Interesting times:

(TPM link)

So, as far as I can tell, Rep. Jane Harman [D-Ca] was conspiring with the Israelis to drop some spy charges in exchange for some lobbying on her behalf, and Alberto Gonzales had an NSA warrantless wiretap™ (wait for it) on her phone and overheard the deal.

In exchange for not investigating, Gonzales asked her to attack the NYT's exposé on (wait for it) NSA warrantless wiretapping. The one she had personally requested be held back until before after the 2004 election (Department of With Democrats Like These, anyone?)

And so she goes free, although the Israelis didn't get her that committee chair she wanted in the first place.

One has to wonder just how much dirt Hoover Gonzales and Rove had on everyone in Washington, and more importantly, how many other favors they blackmailed out of people. And it certainly explains some of those bizarre, neo-Maoist ritual apologies.

Below, I quote the principles for which the United States government is supposed to stand.

We the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.

Article I

Section 1. All legislative powers herein granted shall be vested in a Congress of the United States, which shall consist of a Senate and House of Representatives.

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How is it possible that terror is mixed in with children and even force children to live within 'terrorilitary' a word I made up to suit my opinion that it is wrong to allow children to live within the perimeter of terror-operation against the original inhabitants of a territory. We want Hamas out of Lebanon we want them out of the land of the Palestine and we demand they retreat from firing anymore rockets into the land of Israel and its inhabitants of Arabs and Jews and others who live in peace. In my opinion these terrorist are the greatest cowards to permit children and women to live with them while they carry out their evil plots against humanity. The people of the world are sick of it and its hypocrisy. We demand truth and accountability will be for God to judge.

So reading some email discussions, I was reminded of the old DFH saying: the first person at the meeting to suggest violence is the plant. Time-tested, that one is. Just sayin.

Meanwhile, Terrance rants well about getting our pols to say no to more Jesusjuice in public discourse.

I hate it when I have to truncate blogging for drudgery, don't you? Have a good one, peeps.

All right folks -- how long until W pardons Scooter?

Each week, conservatives find a new way to answer Chubby Checker's immortal question, "how low can you go?"

The sleaze of the GOP — and the Religious Right and MSM that enable them — is an ever-opening flower.

What can we do at this point but stare in awe, like Grant Williams at the end of The Incredible Shrinking Man, beholding the vastness of it all?

It's not nice to brag, but I once got an A+ in Typing, back when typing was for typewriters. I simply cannot, however, write about this stuff as fast as it whizzes by.

Armitage was the source of Novak's leak. And Rove was Novak's confirmation.

So sayeth Pravda on the Potomac:

The leak of information about an undercover CIA employee that provoked a special prosecutor's investigation of senior White House officials came from then-Deputy Secretary of State Richard L. Armitage, according to a former Armitage colleague at the department.

Armitage told newspaper columnist Robert D. Novak in the summer of 2003 that Valerie Plame, the wife of a prominent critic of the Iraq war, worked for the CIA, the colleague said. In October of that year, Armitage admitted to senior State Department officials that he had made the remark, which was based on a classified report he had read.

Novak collected what he considered to be a confirming comment from White House political strategist Karl Rove, then wrote a column in July 2003 that cited Plame's CIA employment as a reason to question the credentials of the critic, former U.S. ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV.

The story, now, seems to be that Armitage made "offhand disclosures"--I guess that's a little more credible, or at least spinnable, than the idea that Armitage was an "overzealous staffer."

I sure hope Libby doesn't plan to go up in any small planes soon. Times:

[Libby's grand jury] testimony, cited in a court filing by the government late Wednesday, provides the first indication that Mr. Bush, who has long assailed leaks of classified information [by persons other than Republican operatives] as a national security threat, played a direct role in the disclosure of the intelligence report on Iraq at a moment that the White House was trying to defend itself against charges that it had inflated the case against Saddam Hussein.

