Coming up in the 9:00 hour: Christy Harvey from the Center for American Progress and MicCheckRadio.org
Christy's talking about Rep. Sam Johnson (R-Texas)'s "mouth trumpet." Must be heard to be believed.
Gonzo Watch, what, day 10? Celebrate it: WATCH THE SAM CAM
Here's the story about the students who were banned from reading a poem about Emmett Till at their L.A. school's Black History Month celebration.
WATCH THE SAM CAM
112 comments:
Greetings:
Morning Sam, everyone! :)
sam, wait to you get to the wiggles.
Did stinkyboy bush say that he would not allow a fishing expedition when Congress questions his thugs? Fishing expedition? From a man who doesn't know the difference between a Perch and a Bass. . . just askin.
gbc, look how cute you are!
"We'll couple these kids songs with Bush clips... and the show will become torture... Muhahahahaaa."
good morning to you, too, edna.
4000 march downtown to protest Iraq war
Chicago Sun-Times
About 4000 war protesters, under the watchful eye of hundreds of Chicago Police officers, walked 1½ miles to the Loop Tuesday night pumping "Impeach Bush"
Jenise said...
gbc, look how cute you are!
March 21, 2007 6:13 AM
Yes! Look!
Hump Day!
hey, alice. how you doing these days?
Morning Jenise.
Morning All.
gbc, look how cute you are!
Awww, stop it already, I'm blushing. :-p
What It Means to Be a Leftist in the 21st Century
CORNEL WEST: What does it really mean to be a leftist in the early part of the 21st century? What are we really talking about? And I can just be very candid with you. It means to have a certain kind of temperament, to make certain kinds of political and ethical choices, and to exercise certain analytical focuses in targeting on the catastrophic and the monstrous, the scandalous, the traumatic, that are often hidden and concealed in the deodorized and manicured discourses of the mainstream. That's what it means to be a leftist. So let's just be clear about it.
So that if you are concerned about structural violence, if you're concerned about exploitation at the workplace, if you're concerned about institutionalized contempt against gay brothers and lesbian sisters, if you're concerned about organized hatred against peoples of color, if you're concerned about a subordination of women, that's not cheap PC chitchat; that is a calling that you're willing to fight against and try to understand the sources of that social misery at the structural and institutional level and at the existential and the personal level. That's what it means, in part, to be a leftist.
LINK
no sammy cam today??
Bush thinks the people who wrote the constitution wanted the separation of powers to the point of NO CONGRESSIONAL OVERSIGHT?
How can people who so thoroughly misunderstand the government actually be in charge of it?
And by the way, this not testifying under oath with no transcript in private is the same shit Bush/Cheney did after 9/11.
These fascists think the rule of law applies to everyone but them.
AAAUUUGGHHHH!!
if ONE more person calls with the "clinton fired them all when he came into office..." I WILL PULL MY EYES OUT!
Fishing expedition? More like shooting fish in a bottle.
thanks a lot Sam. This is why i'm not having children.
... hello ... everybody so glad to see you ... hello ... everybody ...
thanks, thanks a lot.
(And i'm sure that this is Bush's favorite as well. Wonder if Dewey likes it as well.)
Can you address the press conference given yesterday by 4 maajor conservatives (Fein, Keene, Viguerie, Baar)trying to get legislation introduced to restore checks and balances and to roll back the power of the president? It was on C-Span. Pretty powerful stuff.
Did anybody see the Movie 300 ?
I swear to god, it had the line ....
"Freedom Isn't Free" in it.
I wanted to puke.
Did anybody else notice the overarching pro-war, pro-Bush theme in that film
?
Morning, jenise! :) Everything's great, thanks.. I'm going to leave to go down the hill now so I can see Sam...(He's been really funny so far this week...)
How are you? Happen to have any new vet interviews lately?
*
Delusion Destroys Democracy, by Joel S Hirschhhorn
...
Some urge citizens’ assemblies (see http://www.cusdi.org/ and http://www.healthydemocracy.org/), or national initiative elections (see https:/votep2.us). I and others believe that we have a constitutional right to Article V Conventions (see http://www.foavc.org). However, elitist status quo forces have made the population afraid of such activities - a sick delusional, status quo bias belief. If it persists, Americans will not set themselves free of the oppressive forces that have hijacked their nation. They will keep venting their anger as dissenters or stay distractive consumers rather than work to return power to the people.
