Gonzo's testimony was at least entertaining, if totally baffling.

No, he still doesn't know why some of the USAs were fired. No, he still hasn't looked at their personnel records, that would be inappropriate No, he hasn't asked his staff any questions about who put names on the list or why, that would be inappropriate. But he's sure there was nothing improper in the firings.

He's sure Iglesia's name was put on the list on election day, positive, but he doesn't know who put it there. He's very sure, however, that it wasn't Goodling, himself, McNulty, Bush, Rove, any member of his staff, any member of the White House staff or ??? He doesn't know why Iglesias was put on the list, either, but he remains confident the firing was justified, but it would be inappropriate for him to comment on a personnel matter and besides, there's an ongoing investigation by the Inspector General so it would be inappropriate for him to ask his staff any questions or review the files or records. But he's positive nothing improper took place. (Say what???? And when asked the obvious question--"If you don't know what took place or who did it or how the decision was arrived at, how can you be sure that nothing improper took place?"--he again replied that it would be improper for him to comment because of the ongoing Inspector General....)

He's not the one responding to the subpeona for documents--that would be improper. He also hasn't looked at the redacted documents (that would be improper), and even if he did, it would be improper for him to comment on what was redacted from his own memos. And no, he doesn't know who's making the decisions on what to release or who's redacting it, nor has he asked. It would be improper to ask...

He met with Iglesias about the future focus of his region's prosecutions and what additional resources could be provided, but the subjects he was alledgedly fired for not pursuing weren't discussed. That would have been improper interference in prosecutorial discretion. (Huh?)

It's really worth watching the hearing just for laugh-out-loud entertainment value. He clearly has a highly developed sense of what's proper and improper. Not one that's comprehensible to any sane person, but he clearly spends a lot of time reflecting on propriety.

He's also proud of how open and forthcoming and cooperative he's been with Congress' investigation. ROFL!

Do you ever get the impression that the heads of the Departments have nary a clue of what goes on. I've heard stories where staff members slip things in bills.... I almost get the impression that the staff members run the departments..... do you ever get the feeling we're losing our country????

Do you ever get the impression that the heads of the Departments have nary a clue of what goes on. I've heard stories where staff members slip things in bills.... I almost get the impression that the staff members run the departments..... do you ever get the feeling we're losing our country????

Wrong branch of government, bay. The "Departments" as you put it are on the Executive side - those staffers that slip things into bills are on the Legislative side, where bills are drafted and passed for Executive signature. The Executive very often works with the Legislative to get certain language into the bills (funding and the like as part of the budget process) but the text of the bills themselves is a Legislative responsibility.

And yes, you are correct it is the long term byureaucracy that "run" the executive departments, in terms of continous functioning, because they stay in place whilst administrations change to keep things running. Its why we have government service (nee civil service) - it used not to be that way back in simpler times. Read up on the chaos surrounding President Andrew Jackson's entry into office, and all the job seekers taht came to town - it used to be a wholesale swap out. Then again there was so much less government back then as well.

Russ, on the matter of the civil service and 'staff' and bureaucracy: the 'problem' is not the existence of career bureaucrats. In fact, without them, we would have a 'patrimonial' state, which isn't a good thing. <snip>

Which is exactly what I said.

As for your point on the political appointees - a case can indeed be made for that. But it's always been a hit or miss in that regard. Some appointees who should have been gangbusters in the post have turned out to be tyros - Congressman Aspin as SecDef, Gen. Haig, Sec State Dean Acheson as quick examples - all had supposedly great credentials. Others who were virtual unknowns outside the Beltway have turned out fairly competent in various administrations. Being political appointees, one never knows how they will actually perform in a role that does require managerial and leadership expertise. I think often the job simply overwhelms them.

It has always confounded me for example, why the Sec State position is not filled from within the senior ranks of the Foreign Service Officers. Instead we pull folks from other walks of life most often, instead of the pros who have spent their whole careers in affairs diplomatic. The senior political appointees are the final bastion of political patronage, and thus it becomes a crap shoot.

Just my personal opinion, however.

Wrong branch of government, bay. The "Departments" as you put it are on the Executive side - those staffers that slip things into bills are on the Legislative side, where bills are drafted and passed for Executive signature. The Executive very often works with the Legislative to get certain language into the bills (funding and the like as part of the budget process) but the text of the bills themselves is a Legislative responsibility.

