Bill's Big Diamond Blog

Spin Line: Change the Subject

As the Right’s spin machine cranks up again, two things are clear:

1- The first order of business is to change the subject from the Iraqgate scandal and from the calls for Karl Rove’s resignation.

2- The Right is looking for a fight it can win over process and politics. Naming and pushing through a hard-right leaning Supreme Court nominee like Samuel Alito (reported to be the pick today) as quickly as possible is the most obvious win they will seek. The more they can make the fight for Bush’s next nominee about ‘bigger’ issues of process and the President’s prerogative to name a nominee of his choosing, the less the nation will be looking at the spectacle of Iraqgate.

Regarding Point 1: The line has emerged on defending Rove and it seems to go along a logic that says, “Not indicted, so not involved.”

According to Dana Milbank and Carol D. Leonnig in the WaPo, Sen. John Cornyn (R-Tex.), a vigorous defender of the administration, said on ABC: "I think what we found out this week is that any alleged wrongdoing is really confined to a single individual. Those who were expecting an indictment, indicating a broad conspiracy to out a covert CIA agent or -- are going to be disappointed because there is no evidence to support that."

Regarding Point 2: The SCOTUS battle— It’ll be about the concept of the filibuster, about whether the Democrats can hold open debate without having a majority in the Senate. Republicans will be under pressure to close ranks and vote to approve the “nuclear option” of changing the Senate rules to stop Democrats from fighting a hard-right nominee by debate. Bush needs desperately to both win a battle and to make the win look like a victory for some sort of principle. Democrats look ready to take the bait by opposing a potential nominee and discussing tactics before having hearings. In response, the NY Times quotes Senator Lindsey Graham as saying that if the Democrats staged a filibuster against Judge Alito or Judge Luttig because of their conservatism, "the filibuster will not stand."

If the opposition has any sense of the moment, the discussion of a new SCOTUS nominee should be wrapped into discussion of the legal and ethical maelstrom the spin machine wants us to forget. Every statement issued should begin with, “Now that one of the highest officials in the Administration is under indictment and the President’s chief strategist is known by the prosecutor’s designation, ‘Official A,’ the Bush White House wants to put up a smokescreen.”

The spin machine is attempting to turn the SCOTUS nomination into a political Halloween trick of epic proportions. This is Rove’s work, timing the nomination immediately after Libby’s indictment. Whether it’ll prove to be a successful ruse or Bush’s last stand depends on whether Democrats are willing to let him change the subject in the process of fighting it.

Happy Halloween! Trick...or treat?

The Climate of Corruption and Fear is Finally Apparent

Finally, the general public begins to get it.

According to the latest Washington Post poll, 55% of those surveyed think that the Libby indictment signals a broader ethics problem within the Bush Administration. While it certainly has taken awhile for dawn to come to Marblehead, it’s encouraging to see that finally, there’s a general understanding that what these guys have been doing is an abuse of power.

Whether this glimmer of sunshine can be converted into a political shift away from the jingo panic politics of the last four years remains to be seen. While the Administration has discredited itself, there doesn't seem to be strong leadership taking the stage, providing a vigorous alternative.

There is a desire out there for an alternative. On an elevator at the office the other day, someone said she’d finally heard John Kerry speak out on the Senate floor about the Iraqgate scandal. Another woman chimed in that she’d heard a comment on Air America, wondering if Kerry had been taken into the witness protection program. Where had he been till now? It’s been so long since this Administration started swirling downward that they’re in free fall now, yet we still are waiting for strong leading voices of opposition that last. The people are there, looking for politicians who aren’t putting a finger to the wind, testing their positions. It remains to be seen whether the Democratic Party is listening.

The Bush years, by all rights, ought to be ended next year in the midterms, but the Democrats have yet to show an inkling of understanding the raw anger out there. There’s not yet a sense that the opposition stands affirmatively for something, not just being the other party.

We need a clear set of principles set forward by a real opposition party, valuing justice for all Americans, regardless of their economic power, pledging to embrace a foreign policy that reaches out to people in the world, rather than foisting a narrow agenda on unwilling partners. We need a return to basic principles enshrined in the Bill of Rights. We need a pledge to put people first and to put economic special interests and corporate cronies second. We need an end to the corruption of a government led by and answering to the rich and well-connected.

In short, what people want is a progressive answer to the Contract on America that the Republican Party took out in the 1990’s and has been executing ever since. Whether the Democrats will provide it is an open question.

After Fitzpatrick

I’m a bit overcommitted in the last/coming days and will have to catch a moment here and there to post, but also expect to be experiencing some technological hurdles at Typepad. They are migrating to new facilities and have informed us of downtime upcoming...

While I can, I want to post about Patrick Fitzgerald’s announcement yesterday, particularly the statement accompanying the indictments against I. Lewis Libby.

He only reinforced his reputation as a relentless but fair prosecutor with his limited, but focused charges. The fact that there was no indictment against Karl Rove, while perhaps disappointing to anyone who reads enough to know that he’s definitely the unindicted “Official A,” only makes it clearer to all that Fitz isn’t moving on anyone without a solid case. If Rove isn’t indicted later, it needn’t be read as a failure of nerve on the part of the prosecution, but rather as good judgment about the perils of overreaching.

