jack Abramoff and Duke Cunningham scandals, changed that. And now he's decided that he's really going to bring the hammer down on the practice now that the Republicans no longer run Congress (actually not so much bring the hammer down as threaten to bring the hammer down right before he leaves office).

The major papers didn't even go to the trouble of taking him seriously.
The Boston Globe has a rundown of the watchdog disdain for Bush's crackdown. And The New York Times had a straightforward take:

President Bush has never shown much distaste for Congressional pork.

But in his last year in office, with his party out of power on Capitol Hill, he declared Monday that he had had enough.

In the last seven years he has signed spending bills containing about 55,000 earmarks worth more than $100 billion for projects....

In his State of the Union address Monday night, Mr. Bush threatened to veto future spending bills unless Congress cut in half the number of earmarks, which now total more than 10,000 items and nearly $20 billion annually....

Mr. Bush was notably silent on the subject until after his fellow Republicans lost control of Congress in the 2006 midterm elections. And, now that his power has waned, his threats are almost certain not to matter.

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Paul Kiel | January 28, 2008, 9:43AM

The White House surveillance bill squeeze stepped up to another level over the weekend. So the scene is set for an ol' fashioned cloture vote rumble this afternoon at 4:30.

To refresh your memory: the administration's far-reaching surveillance bill, which was passed last August in a similar White House squeeze play, expires February 1st.

To take the time pressure off and ensure that surveillance would be unaffected by the lapse, Senate Majority Leader has repeatedly proposed a 30-day extension to the Protect America Act. Republicans in the Senate have repeatedly blocked any effort to have a vote on it. They've also blocked attempts to hold votes on almost all of the offered amendments, leading to the situation today.

On Thursday, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) filed for cloture, forcing a vote which would end debate, preclude any votes on the amendments, and lead immediately to a vote on the underlying Senate bill -- the administration-supported Senate intelligence committee bill, which contains a provision granting retroactive immunity to the telecoms. The Republicans need 60 votes to make that happen.

Now things are at the point where even if the Senate did manage to pass some sort of bill before Thursday, the process of hashing out the differences with the House version (which doesn't contain retroactive immunity) would drag on past the deadline. Reid has said as much: "The president has to make a decision. He's either going to extend the law... or there will be no wiretapping."

And over the weekend, the White House issued a veto threat. The game was clear:

“The president would veto a 30-day extension,” a senior administration official said. “They’re just kicking the can down the road. They need the heat of the current law lapsing to get this done.”

Bush even added a tweak of soft-on-terrorism in his weekly radio address to bring home the message:

"If this law expires, it will become harder to figure out what our enemies are doing to infiltrate our country, harder for us to uncover terrorist plots and harder to prevent attacks on the American people."

For the record, everyone agrees that surveillance initiated under the Protect America Act will be unaffected for another year. But surveillance on new targets would fall under the prior FISA law, the one superseded by the Protect America Act.

So.... what's going to happen this afternoon? The Senate will hold its much anticipated cloture vote, and we'll see if the Republicans will be able to lure over enough Dems over to get to 60. Sens. Hillary Clinton (D-NY) and Barack Obama (D-IL) will be present to cast their "No" votes. If the vote fails, it seems likely that Reid will try for a vote on that 30-day extension. (For it's part, the House is set to hold a vote on a 30-day extension today.)

As for what happens at that point, I'll be the first to confess that I have no idea. We'll keep you updated.

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Paul Kiel | January 25, 2008, 10:02AM

The squeeze is on.

You remember how it went last time: with time running out before the end of the congressional summer recess, the administration, with the help of some key Democrats, managed to push through a far-reaching surveillance bill.

And once again, five months later, some of the same conditions have been created. The administration's bill, the Protect America Act, is set to expire February 1st. Republicans and the administration have consistently opposed Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid's attempts to push that deadline back.

And yesterday they managed to vote down the Senate Judiciary Committee's surveillance bill (which does not have retroactive telecom immunity) and block votes on any amendments to the intelligence committee's version, which does contain such immunity. As the Republicans have demonstrated, the Senate's rules make it easy for the minority to make trouble.

The table is set for Monday, when the Senate will vote on Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell's (R-KY) attempt to end debate on the intel committee's bill. That motion to invoke cloture will need 60 votes to pass. If it does pass, then the Senate would immediately vote on the bill, which civil libertarians dislike for a number of reasons beyond its measure granting retroactive immunity to the telecoms.

The major papers took a look at what happened on the floor yesterday -- particularly the defeat of the SJC bill -- and declare that it was a great day for the telecoms.

Yes, the SJC bill, which contained no retroactive immunity, did get voted down 60-36 with the help of twelve Dems. But it's far from clear that those same twelve Dems would vote to invoke cloture and prevent votes on the various other amendments. One of those Dems, for instance, is Sen. Bill Nelson (D-FL) who is co-sponsoring an amendment by Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) that would throw the immunity question to the secret FISA court. Will he vote to prevent a vote on his own amendment? That seems unlikely. The Republicans need all twelve of those votes in order to invoke cloture.

So it will become a question of who's getting squeezed. Monday's vote is sure to be in the spotlight. It will be right before the President's State of the Union speech, making it likely the presidential candidates will show. And if that vote for cloture fails (my timid prediction), Sen. Reid has signaled that he'll try to shift the emphasis to the Republicans' obstructionism. Yesterday on the floor he declared: "It appears that the minority, the President, and the Republicans want failure. They don't want a bill. So that's why they're jamming this forward." (You can read a longer transcript of his remarks here.) Whether a media narrative of Republican obstructionism can take hold -- something that certainly hasn't happened so far -- is another question.

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Paul Kiel | January 24, 2008, 9:42AM

Finally, EPA Administrator Stephen Johnson gets to show what stuff he's made of. Is he your garden variety Bush appointee who shoots off arbitrary and lawless decrees from behind his desk? Or is he the type who'll go before Congress, lead with his chin, and declare his loyalty from the rooftops?

Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-CA), chair of the Senate environmental committee, rolled out the red carpet for Johnson yesterday, when she released notes that her staff had taken on internal EPA briefing documents (you can see them below). They showed, as has been reported, that Johnson's staff recommended granting California's petition to limit greenhouse gas emissions from cars and trucks. But Johnson ignored that and denied it anyway.

It was a battle for Boxer's committee just to see these documents. The EPA sent over heavily redacted versions, arguing that they were protected by executive privilege -- specifically that cherished privilege against "needless public confusion" over the staff advising one thing and the political appointees declaring another.

Since the EPA leadership refused to release the offending documents, Boxer's staffers had to go over and copy them themselves. Reports the AP, "EPA officials asked that the information be kept private, but Boxer's staff told EPA they wouldn't agree to that condition, and they released the excerpts to reporters Wednesday."

So what was Johnson's rationale? He said in his two-page letter that global warming is "fundamentally global in nature" and so California didn't meet the "compelling and extraordinary conditions" necessary to pass such a law. But his staff had said just the opposite: "California continues to have compelling and extraordinary conditions in general (geography, climatic, human and motor vehicle populations - many such conditions are vulnerable to climate change conditions) as confirmed by several recent EPA decisions." And if Johnson went ahead and denied the waiver anyway, his staff told him, California would sue, and as one briefing slide told him, "EPA likely to lose suit."

That suit, led by California and joined by 15 other states (Massachusetts, Arizona, Connecticut,
Delaware, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York,
Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Vermont and Washington) is pressing on.

You can expect Johnson to stick to his guns, even as he tips his hat to his staff for a job well done (though ignored). ("What it shows is quality staff work," Jonathan Shradar, acting EPA press secretary, said of the excerpts.) He's also sure to be grilled about whether he decided to buck his staff on his own:

Among the questions Boxer is expected to ask Johnson is what discussions he had with the White House before reaching his waiver decision. Records show that auto executives met with Vice President Dick Cheney and dropped off documents at the White House arguing against the waiver request.

The notes Boxer released yesterday are below:

Read more »

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Paul Kiel | January 23, 2008, 9:24AM

Somebody had to do it. And hooray to the Center for Public Integrity and Fund for Independence in Journalism for doing it.

The groups counted and documented every Bush administration false statement made in the run up to the invasion of Iraq. Every one. It was a bit like counting snowflakes, to be sure, but here's what they came up with:

President George W. Bush and seven of his administration's top officials, including Vice President Dick Cheney, National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice, and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, made at least 935 false statements in the two years following September 11, 2001, about the national security threat posed by Saddam Hussein's Iraq. Nearly five years after the U.S. invasion of Iraq, an exhaustive examination of the record shows that the statements were part of an orchestrated campaign that effectively galvanized public opinion and, in the process, led the nation to war under decidedly false pretenses.

On at least 532 separate occasions (in speeches, briefings, interviews, testimony, and the like), Bush and these three key officials, along with Secretary of State Colin Powell, Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz, and White House press secretaries Ari Fleischer and Scott McClellan, stated unequivocally that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction (or was trying to produce or obtain them), links to Al Qaeda, or both. This concerted effort was the underpinning of the Bush administration's case for war.

Or there's this, if you'd like a visualization:

You can relive every moment of the war hype on the site by watching videos, going over every false statement, and more. Remember Dick Cheney's "Simply stated, there is no doubt that Saddam Hussein now has weapons of mass destruction. There is no doubt he is amassing them to use against our friends, against our allies, and against us."? And President Bush's "We found the weapons of mass destruction. We found biological laboratories."? The project even comes replete with a search function.

(Unfortunately, CPI's site seems to be groaning under the pressure of interest in the project, so you'll have to be patient. It's been loading slowly this morning.)

And the White House's response to the study was as expected:

White House spokesman Scott Stanzel did not comment on the merits of the study Tuesday night but reiterated the administration's position that the world community viewed Iraq's leader, Saddam Hussein, as a threat.

"The actions taken in 2003 were based on the collective judgment of intelligence agencies around the world," Stanzel said.

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Paul Kiel | January 22, 2008, 9:24AM

As Rudy's improvised lose - every - early - primary - but - then - somehow - win - Florida strategy unravels to its thrilling conclusion, it's worth stepping back and pondering what could have been. A Giuliani White House. An administration that would have made the Bush Administration seem a marvel of technocracy and moderation by comparison.

The New York Times, with perhaps a touch of nostalgia, gives a taste this morning by looking back on Rudy's years as mayor.

The irrefutable thesis of the short history is that Rudy led an administration that would go to any means to punish any critic for any transgression no matter how petty. Loyalty was the watchword and pretty much the only thing that mattered. It certainly didn't matter that certain tactics might stretch the law; the Times reports that "New York City spent at least $7 million in settling civil rights lawsuits and paying retaliatory damages during the Giuliani years."

You can pick your own favorite example from the piece (maybe the guy who blew the whistle on an NYPD traffic trap to the New York Daily News, and then was subsequently arrested by the NYPD on a 13 year-old traffic charge and falsely branded a convicted sodomite by the NYPD spokeswoman?). There are certainly plenty to choose from. For my money, though, I've got to go with this one:

Mr. Giuliani’s war with the nonprofit group Housing Works was more operatic. Housing Works runs nationally respected programs for the homeless, the mentally ill and people who are infected with H.I.V. But it weds that service to a 1960s straight-from-the-rice-paddies guerrilla ethos.

The group’s members marched on City Hall, staged sit-ins, and delighted in singling out city officials for opprobrium. Mr. Giuliani, who considered doing away with the Division of AIDS Services, became their favorite mayor in effigy.

