In the Bush administration, what are ya gonna do when somebody tells the truth...? Swiftboat 'em, of course...!

from tpmtv's veracifier...

Scott McClellan's surprisingly critical memoir of his time as White House Press Secretary put the White House in full-on damage control mode. McClellan's book may have been off-message, but the White House and its surrogates were conspicuously "on" in their response.

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A Dana Perino clone on Iraq - down is up, black is white, bad is good, failure is success, war is peace

in a perverse sort of way, you gotta admire the chutzpah of the bush administration... they can take the stinkiest shit imaginable and convince you you're smelling roses... they're also good at making you think that, if the source is supposedly a credible one that operates at arm's length from the white house, it must be believable... but since we now know that a pentagon press secretary is really only a dana perino/tony fratto clone, that sweet smell of roses is almost impossible to detect...

The Pentagon on Wednesday said an eruption of violence in southern Iraq, where US-backed government forces were battling Shiite militias, was a "by-product of the success of the surge."

Pentagon press secretary Geoff Morrell said it showed that the Iraqi government and security forces were now confident enough to take the initiative against Shiite extremists in the southern port of Basra.

"Citizens down there have been living in a city of chaos and corruption for some time and they and the prime minister clearly have had enough of it," he said at a Pentagon press conference.

At least 20 people were reported to have been killed in two days of fighting in Basra and another 20 in clashes in the Sadr City district of Baghdad, a bastion of Shiite militias that follow radical cleric Moqtada al-Sadr.

< sniffs the air, gags, retches, reaches for handkerchief to cover nostrils >

now, after that brief interlude, let's rejoin reality, shall we...?

following on to brother tim's post from yesterday, from the ap...

Shiite militiamen are everywhere. Police and Iraqi army checkpoints are nowhere in sight. U.S. soldiers are keeping their distance.

Sadr City — the Baghdad nerve center for the powerful Mahdi Army — is suddenly back on edge as the militia leader, Muqtada al-Sadr, and Iraq's government lock in a dangerous confrontation over clout and control among the nation's majority Shiites.

The epicenter of the showdown has been the southern oil hub of Basra, where clashes have claimed dozens of lives this week and al-Sadr's forces face a Friday deadline to surrender.

But a more finely tuned measure of the tensions may be found among the one- and two-story homes and shabby storefronts of Sadr City. As the crisis deepened, The Associated Press toured Sadr City on Wednesday to observe its rapid swing from relative quiet to a return of the Mahdi Army swagger before the U.S. military troop buildup in Baghdad last year.

Sadr City — named after Muqtada al-Sadr's father, who was assassinated in 1999 — is seen as critical to the overall stability and security of the capital.

A resurgence of Mahdi Army attacks and opposition could roll back the gains that have allowed Baghdad residents to take cautious steps toward normal life and offered Washington hope of accelerating troop withdrawals.

and if the above doesn't do it for ya, try this from gareth porter...

The escalation of fighting between Mahdi Army militiamen and their Shiite rivals, which could mark the end of Moqtada al-Sadr's self-imposed ceasefire, also exposes Gen. David Petraeus's strategy for controlling Sadr's forces as a failure.

Petraeus reacted immediately to Sunday's rocket attacks on the Green Zone by blaming them on Iran. He told the BBC the rockets were "Iranian provided, Iranian-made rockets", and that they were launched by groups that were funded and trained by the Quds Force of Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). Petraeus said this was "in complete violation of promises made by President [Mahmoud] Ahmadinejad and other most senior Iranian leaders to their Iraqi counterparts".

Petraeus statement was clearly intended to divert attention from a development that threatens one of the two main pillars of the administration's claim of progress in Iraq -- the willingness of Sadr to restrain the Mahdi Army, even in the face of systematic raids on its leadership by the U.S. military and its Iraqi allies.

