EW- it is encouraging that there was some kind of independent committee in California to provide input on USA and judicial appointments, but in my view, the politicization of prosecutions in the American system is part of the problem, not that the Roves and Miers and, yes, Bushes (I just know he ordered these hits in some way that will preserve plausible deniability). In my jurisdiction in Canada, there was a major public scandal about political interference in prosecutions within the last 20 years, with the result being that a system analogous to the British Director of Public Prosecutions was set up – the Justice Department itself still had an AG in the Cabinet, answerable to the Legislature, but all prosecution decisions are made by an independent DPP appointed with secure tenure. Perhaps this is something that could be considered in the USA. Susceptibility to bad faith is a problem for any political system, ie there could be a rogue DPP under this scenario, but such possibilities strengthen the need to create administrative structures that insulate decision-makers from those who would seek to influence them. Prosecutors in my view exercise a function analagous to judges – they are not supposed to care about winning, just if the charges are warranted and there is a reasonable probability of conviction. Part of the difficulty that I have with the entire USA system (and DAs who run for election) is that it can attract self-promoting types who are more concerned about future electoral prospects than fair prosecutions. Elected judges are the same problem, unheard of in Canada. Not to mention the influence of campaign contributions on the elected judiciary and state DAs. I have yet to see the evidence that the so-called “responsiveness†of elected judges and DA’s to the electorate produces good justice.

I know everybody is over at the Lake, crowded around the campfire with Christy, but I thought I would make this cry from the Canadian wilderness!

Mimikatz – that was one of Machiavelli’s points in The Prince – once the prince starts losing his power, or the illusion of power, and must start looking to the underlings for support, they will abandon him. The term Mayberry Machiavellis is looking more and more apt!

Ishmael, Mimikatz — Parsky is hardly independent, and he’s well-connected for a reason. He’s one of the biggest donors to the Republican Party on the west coast. How is it that the commission is weighted towards the right by a membership including lawyers from the same Republican law firm as Ted Olsen? How is it a Republican donor is in a position to influence the appointment of not only USA’s but judges? Parsky was pissed because they took his money and ran, stiffing him on selection of DOJ appointees. I suspect he’s still pissed, but he’s going to have to get really angry before he overcomes his partisanship.

No real suprise there, huh, bmaz. She’s still working for the very same people she worked for when DOJ wrote her paycheck. The unfortunate thing is that she seems to be coming off pretty well. Very well groomed for this – so far a perfect little brick in the firewall.

Bmaz & Dismayed – Ms. Goodling is not just another brick in the firewall, it seems like Dismayed may be right and they set this up like a terraist sleeper cell, or an organized crime syndicate – if anybody gets busted, or flips, the damage they can do is limited because they don’t have a direct link to the Boss. Ms. Goodling was very careful to continue the meme that she doesn’t know who ordered the hit list, if indeed there ever was a hit list, and she said she never, to the BOHK, spoke to Rove or Miers – Didn’t see the questions on the double super secret order delegating the power to hire and fire to her, the question would be why so secret? The Regent University sideshow is very disheartening to me, I have yet to see any co-ordinated plan of attack here by the Committee.

Rayne if you’re right, and you probably are – it shows just how carefully planned was this operation, even down to planning the containment of the scandal before there was a scandal. That Karl is one sick sob. I can only hope that such obvious gutting of one of their own may bring other insiders forward out of indignation, however, I’m sure this is a pretty tight loop. Doubt the commitees will penetrate with a frontal assult. Going to need a wildcard.

Wildcard’s got to be that other electronic eavesdropping program, the one Comey, Ashcroft, Mueller, etc. threatened to resign over, which had to involve spying on U.S. citizens, even members of Congress, without a warrant or probable cause. And five will get you ten they were (and are?) doing it anyway, without DOJ approval. The question is, since they can hide behind the â€classified†firewall, how do you make it public?

Well, Tokyo freepatriot, worm tongue

I haven’t heard from you lately. Was a little worried that you might not be feeling well. But anyway, I see you are back in fine form.

I suggest you read the comments above yours in this thread. So far, your friends seem somewhat disheartened by the proceedings.

Now if I may address Rayne, Dismayed, Ishmael, bmaz, et. al.,
perhaps it wasn’t a splendidly planned crime that was diabolically covered up at all. Perhaps they were very careful not to break laws and do evil things.

It sounds like, it looks like, it must be Karl Rove!

EW, Rumor’s that CSPAN wants to broadcast the talk in Johnson Chapel Saturday. It would be surprised to learn the speaker would be pleased about that. Beside the indictment and post trial pressers, he has given one interview since the Libby indictment and a speech at a University in IL. The interview was with The Owl, his high school newspaper.

