The press is feeding the people a crock; insomuch as saying we have no right to know what our elected leaders are doing!  All this legislation and too little investigation is the evil that has us where we are today.  Oh please, let us not punish Karl Rove for outing 8 US Attorneys!  Why not give the old guy a pat on the back?  Any democratic congress worth its’ salt would go after him with no holds barred, listen to him purjure himself to his heart’s content as advised by Bush and Cheney and take it from there, straight to the Prosecutor’s table.
How far can the democrats go in opposing the president?  All the way home, leaving no stone unturned, revealing every scurrilous activity dreamt up by he and Cheney to we, the people, who’ve paid in blood because of it.  Out losses are their gains and all the trillions they’ve stolen, conned and in other ways ammassed from the tax payers of our country should put them behind bars for the rest of their natural lives.  They may be certain that the worm always turns and sooner or later they will be exposed for what they are, common criminals.

Impeach this war criminal.  Impeach this man who has done more to undermine America’s historical ideals and way of life than any terrorist group could ever do.  Impeach this man who, at his very best, is so incredibly inadequate. 

Impeach Bush and make no apologies to the likes of David Broder or any of the corporate funded “journalists.” The corporations that control the administration control the media.  It is no accident or coincidence that the three major print media cited most as examples of the “liberal” bias are the three that are privately owned.

Is it going to be possible to undue all this abuse of power? In 2008 we will have a democrat for president, unless they go crazy with those voting machines. Can we restore our checks and balances system of government? I guess the real question is, will whoever comes to power want to restore the operation of our country to benefit it’s citizens? Or will they just continue to bend to the will of these corporations? These “nuts” are robbing our bank, and when we call for help
it’s these “nuts” who are answering the phone.
Telling us what they’re doing is for our own good. Alberto Gonzalez is an enforcer for these “nuts” but, I’d rather be on his hit list than to be a part of this Republican Elite.

Their warnings sound like threats.  Why are they afraid of investigations?  In addition to the corruption, the investigations will reveal what the media has ignored and condoned, and that’s a good thing.  Congress should investigate everything this administration has done, beginning with the stolen 2000 election.  It’s much more interesting than the diapered astronaut’s marathon or the Nicole Smith paternity battle.  I want more investigations!

The Whitehouse reminds me of the 1984 movie “Porky’s), good ol-boys and all!

At the core of the federal prosecutor scandal is a hard-right tactic of misusing law enforcement for partisan gain that has been with us for years.  As early as 1971, the Nixon administration, fearful that adverse witnesses at the Rehnquist nomination hearings would expose his role in efforts to suppress the minority vote in Arizona during the 1960s, directed the FBI to question them.  When this method of witness intimidation was repeated during the 1986 proceedings to confirm Rehnquist as Chief Justice, John Bolton, then an Assistant Attorney General in the Reagan Justice Department assured the one FBI agent who questioned the propriety of using the agency for partisan advantage that he, Bolton, would take the responsibility.

In “Bush’s Brain” James Moore & Wayne Slater expose Rove’s and FBI agent Greg Rampton’s perpetuation of a baseless investigation as an aid in defeating Jim Hightower as head of the Texas Dept. of Agriculture, and, of course, throughout the course of the Clinton administration, Kenneth Starr, a Federalist Society subversive/special prosecutor, pursued one baseless investigation after another until he got lucky, stumbling across a prevarication about a consensual, extramarital affair.

Right-wing pundits seek to derail investigations of the federal prosecutor scandal because it portends to expose the core of the hard-right’s philosophy, embodied in the instance in which Tom Delay provided every Republican member of Congress with a David Horowitz authored pamphlet, “The Art of Political War,” each bearing a Karl Rove endorsement on its cover.  In the pamphlet, Horowitz, a former militant Marxist now in service of the hard-right, encouraged his readers to follow “Lenin’s injunction:  ‘In political conflicts, the goal is not to refute your opponents argument, but to wipe him from the face of the earth.’”