Mr. Giuliani responded in kind. His police commanders stationed snipers atop City Hall and sent helicopters whirling overhead when 100 or so unarmed Housing Works protesters marched nearby in 1998. A year earlier, his officials systematically killed $6 million worth of contracts with the group, saying it had mismanaged funds.

Housing Works sued the city and discovered that officials had rescored a federal evaluation form to ensure that the group lost a grant from the Department of Housing and Urban Development.

Martin Oesterreich, the city’s homeless commissioner, denied wrongdoing but acknowledged that his job might have been forfeited if Housing Works had obtained that contract.

“That possibility could have happened,” Mr. Oesterreich told a federal judge.

The mayor’s fingerprints could not be found on every decision. But his enemies were widely known.

“The culture of retaliation was really quite remarkable,” said Matthew D. Brinckerhoff, the lawyer who represented Housing Works. “Up and down the food chain, everyone knew what this guy demanded.”

In the culture of retaliation, even humor had its price:

“There were constant loyalty tests: ‘Will you shoot your brother?’ ” said Marilyn Gelber, who served as environmental commissioner under Mr. Giuliani. “People were marked for destruction for disloyal jokes.”

But a Giuliani Administration is not to be. Oh, well. This muckraker's loss is the country's gain.

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Paul Kiel | January 21, 2008, 9:46AM

We spent a good deal of time in the 2006 elections tracking the activity of third party groups on the right, groups with anonymous names like the Economic Freedom Fund. Funded by the most part by millionaire home-builder (and former Swift Boat patron) Bob Perry, the groups swooped in to attack Dem candidates throughout the country, airing radio, TV, and print ads and calling hundreds of thousands of voters with push polls.

But Perry only gave about $9 million to such groups that year. Freedom's Watch, with its close White House connections and network of Bob Perrys, is a whole new breed.

The group aims to raise and spend approximately $250 million for the 2008 cycle, a vast amount of money they apparently plan to use not only on the presidential election, but to greater effect in numerous House and Senate races throughout the country, where six figures can go a long way.

To review the White House connections: the group is headed by Bradley Blakeman, a former Bush White House official, Mel Sembler, a millionaire former Bush admbassador to Italy, and Ari Fleischer, who serves as the group's spokesman. Much of its support so far has come from Sembler and casino magnate and billionaire Sheldon Adelson, the sixth richest person in the world. (The group intends to "broaden its base" as time goes on, Fleischer says.) The group got off the ground with a $15 million effort to support the president's surge strategy in August, but it's sticking around for the long haul.

The Washington Post headlines its takeout on the group "A Conservative Answer to MoveOn." To which the founder responds:

Wes Boyd, who co-founded MoveOn.org with his wife in their home in Berkeley, Calif., said the two groups are fundamentally different because his liberal organization was set up outside the influence of Democratic Party operatives and is funded primarily by small-dollar donors around the country.

Freedom's Watch, on the other hand, is "doing attack ads by Beltway operatives, financed by billionaires, at the request of the White House," Boyd said by e-mail. "MoveOn helps millions of real people get engaged and be heard and is solely funded by these same people."

Whether Freedom's Watch is the right's MoveOn or not -- and at least for now the comparison is silly -- they're sure to be a major factor in the elections this year. A special election in December showed how:

Adelson personally wrote an $80,000 check to Freedom's Watch on Dec. 7... just four days before the election that gave Republican Robert Latta the House seat representing the district around Bowling Green. Behind a blood-red foreground, the group's ad showed Latinos hurrying under fences and being frisked by police as a narrator accused Democratic candidate Robin Weirauch and "liberals in Congress" of supporting free health care for illegal immigrants....

After Latta won, the DCCC chairman, Rep. Chris Van Hollen (Md.), issued a memo warning fellow Democrats about the new independent group gunning for them. Van Hollen's campaign committee has $31 million, compared with $2.3 million for the Republicans' committee, but he is deeply concerned that independent groups on the right are now engaged in congressional races while liberal groups are focused on the presidential race.

When it comes to political money, "there's a whole other universe out there," Van Hollen said he told Democrats. "Don't get lulled into a false sense of security."

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Paul Kiel | January 18, 2008, 9:45AM

Sometimes it's just too easy.

For months, the White House has battling the D.C. watchdog Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington in court. The accusation is pretty straightforward: for more than a year between 2003 and 2005, the White House failed to archive emails, and the group had learned that as many as five million emails were lost as a result. The White House is required by law to retain them. White House spokeswoman Dana Perino responded that there had been a tech glitch: you know, we were transferring from Lotus Notes to Microsoft Outlook and... oops:

Again, I wouldn't rule out that there were a potential 5 million emails lost, but we'll see if we can get to you. If it was 5 million, I think that, again, out of 1,700 people using email every day, again, there was no intent to have lost them.

As the months have worn on, the White House has mounted a much more belligerent response in court. But the decisions -- and the headlines -- have repeatedly gone against them to the point now where it's apparent that not only did they lose the emails, but they copied over the backup tapes as well.

Nevertheless, White House spokesman Tony Fratto sees no reason for contrition. He's a flack in the proud Bush tradition of Ari Fleischer and Tony Snow, and if there's a single tenet to that order, it's that you do not have to admit anything that is the result of deduction. Sure, common sense dictates that if emails have not been archived, and the backup tapes that would have recorded them have been recycled, then those emails are gone forever. But show me the missing emails, Fratto says:

Q Tony, on the subject, could you address the missing White House emails and the law suit? It is a subject of reports this morning. Are there in fact the emails missing? What's the likelihood of their recovery versus the --

MR. FRATTO: I think our review of this, and you saw the court filing on this, and our declaration in response to the judge's questions -- I think to the best of what all the analysis we've been able to do, we have absolutely no reason to believe that any emails are missing; there's no evidence of that....

Q So where are they?

MR. FRATTO: Where are what?

