Entries by emptywheel

TSP Timing, Again

Josh and Spencer are just now catching up to something I pointed out three weeks ago: Tom DeLay got briefed on the TSP program on March 11, 2004, the day after the Hospital Meeting. Of course, that’s not particularly surprising since one of the things that went down at the briefing of the Gang of Eight on March 10 is that the Administration floated passing legislation to fix the problems in

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Behavior Detection

There are two things that “always” happen to me when I fly to DC. I “always” (often, rather) sit next to MI’s Republican Congressmen in First Class. And I “always” (almost always, probably) get pulled into secondary when I’m flying out of Reagan National Airport. I know why the latter occurs:

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Interesting Timing

I’m not so much surprised that Scottish Haggis Specter has urged Pat Leahy to ask for a meeting with the White House to negotiate testimony of White House officials.

For the last several months, I have been seeking the voluntary cooperation of the White House with the efforts of the Senate Judiciary Committee to get to the bottom of the scandal surrounding the firing of so many of the United States Attorneys

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Ghost Writing

I think it ought to be mandatory for everyone who reads this LAT article to also watch Bill Kristol on TDS. It’s bad enough, after all, to learn that the Petraeus report we’ve all been waiting for might as well be called the Dick Cheney report.

Despite Bush’s repeated statements that the report will reflect evaluations by Petraeus and Ryan Crocker, the U.S.

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Pearlstine’s Off the Record

I’ve been wavering about how much attention to give this book. In it, Norm Pearlstine, who was the editor in chief of Time Inc. when it fought Fitzgerald’s subpoena of Matt Cooper, describes the whole process of fighting the leak. Most interestingly, Pearlstine describes how he came to believe that Time had to turn over Cooper’s notes, not least because Time had no business defying an order of SCOTUS.

I’ll just make

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Privacy versus the Press

Judge Reggie is back in the news today, granting, in part, Steven Hatfill’s pursuit of journalists’ sources for information that he was the main subject of the FBI’s anthrax investigation. Walton required the journalists themselves to give up their sources, but not the media companies.

Based on the foregoing analysis, the plaintiff’s Motion to Compel Further Testimony from Michael Isikoff, Daniel Klaidman, Allan Lengel, Toni Locy, and James Stewart [D.E.

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Novak Mourns His BFF

Jeebus. Yesterday’s departure press conference was unnecessarily weepy. But this is embarrassing.

The most useless speculation today in Washington is whom White House chief of staff Josh Bolten might choose to replace Karl Rove. He is genuinely irreplaceable.

The whole column is steeped in deep resentment, resentment of those Republicans who have suggested that getting rid of Rove will help the Administration.

Rove was a principal target of congressional Democrats even beforeFebruary 2005, when

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Beached Whale

Funny. In the entire Peter Baker article entitled, “Rove: Departure Unrelated to Investigations,” Peter Baker never once quotes Rove as saying, “my departure is unrelated to the multiple investigations in my conduct.” Or anything similar. Sure, Rove talks a lot about Ahab and Moby Dick.

“I realize that some of the Democrats are Captain Ahab and I’m thegreat white whale,” he said.

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A Thousand Words

Remember this photo? This particular version is from Stephen Crowley of the New York Times–it’s part of a slideshow they’ve got up to commemorate the demise of Turdblossom. Go look through the slideshow and tell me whether you think they’re emphasizing the centrality of scandal to Rove’s tenure (there’s a hot picture of Rove and Luskin in there, for example, walking out of Prettyman).

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Category Two Documents

Good thing Rove resigned and finally distracted me from my FISA focus, huh? And in the process of looking up something relating to Rove, I noticed these two letters between Conyers and the RNC (and the RNC’s lawyer) regarding documents it won’t turn over. Most of these documents fall into “category one;” that is, documents the White House has asserted privilege over.

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