D.C. pundits are again way off. Democrats need to ratchet up the pressure on an illegal administration and pull out a few of the smoking gun documents that they are saving for Republican blackmail attempts. If they don’t, the same grassroots and watchdog groups that did most of their legwork for them will be exposing Democratic malfeasance. But hey! I’m not an official mainstream journalist--go ahead and watch Katie Couric…

I came late to this party, but it ought to be noted that there is nothing WRONG with dumping as many US Attorneys as the Preznit likes.

What would have and will be wrong is for them to replace the dumpees with new USAttys who will have agreed before taking on the jobs to break the law. How? by engaging in selective prosecution and using a prosecution as did the Starr chamber, to harass and/or eliminate political enemies or opponents.

The Bushitter gang of thugs is quick to point out that they have broken no laws, and they are entirely correct, BUT....... if INTENT could be proven, then their culpability is already in place, just waiting for some evidence with which they can be prosecuted.

We only have heard about the one replacement who was Rove’s choice down in Arkansas, and if there breathes a man with brain so dead that he thinks THIS yahoo is honest, then I have a bridge to sell him along with a ticket on the Madrid lottery. No, NONE of the original planned replacements would have been either honest or expected ever to be so, and the crimes that the planners intended would have been ongoing for years to come.

Unfortunately for me, I do not hold with putting people in jail for planning a bank robbery that they finally figure out is not going to work, so they give up. It is too much like my going over to shoot my neighbor because my dog defecated on his lawn, and I know that my neighbor is coming over to beat my ass because of it, and I fear for my life, so as soon as he opens his door to me, I blow him away with a 12 gauge. Going after people for what they MIGHT do or might have done is stupid, and I won’t countenance it, terrorism or not. It is hard enough to get the evidence to make a real case against someone for what he ACTUALLY DID that broke the law.

And that brings us to the USAtty matter: they broke no laws except by PLANNING for illegal acts in the future. When they commit those acts will be time enough to prosecute them to the fullest.

In the meantime, they got caught with their hands in the cookiejar and didn’t even get a half a cookieto eat. It will go away because there isn’t any there there.

The scandal, if it exists, is for the public to know what they had to have PLANNED for the replacements, and that it was outside the law. One thing it might do: make it harder than ever to get GOOD men and women to become USAttys, because the implication will always be there from now on that “at the pleasure of the President” means “do illegal acts at the behest of the power structure.”

Who watches cable news anymore?

I find this reaction childish -
but very expected.

They scream “play bi-partisan” after they had bullied the minority for years - total partisan “cooperation”.

They bellow about attaching an iraq dealine to a funding bill - but I distincly remember several occasions that they bullied a totally irrelevant piece of legislation and bundled a THREAT if not approved.

The whine about wasting time on “investigations”?  Like I said - I find their selfish attitude rather childish in retrospect of how this country has been governed prior to “when the people spoke and demanded change via their change of majority.

As of today, House Republicans have spent more than $17 million in taxpayer dollars on politically-motivated investigations. There have been more than 50 politically-motivated investigations in the House, 38 of which are still ongoing. These investigations have involved 15 of the 20 House standing committees. Currently, 13 committees are involved in investigations. Of all the completed investigations, none have turned up evidence of wrongdoing.

Perhaps even more important, a clear pattern of abuse has emerged. The House Republican leadership has called on and, when necessary, prodded its committees to devote their resources to harass political enemies. In the process, Republicans have: undermined the credibility of the oversight function of Congress; issued overly broad and excessive subpoenas; and targeted innocent private individuals with whom they have political disagreements, and as a result, have harmed those people’s businesses, humiliated them personally and professionally, and forced them to bear extraordinary travel and legal costs to try to defend their reputations.

http://www.uhuh.com/politics/repinvest.htm

I just read that Mr. Gonzales’ aide is going to end up pleading the 5th. This is something we’d expect from Al Capone etc., not the people in charge of going after people like him.