Let’s not delude ourselves that all will be well after Bush is gone. As awful as Bush is, he is a symptom of what ails our nation. Our nation will remain in need of deep reforms. Millions of dissidents must wake up to what is really needed and rally around a revolutionary strategy.
...
http://www.delusionaldemocracy.com
That Cornel West talk was really great. I love him.
Typical right-wing thinking. When people questioned some of the provisions of the Patriot Act, the response from the right was, "If you haven't done anything wrong, then you shouldn't have to worry about it." Now, when Rove and Myers are asked to testify before congress, they say they will do it only under oath. If they haven't done anything wrong, they shouldn't have anything to worry about.
Hey Sam. Morning all. Im here but Im not here cause Im out in the yard some out there. So We'll be here as we're here not really, yet kind of only a little, but not not at all, here.
Correction to my last post. They say they won't do it under oath.
Morning all! Overslept today. Must be the grey raininy day that we have here.
that sounds like a dental drill, Sam.
I remember now my thought. Yes, we are most interested in Patrick Lahey putting Harriet Myers and Carl Rove under oath whach as every one under the sun on the news last noght said, shuldnt be a big deal if they have nothing to hide.
sam, we can't hear a thing on the cam.
daniel said...
I remember now my thought. Yes, we are most interested in Patrick Lahey putting Harriet Myers and Carl Rove under oath whach as every one under the sun on the news last noght said, shuldnt be a big deal if they have nothing to hide.
March 21, 2007 6:57 AM
***************
OH, but they do have sooooo much to
hide. I hate these people.
The Wounded Warrior Assistance Act of 2007, a bill aimed at “making immediate improvements in the treatment…of wounded combat veterans passed the House Armed Services Committee by a 59-0 vote Tuesday.”
LINK
Anyone notice the Hannity and Colmns , um... ettes last night. What was that? I saw girls, on Hannity and Colmns, and ones supposed to know a little bit, even be kind of smart. And the other one should have been at kegger party. But they had matching Hannity-and Colmnettesand it seemed like, pandering to men using hot women as objects. Now I dont want to make accusations is that not what theyre doing, but that looks like what they are doing. Colmns bitchslapped Hannity verbally otherwise for a change which was acceptable. But the girls. I mean I know theyre on FOx, but come on, theyre like, bimbettes arent they?
Hey Folks ... the sam cam sputtered to life!
Here's the link:
http://www.airamerica.com/premium/clip.php?id=2848
the cam is up? i don't see the link today...
Sam, Gore's climate change hearing just started on C-Span.
They are streaming it here
morning all.
sam, thanks for covering mean jean the vomit queen. i still can't belive my neighbors voted for her over hackett and then wulsin. her family owns a lot of land conveniently located near a beltway exit. for years it has been decorated with anti abortion billboards for all to enjoy.
the senate has an interesting web site. by way of drudge (keep your friends close, keep your enemies closer) i followed a link to inouhe who is bitching that gore is getting preferential treatment with his presentation today. its a darn shame when you confuse people with facts.
we need a subponea countdown. there's too much at stake not to subponea these crooks and liars.
Both President Bush and Karl Rove have argued that the administration’s U.S. Attorney purge is a “normal and ordinary” process that was also carried out by President Clinton. ThinkProgress has spent some time debunking this claim, but the Congressional Research Service has put the nail in the coffin.
A CRS report released yesterday examines the tenure of all U.S. Attorneys who were confirmed by the Senate between the years 1981 and 2006 to determine how many had served — and, of those, how many had been forced to resign for reasons other than a change in administration.
The answer:
– Of the 468 confirmations made by the Senate over the 25-year period, only 10 left office involuntarily for reasons other than a change in administration prior to the firings that took place in December.
– In virtually all of those 10 previous cases, serious issues of personal or professional conduct appeared to be the driving issue. Prior to December, for example, only two U.S. Attorneys were outright fired for improper, and in one case criminal, behavior. The CRS report identifies six other U.S. Attorneys who resigned during the 25-year period who were implicated in news reports of “questionable conduct.” For two others, the CRS was unable to determine the cause.