Q Where are part of --

MR. FRATTO: Which email? Look, no one will tell you categorically about any system -- any system, whether it's your system at Bloomberg or our system here at the White House, past and present, categorically that data cannot be missing.... We have no reason to believe that there's any data missing at all -- and we've certainly found no evidence of any data missing.

Of course, now House sleuth Henry Waxman is getting into the act and plans to hold a hearing . So things are going to get worse for the White House before they get better. But nobody can deny their tenacity.

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Paul Kiel | January 17, 2008, 9:58AM

"McCain camp goes on offense in S.C." headlines the Los Angeles Times. "McCain Takes the Fight To Negative Opponents" echoes the Washington Post.

The campaign is doing its best to show that it won't let 2000 happen again, when still unknown dirty tricksters called South Carolina voters to ask them whether they knew that McCain had illegitimately fathered a black baby. But so far, the campaign's response to the attacks has been far more notable than the attacks themselves.

As we've been amply documenting here, McCain has indeed been the target of push polls this time around, but so have his opponents Mitt Romney, Rudy Giuliani, and Fred Thompson -- with the notable exception of Mike Huckabee. The calls, numbering around seven million so far in various primary states, are the work of the Huck-supporting group Common Sense Issues, and the attacks are pretty standard GOP negative fare so far.

And then there's Vietnam Veterans against John McCain. Recently, the group sent a mailer to approximately 80 newspaper editors in South Carolina accusing McCain of selling out his fellow POWs in Vietnam. On Tuesday, the McCain campaign (which is working hard to appeal to vet voters) made one of McCain's former fellow POWs available to the media to respond to the smear. The story, picked up by the AP and Wall Street Journal among others, got national play -- undoubtedly more play than the group would have been able to get on its own.

I spoke to the founder of Vietnam Veterans against John McCain, Jerry Kiley, yesterday. He told me that the group hasn't "actively sought donations at this point," and that the next step for the group will be mailings "going out to our network," with the intention that the mailing would then be forwarded on to local media there. The group just doesn't have the funds to send mailings directly to voters -- nor, as they declared they would in their statement of purpose, to run radio and TV ads. Things "could change," he told me, "if we received a sizable donation," but he wasn't holding out much hope.

Instead, they're planning "an email campaign." Groups of like-minded vets throughout the country will get the email chain started, he said, "so it will spread very quickly throughout the country."

So they're not exactly the second coming of the well-funded Swift Boat Vets (one of whom said he was "appalled" by their attack on McCain). They don't have $22 million to spend. But they are certainly admirers -- even making an homage in their South Carolina mailing. As we pointed out yesterday, the mailing had a label with the Swift Boat Vets' icon on it. But we couldn't figure out if it said Swift Boat Vets for Truth or Swift Boot Vets for Truth:

The winner, Kiley, told me, is Swift Boot Vets. "We actually named ourselves the Swift Boot Vets because we want to boot McCain out of the primary."

Update: Here's video of McCain responding to the mailers on Fox News:

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Paul Kiel | January 16, 2008, 9:52AM

We've heard CIA Director Michael Hayden's confusing and risible explanation for why the CIA's torture tapes were destroyed. And there have been a number of media accounts citing dozens of unanimous government officials that haven't managed to shed much light. But today's Washington Post provides about as clear of a narrative as we're likely to get on why the tapes were made, when they were made, and why they were destroyed.

Here's what they came up with: "the taping was conducted from August to December 2002 to demonstrate that interrogators were following the detailed rules set by lawyers and medical experts in Washington, and were not causing a detainee's death." CIA officials have also said that videotapes of the interrogations would have been very useful for reviewing what the detainees had said.

And here's why they were destroyed, according to the Post. The Post broke news of the CIA's black sites in November of 2005. That made CIA officials even more nervous that "the agency could be publicly shamed and that those involved in waterboarding and other extreme interrogation techniques would be hauled before a grand jury or a congressional inquiry." At the same time, the station chief in Bangkok, who'd had the tapes in a safe in the U.S. Embassy compound there for three years, was retiring and "wanted to resolve the matter before he left." So he sent a cable to CIA headquarters asking if he could destroy them.

The rest we know. Then-operations chief Jose Rodriguez checked with two CIA lawyers who said that the agency was not required to preserve them. Since no one in the administration had directly forbidden the destruction of the tapes, he went ahead and gave the station chief the go-ahead.

And no one seemed to be very upset after the deed was done: "Word of the resulting destruction, one former official said, was greeted by widespread relief among clandestine officers, and Rodriguez was neither penalized nor reprimanded, publicly or privately, by then-CIA Director Porter J. Goss, according to two officials briefed on exchanges between the two men."

The Post also has more details on the Justice Department and White House discussions about the tapes:

The tapes were discussed with White House lawyers twice, according to a senior U.S. official. The first occasion was a meeting convened by Muller and senior lawyers of the White House and the Justice Department specifically to discuss their fate. The other discussion was described by one participant as "fleeting," when the existence of the tapes came up during a spring 2004 meeting to discuss the Abu Ghraib prison abuse scandal, the official said.

And can you tell who's missing in this tally?

Those known to have counseled against the tapes' destruction include John B. Bellinger III, while serving as the National Security Council's top legal adviser; Harriet E. Miers, while serving as the top White House counsel; George J. Tenet, while serving as CIA director; Muller, while serving as the CIA's general counsel; and John D. Negroponte, while serving as director of national intelligence.

If you said David Addington, Dick Cheney's chief of staff, you were right. Alberto Gonzales is another notable exception. Although The New York Times has reported that Addington, who's done so much to shape the administration's torture policy, took part in discussions about the tapes, he somehow didn't make the list here. The Times also cited a "former senior intelligence official" as saying that "there had been “vigorous sentiment” among some top White House officials to destroy the tapes." But the official wouldn't specify who that was. I think we might have our winners.