The comments about Libby’s “compelling story, if only it were true,” show the other side of the coin; Fitzpatrick won’t let go once he has the trail and a good case. Five indictment counts, a parade of conversations, a series of stories that turned out to be, let’s say, quite untrue, and Dick Cheney’s Chief is sitting at home, talking to his lawyers, looking at up to 30 years behind bars. It’s a sure thing that Libby can’t just plead out on these charges without fully describing the events leading up to the press leaks that damaged our national security and hid the lies about WMD. Fitz didn’t indict on five counts after two years only to allow a quick plea and a coverup.

So we’ll see where this all leads.

Meanwhile, “Official A,” under a legal cloud a mile wide and as deep as the Potomac River, ought to step down from the most powerful unelected position at the White House, no? Rove must resign or further damage the country by staying.

Another item that ought to be under consideration is the role of the press in lying down for this scam in the first place. There needs to be some serious self-examination and compensatory digging to uncover the real facts behind the selling of the war and the punishment of dissent about it. The pillars of the MSM have hell to pay here and now better spend some energy turning over the rocks that hide the truth, instead of currying favor with powerful sources of spin.

Yesterday was Fitz’s turn to do the limited work a prosecutor can and should do. Now, it’s up to the rest of us to demand more from our leaders, our largely silent loyal opposition, and the sources of information that make for real democracy, something that’s been M.I.A. in this country for too long.

Friday Follies

Rove assembles a PR team as Libby shops for a criminal defense attorney. Not exactly a harvest festival at the White House today, but busy, busy, busy.

I wonder who’s looking for a Supreme Court nominee, James Dobson maybe?

Today will be interesting…

Plan on Fitzmas Friday

There WILL be indictments announced on Friday, UPI intelligence correspondent Richard Sale blogs today… says that he has a source inside Fitz’s office… via TalkLeft

…a search shows he has reported recently on intelligence leaks at the Pentagon to Israel from the Office of Special Plans. He’s also been filing stories throughout the Plame case. Seems a credible source.

UPDATE- Josh Marshall quotes Times— Rove not yet, but Grand Jury renewed.

After Miers, the Deluge...

The Miers SCOTUS nomination withdrawal will no doubt be a prelude to the presentation of another presumably inscrutable, yet implicitly hard-right guy or gal like Roberts— only less friendly and corporate maybe.

I can’t imagine that the religious zealots don’t think (correctly) that they OWN this nomination now. Bush more or less has to please them with his next choice or he’ll be totally abandoned— while the Iraqgate scandal is going into full swing.

This guy simply can’t pull his sh*t together anymore to save his life, can he?

I fear we are in for a disastrous next few years. One can only imagine the kind of distractions that are about to be on the national agenda to save his bacon now.

Indictment!

No, not THAT indictment.

But it IS Bush-related… Tom Noe has been indicted in the Ohio Coingate scandal for laundering money to Bush’s campaign in 2004.

Hey, while you’re waiting, why not check this out. Any other day, the story would be huge. Just ask Harriet Miers, Karl Rove, or Scooter Libby.

More Wilkerson on the Bush/Cheney/Rummy Cabal for War

Besides leading to scandal and possible indictments, the Bush Cabal for War in Iraq has lead to a disastrous policy that even insiders now decry. Every time an Administration evades the open discussion of foreign policy choices within the process prescribed by law, the results are similarly unpleasant for the nation. Former State Department Chief of Staff Lawrence Wilkerson is reiterating this point, one he made last week in a speech to policy wonks, now in the pages of the LA Times:

“Why should we care that President Bush gave
over much of the critical decision-making to his
vice president and his secretary of Defense?

… such departures from the process have in the
past led us into a host of disasters, including the
last years of the Vietnam War, the national
embarrassment of Watergate (and the first
resignation of a president in our history), the Iran-
Contra scandal and now the ruinous foreign policy
of George W. Bush.”

Wilkerson is unsparing in his assessment of where the Bush Cabal has left the country:

“Today, we have a president whose approval rating
is 38% and a vice president who speaks only to
Rush Limbaugh and assembled military forces. We
have a secretary of Defense presiding over the
death-by-a-thousand-cuts of our overstretched
armed forces (no surprise to ignored dissenters
such as former Army Chief of Staff Gen. Eric
Shinseki or former Army Secretary Thomas White).

It's a disaster. Given the choice, I'd choose a
frustrating bureaucracy over an efficient cabal
every time.”

Stay Tuned...

Indictments today? WaPo thinks maybe so...

2,000

2,000 dead.
Since President Bush declared the “Mission Accomplished,” 1,865 have perished.

Now, without an exit timetable, without a real prayer of changing the dynamics of power between Sunni, Shia, and Kurd factions in Iraq, without a real reason for American soldiers to be RPG and IED-bait from now till then, the numbers will continue to rise.

We need to insist on an exit strategy, benchmarks to get our soldiers out, to insist that the factions we are supposedly there to assist take charge of their country. Moreover, we need to insist our leaders turn over to the Iraqis the means to rebuild their own infrastructure, not farm the job out to cost-plus American and foreign contractors.

Colin Powell said, “You break it, you buy it.” About that, if little else, Powell was right. The strategy currently employed hasn’t worked. We need one that does.

Meanwhile, say a small prayer for the families and the dead.