And yes, you are correct it is the long term byureaucracy that "run" the executive departments, in terms of continous functioning, because they stay in place whilst administrations change to keep things running. Its why we have government service (nee civil service) - it used not to be that way back in simpler times. Read up on the chaos surrounding President Andrew Jackson's entry into office, and all the job seekers taht came to town - it used to be a wholesale swap out. Then again there was so much less government back then as well.

QUOTE

QUOTE(bay @ May 11 2007, 07:57 AM)
Do you ever get the impression that the heads of the Departments have nary a clue of what goes on. I've heard stories where staff members slip things in bills.... I almost get the impression that the staff members run the departments..... do you ever get the feeling we're losing our country????

bay, how did you get to your last question from the preceding?

bay, how did you get to your last question from the preceding?


I'd like to make three statements.
#1 That last statement had nothing to do with anything else in my post. It was just a sudden sinking feeling that we're losing our country.

#2 Did you read what I said about "engage brain before operating mouth.? Well, sometimes I don't.
(apparently)

#3 And did you read the post where I said my husband doesn't have a clue how my mind works? Well, neither do you apparently. (Must be a man thing.)

Now! Will you just try to be nice?

Ed Columnist
TimesSelect

Earth to G.O.P.: The Gipper Is Dead

By FRANK RICH
Published: May 13, 2007

OF course you didn’t watch the first Republican presidential debate on MSNBC. Even the party’s most loyal base didn’t abandon Fox News, where Bill O’Reilly, interviewing the already overexposed George Tenet, drew far more viewers. Yet the few telling video scraps that entered the 24/7 mediasphere did turn the event into an instant “Saturday Night Live” parody without “SNL” having to lift a finger. The row of 10 middle-aged white candidates, David Letterman said, looked like “guys waiting to tee off at a restricted country club.”

Since then, panicked Republicans have been either blaming the “Let’s Make a Deal” debate format or praying for salvation-by-celebrity in the form of another middle-aged white guy who might enter the race, Fred Thompson. They don’t seem to get that there is not another major brand in the country — not Wal-Mart, not G.E., not even Denny’s nowadays — that would try to sell a mass product with such a demographically homogeneous sales force. And that’s only half the problem. The other half is that the Republicans don’t have a product to sell. Aside from tax cuts and a wall on the Mexican border, the only issue that energized the presidential contenders was Ronald Reagan. The debate’s most animated moments by far came as they clamored to lip-sync his “optimism,” his “morning in America,” his “shining city on the hill” and even, in a bizarre John McCain moment out of a Chucky movie, his grin.

The candidates mentioned Reagan’s name 19 times, the current White House occupant’s once. Much as the Republicans hope that the Gipper can still be a panacea for all their political ills, so they want to believe that if only President Bush would just go away and take his rock-bottom approval rating and equally unpopular war with him, all of their problems would be solved. But it could be argued that the Iraq fiasco, disastrous to American interests as it is, actually masks the magnitude of the destruction this presidency has visited both on the country in general and the G.O.P. in particular.

By my rough, conservative calculation — feel free to add — there have been corruption, incompetence, and contracting or cronyism scandals in these cabinet departments: Defense, Education, Justice, Interior, Homeland Security, Veterans Affairs, Health and Human Services, and Housing and Urban Development. I am not counting State, whose deputy secretary, a champion of abstinence-based international AIDS funding, resigned last month in a prostitution scandal, or the General Services Administration, now being investigated for possibly steering federal favors to Republican Congressional candidates in 2006. Or the Office of Management and Budget, whose chief procurement officer was sentenced to prison in the Abramoff fallout. I will, however, toss in a figure that reveals the sheer depth of the overall malfeasance: no fewer than four inspectors general, the official watchdogs charged with investigating improprieties in each department, are themselves under investigation simultaneously — an all-time record.

Wrongdoing of this magnitude does not happen by accident, but it is not necessarily instigated by a Watergate-style criminal conspiracy. When corruption is this pervasive, it can also be a byproduct of a governing philosophy. That’s the case here. That Bush-Rove style of governance, the common denominator of all the administration scandals, is the Frankenstein creature that stalks the G.O.P. as it faces 2008. It has become the Republican brand and will remain so, even after this president goes, until courageous Republicans disown it and eradicate it.