The rocket attacks appear to have been one of several actions by the Mahdi Army to warn the United States and the Iraqi government to halt their systematic raids aimed at driving the Sadrists out of key Shiite centres in the south. They were followed almost immediately by Mahdi Army clashes with rival Shiite militiamen in Basra, Sadr City and Kut and a call for a nationwide general strike to demand the release of Sadrist detainees.

once again, we are forced to attempt to make sense out of conflicting interpretations... however, unlike a similar conflict of interpretation i noted in an earlier post about afghanistan, in this situation, we know there's a liar and we know who it is...

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Stuffing da Baloney

This is farcical, ludicrous, and down-right heart-breaking. CNN has the full story.


President Bush addresses the press with Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, Monday.

Bush: U.S. deaths in Iraq 'laid foundations for peace'

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- President Bush expressed sympathy Monday for the families of the 4,000 Americans killed in the war in Iraq, promising to make sure their loved ones "were not lost in vain."

"One day, people will look back at this moment in history and say, 'Thank God there were courageous people willing to serve, because they laid the foundations for peace for generations to come,' " Bush told reporters after a meeting at the State Department.

[...]

During a briefing with reporters Monday, White House press secretary
Dana Perino said the president "definitely feels the loss."

"He gets a report about every single soldier who passes away," she said. "And he always pauses a moment to think about them and to offer a prayer for their loved ones and their family and friends."

Foundations of Peace??? Does anyone in their right mind believe that?


And then, when the King and his Jester, that shoe-shopping ditz, Condiliesalot Rice, get tired of stuffing the baloney; who's there to give them some relief?? Good Lord, it's Hillary.

"I want to take a moment to note yesterday's heartbreaking news that five years after start of war there have been 4,000 U.S. military deaths in Iraq," Sen. Hillary Clinton said at the start of speech on the economy in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Monday.


"Tens of thousands of our brave men and women have also suffered serious wounds, both visible and invisible, to their bodies, their minds and their hearts. As president, I intend to honor the extraordinary service and sacrifice of them and their families by ending this war and brining them home as quickly and responsibility as possible," she said.

Too little, too late, Hillary. You should have felt that way when you voted for the AUMF and followed it up with votes to spend like a drunken sailor navy.

But you didn't feel it was expeditious to your political aspirations then, did you?

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Reporters on Bush: "His rhetoric is exhausted" and he's "going through the motions"

seein' as to how bush has never been particularly interested in doing the REAL work of being president, being much happier to talk smack, show off, bully people, and strut, i'm surprised it's taken this long for the press corps to lose interest...

When White House press secretary Dana Perino appeared on “The Daily Show” last week, host Jon Stewart asked how she got the day off: “Did they not need press secretarying today?”

These days, with President Bush largely relegated to the sidelines rather than the headlines, it’s not surprising that Perino can knock off early.

Fewer than half the seats were filled in the White House briefing room that Thursday afternoon, when deputy press secretary Tony Fratto was even asked at one point if an upcoming economic speech by Bush would provide anything newsworthy.

“No,” Fratto replied, “you shouldn't look for new major announcements tomorrow.” Some laughter and grumbling followed among the press corps.

here are the money quotes...

“You can’t attribute it all to the presidential campaign,” said Julie Mason, White House correspondent for the Houston Chronicle. “[Bush’s] rhetoric is so exhausted. He rarely makes any news. It’s rarely worth anyone’s time to cover him like we used to.”

[...]

[Television analyst Andrew Tyndall] said that he felt it wasn’t so much the media disdaining the White House so much as Bush is now “going through the motions.”

my impression is that bush has been giving the same speech since he first took office, and it sounded "exhausted" even then... after it became obvious that a serious number of his brain cells were either dying or committing suicide, i have been incapable of understanding why anyone would pay any attention to him at all...

i've posted this youtube clip before, but it's time to trot it back out... the question now is the same question we've been asking for the past seven-plus years... what is wrong with this man...?



amazing, huh...?

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Dana Perino: "It is an honor and a privilege to be in the briefing room"

so be goddam grateful that we even bother answering your questions at all, you senile old bat...



and here's the ugly guts...