One word:

I was only following orders! AP:

A former top aide to Vice President Dick Cheney told a federal grand jury that his superiors authorized him to give secret information to reporters as part of the Bush administration's WHIG disinformation campaign defense of intelligence used to justify invading Iraq, according to court papers.

Special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald said in documents filed last month that he plans to introduce evidence that I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, Cheney's former chief of staff, disclosed to reporters the contents of a classified National Intelligence Estimate in the summer of 2003.

After all, Dick Cheney's pasty white ass national security was at stake!

Inspired by ReddHedd, I went and read John Dickerson's articles about how the White House outed Valerie Plame. I thought it would make things simpler if I made a scorecard that shows the players in the story that Dickerson tells, and the nature of their contacts with the press, as Dickerson describes them:  Read more…

Sure, we always knew that--but Novak actually said it:

"I'm confident the president knows who the source is," Novak told a luncheon audience at the John Locke Foundation in Raleigh on Tuesday. "I'd be amazed if he doesn't."

"So I say, 'Don't bug me. Don't bug Bob Woodward. Bug the president [SIC] as to whether he should reveal who the source is.' "

It was Novak who first revealed that Plame, the wife of former Ambassador Joseph Wilson, worked for the CIA. Wilson had angered the Bush administration when he accused it of twisting intelligence to exaggerate the Iraqi threat before the war.

WTF??? What angle could Novak be playing?

I mean, of course, besides preparing his legal case against the Libby known as Scooter? We'll get to John Dean later.

I came down more on the side of those who argued the Libby indictment was pretty much going to be it, and that Mr. Rove, ever so Protean, ever so oily, ever so slippery, had managed to slipe-slide-slither through one of those tiny teensy cracks in a wall that looked barely the depth of the about-to-peel paint.

Why, when he's a "Presidential" Advisor in the Bush "administration," of course!

Talking 'bout you, Karl:

An intelligence analyst temporarily lost his top-secret security clearance because he faxed his resume using a commercial machine.

An employee of the Defense Department had her clearance suspended for months because a jilted boyfriend called to say she might not be reliable.

An Army officer who spoke publicly about intelligence failures before the Sept. 11 attacks had his clearance revoked over questions about $67 in personal charges to a military cellphone.

But in the White House, where Karl Rove is under federal investigation for his role in the exposure of a covert CIA officer, the longtime advisor to President Bush continues to enjoy full access to government secrets.
(via LA Times)

Of course, there's always the possibility that Rove will do the honorable thing and recuse himself from discussing matters that require a security clearance until the Fitzgerald investigation is concluded....

That's Trent Lott’s description of what transpired, Tuesday, on the floor of the Senate; he didn’t mean in it a complimentary way, but I rather like it. Stink indeed. (Courtesy of Cursor and Joe Gandleman

A former majority leader, Lott said a closed session was appropriate for such overarching matters as impeachment and chemical weapons -- the two topics that last sent the senators into such sessions.

In addition, Lott said, Reid's move violated the Senate's tradition of courtesy and consent. But there was nothing in Senate rules enabling Republicans to thwart Reid's effort.

Too true, Trent; you can’t legislate courtesy and consent, you have to earn it.

The most excellent Bob Harris (whose only two flaws are that he doesn't have comments, and hasn't updated his link from Old Corrente to our new joint here) has a poll up. Here are your choices, and the only flaw I can see in them is that there is no option for All Of The Above On Sequential Days With No Evident Cognitive Dysfunction:

How would Scottie McClellan spin things if Karl Rove had gotten caught holding up a liquor store?

--He's simply the victim of an overzealous security camera

--This just shows that the special prosecutor didn't have enough evidence to go for Murder One, so clearly there has been no real crime

--I dodged this question earlier, and I stand by those remarks

--This is nothing more than the Democrats' partisan attempt to criminalize armed robbery

I saw this happening on C-Span, but wasn't sure exactly what I was seeing. Went to Senator Reid's website, still no clue. This much I can tell you:

Senator Harry Reid just gave an incredible speech on the floor of the Senate, the gist of which was a demand that the Republican majority agree to commence on the second section of the promised SSCI report on how this administration's handling and pursuit, or non-pursuit, of intelligence resulted in the American people finding themselves invading Iraq in early Spring of 2003.