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Paul Kiel | January 15, 2008, 9:38AM

Back in November, President Bush and Iraqi PM Nouri al-Maliki hashed out the principles for the two countries' "enduring relationship": a long-term American troop presence in Iraq and preferential treatment for American investments in return for a guarantee of security for the Iraqis. It was a deal we summarized at the time as "U.S. To Stay In Iraq Forever."

So it shouldn't come as a surprise that when the two sides sit down at the table, the definition of "enduring" raises some eyebrows.

The Iraqi defense minister, Abdul Qadir, is in Washington, D.C. to continue work on defining the American commitment in Iraq. A formal agreement will emerge by July, The New York Times reports. As TPM alum Spencer Ackerman reported here, such an agreement would not require Congress' approval, but would require the Iraqi parliament's OK.

So... the numbers. Qadir tells the Times that 2012 and 2020 are his target dates -- for full internal security and security against external threats, respectively. What that means for the size of our "enduring presence" isn't so clear:

“According to our calculations and our timelines, we think that from the first quarter of 2009 until 2012 we will be able to take full control of the internal affairs of the country,” Mr. Qadir said in an interview on Monday, conducted in Arabic through an interpreter.

“In regard to the borders, regarding protection from any external threats, our calculation appears that we are not going to be able to answer to any external threats until 2018 to 2020,” he added.

He offered no specifics on a timeline for reducing the number of American troops in Iraq.

The Times' notes that Qadir's projections were slightly less dire last year, when he projected full security by 2018. But if there's anything the Iraq War has taught us, it's to take government prognostications very lightly.

Must Read

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Paul Kiel | January 14, 2008, 10:07AM

The more Director of National Intelligence Mike McConnell talks, the worse it gets.

Consider: McConnell, whose nomination early last year was applauded by lawmakers from both parties, has twice provided false information to Congress -- and in both cases, they were statements that served to distort the surveillance debate. In the heat of the surveillance bill debate, McConnell claimed that three German terrorism suspects had been arrested due to intercepts made possible by the administration's Protect America Act; it turned out the intercepts were obtained under the old FISA bill. Only a couple weeks later, McConnell told Congress that rulings by the FISA Court had prevented the NSA from surveilling Iraqi insurgents who had kidnapped U.S. soldiers for 12 hours. That turned out to be, at best, a misleading explanation for the delay.

He's also said, over and over, that the public debate over surveillance law is endangering American lives.

But this one, to my mind, takes the cake. This week's New Yorker features an extended piece on McConnell by Lawrence Wright, based on a number of interviews over several months (not available online). It's a piece that I think even McConnell would agree is a fair portrayal. He comes across as a patriot obsessed with the security of the country. And yet, he also comes across as incredibly unreflective about the issue of torture.

According to McConnell, the issue isn't complicated. "We don't torture," he says, but then goes on to explain that tactics critics call torture have been enormously successful. It's gotten us "tons" of meaningful information and saved "tons" of lives. He confidently offers the example of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed (Wright duly notes that the reliability of Mohammed's confessions have been "widely questioned"). And then there's this:

McConnell asserted that it was not difficult to evaluate the truthfulness of a confession, even a coerced one. "And as soon as they start to talk we can tell in minutes if they are lying," he said. "One, you know a lot. And you know when someone is giving you information that is not connecting up to what you know. You also know when to use a polygraph."

Never mind the debate over Abu Zubaydah. Apparently you can torture without any concern about false information.

But that's just a warm up for McConnell's take on waterboarding, which really has to be quoted in full to capture the full force of its thoughtlessness. For those who'd like a contrast with McConnell's views, see the descriptions of waterboarding here and here. From Wright's piece:

"You know what waterboarding is?" [McConnell] asked. "You lay somebody on this table, or put them in an inclined position, and put a washcloth over their face, and you just drip water right here" -- he pointed to his nostrils. "Try it! What happens is, water will go up your nose. And so you will get the sensation of potentially drowning. That's all waterboarding is."

I asked if he considered that torture.

McConnell refused to answer directly, but he said, "My own definition of torture is something that would cause excruciating pain."

Did waterboarding fit that description?

Referring to his teen-age days as a lifeguard, he said, "I know one thing. I'm a water-safety instructor, but I cannot swim without covering my nose. I don't know if it's some deviated septum or mucus membrane, but water just rushes in." For him, he said, "waterboarding would be excruciating. If I had water draining into my nose, oh God, I just can't imagine how painful! Whether it's torture by anybody else's definition, for me it would be torture."

I queried McConnell again, later, about his views on waterboarding, since this exchange seemed to suggest that he personally condemned it. He rejected that interpretation. "You can do waterboarding lots of different ways," he said. "I assume you can get to the point that a person is actually drowning." That would certainly be torture, he said. The definition didn't seem very different from John Yoo's. The reason that he couldn't be more specific, McConnell said, is that "if it ever is determined to be torture, there will be a huge penalty to be paid for anyone engaging in it."

The AP's headline gives the impression that McConnell condemned waterboarding. He didn't. He's saying that if you have a deviated septum, then waterboarding is torture -- because it just feels like you're drowning. If not (and the interrogator doesn't go overboard), then apparently it's a-ok. It seems to be an easy distinction for him. The subtlety might be lost on others.

Iran

Today's Must Read

Paul Kiel | January 11, 2008, 10:07AM

As far as international incidents go, this one's a little baffling.

On Tuesday, we gave you the rundown of Sunday's incident in the Strait of Hormuz, when three hulking American naval ships were greeted by five Iranian speedboats. U.S. officials said that the boats maneuvered aggressively, dropped two white boxes in the water, and issued threats over the radio. Just when the boats were getting too close for comfort, they said, and the Americans were preparing for a warning shot, the boats sped away.

On Tuesday, the Pentagon released an edited video of the incident, which you can see here:

On the audio (mp3) of the radio communication, a voice slowly pronounces the words "I am coming to you," and then as the American tries to communicate, says, "You will explode after a few minutes."