The White House press secretary [Dana Perino] then blasted the reporter for using her "bestowed" front row position in the press room to make "absurd and very offensive statements."

"Helen, I find it really unfortunate that you use your front row position, bestowed upon you by your colleagues, to make such statements," Perino said. "This is a -- it is an honor and a privilege to be in the briefing room, and to suggest that we, at the United States, are killing innocent people is just absurd and very offensive."

Thomas asked Perino about civilian casualties in Iraq: "Do you know how many we have since the start of this war?"

"How many -- we are going after the enemy, Helen," Perino said, ducking the question. "To the extent that any innocent Iraqis have been killed, we have expressed regret for it."

The longtime White House correspondent who has gone after presidents from both political parties responded, "Oh, regret. It doesn't bring back a life."

But Perino refused to get sentimental over civilian casualties.

"Helen, we are in a war zone, and our military works extremely hard to make sure that everyone has the opportunity for liberty and freedom and democracy, and that is exactly what they are doing," Perino said. "I'm going to move on."

is dana perino really such a naïf that she thinks the u.s. ISN'T killing innocent people...? and, yeah, i understand she isn't going to ADMIT to it from the podium of the presidential press briefing room, but, seriously, folks...

(white house transcript here...)

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Chau, Snowjob

in all seriousness, if it's his cancer that's making a resurgence, i wish him well...

White House press secretary Tony Snow will step down Sept. 14, 2007, Fox News reported live on air Friday. CNN quickly confirmed.

Snow will be replaced by White House Deputy Press Secretary Dana Perino, who has occasionally done briefings for the President.

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Well, well, well... Satan resigns...? Pardon me if I'm skeptical.

i don't know what to make of this, quite honestly, except to say that something seems extremely fishy...

Karl Rove, the architect of President Bush's two national campaigns and his most prominent adviser through 6-1/2 tumultuous years in the White House, will resign at month's end and leave politics, a White House spokeswoman said this morning.

Bush plans to make a statement with Rove on the South Lawn this morning before the president departs for his ranch near Crawford, Tex. Rove, who holds the titles of deputy chief of staff and senior adviser, has been talking about finding the right time to depart for a year, colleagues said, and decided he had to either leave now or remain through the end of the presidency.

"Obviously it's a big loss to us," White House spokeswoman Dana M. Perino said this morning. "He's a great colleague, a good friend, and a brilliant mind. He will be greatly missed. But we know he wouldn't be going if he wasn't sure this was the right time to be giving more to his family, his wife Darby and their son. He will continue to be one of the president's greatest friends."

the "more time with family" meme is one of the bigger piles of doggie-doo that continues to be heaped on the gullible public, and, in rove's case, is about as phony as a three-dollar bill...

here's one view from a commenter on the wapo news alert article...

For one of the most powerful men in the world to walk away from this position in such short order, a mere 18 days, means that there truly is something coming on down the pike. There is about to occur an event or action, which even Rove won't be a party to. Such a sudden departure, when Bush has such little time left to serve, has President Cheney's stench all about it. Reading the President's under-reported directive on establishing martial law and suspending the Constitution; in light of the strengthened Patriot Act and increased domestic surveillance legislation; and the several completed military plans enabling a military take-over of state and local government makes for an alarming future. Why would all this exist if not to be used? All it takes is one incident to make the country willing to trade the Constitution for security. Maybe, this either goes too far for Rove or he's an impediment to Cheney. This is not a simple resignation.

i would tend to agree with the thought that something big is coming down the pike, but i wouldn't venture to speculate on what it might be...

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Dana Milbank on Fourthbranch: "Madison and Franklin did not return phone calls yesterday"

with somebody this over the top and this bizarre, and someone who also seems to have been running our country for the past 6 1/2 years, it helps to have a sense of humor...

dana milbank from today's wapo...

The Cheese Stands Alone

By Dana Milbank
Tuesday, June 26, 2007; Page A02

[...]