He then demanded a closed session, Durbin seconded, and despite a fevered meeting between Frist et al at the back of the chamber, Senator Reid had caught them off-guard, and the Senate is now meeting in closed session.

If Ohio didn't, that is. Thomas Oliphant writes in the Boston Globe:

No one really noticed, but Patrick Fitzgerald made an unassailable point last week about the timing of the indictment that his CIA leak investigation has produced so far.

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If Atrios can have a Wanker of the Day to make note of media figures who most egregiously suck, we need to note, when deserved, those Ink-Stained Wretches who do what the First Amendment demands in these troubled times. I'm open to suggestions about the name of this trophy, but for now we're calling it The Froomie.

And today's winner IS....well I'll be damned! It's the Washington Post's main justification for existence, Dan Froomkin!

He gives the SC nomination the attention it deserves (one sentence) then gets back to where our serial left off on Friday: the criminals in the White House:

Time's Michael Duffy, in the midst of some excellent snark about Scooter's talents as an author of light fiction, and how he might keep the firewall he built to protect Big Time in place with a plea bargain, drops--accidentally, I assume, the following mot:

In an unprecedented and awkward fashion, the case pits government officials against the reporters who cover them.

I thought our system of government was set up exactly so that the government and the press were "pitted against" each other. That's why we have freedom of the press, right?

Or did I not get the memo?

NOTE It's pretty awkward to be dead, too, and if the press had done its job, maybe thousands of Iraqis and Americans wouldn't be.

Another thoughtful choice, timed with a consideration only for what is best for the nation

This choice is the "conservative judicial movement's" wet dream.

Be afraid.

But not that afraid.

This guy can be defeated. How? Read on.

What a shame. It couldn't happen to a nicer traitor. However, as Kristof points out, the suspense is bad for the country. So why doesn't Rove just give up the unequal struggle, resign, and make Babs happy? Who knows....

Anyhow, despite the massive autocacaphagy fest from the Sabbath Day gasbags, how everything in the White House is all pure because, you know, only one bad apple was charged with a felony, it's still not looking so good for America's favorite College Republican. Pravda on the Potomac:

Yawn, Yet Another Times Fluffer, this one from Anne Kornblut; the lights are on in the third floor of Rove's house, he looks happy, et cetera. I'll excerpt some of the more egregious servicing:

Mr. Rove, a cheerful, sharp-witted operative fond of sparring with reporters off the record

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That's my translation into the vulgate, anyhow.

In the midst of another piece of Times fluffery from Eric Schmitt we get this:

"When I find a time when I disagree with Dick Cheney, I say to myself, 'Why am I wrong?' " Mr. Libby said in an interview in 2001.

From Fitzgerald's news conference:

[FITZGERALD:] To the CIA people who are going out at a time that we need more human intelligence, I think everyone agrees with that, at a time when we need our spy agencies to have people work there, I think just the notion that someone's identity could be compromised lightly, to me compromises the ability to recruit people and say, Come work for us, come work for the government, come be trained, come invest your time, come work anonymously here or wherever else, go do jobs for the benefit of the country for which people will not thank you, because they will not know, they need to know that we will not cast their anonymity aside lightly.

Translation: They're traitors. But it gets worse:

Say it isn't so, Ari! From Fitzgerald's news conference:

[FITZ] It's alleged in the indictment that on June 14th of 2003, a full month before Mr. Novak's column, Mr. Libby discussed it in a conversation with a CIA briefer in which he was complaining to the CIA briefer his belief that the CIA was leaking information about something or making critical comments, and he brought up Joe Wilson and Valerie Wilson.It's also alleged in the indictment that Mr. Libby discussed it with the White House press secretary on July 7th, 2003, over lunch. What's important about that is that Mr. Libby, the indictment alleges, was telling Mr. Fleischer something on Monday that he claims to have learned on Thursday.

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