In other words, the Bush administration pushed out almost as many U.S. Attorneys in December as had been let go over the past 25 years.
American Progress fellow Scott Lilly writes on the CRS report:
It is clear that of the four administrations that controlled the executive branch of government during the past quarter-century, only the current administration has held the view that U.S. Attorney can or should be removed absent serious cause. In no instance is there any indication of a removal because a U.S. attorney failed to meet certain political criteria, such as prosecuting cases that were considered too sensitive to partisan issues or failing to prosecute cases that would be helpful from a partisan perspective.
The innovative philosophy of the current Bush administration with respect to the service of U.S. Attorneys is worthy of the attention it is now receiving. Those eight forced resignations threaten the very basis of our justice system — to quote the words written above the pillars on the west front of the Supreme Court, “Equal Justice Under Law.”
http://thinkprogress.org/2007/03/20/crs-cl...
"Honorable"???!!!
did anybody else notice how much the chimp struggled reading his speech last night. there were times i thought i was listening to a seven year old speak in front of a class.
i want barney, i want barney
i love you, you love me...
arrrggh...
Did anybody else notice the overarching pro-war, pro-Bush theme in that film ?
~-~-~
Oh, well that sucks. I love Gerard Butler. Was gonna go see it this weekend.
~-~-~
Hey tonideee! Same here. We had a wicked rain storm early this morning. Thunder, lightening. Watched the light show sitting on the front porch early this morning with my coffee... clearing up now, tho.
Typical Sederite blogging...
Pelosi is buying off votes for her "Pull out of Iraq by Hillary's Inauguration" plan in the House....
and Sam-heads are still dreaming of a White Fitzmas and "Attorney-gate".
From Sam's main page:
Here's the story about the students who were banned from reading a poem about Emmett Till at their L.A. school's Black History Month celebration.
BTW, when does the 745th Ineffective E-Mail Campaign to Save Sam From Being Moved to Evenings/Save Rachel Maddow's Show Campaign get started....
ROFL!
From Below and to the Left: NYC Immigrants in the Zapatista’s “Other Campaign”
The Zapatistas have launched “The Other Campaign” and are organizing with women, indigenous peoples, students, workers, gay, lesbian and transgender people, the elderly, youth and the poor to build a new non-electoral national grassroots movement “FROM BELOW AND FOR BELOW” against neoliberalism and for humanity. Thousands of Mexicans have joined “The Other Campaign” including immigrants living in the U.S.
*
PLEASE JOIN US AT OUR FUNDRAISER FOR “THE OTHER CAMPAIGN” IN NYC!!
VIDEO SCREENING: DIALOGUE WITH THE ZAPATISTAS
THURSDAY, April 5th, 8:00 PM
The New School
65 Fifth Avenue, RM 205 btw. 14th and 15th St.
For more information call Movement for Justice in El Barrio at (212) 561-0555 or Email movimientoporjusticiadelbarrio@yahoo.com
Schedule of Upcoming Other Campaign Events:
Thursday, April 5th at 8 pm - Forum to be held at the New School for Social Research
Week of April 9th at 7 pm - Forum to be held at New York University
Sam! You are TOO FUNNY! :)
! Sam Cam !
and Sam-heads are still dreaming of a White Fitzmas and "Attorney-gate".
March 21, 2007 7:11 AM
Shut up right wing parakeet. Try thinking of something original.
I can't hear the callers (again)
E-mails reveal tumult in attorneys’ firings
Justice Department was confused, divided over controversy
The e-mail exchange -- part of about 3,000 pages of internal documents turned over to Congress this week -- show a confused and divided Justice Department under siege in a political crisis largely of its own making. The crisis now threatens Gonzales's tenure as the nation's chief law enforcement official.
The documents also show that the White House was more closely involved than had been known in attempting to contain the controversy as it began to spin out of control in recent weeks. Just two weeks ago, on March 5, White House lawyer William Kelley personally oversaw a meeting called to prepare and edit testimony by William Moschella, the principal associate deputy attorney general. Moschella told the House Judiciary Committee the next day that the White House was only tangentially involved in the dismissals.