Congress has every right, on behalf of the People, to ask as many pointed and probably highly uncomfortable questions about this entire miserable business, in the interest of restoring full transparency and public accountability to the whole deal. Frankly, the more the people in this administration fight that public accountability, the worse it really looks for them, and for us, especially in the light of all these efforts to democratize other countries, uphold the law, so forth and so on, and we could get started here about the laundry list of painfully obvious conflicts of interest that involve a LOT of these people, but that’s probably the subject of several books and would absorb more spacetime than this thread could readily incorporate....

Kudos to Pete (#61344). His comment is really all that needs to be said. Everybody should shout as loudly as they could so that the congress keeps it up. Investigate, hold them accountable, and expose the corruption. That’s what the election was about. Iraq’s part of that, but not all of it.

BTW, don’t be fooled by the US Attorney replacement in Arkansas being just about getting a job for a friend of Rove’s. There’s a big federal case pending against Walmart in Arkansas.

Keep on truckin y’all.

The Bush/Chaney stolen victory was set up as soon as Bushie Boy became Governor of Texas, these neocons are great at winning because they used the concertative rightwing christians and then when they had them in their hip pocket, did the most unchristian thing they could.

Rove is a piece of slime like a snake, you never trust a snake, no matter wjat Rove should not hold as important place in the administration as he does, knowledge in the wrong hands will be the undoing of this country, and Rove had a hand in everything that happened in the Justice Dept.

Gonzales is a studge to Bushie Boy and he should be kicked out, I mean kicked out.

The American people can smell a rat in the administration, in fact there are more rats than we know.

The Bush/Chaney Administration should be kicked out of office, before they give us more grief.

The war will go on to the next administration and then the Republicians can go after the Democrats for not winning the war, because they could have done better, Ha could have done better, not really because Runsfeld tried to do the war on the cheap, did not want to have a draft which would not have gone over with the people.  The draft would have made more guys go to war especially the Ivy League College bound, and that would not have gone over with the rich, after the rich want to hold on and what better way to get ahead than to get a better education, the education of community college does not go too far.

Margaret from Vancouver, Washingrton

Why does the main stream media (MSM) treat the 9/11 Truth movement like it’s the “third rail”??
They won’t go near it. We just want the truth.

Rosie O’Donnell has simply raised the question as to why the WTC7 bldg collapsed on 9/11 for NO reason, and that schmuck Danny Bonaduce has called for her execution by hanging on MSNBC!  Bill O’Reilly has been just as vicious saying Charlie Sheen and Mark Cuban should be thrown in jail for distributing the newest version of “Loose Change”, a movie questioning 9/11. 

There are SO many questions unanswered about what really happened that day, and the MSM won’t even touch the subject.

Why are they so afraid?

Because it will destroy their monopoly on the truth...or what they call the truth, and thus, our control. The “official” story is a lie. They know it, and that’s why they are scared to death about the people finding the truth. The 9/11 Commission was a cover-up. Pure and simple. It doesn’t even mention WTC7.

Terrorism is not this government’s greatest enemy.
The truth is.

I implore you all to watch the Google videos:
9/11 Press for Truth, 9/11 Mysteries, Loose Change 2nd Edition, America: Freedom to Fascism.

Open your eyes and minds. Educate yourselves!
ALL our futures depends on it.
Demand a new, true 9/11 investigation.

I liked the part, “...the flaccid reign of former House Speaker Dennis Hastert”, but I’m thinking it might extend beyond Hastert.

Are you not also a pundit?  If so, have you ever been wrong?

Not having paid too much attention to the AG “firings scandal” as I don’t see it to be as important as most other issues and don’t see how any resolution will ultimately help the American public in the near term - I too see the efforts by Congress as a vendetta and wasteful of time.