But since then, the American version of the incident has undergone a revision. The radio threat, the Navy now admits, may not have come from the Iranian boats after all. The voice, a number of observers have pointed out, seems to come out of nowhere and doesn't have the expected engine noise in the background, and in fact, The Washington Post reports, the accent doesn't even sound Iranian.

The Iranians, meanwhile, have steadfastly insisted that nothing of this sort ever happened. To that effect, they released a video yesterday of a completely ordinary greeting between Iranian and naval vessels. But it's impossible to tell whether it's even the same incident. U.S. officials say that it's not.

So.... It remains unclear what happened really happened there and why. William Arkin of the Post's Early Warning blog suggests that Iran "wanted to send a not-so-subtle message to their Persian Gulf neighbors that they could disrupt the flow of oil and that any U.S.-Iranian confrontation would hurt the pocketbooks of the ruling sheiks."

The Bush administration took the ball and ran with it, playing up the "confrontation," though President Bush seemed to indicate an initial dearth of talking points. He regained his footing later, warning of "serious consequences" if it happened again. And if it does happen again, maybe it will all seem less strange.

Iraq

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Paul Kiel | January 10, 2008, 9:26AM

Remember all that stuff about benchmarks? You know, measurements of progress by the Iraqi government? Well, that was last year.

There's a new catchphrase in town: "Iraqi solutions." And it means that while the Iraqis might have failed to accomplish just about all the goals the U.S. set, that's OK, and you gotta just roll with it and let the Iraqis do their thing.

Here's how it goes, from The Washington Post:

From Gen. David H. Petraeus and Ambassador Ryan C. Crocker to Army privates and aid workers, officials are expressing their willingness to stand back and help Iraqis develop their own answers. "We try to come up with Iraqi solutions for Iraqi problems," said Stephen Fakan, the leader of a provincial reconstruction team with U.S. troops in Fallujah.

In many cases -- particularly on the political front -- Iraqi solutions bear little resemblance to the ambitious goals for 2007 that Bush laid out in his speech to the nation last Jan. 10. "To give every Iraqi citizen a stake in the country's economy, Iraq will pass legislation to share oil revenues among all Iraqis," he pledged. "Iraqis plan to hold provincial elections later this year . . . the government will reform de-Baathification laws, and establish a fair process for considering amendments to Iraq's constitution."...

To Crocker, the meaning of "Iraqi solutions to Iraqi problems" is "blindingly obvious. Iraq has got a government. It's got a system. It's got provincial governments. It's got a military and a police. And it has leaders of all of these things who increasingly take themselves seriously as leaders."

The New York Times noted this reduction in expectations last year, but it didn't have the requisite branding. Now it does. Some, however, are unimpressed with the rollout. The Post quotes a retired British general as saying that this supposed "dawning of reality" is a "cynical use of language" used "to camouflage past errors."

Whether it's realism or cynicism you can decide. An Army official favorably quotes Lawrence of Arabia as proof that this is an old, tried solution: "Do not try to do too much with your own hands. Better the Arabs do it tolerably than that you do it perfectly."

Unfortunately, it's that "tolerable" part that's the sticking point.

Must Read

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Paul Kiel | January 9, 2008, 9:43AM

Today, the Supreme Court will hear arguments as to whether Indiana's voter ID law breaks the law. If a law disenfranchises thousands of voters (mostly poor and minorities) to prevent a phantom crime, is that ok?

Of course, it's rare to hear the Republican supporters of voter ID laws admit that there's no evidence that voter impersonation, the kind of voter fraud the laws are meant to stop, occurs.

But that's just what happened yesterday when Warren Olney of KCRW's To The Point pressed Todd Rokita (R), Indiana's secretary of state and a named defendant in Crawford v. Marion County Election Board.

Have any cases of voter impersonation been prosecuted in Indiana? was the simple question. And as Olney pressed, Rokita went from one fallback argument to another. It started with this revealing exchange:

Q: ...Have there been cases in Indiana where people represented themselves as somebody else in order to be able to vote?

Rokita: Oh yeah, we suspect it happens all the time.

Q: You suspect?

Rokita: Mm hmm.

Q: Have you got any cases proven?

Rokita: Well, are you saying you want to define whether or not there’s fraud based on whether or not it’s prosecuted? Is that the question?

From there, Rokita argued that there is fraud (it "exists almost on a daily basis"), but that it's nearly impossible to prosecute due to the ephemeral nature of the crime. And it tends not to be a priority for prosecutors due to all the other violent and horrible stuff they need to prosecute. And even if there hasn't been any such voter fraud (and I'm not saying that there isn't), we have a right to protect ourselves from it; "You have the right to build a firehouse before you get burned by the fire."

It bears mentioning here that the Justice Department under George Bush has indeed made prosecuting voter fraud a priority -- and came up empty. That fact hasn't stopped voter ID law proponents from claiming hundreds of demonstrated cases of voter fraud. It's quite a morass of innuendo, but the Brennan Center (which has filed an amicus brief with the law's opponents) undertook the staggering task of disproving every one of those claims one by one. It's a 75 page document (pdf).

The lawyers actually arguing the case before the court today are likely to be more eloquent than Rokita, but the arguments will essentially be the same. So take a look at the relevant excerpts from the interview below.

via Rick Hasen.

Read more »

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Paul Kiel | January 8, 2008, 9:50AM

It's been nearly a year since the Bush Administration mounted a public relations campaign accusing Iran of arming insurgents in Iraq. If that was a campaign to generate enough public support to go on the offensive against Iran, it failed. But relations between the two haven't exactly warmed since -- nor, it's safe to say, has the administration's trigger finger gotten any less itchy.

Which makes this worrying:

We're coming at you, the Iranian radio transmission warned. Your ships will explode in a couple of minutes.