"The vice president's theory seems to be one almost laughable on its face, that he's not part of the executive branch," Sen. Chuck Schumer (N.Y.) said in a conference call with reporters from his car. "I think if you ask James Madison or Benjamin Franklin or any of the writers of the Constitution, they'd almost laugh if they heard that."

Madison and Franklin did not return phone calls yesterday.

and, after being attacked by the press wolf pack yesterday (entirely justified, imho), i don't imagine dana perino is going to willingly throw herself back into action again any time soon... or, if she finds herself in front of the gaggle again today, maybe she can just sing them a song...

The farmer in the dell

The farmer in the dell
The farmer in the dell
Hi-ho, the derry-o
The farmer in the dell

The farmer takes a wife
The farmer takes a wife
Hi-ho, the derry-o
The farmer takes a wife

The wife takes a child
The wife takes a child
Hi-ho, the derry-o
The wife takes a child

The child takes a nurse
The child takes a nurse
Hi-ho, the derry-o
The child takes a nurse

The nurse takes a cow
The nurse takes a cow
Hi-ho, the derry-o
The nurse takes a cow

The cow takes a dog
The cow takes a dog
Hi-ho, the derry-o
The cow takes a dog

The dog takes a cat
The dog takes a cat
Hi-ho, the derry-o
The dog takes a cat

The cat takes a rat
The cat takes a rat
Hi-ho, the derry-o
The cat takes a rat

The rat takes the cheese
The rat takes the cheese
Hi-ho, the derry-o
The rat takes the cheese

The cheese stands alone
The cheese stands alone
Hi-ho, the derry-o
The cheese stands alone

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White House mind-f***

from think progress...

[White House] spokeswoman Dana Perino: “We, of course, would like to be in a position to bring down troop levels, but certain conditions, as assessed by senior military advisers and commanders on the ground, need to be met to warrant that.”

we are there for the oil, for the money, and to keep things in a constant state of turmoil, which, of course, makes it easier to keep the money flowing and to maintain control of the oil... we ain't leavin', not until the bought-and-paid-for republican, democratic, media, oil, defense and super-rich power structures are brought down and replaced with individuals who are actually dedicated to the common good... as atrios says, na ga ha pen...

[UPDATE]

although it should be perfectly obvious that my earlier educated guess (the troop withdrawal discussion was leaked by "official sources" in an effort to push george in that direction) was spot on, the cool treatment given by the white house to the idea all but nails it as fact...

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So much for the so-called "independence" of the Privacy Board

if independence was anything other than a mere word to be used as a smokescreen, this wouldn't be happening...

The Bush administration made more than 200 revisions to the first report of a civilian board that oversees government protection of personal privacy, including the deletion of a passage on anti-terrorism programs that intelligence officials deemed "potentially problematic" intrusions on civil liberties, according to a draft of the report obtained by The Washington Post.

the draft report was issued under unanimous consent of all the board members...

The changes came after the congressionally created Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board had unanimously approved the final draft of its first report to lawmakers, renewing an internal debate over the board's independence and investigative power.

and of course we have the usual administration b.s...

White House spokeswoman Dana Perino called the editing "standard operating procedure," saying it was appropriate because the board remains legally under the supervision of the Executive Office of the President.

appearances are everything... for the privacy board to truly BE independent, it has to APPEAR independent, and what's described here APPEARS entirely the opposite... but dana perino is 100% correct... for the bush administration, it IS "standard operating procedure" to say one thing and do another... and at least one board member has the courage of his convictions...

[One of the panel's five members, Democrat Lanny J. Davis'] resignation letter cited "the extensive redlining of the board's report to Congress by administration officials and the majority of the board's willingness to accept most" of the changes.

that last statement, "the board's willingness to accept most" of the changes, strikes me as peculiar... if they're willing to accept most of the changes, does that mean that they don't see themselves as independent, that they see the white house as a more accurate source of information than those available to the board, or that the changes themselves were insignificant...? all of the above...? regardless, as a member of a so-called "independent" board, i would be extremely annoyed to have 200 changes made to the final draft of a report that was passed unanimously no matter WHAT the nature of the changes were...

