The Administration

Looking at the polls right now, the odds-on favorite to be our next president is Hillary Clinton.

I don’t want that to happen, so Igor and Robert, please don’t accuse me of being a sell-out. But she is leading in the polls for the Democrats, and the Democrats are leading in the polls over the Republicans by a large margin. They are also killing Republicans in the money chase.

So if that is the case, and despite my wishes it looks that it may be, how does Hillary start acting in the Senate? Does she represent the legislative branch or does she start looking at all those nice things that President Bush and Vice President Cheney have been doing to give more power to the executive?  Read more...

Somebody, please, convince President Bush to actually say something different on Iraq today.

The White House is "in panic mode," according to ABC News, and according to The Washington Post and The New York Times the findings of a report set for release this weekend conclude that the Iraqi government has met none of the benchmarks Bush set for them in January, which were the basis for our surge in troops, and that the Iraqis are unlikely to do so in the future. This comes on the heels of Stephen Hadley, national security adviser, and Defense Secretary Robert Gates having to cancel trips last week to attend meltdown meetings at the White House following "surprise" defections by senior GOP senators on current war policy.

Still, after these jolting developments, the Bush administration cannot, will not, say anything to indicate that the strategy in Iraq will change. The Republicans who can no longer unite behind Bush don't support withdrawal, but after watching the surge fail without any sign of progress they have decided to support redeployment. Sure, Bush is finally listening, but he isn't budging. Read more...

We have one word for you, say the pollsters, when people are asked to describe the George W. Bush presidency: "Incompetent." And there is nothing more damning than that.

Forget, for the moment, whether the United States should have gotten into this shooting war in Iraq. The widespread feeling is that his administration is "The Gang That Couldn't Shoot Straight" ... bumblers who were adept at only one skill: Getting reelected.

So what does that say about the Democrats? Actually, I think it says a lot about high-level politics, and this is seriously going to antagonize all those slick consultants and pollsters whose greatest skill is really self-promotion: These days, national elections are not won, they are lost.  Read more...

As you read these words George W. Bush is poised to humiliate Senate Republicans yet again — and Senate Republicans, with only a few exceptions, are poised to accept this new humiliation and say, yet again: Yes, boss.

From the minute George Bush planned to let Osama bin Laden escape from Tora Bora by diverting our military to his obsessive hunger for the Iraq war, the conduct of Republicans in the Senate has been one of the most morally shameful abdications of conscience and duty in the history of the American Congress.

On Iraq, George Bush is trapped in his own private Guantanamo, a detainee of his personal and uncontrollable obsession about this war, no matter what the truth, no matter what the cost, no matter what the consequences. Read more...

In this video, John Feehery says the President had the authority to commute Scooter Libby's prison sentence and that the public doesn't have much interest in the case.

The administration is down to its last two poker chips and has decided to go all in over this fight over executive privilege. It’s a good bet for the president.

With approval ratings stuck in the very low 30s, the president doesn’t have much to lose in betting it all against the congressional Democrats on this hand.

The facts surrounding this fight are on the side of the White House. The president has the power to fire any U.S. attorney that he wants to fire, for any reason he wants.

Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) and Rep. John Conyers Jr. (D-Mich.) are going on a fishing expedition, and everybody knows it. Read more...

With all due respect to my friends on the right and to the conservative writers I admire, stop arguing the legal details of Scooter Libby’s conviction. Enough already.  Who cares? What’s done is done. Libby was convicted, his sentence was commuted, Democrats have gone from bitter to bitterer. So let’s take this opportunity to put the story of Scooter into greater context. A context of the present and the future, not just the past.

Clemency for Vice President Dick Cheney’s chief of staff can only be bad news for Hillary Clinton. Witness how her husband just couldn’t help from weighing in on a topic that reminds Republicans just why we found the Clinton dual presidency so abhorrent. I confess, I’d almost forgotten how distasteful Bill and Hill were until President Bush’s commutation got me thinking about the slimy cast of characters that distinguished the Clinton presidency.  Read more...

I thought for a moment yesterday that I had been in the sun too long enjoying the Fourth of July festivities when I heard the former president's and Sen. Clinton’s comments surrounding President Bush’s commutation of Scooter Libby’s sentence. In case you missed the exchange, former President Clinton offered the following during a radio interview earlier in the week comparing the 140 pardons he issued on his last day in office to President Bush’s commutation of Libby:

"I think there are guidelines for what happens when somebody is convicted," Clinton told a radio interviewer Tuesday. "You've got to understand, this is consistent with their philosophy; they believe that they should be able to do what they want to do, and that the law is a minor obstacle."  Read more...

10.    How can liberal Democrats be so outraged about President Bush commuting Scooter Libby’s jail sentence (but not his fine or conviction), yet be so sanguine about President Bill Clinton doing basically the same thing (lying to a grand jury)  and escaping any sanction at all? Indeed, he is now the toast of the town and slated to become our next co-president. Shouldn’t a president be held to a higher standard than anyone else?

9.    If the economy is so bad, why are lines so long to buy a new telephone costing upwards of $700? Is this a great country or what?

8.    Did the concern about “too much money in politics” evaporate when Democratic candidates began out-raising Republicans in this year’s presidential campaign?  Read more...

Yesterday, the president of the United States, in putting out a written statement concerning his decision to commute the 30-month prison sentence of I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby to zero-time-served, reminded the American people that Scooter Libby, despite not having to go to prison, still would suffer in the future.

President Bush stated that Mr. Libby had been convicted of the “serious” charge of lying under oath; he expressed respect for Independent Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald; and he noted that Mr. Libby would still have to pay a fine of $250,000. And then he stated, clearly in the context of his statement’s emphasis, that commutation did not mean Mr. Libby would be granted a clean slate in the future:

“The consequences of his felony conviction on his former life as a lawyer, public servant, and private citizen will be long-lasting.” (My emphasis.)

Read more...