A demonstration of willingness to lead, such as the Speaker accepting the advice of the Iraq Study and heading out to Syria on her own, or attempting to legislatively curtail the inflated intrusiveness of the Patriot Act are much more important issues and are much more deserving of the media spotlight.

If I can play pundit for a moment, I predict that this AG firing scandal will eventually amount to a wren fart in a whirlwind.

Apropos of the current wave of amnesia at the DOJ, Digby’s blog points out the unhappy incidence of how many fundies were placed in this and other key beauracracies in the current regime, many from Pat Robertson’s Regent University.  Dominionists again trying to create a “Christian nation”, all under the radar.

You want to rattle the Republican cage? Try these suggestions.
1. Scrap the recent bankruptcy “reform” act and return to the 1978 standard. Put the onus on lenders for stupidity.
2. Investigate the so called “right to work” think tanks. They’re nothing but union busting shills for the American Manufacturers Assn. and the Chamber of Commerce.
3. Charley Rangel is right; bring back the draft especially on the campussies of Yale,Harvard,ad nauseam. Those with the most to defend should be in the front line to defend it.
4. Bring back the Eisenhower tax code. 90% of 450 billion still leaves one with a nice peice of change and presumably a clear conscience for once.
5. Reintroduce the deduction for personal income for the middle class.
6.Restore the guards installed by FDR to prevent another depression undone by republicans since 1994.
7.Investigate this baloney about “jobs Americans won’t do” like postal worker,pharmacist & nurse.
8. Throw out the H1B visa program. Does anybody really believe that there aren’t enough programmers,chemists or engineers graduating from American Universities?
Iraq has been an expensive subterfuge so that Newt’s “Contract ON America” could be pulled off.Down republicrats,up Kucinich!!!!!!!!!!

I’m 68.  It seems that in recent years the too-frequent subtle shifts in meaning, the subtle rewrites of history -e.g. congressional Democrats voted FOR THE WAR IN IRAQ rather than VOTED TO GIVE BUSH THE AUTHORITY TO GO TO WAS, hoping against hope that that vote would help persuade Saddam to be more forthcoming and saying they expected Bush to use the power given him wisely (he didn’t), using military action as a last resort.  The latter is the way I understood it but (I think) highly skilled Republican operatives & rewriters of history introduced the idea that Congress had voted for going into war.  Then Democrats seem to have just accepted that they had voted for the war in Iraq rather than having voted to give Bush the authority to go to war hoping that doing that would actually help to prevent a war.  Looking back of course it’s obvious now that Bush was no one worthy of being given any authority of any kind involving America’s safety and those who voted to give him the authority to go to war in Iraq had mistakenly believed Bush was someone who could be trusted to act carefully and judiciously.  But amazingly many Democrats seem to have allowed that Republican rewrite to stand.  GOOD TO SEE I’M NOT THE ONLY ONE who hurts to see many pundits and “authoritative experts” treat important things as unimportant, etc.  I don’t think the main thing for Democrats is to win points against the Republicans but rather to reverse disastrous policies for the good of the country and to show up a lot of spin and deception presented with a tone of fairness and objectivity - seemingly the voice of expert authority - for what it really is -RUBBISH!!

Dear Mr. Rove,

Even in little old me in podunk Ohio knows you’re a crook. Thanks to the internet I know who you screwed, what you screwed em over for, when you screwed em, where you screwed em, how far and how long you screwed em.

You cannot hide from the American people forever. Your job is not safe and we don’t like you anymore. In fact we never did.

The only thing that keeps you in office is that little white crook in the big white house but that shit can’t last forever and definitely won’t last until 2008. God willing, yes, the same God that you have taunted the American people with and that Bush claims he serves but doesn’t - God willing, Cheney and Bush will be impeached and all of you will wind up in Federal - Pound- Your- Ass prison.

That way instead of screwing over the American People like you have for nearly a decade, you’ll be the one getting screwed instead.