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Oopsies, Gonzo...! You can bet there's gonna be a phone call from George right quick...!

well, this oughta be interesting...

gonzo said...

Weeks after the White House ruled out the involvement of President George W. Bush in any discussions on the firing of 8 US Attorneys, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales said on Thursday morning that the President had discussed the matter with advisers in an October 2006 meeting.

"I've now been made aware of the fact that there was a conversation with the President that basically mentioned the same thing in October of 2006," the Attorney General said while answering a question from Rep. Bobby Scott (D-VA).

[...]

"Did the White House ask you to seek the removal of any US Attorney?" the Virginia Democrat asked.

"I have recollection of Mr. Rove raising concerns about prosecutors and voter fraud cases in three districts," Gonzales answered.

but dana said...

"I have said on the record for several weeks now that there is no indication that the President knew about any of the ongoing discussions over the two years, nor did he see a list or a plan before it was carried out," said White House Deputy Press Secretary Dana Perino on March 27, 2006.

but tony said...

A reporter ... clarified, "Just to follow, did you say, again for the record, that the President has no recollection of ever being asked about any of this?"

Snow answered, "Yes, the removal – yes, that is correct."

but dan said...

"[T]he President said, I've been hearing about this election fraud matters from members of Congress, want to make sure you're on top of that, as well," Bartlett told reporters.

But he insisted that the firing of US Attorneys was not discussed.

"There was no directive given, as far as telling him to fire anybody or anything like that. That would be under the prerogative of the Justice Department to take a look at those issues, as they obviously were doing," he said.

time to go get more popcorn...

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Subpoena the attendance lists for the political briefings

and let's see who was REALLY there and if it was REALLY only political appointees... and, while we're at it, let's see if attendance was voluntary or mandatory...

White House spokesman Scott Stanzel said briefings were held at other federal agencies besides the GSA, for a total of about 20 - most in 2006 and a couple in 2007. They were conducted by White House political director Sara Taylor or Jennings, her deputy. It had been known that other briefings had been held, but not how many. Others were held in previous years as well, but Stanzel said the White House hasn't kept a count of how many.

Bush spokeswoman Dana Perino said no laws were broken and that the White House counsel's office signed off on the effort. "It's not unlawful and it wasn't unusual for informational briefings to be given," Perino said. "There is no prohibition under the Hatch Act of allowing political appointees to talk to other political appointees about the political landscape in which they are trying to advance the president's agenda."

She added: "These briefings were not inappropriate, they were not unlawful, they were not unethical."

oh, dana, you can say whatever you want (or were instructed to say)... pointing out that the white house counsel signed off, given what's come out in recent weeks, might be persuasive if the white house counsel had any credibility whatsoever... but, dana, nobody believes a goddam thing at this point... skip the carefully crafted responses, skip the reassurances, skip the protestations of innocence and appropriateness... the only things that matter now are concrete, provable FACTS, nothing more and nothing less...

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George is not only in denial about Iraq

every facet of george's life is a testimonial to denial, and, as with the alcoholic parent, the rest of the family are the ones doing the suffering...

With a veto fight looming, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (news, bio, voting record) said Monday that President Bush is in a state of denial over Iraq, "and the new Congress will show him the way" to a change in war policy.

meanwhile, the co-dependents line up to support the principal cause of our problems... chief among them, spokeswoman dana perino...

"I fear that they are talking themselves into believing that we are not facing a determined enemy — a sworn enemy of the United States, and they do this at our peril."

"It's important that everyone understand that this is an enemy determined to kill innocent Americans, innocent Iraqis to destabilize the region," she said. "Short of understanding the seriousness of that, the consequences could be dire."

i am so unutterably tired of listening to this empty appeal to our fears as justification for an illegal war, undertaken under false pretenses, that was solely for the purpose of securing vast oil resources and making the u.s. the dominant power in the middle east... it's such a patent load of garbage but they never stop dishing it out...