It’s not the philosophy Mr. Bush campaigned on. Remember the candidate who billed himself as a “different kind of Republican” and a “compassionate conservative”? Karl Rove wanted to build a lasting Republican majority by emulating the tactics of the 1896 candidate, William McKinley, whose victory ushered in G.O.P. dominance that would last until the New Deal some 35 years later. The Rove plan was to add to the party’s base, much as McKinley had at the dawn of the industrial era, by attracting new un-Republican-like demographic groups, including Hispanics and African-Americans. Hence, No Child Left Behind, an education program pitched particularly to urban Americans, and a 2000 nominating convention that starred break dancers, gospel singers, Colin Powell and, as an M.C., the only black Republican member of Congress, J. C. Watts.

As always, the salesmanship was brilliant. One smitten liberal columnist imagined in 1999 that Mr. Bush could redefine his party: “If compassion and inclusion are his talismans, education his centerpiece and national unity his promise, we may say a final, welcome goodbye to the wedge issues that have divided Americans by race, ethnicity and religious conviction.” Or not. As Matthew Dowd, the disaffected Bush pollster, concluded this spring, the uniter he had so eagerly helped elect turned out to be “not the person” he thought, but instead a divider who wanted to appeal to the “51 percent of the people” who would ensure his hold on power.

But it isn’t just the divisive Bush-Rove partisanship that led to scandal. The corruption grew out of the White House’s insistence that partisanship — the maintenance of that 51 percent — dictate every governmental action no matter what the effect on the common good. And so the first M.B.A. president ignored every rule of sound management. Loyal ideologues or flunkies were put in crucial positions regardless of their ethics or competence. Government business was outsourced to campaign contributors regardless of their ethics or competence. Even orthodox Republican fiscal prudence was tossed aside so Congressional allies could be bought off with bridges to nowhere.

This was true way before many, let alone Matthew Dowd, were willing to see it. It was true before the Iraq war. In retrospect, the first unimpeachable evidence of the White House’s modus operandi was reported by the journalist Ron Suskind, for Esquire, at the end of 2002. Mr. Suskind interviewed an illustrious Bush appointee, the University of Pennsylvania political scientist John DiIulio, who had run the administration’s compassionate-conservative flagship, the Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives. Bemoaning an unprecedented “lack of a policy apparatus” in the White House, Mr. DiIulio said: “What you’ve got is everything — and I mean everything — being run by the political arm. It’s the reign of the Mayberry Machiavellis.”

His words have been borne out repeatedly: by the unqualified political hacks and well-connected no-bid contractors who sabotaged the occupation and reconstruction of Iraq; the politicization of science at the Food and Drug Administration and the Environmental Protection Agency; the outsourcing of veterans’ care to a crony company at Walter Reed; and the purge of independent United States attorneys at Alberto Gonzales’s Justice Department. But even more pertinent, perhaps, to the Republican future is how the Mayberry Machiavellis alienated the precise groups that Mr. Bush had promised to add to his party’s base.

By installing a political hack, his 2000 campaign manager, Joe Allbaugh, at the top of FEMA, the president foreordained the hiring of Brownie and the disastrous response to Katrina. At the Education Department, the signature No Child Left Behind program, Reading First, is turning out to be a cesspool of contracting conflicts of interest. It’s also at that department that Bush loyalists stood passively by while the student-loan industry scandal exploded; at its center is Nelnet, the single largest corporate campaign contributor to the 2006 G.O.P. Congressional campaign committee. Back at Mr. Gonzales’s operation, where revelations of politicization and cover-ups mount daily, it turns out that no black lawyers have been hired in the nearly all-white criminal section of the civil rights division since 2003.

The sole piece of compassionate conservatism that Mr. Bush has tried not to sacrifice to political expedience — nondraconian immigration reform — is also on the ropes, done in by a wave of xenophobia that he has failed to combat. Just how knee-jerk this strain has become could be seen in the MSNBC debate when Chris Matthews asked the candidates if they would consider a constitutional amendment to allow presidential runs by naturalized citizens like their party’s star governor, Arnold Schwarzenegger (an American since 1983), and its national chairman, Senator Mel Martinez of Florida. Seven out of 10 said no.