Have a nice day and enjoy it will it lasts but your time is done son. The media cannot shield you.

We Know!

Love,

America

If they do any probing, they should use a 2 by 4.

C’mon, what do you expect? Let’s remember who their employers are.  The mass media isn’t aligned with the corporate plutocracy, it is part of the corporate plutocracy.

I too loved listening to you on Al Franken’s show, and thank goodness we can hear you on Fridays(tomorrow)on Sam Seder’s Show 9-noon.

I cannot understand why these bozos like “Tweedy” Matthews and Bowtie man(T.Carlson) have TV shows and you don’t. You are so much more impressive in your analysis and ability to communicate the truth of any situation that comes into focus in a clear,honest way, and gawd knows you are one attractive man which they definately are not!!

I always check with you and Glenn Greenwald for your takes on the news, never did and never will look to the above mentioned and the beltway bloviators for anything but laughs!

To eliviate this problem we could always put this administration under house arrest, elect a “commission” of “appointed” investigators to spend their time and look into it *kind of like the 9-11 commission* The country be governed by the remaining elected officials who could get on with legislating what is best for the people of America; let Congress work on what they are paid to do. Which is listen to us and “insure domestic tranquility”.  D O M E S T I C.

I cannot fault Congress as long as they vote by the voices they hear.  Read their mail and email and really listen when we call. Vote with American citizens FOREMOST on their minds.
They vote it and they cannot be held accountable if the decider vetos...... 

Just do the right thing - investigate and demand.  Get going and stop stumbling - impeach.

Excellent!

Brilliant!

Folks, please see to it that each and every one of your senators and your rep gets a copy of “Ignore the Pundits and Bark Louder!”

I worry sometimes, they spend to much time hanging around the wrong kind of people!

Mr Conason you are so very completely right on regarding those so called journalists and its hard to put them in the same catagory. First I would like to say that sir I sincerely miss listening to you when you were a guest speaker on the AL Franken show, I literally changed my lunch hour so I could hear what you had to say. You sir are briliant and I wish there were more of you instrad of the likes of Chris Matthews, Nora O’Donnell and the rest, watching The CHris Matthews show this last SUnday was nauseating to say the least, I turned it off once I saw where they were going..Sir, you are a true patriot and do great service to our country by speaking the truth no matter if its a Republican, Democratic or whatever their political afflications may be. Sincerely, Madelinbe Pelland

This administration of Bush/Cheney is much more dirty than a uncleaned toilet. Keep talking about it or sitting on it is no different. A stolen people is always a stolen people !

There were cries about Watergate that sounded just like this.  “Don’t keep bringing this up - it’s a minor crime by some underlings” etc.  How wrong that was!  The more this “business-as-usual corruption is investigated, the more wrongdoing is exposed.  Keep investigating, Dems.  Keep investigating until the need for Impeachment is so obvious, the public will be howling for it.

Once again Mr Conason is right on the money. Out here in the real world we wait eagerly for the other shoe to drop on this stunningly corrupt administration. So a hearty “good on ya” to investigation hungry Dems.

You want to talk flaccid???  Is is the Washington press corps! These low-brow, obsequent flock of sheep rarely lift a finger to challenge the White House and its corrupt policies and tactics. With a few exceptions, their overall philosophy is “don’t bite the hand that feeds you.” No wonder the American people are left to wonder why there isn’t more of a challenge to the status-quo and to the antics of a megalomaniac! Yes, it is time to bark louder and louder still!

Read another definitive study of the pundits of the Beltway at http://www.dailyhowler.com/archives-2007.shtml.

Mr. Somerby has had these people pegged for ten years:

These are nasty, stupid people—transfer students from Salem Village. But then, they’re paid for these very traits. Read on; we have to learn how to describe this criminal class.