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Cooking your own goose for dummies - by Alberto Gonzales

the reviews are in on yesterday's one-man show...

first, in the major media-speak of the wapo...

Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales came under withering attack from members of his own party yesterday over the dismissals of eight U.S. attorneys, facing the first resignation demand from a Republican member of the Senate Judiciary Committee and doubts from others about his candor and his ability to lead the Justice Department.

[...]

The numerous uncertainties irritated many of the Republican committee members, who criticized Gonzales for bungling the dismissals and their aftermath, and questioned his apparent disconnection from the process.

then, a sample of the less formal (and pretentious) style of a major weblog...

Kyle Sampson, Gonzo's Chief of Staff, is a gentleman who well deserves his name given the apparently superhuman feat he's performed of running the Department of Justice for years in exactly the direction his boss did not want it to go. That being said, Gonzales stands by every decision he never made, even the ones he remembers not making.

[...]

Gonzales' Justice Department is run on the basis of consensus and group responsibility precisely because that minimizes personal risk, and that minimizing personal risk is the top goal of many new people at the Justice Department, whose inexperience in the processes of government is "surpassed only by their evident disdain for it." The buck doesn't stop anywhere.

but, further confirming his reputation as an out-of-touch, totally isolated president, george was "pleased..."

White House spokeswoman Dana Perino said yesterday that Bush "was pleased with the attorney general's testimony" and that Gonzales "has the full confidence of the president."

"He again showed that nothing improper occurred," Perino said. "He admitted the matter could have been handled much better, and he apologized for the disruption to the lives of the U.S. attorneys involved, as well as for the lack of clarity in his initial responses."

at the end of yesterday's sad little melodrama, i was left with the same lingering question as david swanson...

How to hold the executive branch to account? The current dilemma seems like a real mystery, something our Constitution just does not provide a solution for. Even if we could get rid of Gonzales, who would replace him? Who, appointed by George Bush and Dick Cheney, would obey and enforce the law? The answer is simple enough: Nobody.

but, the final pronouncement comes from the wapo's dana milbank...

Alberto Gonzales's tenure as attorney general was pronounced dead at 3:02 p.m. yesterday by Tom Coburn, M.D.

[...]

Gonzales had weeks to prepare for yesterday's hearing. But the man who sat at the witness table sounded like the sort of person who forgets where he parked his car.

[...]

Take Gonzales's tally along with that of his former chief of staff, who uttered the phrase "I don't remember" 122 times before the same committee three weeks ago, and the Justice Department might want to consider handing out Ginkgo biloba in the employee cafeteria.

[...]

For much of the very long day, the attorney general responded like a child caught in a lie. He shifted his feet under the table, balled his hands into fists and occasionally pointed at his questioners.

yes, it was truly a pathetic display... i have to ask myself, if a more serious line of questioning had been pursued during gonzo's confirmation hearing, would he be attorney general today...? i think not...

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Restoring public confidence in the White House - HAHAHAHAHA...!

a "good idea" to cooperate with the senate judiciary committee...? uhhhh, no shit, sherlock...

The White House said Saturday it is agreeing to the Senate Judiciary Committee's request for how to choose someone to help recover some lost e-mails involving official presidential business.

[...]

White House spokeswoman Dana Perino said Saturday that Fielding called Leahy and Specter to say that allowing the committee input into picking an independent consultant is a good idea.

kind of like gravity... it's not only a good idea, it's THE LAW...! they're skating as fast as they can to avoid criminal charges, there's no doubt about it...

On Thursday, Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., and the committee's top Republican, Sen. Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania, wrote White House counsel Fred Fielding to request that "we jointly agree on a fair and objective process for investigating this matter, including the use of a mutually trusted computer forensic expert."

"Such a process would help to restore the public's confidence in the White House's desire to comply with the Presidential Records Act," the senators said.

restoring "the public's confidence" in ANYTHING the white house has done, is doing or will do is a lost cause... moreover, anyone who still has any confidence in THIS white house is clearly not hitting on all cylinders... the very best the white house can do now, and i'm not sure even that is possible, is to figure out a way to make it to the finish line on 20 january 2009...