With an attorney general seemingly focused on other matters, McNulty and other senior Justice officials struggled to cope with pressure from increasingly agitated lawmakers. A Justice spokesman sought to mislead a reporter by questioning the accuracy of his sources, as other officials revised the administration's story and deflected queries from Congress about the firings. The dismissals would eventually be revealed as the result of a two-year-old plan, hatched in the White House, to sack U.S. attorneys seen as disloyal to the administration.
LINK
http://www.americans-for-chavez.com/
Sam..just be happy your daughters favorite song ISN'T "The Wheels On The Bus". Talk about annoying! Yikes
blah blah blah said...
did anybody else notice how much the chimp struggled reading his speech last night. there were times i thought i was listening to a seven year old speak in front of a class.
March 21, 2007 7:08 AM
****************
You give that asshole way too much credit. . . Seven year olds do way better.
SAM!!!!!!!
NAME THE TWO DISSENTERS!
Gore on Global Warming at the Capitol
by Joe Sudbay (DC) · 3/21/2007 10:11:00 AM ET
Al Gore is testifying now on the House side. C-SPAN3 has it live. And, the House Energy and Commerce Committee has a live webcast.
LINK
Tancredo: Gonzales should 'Move On', but...
For illegal immigration prosecutions, not for U.S. attorney flap
Unlike others criticizing Gonzales over the recent firing of eight U.S. attorneys, the Colorado Republican said the embattled attorney general should go because of "a series of leadership failures" - chiefly his handling of illegal immigration prosecutions.
"Gonzales' legacy at the (Justice Department) has been one of misplaced priorities, political miscalculation, and a failure to enforce the laws which he has sworn to uphold," Tancredo said in a statement Tuesday. "I think that it is time for him to move on."
LINK
!!
http://www.godtube.com/
GodTube: Broadcast Him!
http://www.godtube.com/
!!
...the GodTube folks have a very ambitious agenda: provide a space where christians could share videos, opinions, make friends, a social religious network: Jesus 2.0.
I have to say that some of the movies are quite funny, see below, but unfortunately GodTube fails where many religions fail: discrimination.
http://totaltactics.org/archives/2007/03/21/godtube-broadcast-him/
APPETIZERS MAKE YOU MORE HUNGRY
--CARTMAN
Brett Tolman, who was apparently forced on Specter,is allegedly the culprit. Mr. Tolman is now the US Attorney for Utah now.
Mr President;
Are you high right now?
i had an old irish woman tell me the other day, "honey, we're just all waiting for your president to fall over while giving a speech one day."
morning, tonid. i was beginning to wonder where you were. sleep well?
alice, why do you have to go down the hill? are you using a short-wave radio?
If these attorneys are not apolitical, that means charges can be brought against anybody for any reason. Hence these people who say I have nothing to hide as our rights are extinguished can be suseptible to imprisonment (no habeus corpus)at the whim of the president.
Yo, booth techie:
Can't hear Joel, Justin and Lauren on the Sammy Cam feed.
But they DO come through on the regular audio stream and the off-site station feeds.
Jenise said...
March 21, 2007 7:29 AM
Ha! No...to go from dial up to wireless.. :)
Sam,
Well the Democrats have the balls to send subpoenas for Rove and Meier's?
This is why we elected them!!!
It is only about 3/4 the way up the - State of Maine.
Bar Harbor, Maine - Downeasters
Maine
Gonzales faces removal from office, Republicans say Michael Roston
Published: Wednesday March 21, 2007
Republican sources are suggesting that Alberto Gonzales' days as Attorney General in the Bush Administration may be numbered, according to a report in today's edition of The Politico.
A Republican source told Politico reporters Mike Allen and John Bresnahan that after a call of support from President George W. Bush to Gonzales, the process of searching for a replacement had been frozen. But the freeze was only temporary, according to the source.
"We're just waiting. They've reached out to everyone they need to reach out to and are waiting to get a 'yes' from someone," the source said.
An anonymous member of the House Republican Leadership also told the Politico that Gonzales' tenure would soon end.