Shorter Ishmael to idjo:
â€I’m your huckleberryâ€

Ishmael,

If you know of crimes, I would suggest that you bring them to the attention of the DOJ, the FBI, the Secret Service, the Treasury Dept, the Congress, the UN, the World Court, the War Crimes Tribunal, your local sheriff, and city police. You might also bring them to the attention of your local condo or housing board. I have found myself that if you knock on enough doors, you can find someone willing to help, or at least listen.

Upon subsequent explicit charges I will be glad to share my thoughts, but I am not a lawyer. I am primarily a technologist to put it in a way you can understand the easiest.

Now for my own complaints about the Bush Administration which are, I think Political. I would put to the forefront, the conduct of the Iraqi War. The stupidity of Bush! I still don’t know if these are chargeable crimes under code or statue, but I am willing, very willing, to read any list of charges made by the authorities.

And so you know the full story, I voted for Bush in 2000, but against him for a real idiot in 2004. That was political.

And, also, for you said you came late, I think that this junk about emails, about USAs, about Wilson-Plame-Rove is no much political stirring of the pot trying to ferret out some criminal offence. The real smoking guns and dead bodies in Iraq is what you should be concentrating on.
But none of it has gone so well has it?

So far, despite a lot of time and trouble, nothing chargeable, except in the case of Mr Libby, some charges of perjury for mistatements, or bad memory, and all that occurred under a Republican Congress and Administration.

You will note that all participants have learned from that case, and are much more careful about how positively they remember events.

shit stain jodi never gives up

monica goodling has ADMITTED to the crime

So far, despite a lot of time and trouble, nothing chargeable, except in the case of Mr Libby, some charges of perjury for mistatements, or bad memory,

I REPEAT, monica goodling ADMITTED TO THE CRIME

but shit stain jodi clings to the line â€nothing chargeableâ€

just â€bad memory†and â€misstatementsâ€

has anybody EVER seen a more complete case of cognative dissonance ???

I don’t believe it

shit stain jodi knows the truth, and yet she comes here and tells us how we’re wasting our time

and while shit stain jodi continues to deny reality, Greg Palast is making a whole new conspiricy case against grifith, goodling, kkkarl, and george bush, related to the disenfranchisment of 70,000 Americans, mostly soldiers

shit stain jodi isn’t funny or pathetic anymore

she’s just a shit stain on humanity

I am well aware of Parsky’s connections, that’s why I pointed them out. I never said he was independent; rather my point was that he would be pissed at Monica et al for infringing on what he saw as his turf, even if they may have to some extent had common goals. Same with the GOP Senators.

The major players here always have protection of their own position as objective # 1. It is the true believer underlings who blindly serve their master who risk beiung left hanging out to dry when things go really badly.

It is really interesting that the party that used to preach so much about the â€Rule of Law†and the need for honesty in 1998 has now lowered the bar to â€if you don’t have iron-clad proof that a law was broken, then nothing wrong was done.†And on top of that, the President isn’t â€breaking the law†if he decides it is in the national interest to disregard the law–i.e., the President can’t break a law in the fulfillment of his duty to do whatever he thinks is right. That is the key to Gonzales’ repeated statements that nothing imporoper was done.

But people who truly believe in the rule of law understand that fidelity to the Constitution and to the spirit of the law is what is important, and that something can be technically within the law and still be wrong. The law isn’t what Bush says it is–that is the whole point of a government of laws and not of men. And even the President of the United States sometimes must stand naked, to quote Bob Dylan.

Digby has been running a wonderful retrospective of pronouncements of the former House impeachment managers on the â€Rule O’Lawâ€. Scroll down a bit to read them.

â€Troll biscuit policy.†I like that.

Most of the folks here are interested in understanding what is going on in our government, learning the facts in the case, reading between the lines in news articles, op-eds and press releases, and using deductive reasoning. Jodi is not.

looks like Greg Palast figured out how kkkarl’s â€Math†works

the technical and legal term for kkkarl’s â€Math†is â€Conspiricy to Disenfranchise American Votersâ€

Palast says that Tim Griffin was the director of a gop conspiricy in 2004

IIRC, Tim Griffin in the guy who is currently serving as US Attorney in Arkansas, and there’s a bit of controversy about his appointment

so this kinda ties the US Attorney scandal DIRECTLY to the conspiricy to disenfranchise voters

do I got my facts straight here ???

Why hide what they were doing? Because somewhere dep inside they knew it was wrong, that’s why.

