Still Hating America.

[Shape Shifter]

Couldn't happen to a nicer guy.

• Low-key office launches high-profile inquiry
  The Office of Special Counsel will investigate U.S. attorney firings and other political activities led by Karl Rove.
  By Tom Hamburger, Times Staff Writer
  April 24, 2007
  
  
  WASHINGTON — Most of the time, an obscure federal investigative unit known as the Office of Special Counsel confines itself to monitoring the activities of relatively low-level government employees, stepping in with reprimands and other routine administrative actions for such offenses as discriminating against military personnel or engaging in prohibited political activities.
  
  But the Office of Special Counsel is preparing to jump into one of the most sensitive and potentially explosive issues in Washington, launching a broad investigation into key elements of the White House political operations that for more than six years have been headed by chief strategist Karl Rove.
  
  The new investigation, which will examine the firing of at least one U.S. attorney, missing White House e-mails, and White House efforts to keep presidential appointees attuned to Republican political priorities, could create a substantial new problem for the Bush White House.
  
  "We will take the evidence where it leads us," Scott J. Bloch, head of the Office of Special Counsel and a presidential appointee, said in an interview Monday. "We will not leave any stone unturned."
  
  Bloch declined to comment on who his investigators would interview, but he said the probe would be independent and uncoordinated with any other agency or government entity.
  
  The decision by Bloch's office is the latest evidence that Rove's once-vaunted operations inside the government, which helped the GOP hold the White House and Congress for six years, now threaten to mire the administration in investigations.
  
  The question of improper political influence over government decision-making is at the heart of the controversy over the firing of U.S. attorneys and the ongoing congressional investigation of the special e-mail system installed in the White House and other government offices by the Republican National Committee.
  
  All administrations are political, but this White House has systematically brought electoral concerns to Cabinet agencies in a way unseen previously.
  
  For example, Rove and his top aides met each year with presidential appointees throughout the government, using PowerPoint presentations to review polling data and describe high-priority congressional and other campaigns around the country.
  
  Some officials have said they understood that they were expected to seek opportunities to help Republicans in these races, through federal grants, policy decisions or in other ways.
  
  A former Interior Department official, Wayne R. Smith, who sat through briefings from Rove and his then-deputy Ken Mehlman, said that during President Bush's first term, he and other appointees were frequently briefed on political priorities.
  
  "We were constantly being reminded about how our decisions could affect electoral results," Smith said.
  
  "This is a big deal," Paul C. Light, a New York University expert on the executive branch, said of Bloch's plan. "It is a significant moment for the administration and Karl Rove. It speaks to the growing sense that there is a nexus at the White House that explains what's going on in these disparate investigations."
  
  The 106-person Office of Special Counsel has never conducted such a broad and high-profile inquiry in its history. One of its primary missions has been to enforce the Hatch Act, a law enacted in 1939 to preserve the integrity of the civil service.
  
  Bloch said the new investigation grew from two narrower inquiries his staff had begun in recent weeks.
  
  One involved the fired U.S. attorney from New Mexico, David C. Iglesias.
  
  The other centered on a PowerPoint presentation that a Rove aide, J. Scott Jennings, made at the General Services Administration this year.
  
  That presentation listed recent polls and the outlook for battleground House and Senate races in 2008. After the presentation, GSA Administrator Lorita Doan encouraged agency managers to "support our candidates," according to half a dozen witnesses. Doan said she could not recall making such comments.
  
  The Los Angeles Times has learned that similar presentations were made by other White House staff members, including Rove, to other Cabinet agencies. During such presentations, employees said they got a not-so-subtle message about helping endangered Republicans.

More here: http://www.latimes.com/news/politics...home-headlines

[Adder]

Originally posted by taxwonk
Why? I c an see your argument that it's no fair to criticize Bush for his thinking on WMD because so many others also thought Saddam had them. However, to go on to say that Barack's position that we shouldn't have gone in would be an "ultimately, deadly"position makes no sense. After all, he didn't actually have WMD.

Hank is of course right that most people in this country thought Saddam had or would get WMD. That isn't the part of Bush's analysis that we can criticize, even though it was wrong.