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A general observation: things are rapidly going south for Bushco on many fronts

i can't possibly snip, excerpt, and comment on all that's going on, so, here's some links...

from
think progress...

RNC has no Rove emails pre-2005

White House Stonewalls Waxman’s Inquiry Into Cheney-Linked MZM Contracts

Perino ‘Defends’ Email Statements: I Didn’t Lie, I Just Had No Idea What I Was Talking About

Major document dump expected today

White House lost 5 million emails

White House withholds the evidence


from
TPMmuckraker...

Immunity for Key Justice Aide?

(i'm going to excerpt a tad from this one...)

Will Congress grant Monica Goodling immunity from prosecution in order to compel her to testify about the Bush Administration's firing late last year of eight U.S. Attorneys?

Sources tell TIME that discussions are under way on Capitol Hill about whether to offer just such a deal to the key former aide to Attorney General Alberto Gonzales. The discussions — still largely informal — follow Goodling's assertion of her Fifth Amendment privilege to refuse to testify about her role in the controversial firings. Were Goodling to receive some form of immunity, she could be legally compelled to testify or risk facing charges of contempt of Congress.

Karl Rove, Blackberry Junky

Rove Emails Missing from RNC Server


hey, there's lots more... go keep up with things... it's all breaking fast...

AMERICAblog

Raw Story

TalkLeft

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They must think they're talking to morons

utterly astonishing...

White House Deputy Press Secretary Dana Perino defended President Bush's escalation or "surge" strategy as a response to polls indicating that a majority of Americans were disapproving of the Administration's handling of the war in Iraq and sought a new direction.

"The American people have wanted change in Iraq, and they got it," Perino said. "The president announced a new policy on January 10th that was quite different and divergent from where we were before."

oh, gosh, dana... my grandma used to tell me that when i got sores on my tongue, it was because i had told a lie... if that's true, your tongue is going to swell up and hurt like hell...

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Why they're REALLY stalling

they are truly between the proverbial rock and a very, very hard place...

The White House has delayed until next week a decision on whether to release additional documents and to permit top aides to President Bush, including Karl Rove, the chief political adviser, to testify in a Congressional inquiry into the dismissal of federal prosecutors.

Fred F. Fielding, the chief White House counsel, spent Friday evaluating the request and conferred with President Bush about it before Mr. Bush left for Camp David, a White House official said.

Mr. Fielding had initially told Democrats on the House Judiciary Committee that he hoped to have an answer by Friday, but he now expects to report back to the panel after the weekend.

“Given the importance of the issues under consideration, and the presidential principles involved, we need more time to resolve them,” Dana Perino, the deputy White House press secretary, said Friday.

hey... i'd be stalling as well... here's the big picture...

Bush WITH Gonzales

Bush WITHOUT Gonzales

when gonzales gets dumped - and he will - fully one-third of bush's front line disappears... i stick with my prediction of yesterday... the floodgates will open and the crap that will come flooding out will be staggering...

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Is Alberto swirling around the drain?

could be...

The White House suggested two years ago that the Justice Department fire all 93 U.S. attorneys, a proposal that eventually resulted in the dismissals of eight prosecutors last year, according to e-mails and internal documents that the administration will provide to Congress today.

when your chief of staff makes a hasty exit, things aren't looking good...

The aide in charge of the dismissals -- [Alberto Gonzales'] chief of staff, D. Kyle Sampson -- resigned yesterday, officials said, after acknowledging that he did not tell key Justice officials about the extent of his communications with the White House, leading them to provide incomplete information to Congress.

josh marshall has this to say about sampson's resignation...

Believe me, his boss won't long outlast him.

and, of course, bush doesn't want anybody to think HIS hands are dirty...

White House spokeswoman Dana Perino said that "it doesn't appear the president was told about a list nor shown a list" of U.S. attorneys at any point in the discussions.

ya gotta keep up that front of "plausible deniability..."

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