The Administration

Lord Acton said it best: "Power tends to corrupt; absolute power corrupts absolutely." We have been bombarded this week with Washington Post stories describing just that when it comes to Dick Cheney.

The "power ranger" insists on redefining the executive branch (or the legislative branch) and pursues policies from the vantage point of a modern dictator, with little regard for the law. What he has done has not only had severe negative consequences for all manner of foreign and domestic policy. It has redefined government, at least for the moment.

Some would suggest that he deserves impeachment for his acts. At the very least it is time for a full-scale congressional investigation of his attempt at absolute power. And the Democrats should call for it, now.

Republicans hate the immigration bill and are beginning to hate the war. Yesterday was another terrible day for President Bush, as Sen. Richard Lugar's (R-Ind.) criticism inspired other GOP critics and House Republicans closed the door on immigration reform. In a 114-23 vote of their conference House Republicans resolved that "we stand together in united opposition to any bill that rewards illegal behavior with amnesty." With only 23 Republican votes there isn't much House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) could do to help Bush push immigration through the House, even if she liked him.

There is no way for White House officials to rationalize what Lugar did. Lugar, ranking Republican and former chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, is likely the most credible voice on foreign policy in the Republican Party today, "unimpeachable," to use a favorite Washington word. He doesn't lower himself to partisan skirmishes, and his comments do not amount to a defection to the Democratic side of the debate. Listen to his plea: He is asking Bush to lead on this so the Democrats don't, and he wants a redeployment and a U.S. presence in Iraq, not a withdrawal.  Read more...

Vice President Cheney is not the only one. In fact, rare is the official, particularly the elected one, who embraces unfettered media access to the way he or she conducts the public's business. Not so rare is the official who holds the media and its reporters in contempt.

It's not hard to understand. Having one's foot held to the fire by brilliant reporting like the current Washington Post series on Cheney or the Walter Reed exposés is an altogether unpleasant experience, and the knee-jerk reaction to such stories is to blame the messengers, meaning the media, for such exceptional journalism.  Read more...

It may be wishful thinking, but the increasing evidence that the U.S. military does not think highly of the way the Iraqi leadership has used the extra time afforded by the surge in American troop strength raises the possibility that Bush could begin to order a draw-down of U.S. forces in Iraq by the end of the year.

While he could not claim victory, he certainly could lay the blame (with justification) on the Iraqi regime for failing to bring about a genuine coalition with the Sunnis and for not dividing up the oil revenue. He could begin to pull out American troops based on Hillary's rationale that American troops have done their share but the Iraqi government has not done its.

Would such a move work politically? You bet it would! Nixon, forewarned by Republican losses in Congress in 1970, accelerated troop withdrawal from Vietnam and even had Kissinger announce that "peace is at hand" in the days before the 1972 general election. It worked like a charm and propelled him to an easy reelection victory.

Bush could still do a lot to save his party by beginning to pull out.

That is one creative legal argument Vice President Cheney advances, arguing he does not have to comply with the order requiring members of the executive branch, the Bush administration, to account for the way they handle classified material.

Why? Because the vice president of the United States, under the Constitution, is president of the Senate and casts tie-breaking votes.

Since the Constitution also specifies that only Congress can determine how it operates, Cheney is not bound by the executive order.

In effect, he is claiming that he is eligible for both executive and legislative privilege. Hybrid privilege, as it were.  Read more...

Soon, CIA Director Michael Hayden will release documents that describe major misdeeds of the CIA in darker days, after General Antonio Taguba went public in The New Yorker with charges of an Abu Ghraib cover-up.

A great and noble debate will begin in America. Revelations about past and current misdeeds will bring into focus what went wrong in the Iraq war, and why opponents of these policies are voices of American patriotism.

In a recent show Tucker Carlson and a “pundit” ridiculed and demeaned Al Gore. Rather than discussing the profound points he was making in his new book The Assault on Reason, they engaged in cheap ad hominem attacks on Gore as “over the top” and “rage-filled.” Read more...

I have been to Guantanamo Bay a lot since they brought the first prisoners, uh, “detainees.”After an outcry from reporters the military decided it was better to let us in rather than face questioning over what they were hiding.

So they came up with a tightly controlled tour of the facility. Journalists call it “The Dog and Pony Show.”

I mean TIGHTLY controlled. We had to sign restrictive agreements about what we could say and show. And we weren’t really allowed to see much anyway that departed from the propaganda that these detainees were being “treated in humane fashion”

Well, all that did was fuel more relentless questions about what they were hiding. Read more...

Pardon me, but did Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) actually think that Chris Matthews’s question about a pardon for I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby at the AFSCME conference on Tuesday was the last one she would get? You get the feeling that L’Affaire Plame, four years old this July, is one of those sagas that simply cannot die.

President Bush has made clear to me that he doesn’t want to pardon Libby, or he would have done so right away. No, I am not channeling the president but I reach this conclusion for four reasons: Bush has shown during the immigration debate he is certainly not worried about keeping the conservative GOP base happy; a pardon is an acknowledgment of guilt and inserts Bush into a mess he had no part of; Libby is not a Bush aide but a Cheney aide and Bush has clearly distanced himself from Cheney and his associates at this point in his presidency; and Bush needs another political problem like he needs Cheney to shoot him in the face. Read more...

Not much doubt about where you side when it comes to the Attorney General's competence. Last Friday, we posted our Quick Poll! question asking: "Is it OK for Alberto Gonzales to stay as Attorney General?" And answers came there plenty — 78% of which said "no" with only 22% saying "yes."

Our new question is: "Who would a Bloomberg presidential run hurt more? Democrats or Republicans" Go to the Quick Poll here on our home page and vote.

I just became aware that George Bush's Secret Service protection is only guaranteed for 10 years after he leaves office. The last president grandfathered in for lifetime Secret Service was Bill Clinton.

Folks, whatever we think of George Bush, this is simply wrong. Obviously he would be a potential target, as would any American president going forward after Sept. 11, for the rest of his life.

My hope and advice to Democratic leaders is to offer a proposal to reinstate lifetime Secret Service protection for all future presidents, or at a minimum provide it for George Bush. Go to Republican leaders, make it bipartisan, and pass it.  Read more...