Is It Ken Starr’s Fault?

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I found this story on the National Review cruise over at Susie’s place. It’s the perfect comedy to accompany the Sunday shows–stories about what nuts Republicans when they presume they’re alone. There’s a lot that worth reading, not least the portrayal of the Podhoretz-Buckley feud (with Buckley almost–but not quite–disowning his conservative offspring). But I was particularly amused by Ken Starr’s self-denials, in response to the question of whether maybe he’s personally responsible for 9/11.

nd one morning   on the deck I discover Kenneth Starr, looking like he has stepped out of a   long-forgotten 1990s news bulletin waving Monica’s stained blue dress. His   face is round and unlined, like an immense, contented baby. As I stare at   him, all my repressed bewilderment rises, and I ask – Mr Starr, do you feel   ashamed that, as Osama bin Laden plotted to murder American citizens, you   brought the American government to a stand-still over a few consensual blow   jobs? Do you ever lie awake at night wondering if a few more memos on   national security would have reached the President’s desk if he wasn’t   spending half his time dealing with your sexual McCarthyism?

  He Read more →

Why Lefty Bloggers Should Always Get to Fly First Class

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As I’ve explained before, I used to consult for a big automotive company, working primarily in Asia (the job got moved to Asia earlier this year). I flew several times a year to Asia. So for the past several years, I’ve been an "Elite Level" flyer for Northwest. Which means I get bumped up to First Class pretty consistently.

Back in February, during my first trip home from the Libby trial, I ran into an attractive (in a frat boy way) but too-heavy man sitting across the aisle from me in First Class. He seemed to be as interested that I was reading Lawrence Walsh’s Firewall (on Iran-Contra) as I was in reading his folders full of "articles from Staffers" on "Islamists." It was even more fun when I got out my computer and started doing a blog post on the trial. After all, Mike Rogers (whom I lated recognized this to be) had been challenged in ’06 by Jim Marcinkowski, one of Valerie Wilson’s friends from her CIA cohort.

It happened again, today. I was sitting in the first row of the plane. The nice gentlemanly man on the aisle was already there–I ended up shoving his briefcase to the Read more →

The Next Four-Branch Presidency

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Since Fred Thompson got into the Presidential race in a big way, I’ve increasingly been getting this creepy feeling. I keep thinking: when was the last time we had a charismatic (if ugly, in this case) candidate who knows nothing about policy and is even less interested in taking a stand on policy, who seems to be hiring the right advisors, but who himself, still seems to be Bush league. Yeah–I’m getting a weird Bush feeling from Thompson.

Add in the fact that he might easily prevent Al Gore from winning the Presidency (again) by ensuring a Tennessee win.

Most importantly, though, I have imagined that Thompson is the GOP’s best chance to replicate the un-American structure of the Bush Presidency, where all the major decisions appear to be made in the margins, by Cheney, all the while Cheney protects himself by invoking his creative theories of being a fourth branch of government. You see, I’m really beginning to believe that Thompson is in so that those committed to continuing the basic policies of the Bush Administration can do so, once again behind the facade of a puppet president.

And then I read this:

Politico‘s Mike Allen told NPR that Fred Thompson has a Read more →

The Op-Ed Kagro X and I Meant to Write

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I don’t usually simply link to stories without, well, bloviating on them. But I’m a bit busy right now, what with a book due in a few weeks and the in-laws in from the home country. And when I read this column over at lukery’s place, I could have sworn I wrote it. Or Kagro X. Or Meteor Blades. So all I can add is, I recommend you read it too.

The Democrats, now with majorities in both congressional chambers,gleefully convened multiple inquiries. From May to August 1987,televised congressional hearings offered a rare glimpse into thecabalistic world of spooks, bagmen and mercenaries. Fawn Hall, North’ssecret shredder, told of smuggling evidence out of the Old ExecutiveOffice Building in her boots, and she lectured Rep. Thomas Foley that"sometimes you have to go above the written law."

One year after the hearings, though, Iran-Contra was a dead issue.Reagan’s poll numbers rebounded, and his vice president, George H. W.Bush, won the White House despite being implicated in the scandal.

[snip]

Cheney and Addington are not the only veterans of the scandal who haveresurfaced to help President Bush fight the war on terror. So haveElliot Abrams, John Bolton, Otto Reich, John Negroponte, JohnPoindexter, neoconservative Michael Ledeen and even Read more →

GOP Foxes Guarding the Under-Aged Hen-House

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As DemFromCT reported, Mark Foley resigned today, after a 16-year old page revealed sexually explicit emails the Congressman sent to him.

Congressman Mark Foley (R-FL) planned to resign today, hours after ABCquestioned him about sexually explicit internet messages with currentand former Congressional pages under the age of 18.

A spokesman for Foley, the chairman of the House Caucus on Missing andExploited Children, said the congressman submitted his resignation in aletter late this afternoon to Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert.

Hours earlier, ABC News had read excerpts of instant messages providedby former pages who said the congressman, under the AOL InstantMessenger screen name Maf54, made repeated references to sexual organsand acts.

The chariman of the House Caucus on Missing and Exploited Children, exploiting children? Sounds like a remarkable, rare scandal, doesn’t it? Only it’s at least the third in what appears to be a pattern for the "Values Voter" Party–two other officials charged with protecting this country from sexual predators were, themselves, sexual predators.

What Do Scooter Libby and Joe Lieberman Have in Common?

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What do Scooter Libby and Joe Lieberman have in common? A lot of rich friends, apparently.

Following closely on the news that Joe Lieberman’s biggest public apologist, Marty Peretz, had joined Libby’s Defense Fund, we learn that the Chair of Libby’s Defense Fund, Mel Sembler, is hosting a pricey fundraiser for Holy Joe. Sembler, you’ll remember, also happens to have been the Ambassador to Italy when SISMI started sending bogus Niger claims to the CIA.

In his post explaining his ambivalent views toward Libby, Marty seems to capture of the angst of Neocons everywhere.

Let me concede: I am a friend of Scooter Libby. But I do not like hisboss. And I do not like his boss’s wife. I know this gets me no creditwith the all-or-nothing crowd. Still, I like Scooter, who is quitebrilliant, very honest, and brave. Also funny. I’ve contributed to TheLibby Legal Defense Fund and have joined the fund’s advisory committee,which is not large because in Washington old pals dessert when eventheir college roommate gets into trouble. In a time when self-styledcivil libertarians are giving money to defend Muslim terrorists, I amhappy to help defend an American patriot, some of whose politics I donot share and some of whose politics I do, from a cynical onslaught ofthe special prosecutor who put journalists into jail for not tellinghim what he already knew.

Shorter Marty: I don’t like Dick, I don’t even agree with Libby, but when the Neocon ship is sinking, we all have to band together and "dessert." Let them eat cake.

The Sembler fundraiser was closed to the press, so I don’t know if he made similarly ambivalent statements about Joementum. Nor do I know if he accused Democrats supporting Democratic candidate Lamont of being cake-eaters. But it deserves mention that the warmongers seem to be mounting a common defense.

War, apparently, trumps ideology when your war’s under attack.