The United States and Iran reached the verge of a military confrontation early Sunday after five Iranian patrol boats sped toward the USS Port Royal and two accompanying ships as they crossed the Strait of Hormuz into the Persian Gulf. The Iranian vessels, manned by the Revolutionary Guard Corps, broke into two groups and "maneuvered aggressively" on both sides of the U.S. ships, coming as close as 500 yards, recounted Vice Adm. Kevin J. Cosgriff, commander of U.S. Naval Forces Central Command.

After the radio transmission, two of the Iranian boats dropped "white box-like objects" into the water, Cosgriff said. The U.S. ships responded with evasive maneuvers, radioed warnings to the Iranians and sounded ships' whistles, while ordering increased readiness of their own vessels. After their messages were not heeded, the U.S. ships prepared to fire in self-defense, but the Iranians abruptly turned and sped north toward their territorial waters.

As the U.S. officials tell it, this was either an aborted attack (the little white boxes were mines) or a sort of mock attack (the boxes were just little boxes) meant to test how U.S. vessels react.

Meanwhile, the Iranians say that there were no aggressive maneuvers, no boxes, no threatening radio transmissions.

Perhaps most intriguing about the episode is that Pentagon officials say that the five speedboats belong to the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps. Last year, the administration focused on the Revolutionary Guards' Quds Force as the ones responsible for arming Iraqi insurgents -- and made quite an effort to argue that the Quds Force was necessarily acting with the authorization of the Iranian government. In October, the Bush administration imposed sanctions on the Revolutionary Guard and the Quds Force. So maybe this is just another chapter in that back and forth. Or maybe it's something more.

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Paul Kiel | January 7, 2008, 9:33AM

It's pretty fitting that one day after one of the biggest events this campaign season, the New Hampshire primaries, the Supreme Court will be hearing arguments on a case that could significantly affect the 2008 election: the fight over Indiana's voter ID law.

The issues behind Crawford v. Marion County Election Board are pretty simple to understand. The Indiana law, passed by Republicans, prevents citizens from voting without a picture ID, and they say it will stop voter fraud, though they can't point to a single instance of criminal voter impersonation occurring in the state. It is a solution in search of a problem.

Or rather, it's a solution to a very different problem. In this issue of New Yorker, Jeffrey Toobin writes that the voter ID laws, which Republicans have pushed in states throughout the country, are a reminder that, though racism has disappeared from mainstream political discourse, "racial discrimination itself" has not been banished from politics:

“Let’s not beat around the bush,” Terence T. Evans, the dissenting Court of Appeals judge in the Indiana case, slyly wrote. “The Indiana voter photo ID law is a not-too-thinly-veiled attempt to discourage election-day turnout by certain folks believed to skew Democratic.” He’s not the only one to notice: the three federal judges who approved the Indiana law were appointed by a Republican President; the lone dissenter was appointed by a Democrat. It was also Republican-dominated legislatures that produced the Indiana and Georgia laws, both of which were signed by Republican governors.

Who are the “certain folks,” in Judge Evans’s delicate phrase, that the Indiana law is trying to discourage? The best answer can be found in a friend-of-the-court brief in the case filed by twenty-nine leading historians and scholars of voting rights. They concluded that the Indiana law belongs to a malign tradition in “this nation’s history of disfranchising people of color and poor whites under the banner of ‘reform.’ ” Such measures as the poll tax and literacy tests, they write, were “billed as anti-fraud or anti-corruption devices; yet through detailed provisions within them, they produced a discriminatory effect (often intended) within the particular historical context.” So it will be in Indiana, where the law creates a series of onerous barriers to voting.

And don't forget that the United States government, by way of the Justice Department, has weighed in to support the Republican side of the argument. As election law expert Rick Hasen has pointed out, the fight over voter ID laws has been strictly partisan -- Republicans push and support the laws, Republican-appointed judges uphold them, and recently Republican secretaries of state have written amicus briefs in support of Indiana's law. So the Bush Administration's decision shouldn't surprise.

The court will deliver a decision by late June, in time to affect the November elections. As for what's likely to happen Wednesday, Toobin himself is not optimistic about the outcome of the arguments:

As a general matter, in recent years the Court has been reluctant to find what is charged in this case: a violation of the constitutional guarantee of equal protection of the laws. (The notable exception, to belabor the issue, was for a plaintiff named George W. Bush.) In the end, though, it will not be the judiciary that rescues democracy; whatever the obstacles, the problems with the ballot box must be solved at the ballot box. In the end, though, it will not be the judiciary that rescues democracy; whatever the obstacles, the problems with the ballot box must be solved at the ballot box.

Note: Here's The New York Times' rundown of the case.

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Paul Kiel | January 4, 2008, 9:46AM

You can say that the Bush Administration is a band of crooks. You can say that they're by and large incompetent. But you can't say they lack chutzpah.

And when it comes to chutzpah, Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Stephen Johnson clearly has got what it takes. But will he hold the line now that Congress is bringing its probing power to bear?

Late last month, Johnson denied California's petition to limit greenhouse gas emissions from cars and trucks. It was an act of pure, unmitigated, just-because-I-can chutzpah.

A little background first: California's rule would seek to cut emissions by 30 percent between 2009 and 2016. Not surprisingly, that's a much steeper cut than the Bush Administration (and the auto industry) wants. Since other states are following California's lead, half of the American population (and car consumers) could be affected. The CEOs of Ford and Chrysler met with Dick Cheney late last year to have a chat about this.

But Johnson came through. Consider Johnson denied California its waiver (states have to get the EPA's OK before instituting environmental rules) despite:

-- the unanimous recommendation of the agency's legal and technical staffs that he should grant the waiver

-- being told by the agency's legal staff that if he blocked the waiver, EPA would lose in court when California and environmentalists sued, but that if he granted the waiver, the move would stand in court no matter who challenged it

-- not having any real reason for denying the waiver

-- California has never had a waiver denied in the Clean Air Act's 37-year history

So far, in the two weeks since Johnson made his move, journalists haven't had much luck finding anyone who will say that his decision is supportable. The Washington Post quoted William Reilly, who was EPA administrator under President George H.W. Bush as saying, "What I want to know from the [administration] is: What possible grounds would there possibly be to deny California this waiver?"