We’ve certainly come a long way from that 2000 Philadelphia convention, with its dream of forging an inclusive, long-lasting G.O.P. majority. Instead of break dancers and a black Republican congressman (there are none now), we’ve had YouTube classics like Mr. Rove’s impersonation of a rapper at a Washington journalists’ banquet and George Allen’s “macaca” meltdown. Simultaneously, the once-reliable evangelical base is starting to drift as some of its leaders join the battle against global warming and others recognize that they’ve been played for fools on “family values” by the G.O.P. establishment that covered up for Mark Foley.

Meanwhile, most of the pressing matters that the public cares passionately about — Iraq, health care, the environment and energy independence — belong for now to the Democrats. Though that party’s first debate wasn’t exactly an intellectual feast either, actual issues were engaged by presidential hopefuls representing a cross section of American demographics. You don’t see Democratic candidates changing the subject to J.F.K. and F.D.R. They are free to start wrestling with the future while the men inheriting the Bush-Rove brand of Republicanism are reduced to harking back to a morning in America on which the sun set in 1989.

Earth to G.O.P.: The Gipper Is Dead

People who identify with oppressors?

Please tell me you don't actually believe that sort of cowdoody.

People who identify with oppressors?

Please tell me you don't actually believe that sort of cowdoody.

I would cite some examples right here in our midst... but it'd be unkind to do so.

Just when I thought the commies gave up on that bull crap propaganda.
You never let that stop you before so why start now?

(C.C. Goldwater, granddaughter of Barry Goldwater & Stephanie Miller, daughter of Bill Miller, courtesy of StephanieMiller.com)

While we can proudly claim Stephanie Miller and filmmaker C.C. Goldwater as liberals, that's not usually the case for notable Republicans. However, as I've said before, today's Republican party bears little resemblance to the conservative values of previous generations, and the literal Scandal du Jour way of life for the Bush administration is making it more obvious that this is not your father's conservatism.

Having a hard time keeping track of all 10,000 GOP scandals? Between fired U.S. attorneys, deleted RNC e-mails, sexually harassed pages, outed CIA agents, and tortured Iraqi prisoners—not to mention the warrantless wiretapping, plum defense contracts, and golf junkets to Scotland—you could be forgiven for losing track of which congressman or Bush administration flunky did which shady thing.

I have so let it stop me before... and not...

Today, I choose "not". :~)

People who identify with oppressors?

Please tell me you don't actually believe that sort of cowdoody.

It's still commie propaganda that appeals to non-thinkers, no matter how you try to justify it.

It's not really "commie propaganda". The term "identification with the oppressor" is basically Freudian, popularized by Anna Freud, as a primary variant of 'identification', which is one of the postulated 'ego-defenses'.

Maybe so, but when you put it together with the other little squares, it comes out commie, revolutionary, anti-capitalist, etc. to me.

Well, there's capitalism and then there's predatory, crony capitalism.

repuslickans love to play as long as they can cheat.

Dependent on whether you're in on the profits or not.

You probably figure every time you lose it's because you got cheated. The mark of a loser. Smells like pussy in here. Time for dinner.

If that's how you see it, then say so. I don't.
What, are you having cat-food for dinner?

If that's how you see it, then say so. I don't.

What, are you having cat-food for dinner?

Life is full of cronyism, nepotism, and plain old unfairness. Get used to it and you'll be happier.

If that's what white folk serve on mother's day maybe. It's my girlfriend's mom.

George Washington University Constitutional law professor Jonathan Turley says that the latest NSA warrantless wiretapping revelations – wherein the administration knowingly broke the law and continued spying on American citizens after top DoJ officials refused to certify the legality of the program — make this a "clear impeachable offense."

"The problem comes down to the failure of Congress to deal with what is a very ugly and unfortunate fact. This would be a clear impeachable offense. I don't know of a more potential charge of impeachment within the modern presidency.

Under FISA, spying on American citizens on American soil without a warrant is a felony. President Bush has been caught red-handed violating that law, and has even admitted as much. If there are no longer consequences for breaking the law, what has our country become?

It's hard to understate the importance of Former Deputy AG James Comey's incredible testimony earlier this week. At a press conference today with outgoing British PM Tony Blair, NBC's Kelly O'Donnell asked President Bush about Comey's startling allegations. Needless to say, he refuses to answer the question and instead opts to remind us how much the Evil Scary Islamofascists want to kill us, and how Very Important this program is in order to "protect" us.