Because the Pres can’t by custom fire USAs before the end of their term except for cause, and then they hold over unless there is cause, until the next Pres comes in, at which time all tender their resignations. Even though they serve â€at the pleasure†in the sense that they have no civil service rights in the event of termination unless it is for a statutorily prohibited cause like race, pregnancy etc), by custom they stay as long as they want unless there is cause to fire them. And here there wasn;t, as seen by the fact that it took so much scrambling to come up with anything plausible.

Some degree of politics plays a role in hiring of USAs (though not the AUSAs). But once a person is USA, s/he has to be, and be seen as, impartial or the whole edifice of justice is suspect and the law is undermined. That’s why Justice is always pictured as blind–because theoretcially the same laws apply to everyone; there is not supposed to be favoritism.

But the Bushies perverted all this in trying to use Justice as if it were the GSA to score points, even scores and keep the GOP in power. That is against the traditions of the office since forever.

The Bushies violated the unwritten law (just like the GOP violated it in prosecuting Clinton even though his wife had indicated she could live with his infidelity, in which case the unwritten law is that everyone shuts up about the situation. Instead they made a federal case out of it, put blow jobs on the nightly news and revolted everyone who had any sanity. And never understood why Clinton remained popular and Bush hasn’t.

phred — yes, exactly, the ends justify the means — a key component of applied Straussian philosophy.

Mimikatz –

I honestly don’t know what to think of Monica. It is possible that she was merely an easily played pawn who believed she was on the right side of the chess board. But, I have also known evangelicals who are not the least bit troubled by screwing over â€othersâ€. In their world view there are the righteous (themselves) and everyone else. They will knock themselves out for anyone in their own circle, but they will not be bothered at all by ill treatment of someone not in their camp. In her testimony today I was not convinced that she was honest. I think she did her level best to protect her former associates (McNulty excepted) and the throwing under the bus that did occur was due to her own limited skills in testifying. She may only be in her 30s and possess the voice of a child, but she strikes me as a manipulative, calculating political operative, mercifully with limited talent.

â€Ms. Goodling was very careful to continue the meme that she doesn’t know who ordered the hit list, if indeed there ever was a hit list, and she said she never, to the BOHK, spoke to Rove or Miers..

Judy Miller had a similar memory problem. She couldn’t remember who gave her Valerie’s name, that she wrote in her note book. Then she testified that that she was 100% sure that whoever this person was who she couldn’t remember, that it definitely wasn’t Scooter.

Monica is 100% sure that Rove and Harriet were not involved. Then she goes on to say how much she does not remember. Everyone of those â€I don’t remembers†is a possible Rove and Harried were involved.

The other problem is if Monica’ sworn testimony is accurate, if Rove and Harriet were not involved, why won’t the WH turn over all the emails?

Tokyo Jodi is an insult to trolls. She’s either getting paid per comment (I hope) or is so unbelieveably desperate for attention that she comes here (I fear).

Monica didn’t say Rove and Harriet weren’t involved. She said she never spoke to them. But she spoke to Sampson and others, and Sampson, Taylor, Jennings certainly did. She pretty clearly pointed the finger right back to the WH. It’s just that she wasn’t in the league where she could talk to Rove or Miers. But Sampson, who had been Rove’s COS, certainly was.

Typically the Senators from each state weigh in on judgeships (as well as USAs), and some of them (like DiFi) have had groups of advisers who vet applicants.

In the olden days, there was generally input from the Senators of both parties, and either one could place a hold on a nominee, but they exercised their prerogatives pretty cooperatively. That has broken down almost completely under Bush, where they just ignore the Dem Senators, and even the GOP ones sometimes.

Who would Monica have gotten the info from? Who’s the contact at WHCO? She wouldn’t have talked directly to the WH Counsel (Miers or Fielding), but someone in the office who got her the info. That’s how it usually works.

Thanks very much for the Lederman link.

Mimikatz –

Indeed we are agreed that the SJC is far more effective at this sort of thing than the HJC. I’ve seen several comments at FDL suggesting Conyers has a game plan, but I certainly couldn’t divine it from the way he chaired the hearings.

You mentioned something above that has been puzzling me… It’s been suggested that Monica wasn’t high enough up the food chain to speak directly with Rove and Miers. Up until today I had assumed her relationship with Rove was equivalent to Sampson’s relationship with Gonzales. If that’s not the case, what exactly is the job description of the White House Liason at DoJ, and who exactly did she report to?

So, in the middle of all this, I still don’t know: What IS the status of the Lewis investigation? Has it been spiked or is it proceeding? Ditto for the ball Carol Lam got rolling. Are the acting USA’s continuing their investigations, playing hardball, getting testimony, tightening the screws? Or is all that over now?