"I can't imagine that he's going to be around a whole lot longer," they quoted the Member of Congress saying, adding, "There's already Republicans on the Hill calling for him to quit and there's certainly not a deep well of support on the Hill for him."
The White House denied any plans were afoot to replace the Attorney General.
Subpoenas of White House officials loom
LINK
"doin the peoples bidness..."
give me a friggin break. when was the last time bush cared about the rest of us over his corporate buddies?
18 Day Gap?
"...the emails released by the Justice Department seem to have a gap between November 15th and December 4th of last year….
The firing calls went out on December 7th. But the original plan was to start placing the calls on November 15th. So those eighteen days are pretty key ones."
http://www.firedoglake.com/2007/03/21/18-day-gap-lets-hit-the-phones/#comments
first we had 18 minutes...
now we have an 18 day gap...
how ironic is that?
Roll Up! Roll Up!
MSNBC just said that Bush is going to invoke executive powers. However, they are also alleging that the Democrats are beginning to back away from DEMANDING public testimony. They could issue subpoenas, but have a closed hearing. This of course is speculation from MSNBC. And as you know, with the exception of Keith Obermann, MSNBC is awful.
US lawsuit over 'pet food death'
A US woman who claims her cat died after eating tainted pet food is suing the manufacturer, Menu Foods.
NY Times slams Bush's 'nasty and bumbling comments' on US Attorney firings; Calls on Congress to subpoena Rove, others
LINK
Hey Folks. Yeah, the studio is wired in such a way that the control room can't be heard on the Sam Cam during the breaks. Short of connecting the booth with two soup cans and string, we can't be heard.
where's edgar g. robinson when you need him. c'mon you punks. gonzo is one of the best.
I haven't been called a punk in over 50 years!
hey, toniD, you're a punk.
blah blah blah said...
hey, toniD, you're a punk.
March 21, 2007 7:43 AM
Hahahahahaha! Ya punk!!
"Gonzo" racial insensitive to hispanics?
Is Pooty Poo insensitive to Russains?
Do not get sucked into the whole 'comparing Bush/et al's actions to Clinton'... that's a no-win scenario...
That strategy is to divert you from the issue and get you (once again) defending Clinton.
When they bring up anything Clinton did as a rationale for ANY ISSUE, respond with:
* how old are you? aren't you mature enough to discuss the issue without using the 'but Clinton did it' rhetoric?
* you do remember who's currently president, yes? let's stick to the current one and address what he's done/doing
I'd like to see more suggestions for other responses...
HR = Punk'd
A number of electoral reforms are necessary to rescue American democracy:
1. Expand the use of Clean Money, Clean Election programs.
2. Provide a None of the Above option on ballots.
3. Permit fusion candidates to promote third-party candidates.
4. Reform the Electoral College or its use by states.
5. Provide Instant Runoff Voting.
6. Pass the “Our Democracy, Our Airwaves” federal law.
7. For primary elections, support an open or crossover primary that
favors third-parties.
8. Make voting compulsory after other reforms
Rock the phone Iris!!
sam you should call him Barney, because he is evil....
toniD said...
I haven't been called a punk in over 50 years!
March 21, 2007 7:42 AM
nice piercings, chick!
bibimimi troll'p said...
toniD said...
I haven't been called a punk in over 50 years!
March 21, 2007 7:42 AM
nice piercings, chick!
March 21, 2007 7:47 AM
Yea, I'm thinking about a tatoo, bibi. What do you think would be a good one?
Ok, watch his opening statements and Gore was good. Theyre punchy I can already tell.
Dude, Sam, maybe get her Weird AL Yankovic albums.
Per Raw Story, no link yet...
House Democrats authorize subpoenas
No oath and no transcipt lets the liars keep lying
It is hard to imagine what, besides evading responsibility, the White House had in mind. Why would anyone refuse to take an oath on a matter like this, unless he were not fully committed to telling the truth? And why would Congress accept that idea, especially in an investigation that has already been marked by repeated false and misleading statements from administration officials?
The White House notes that making misrepresentations to Congress is illegal, even if no oath is taken. But that seems to be where the lack of a transcript comes in. It would be hard to prove what Mr. Rove and others said if no official record existed.