I don’t understand it myself, Joe. Whyy the media is so removed from mainstream America that is. I think the MSM needs to reacquaint itself with the public or risk being abandoned altogether.
Thanks for your story. I’m glad some people are able to see just what a threat this scandal is to our judicial system and our voting rights.
For those with short term memory-lets look at 2000 and 2004 in Fla. and Ohio. Let’s look at big corporate lawsuits (most recently tobacco)with fines from $130 million to $10 by companies who are knowingly putting toxins in products. If this doesn’t scare you about what the future holds for your kids and mine-I don’t know what will. Blind faith in government is a very dangerous thing-and athreat to democracy.

Well this American would like to see some tit-for-tat vengeance… I don’t care what it takes, BRING THIS CORRUPT ADMINISTRATION DOWN.... PLEASE!!!

Nice try Joe but, the pundits are never wrong.  Why, just last week I heard Chris Matthews blaming the folks watching at home for not stopping the war before it started.  He said everybody should have been able to predict what has happened.  The press was right but the people weren’t doing anything about it.  When Howard Feinman said the press had something to do with it, Matthews spewed “Not me, buddy!”

Google this:  chris matthews we’re all neocons now

His slobbering makes me sick and his love affair with himself is laughable but, he’s worth watching because he’s such a great example of why this country is in so much trouble.

Conason is absolutely correct that big-shot journalists and TV media talking heads can be wrong.

They were wrong about many of the reports in the run-up to the invasion of Iraq and many, many other activities in recent years.

In fact, many media types (big shots and small fries) seemed to be in bed with the Bush-Cheney administration, the neocons, warmongers, war profiteers and chicken hawks.

Obviously, many so-called journalists and other media elites still are “embedded” with these Bush-Cheney cronies.

An example worth keeping in mind is considered in the article below:

“Society of Professional Journalists’ Award to Judith Miller Helps Cover-Up?”

Steve Hammons
American Chronicle
October 27, 2005

http://www.americanchronicle.com/articles/viewArticle. asp?articleID=3287

So lets get this right, we should forget the huge legal bills and constant carping the Republicans did against Bill Clinton for his private life, which did not affect the nation, but we should ignore the criminal activity of the Repbulican Administration and they should have a free pass for violations of the Bill of Rights, violations of laws against the use of torture, vilations against the rights of citizens not to be spied upon without use of legal oversight? If Congress allows this it will be one more sign of the death of American Democracy and the New Right Wing Dictatorship. Impeach Bush/Cheney together and rid this country of the most criminal administration we have ever had, it is more an afflication that a Government.

Maybe we wouldn’t need to be so zealous in the investigations if they had been a little less zealous in their corruption.

Washington Press Corps? Hardly! The word “corps” implies an organized and effective group of trained people! The word “press” implies that they are journalists.

Essentially they are a group of poltico-snobs who think that their opinions are worth more than those of anyone else because they are in Washington! Wow! The center of where it ain’t!

The so-called “press corps” is largely responsible for creating the current White House Resident by paying attention to his opinions as though they too have special value.

Ahhh, that’s politics and that’s the Washington Press Corps!

All of this reminds one of the excellent comedy by Mel Brooks called “Blazing Saddles.”
One of the scenes has a borderline idiot--played by Brooks--who is allegedly the “Guv” of a western state.  It’s easy to deduce this since the word “GUV” appears on the back of his jacket.
Behind the “GUV” is a scheming, money and power hungry Machiavelli type played by Harvey Korman.
Korman deftly plays the GUV to dance any tune that Korman calls.
When a bunch of their loyal, political backers are present for a bill signing, the GUV demands the attendees give out with “Harrumphs.”
Except one doesn’t “Harrumph” loudly enough for the GUV and is taken to task.

Fast forward to 2007:  This time, it’s not a comedy, but a sad pathos playing in front of our eyes. We have another borderline idiot from a western state playing the role of “PRES.”
And he has a cunning and deceitful man behind the throne, pulling the strings.

And the compliant MSM is still “Harrumphing.”

Greg Bacon
Ava, MO