James Comey's testimony amounts to a statement that — even according to the administration's own loyal DOJ officials — the President ordered still-unknown spying on Americans, and engaged in that spying for a full two-and-a-half-years, that was so blatantly and shockingly illegal that they were all ready to resign over it. And the President's Attorney General then lied to ensure that this episode remain concealed.

Stephen exposes the man really responsible for the USA purge…Deputy AG Paul McNulty.

Colbert adds his two cents in as to why the GOP candidates' answers on torture were so warmly received and slams McCain for being soft on torture "enhanced interrogation techniques."

Brit Hume: this debate is being sponsored by FOX News and the South Carolina Republican Party.

Stewart: Isn't that redundant?

Jon Stewart combs through last night's Republican debate and is amazed to learn that (a) Brit Hume's hypothetical terrorist attack sounds very familiar to a plot line from a popular FOX show, and ( Romney was able to land a "Double Guantanamo" in competition.

Jon Stewart rounds up Romney, Giuliani, McCain and Obama's appearances on last Sunday's talk shows.

Brit Hume: this debate is being sponsored by FOX News and the South Carolina Republican Party.

Stewart: Isn't that redundant?

Did Hillary write that for him? I suppose Stewart probably blamed the participants for the sham of a debate MSNBC/Politico.com foisted on us.

Holy Moley that's a bunch of reading to do. Isn't there a summer vacation from thinking I can take? Stress has fried my brain...
Did Hillary write that for him? I suppose Stewart probably blamed the participants for the sham of a debate MSNBC/Politico.com foisted on us.

Holy Moley that's a bunch of reading to do. Isn't there a summer vacation from thinking I can take?

It's 95% video clips.

(CNN) -- Former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani was declared the winner of Tuesday's Republican presidential debate in South Carolina, largely for his smack down of Texas Rep. Ron Paul, who suggested that America's foreign policy contributed to the destruction on September 11, 2001.

Paul, who is more of a libertarian than a Republican, was trying to offer some perspective on the pitfalls of an interventionist policy by the American government in the affairs of the Middle East and other countries.

"Have you ever read about the reasons they attacked us? They attack us because we've been over there. We've been bombing Iraq for 10 years," he said.

That set Giuliani off.

"That's really an extraordinary statement," said Giuliani. "As someone who lived through the attack of September 11, that we invited the attack because we were attacking Iraq; I don't think I've ever heard that before and I've heard some pretty absurd explanations for September 11."

As the crowd applauded wildly, Giuliani demanded that Paul retract his statements.

Paul tried to explain the process known as "blowback" -- which is the result of someone else's action coming back to afflict you -- but the audience drowned him out as the other candidates tried to pounce on him.

After watching all the network pundits laud Giuliani, it struck me that they must be the most clueless folks in the world.

First, Giuliani must be an idiot to not have heard Paul's rationale before. That issue has been raised countless times in the last six years by any number of experts.

Second, when we finish with our emotional response, it would behoove us to actually think about what Paul said and make the effort to understand his rationale.

What has been overlooked is that Paul based his position on the effects of the 1953 ouster by the CIA of Iranian Prime Minister Mohammad Mossadegh.

Instead, the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company (now known British Petroleum, or BP) was getting 93 percent of the profits. Mossadegh didn't like that, and wanted a 50-50 split. Kinzer writes that that didn't sit too well with the British government, but it didn't want to use force to protect its interests. But their biggest friend, the United States, didn't mind, and sought to undermine Mossadegh's tenure as president. After all kinds of measures that disrupted the nation, a coup was financed and led by President Dwight Eisenhower's CIA, and the Shah of Iran was installed as the leader. We trained his goon squads, thus angering generations of Iranians for meddling in that nation's affairs.

As Paul noted, what happened in 1953 had a direct relationship to the takeover of the U.S. Embassy in 1979. We viewed that as terrorists who dared attack America. They saw it as ending years of oppression at the hands of the ruthless U.S.-backed Shah regime.

Can we defend the efforts to overthrow other governments whose actions we perceived would jeopardize American business interests?

At some point we have to accept the reality that playing big brother to the world -- and yes, sometimes acting as a bully by wrongly asserting our military might -- means that Americans alive at the time may not feel the effects of our foreign policy, but their innocent children will.

Even the Bible says that the children will pay for the sins of their fathers.