Liars lie.
tony 'we'll see how it goes' snow.
Dude, Sam, maybe get her Weird AL Yankovic albums.
March 21, 2007 7:53 AM
I suggested Bohemian Rhapsody for a sing-a-long
...what kid doesn't like Queen?
Sam mentioned 'samsedershow' and IM...
does this mean that the show is using googletalk?
Report: Turkey set to invade northern Iraq
'Long-planned' invasion would 'contain' US-backed Kurdish independence push
LINK
Yea, I'm thinking about a tatoo, bibi. What do you think would be a good one?
March 21, 2007 7:49 AM
where to start?!
how about, "I survived the Bush Admin"?
The die is now cast...The House vs the Bush admin
House panel OKs Rove, Miers subpoenas By LAURIE KELLMAN, Associated Press Writer
1 minute ago
A House panel on Wednesday approved subpoenas for President Bush's political adviser, Karl Rove and other top White House aides, setting up a constitutional showdown over the firings of eight federal prosecutors.
By voice vote, but with some "no" votes heard, the House Judiciary subcommittee on commercial and administrative law decided to compel the president's top aides to testify publicly and under oath about their roles in the firings.
The White House has refused to budge in the controversy, standing by embattled Attorney General Alberto Gonzales and insisting that the firings were appropriate. White House spokesman Tony Snow said that in offering aides to talk to the committees privately, Bush had sought to avoid the "media spectacle" that would result from public hearings with Rove and others at the witness table.
"The question they've got to ask themselves is, are you more interested in a political spectacle than getting the truth?" Snow said of the overture Tuesday by the White House via its top lawyer, Fred Fielding.
"There must be accountability," countered subcommittee Chairwoman Linda Sanchez (news, bio, voting record), D-Calif.
The panel approved subpoenas for Rove, former White House Counsel Harriet Miers, their deputies and Kyle Sampson, Gonzales' chief of staff, who resigned over the uproar last week.
The committee rejected Bush's offer of a day earlier that his aides could to talk privately to the House and Senate Judiciary Committees, but not under oath and not on the record.
LINK
bibimimi troll'p said...
Yea, I'm thinking about a tatoo, bibi. What do you think would be a good one?
March 21, 2007 7:49 AM
where to start?!
how about, "I survived the Bush Admin"?
You mean I have to wait til "09" to get one?
Conservatives Cost a Lot of Money
What costs more--routine prenatal care of a poor woman during pregnancy that she would be able to get if we had universal healthcare, or the intensive care that results when she shows up at the emergency room with preeclampsia in her ninth month?
What costs more--finding Bin Laden with a few specialty forces and some back-channel bribes and contacts, or a war in Iraq?
What costs more--enforcing pollution controls when they are first put into law or allowing private industry to evade them year after year as they spew pollutants into the air and fight pollution laws through the courts while the plants deteriorate, the cost of controls goes up, and the earth, air, and water are more and more contaminated?
What costs more--conserving our use of materials and energy, or ripping off the tops of mountains in West Virginia and Kentucky, destroying landscapes, ecosystems, towns, villages, and lives?
What costs more--supplying the army with good equipment and good medical care and deploying the army cautiously in situations where we are mostly likely to win, or destroying the army (by sending the soldiers into a war they not only don't understand and can't win, but also do not have the equipment to win) and then having to rebuild it?
What costs more--a government that functions smoothly or one that is riven with investigations and conflicts? A government where experts can do their jobs, or one where experts are continuously interfered with so that finally they leave in droves, to be replaced by know-nothings who can't do the job? (Let's not forget that the right wing's war on the government continues whether they are in power or out of power.)
What costs more--having sensible regulations for consumer product safety or having no regulations--which leads to injuries, illnesses, deaths, medical bills, lawsuits, bankruptcies, loss of productivity, and years of inconsistencies in the marketplace that hamper product design?
What costs more--a vast middle class who can support themselves and their towns and cities and schools and children and elderly relatives, or a vast class of working poor who can barely support themselves and certainly cannot take care of failing schools, deteriorating housing stock, surging crime, and chaos proliferating all around them? Just because the conservatives don't want to pay for something doesn't mean costs are not incurred; they are simply put off for another day, when they will be geometrically higher.