The criticism is of the next steps of (1) believing that Saddam was likely to give them to Islamists that were his enemies, (2) believing that the best was to prevent the miniscule chance of number 1 is invasion, (3) failing to even really try to enlist a meaningful coalition, (4) failing to exhaust options short of invasion (i.e. send the inspectors back in and let Saddam impede them or through them out and gain the diplomatic credibility that would come from that), (5) failing to comprehend what invading on our own would do to America's standing in the world and (6) completely botching very aspect of the execution.

Among other things.

[Hank Chinaski]

Originally posted by Adder
Hank is of course right that most people in this country thought Saddam had or would get WMD. That isn't the part of Bush's analysis that we can criticize, even though it was wrong.

The criticism is of the next steps of (1) believing that Saddam was likely to give them to Islamists that were his enemies, (2) believing that the best was to prevent the miniscule chance of number 1 is invasion, (3) failing to even really try to enlist a meaningful coalition, (4) failing to exhaust options short of invasion (i.e. send the inspectors back in and let Saddam impede them or through them out and gain the diplomatic credibility that would come from that), (5) failing to comprehend what invading on our own would do to America's standing in the world and (6) completely botching very aspect of the execution.

Among other things.

Earlier I responded to all of this. You ignored all that. I was giving you the chance to be treated as an actual legitimate poster. You failed your test.

[Shape Shifter]

Originally posted by Hank Chinaski
Earlier I responded to all of this.

Cite, please.

[Adder]

Originally posted by Hank Chinaski
Earlier I responded to all of this. You ignored all that. I was giving you the chance to be treated as an actual legitimate poster. You failed your test.

Believe it our not, but not all of your posts move me to the level of wanting to respond.

But I was in a meeting for a good portion of the afternoon too.

[sebastian_dangerfield]

Originally posted by Oliver_Wendell_Ramone
Do you think Lance dumped Sheryl over hygiene issues?

Nah, probably just because she's overrated "product."

Perhaps she can blame the air for damaging her vocal cords and precluding her from hitting any interesting notes.

[Mmmm, Burger (C.J.)]

Originally posted by Hank Chinaski
I suppose a religion could own copyrights in a certain depiction of a symbol. copyrights do expire eventually, and the muslim star is ancient right? so it had to be on the particular depiction, i guess.

Well, you must be advising the WaPo:



BTW, is that arrangement astronomically possible?

[Adder]

Speaking of stupid decisions driven only by a fear of looking weak:

Marshaling arguments he has deployed repeatedly in the past, Bush said such a move "would embolden our enemies and confirm their belief that America is weak.

[captain marvelous]

I'll go first:

It's Giuliani time!!!

[sebastian_dangerfield]

Originally posted by Adder
Speaking of stupid decisions driven only by a fear of looking weak:

Marshaling arguments he has deployed repeatedly in the past, Bush said such a move "would embolden our enemies and confirm their belief that America is weak.

"Marshaling," eh? You submit phony bills, don't you?

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally posted by Adder
Hank is of course right that most people in this country thought Saddam had or would get WMD.

Be that as it may, if most people in this country believed that creation science was the best explanation of speciation, that would not be a good reason to teach it in schools. With the allegations of stovepiping and other abuse of the intelligence system, it seems a little premature to reach conclusions about what our government knew. Perhaps the archives will be unsealed before we're dead.

[Adder]

Originally posted by sebastian_dangerfield
"Marshaling," eh? You submit phony bills, don't you?

I don't follow you, but the language in the hypertext is cut from the Washington Post.

[Adder]

Originally posted by Tyrone Slothrop
Be that as it may, if most people in this country believed that creation science was the best explanation of speciation, that would not be a good reason to teach it in schools. With the allegations of stovepiping and other abuse of the intelligence system, it seems a little premature to reach conclusions about what our government knew. Perhaps the archives will be unsealed before we're dead.

Perhaps there are dark secrets yet unrevealed, but, again, I don't think we need dark secrets to find plenty of ways that the Bush administration fucked things up even construing the facts in the light most favorable to them.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally posted by Adder
Perhaps there are dark secrets yet unrevealed, but, again, I don't think we need dark secrets to find plenty of ways that the Bush administration fucked things up even construing the facts in the light most favorable to them.

If they made political use of national security secrets, they would hardly be the first administration to do so.

[Adder]

Originally posted by Tyrone Slothrop
If they made political use of national security secrets, they would hardly be the first administration to do so.

If they didn't make political use of national security secrets, they might be the first administration not to do so.