As for Johnson and the administration, their tactic seems to be to brazen their way through this.

The President has offered a "clear national solution" to the problem of auto greenhouse omissions, Johnson said. He had to block California's rules because it would lead to a "confusing patchwork of state rules."

And about that unanimous-staff-revolt thing? His spokeswoman says that Johnson "tremendously values the legal and technical expertise of his staff," but that "the Clean Air Act states that the authority to decide waiver requests rests with the administrator. He evaluated the waiver ... and obviously he made his decision." So there.

President Bush certainly thought Johnson made the right call. "Is it more effective to let each state make a decision as to how to proceed in curbing greenhouse gases? Or is it more effective to have a national strategy?" So much for state's rights.

But now comes the real test of Johnson's chutzpah reservoir. House sleuth Henry Waxman (D-CA) says that he'll investigate the decision. Senate environmental committee Chair Barbara Boxer (D-CA) will hold hearings. And yesterday Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) requested that the EPA's inspector general launch an investigation.

And don't forget the courts. That lawsuit with the foreordained outcome has already been launched. Yesterday, California, 15 other states, and five environmental group filed suit.

How will Johnson hold up under Waxman's questioning? Stay tuned.

George Bush

Today's Must Read

Paul Kiel | January 3, 2008, 9:43AM

The eight year Constitutional law seminar that is the Bush Administration continues!

Today's lesson: the pocket veto.

Last week, the president claimed to have sunk Congress' defense authorization bill by pocket veto. Now Democrats are saying he can't do that.

We'll start first with the Constitution says, and then go on to what the Bush administration says it says.

Article I, section 7 of the Constitution says that the president must sign or veto legislation passed by Congress within ten days (not counting Sundays). If he signs it, it becomes law. If he vetoes it, then Congress can override his veto with a two-thirds majority in both houses. And if he does not sign or veto it while Congress is in session, it becomes law. But if Congress is not in session and he doesn't sign it, then it neither becomes law nor can Congress override it. The bill is dead. That's a pocket veto.

So on December 28th, the president proclaimed that the defense authorization bill was dead by pocket veto. (For some background on the substance of the dispute -- why Bush doesn't like the bill and Dems' frustration with the fact that the administration didn't raise the objection until after the bill passed -- see here.) Congress will just have to start over. Keep in mind that the bill passed both houses with veto-proof majorities.

But, as Kagro X at Daily Kos first pointed out, there's a problem with that. Though the president said that "adjournment of Congress" allowed him to pocket veto, Congress was not, in fact, in adjournment.

To prevent administration monkey business during the holiday recess, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) kept the Senate in pro forma session throughout. By keeping the Senate nominally in session (someone shows up for a few minutes every third day), Reid stifled the administration's desire for a bunch of recess appointments.

So now House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) is saying that the pocket veto is bunk. From The Hill:

“Congress vigorously rejects any claim that the president has the authority to pocket-veto this legislation, and will treat any bill returned to the Congress as open to an override vote,” said Nadeam Elshami, a spokesman for Pelosi. He said the Speaker is keeping all legislative options on the table.

Now, it's possible that the White House just didn't think this one through. Or maybe they thought no one would call them on it. In any case, the White House has responded with a Constitutional interpretation that seems somewhat improvisational.

True, the Senate was in session, they say. But we sent the president's veto to the House, and they were in recess. So voila! pocket veto!

The White House argues it pocket-vetoed the defense bill on Dec. 28 by sending it back to the House with a message of disapproval. It argues that a pocket veto was possible because the House, where the bill originated, was out of session.

“A pocket veto, as you know, is essentially putting it in your pocket and not taking any action whatsoever. And when Congress — the House is out of session — in this case it’s our view that bill then would not become law,” White House Spokesman Scott Stanzel told reporters Monday.

The Hill gets a take on the White House's tap dancing from a Constitutional scholar at the Library of Congress -- he gives it a resounding thumbs down.

As for what happens from here, it's not clear. If the House moves for an override next week and the White House objects, the whole thing could end up in court. That's probably not something the administration wants to happen. The pocket veto seems to be an executive power which, like executive privilege, is very infrequently tested in court. But with this administration's fervent belief in the executive's power, you never know.

Do we have our first contestant for the Bush Administration's dumbest legal arguments of 2008?

Must Read

Today's Must Read

Paul Kiel | January 2, 2008, 9:37AM

It turns out the Pakistani government is as good at public relations as they are at detective work.

After absurdly insisting for days that Benazir Bhutto had died from the blow of her head against the sun roof of her vehicle (when she ducked down due to the close range gun fire), the government seemed to finally come clean.

It was all the fault of the Interior Ministry's hasty spokesman, who'd floated the sun roof theory, it turned out. During a meeting with Pakistani newspaper journalists, the Interior Minister, Hamid Nawaz, asked them to "please forgive us and ignore the comment." Because, well, "we are not so articulate to present our views as you journalists can."

But it was only a couple of hours, apparently, before the government took back the take-back -- in the form of a "clarification." As Pakistan's News summarizes a government press release, "As a matter of fact [Nawaz] had merely appealed to the editors to overlook the tone and style of the spokesman which may not have been received well."

So it's back to the sun roof.

Meanwhile, The Chicago Tribune had a good rundown yesterday on the government's "bizarre" inquiry into Bhutto's assassination. Beyond the now-infamous decision not to perform an autopsy, there was the decision to cordon off the crime scene and wash it down with fire hoses afterward.

I'm worried that CSI:Islamabad just won't make it off the ground.