The root problem of conservatism is that it is tribal--conservatives cannot or will not believe in such basic concepts as epidemiology, ecology, or even Keynesian economics (not to mention brotherly love). But even though conservatives have been fighting interconnectedness forever, it continues to exist (that "reality has a liberal bias" sort of thing).
LINK
Tony Snow Flip-Flops On Executive Privilege
President Bush said yesterday he would “absolutely” fight to prevent Karl Rove and other senior officials from testifying under oath about the U.S. Attorney purge. Tony Snow explained the position to National Review’s Byron York:
I asked whether the president was perhaps overly confrontational at this stage of the game. “I don’t think it’s confrontational,” Snow said. “We feel pretty comfortable with the constitutional argument.” …
The White House, Snow said, is determined to avoid “hearings or the trappings of hearings” when White House officials talk to Congress. “They’re looking for hands up, cameras on,” Snow said of Democrats. “They’re talking about a show trial.”
How times have changed. As Glenn Greenwald first noted, Snow had a much different view of executive privilege in 1998, when President Clinton was using it to resist having his aides testify in the midst of the Monica Lewinsky saga. On 3/29/98, Snow published an op-ed titled, “Executive Privilege is a Dodge”:
Evidently, Mr. Clinton wants to shield virtually any communications that take place within the White House compound on the theory that all such talk contributes in some way, shape or form to the continuing success and harmony of an administration. Taken to its logical extreme, that position would make it impossible for citizens to hold a chief executive accountable for anything. He would have a constitutional right to cover up.
Chances are that the courts will hurl such a claim out, but it will take time.
One gets the impression that Team Clinton values its survival more than most people want justice and thus will delay without qualm. But as the clock ticks, the public’s faith in Mr. Clinton will ebb away for a simple reason: Most of us want no part of a president who is cynical enough to use the majesty of his office to evade the one thing he is sworn to uphold — the rule of law.
Snow shouldn’t feel “pretty comfortable with the constitutional argument” because it’s pretty clear there isn’t one. The leading case on executive privilege is United States v. Nixon, where the Supreme Court found that executive privilege is sharply limited:
The President’s need for complete candor and objectivity from advisers calls for great deference from the courts. However, when the privilege depends solely on the broad, undifferentiated claim of public interest in the confidentiality of such conversations, a confrontation with other values arises. Absent a claim of need to protect military, diplomatic, or sensitive national security secrets, we find it difficult to accept the argument that even the very important interest in confidentiality of Presidential communications is significantly diminished by production of such material for in camera inspection with all the protection that a district court will be obliged to provide.
LINK
did anyone catch bill mahers little dig at domestic spying last friday? he suggested that every day we should email ourselves a copy of the bill of rights. that way when your email gets read, they might get a hint about all the laws they are breaking.
David Iglesias in the New York Times: “Why I Was Fired.“
LINK
Glenn Beck will be GONE-ZO soon too! Dead last in the ratings by a longshot!
http://www.mediabistro.com/tvnewser/ratings/the_scoreboard_monday_march_19_55396.asp
schizophrenic dichotomy?
africans from africa?
i don't disagree with what he's saying but he needs to work on his speech writing.
later - its time for dewey
you liberals open your pants...freudian pause...pocket. good ole dewey.
one more wing nut call and we'll have a hat trick.
hey all, its time to follow the bouncing blog. this one is two behind.
chupacabra...a goat?
You mean I have to wait til "09" to get one?
March 21, 2007 8:03 AM
no point in being hasty about body art, especially when spelling mistakes are for good.
ted olson's wife is where?
'Bush not entitled to
the benefit of the doubt'
"After telling a bunch of different stories about why they fired the U.S. Attorneys, the Bush administration is not entitled to the benefit of the doubt."
LINK
Who’s watching
the President?
At times, President Bush’s second term has resembled a laboratory test of what happens to a large institution when all mechanisms of accountability are disabled. The results have not been pretty.
LINK
New Thread
https://www2.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=1260223047421551014&postID=8394358599442723377
LeTigre should put out a kid's record...
GWB is a radical freak, Joseph!
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