Not a good day

i keep looking for things that grab me to post and all i'm seeing is more bad news... sara taylor, harriet miers, iraq, lieberman, bush's sorry performance at the opening of the new white house press briefing room, the doj bogus defense of gonzales' latest lies - all of it just makes me want to crawl in a hole and not come out until it's all over...

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Sara Taylor's testimony

TPMmuckraker is staying abreast of sara taylor's appearance today before the senate judiciary committee... this about sums up how it's going...

[T]aylor has actually answered a number of questions that would seem to be covered by privilege, but not others. Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) later remarked that Taylor's willingness to answer certain questions had "weakened" the White House's claim of privilege.

sounds to me like she's been coached...

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Of COURSE he will...! Denying and defying IS the strategy...!

once again, context-free journalism rises to an art-form under the expert hands of the wapo...

White House Will Deny New Request In Attorneys Probe
Bush to Defy Congress, Sources Say

The White House has decided to defy Congress's latest demand for information regarding the dismissal of nine U.S. attorneys, sources familiar with the decision said yesterday. Such an action would escalate the constitutional struggle and propel it closer to a court showdown.

Senate and House committees have directed President Bush to provide by tomorrow a detailed justification of his executive privilege claims and a full accounting of the documents he is withholding. But White House counsel Fred F. Fielding plans to tell lawmakers that he has already provided the legal basis for the claims and will not provide a log of the documents, the sources said.

The standoff suggests that neither side is prepared to budge in the fight over documents and testimony in the widening U.S. attorney investigation. Officials in both camps said no serious negotiations are taking place to resolve the dispute. Fielding plans to follow up his letter by further asserting executive privilege later this week, the sources said, directing former White House aides Harriet E. Miers and Sara M. Taylor not to testify in response to congressional subpoenas.

i wish to hell everybody would stop pretending the white house is doing anything other than what they said they would do... back in october, even before the november elections (as i've pointed out again and again and again), the white house told us what they were going to do (*see below), and they're doing it, just exactly like they told us they would... they also said that we would remain in iraq forever, and we're doing that too... let's stop dicking around with these stupid games, putting out headlines and sub-heads like it's some goddam surprise, breathlessly announcing "White House to Deny," "Bush to Defy..." how about something like this instead...?

Bush sticks to October Plan

or

White House No-Compromise Strategy Rolls On

why pretend that there's anything the white house or president bush would even CONSIDER doing besides denying and defying...? stick it in our faces - which is exactly where it belongs - that this administration's bottom-line strategy for avoiding oversight and accountability IS denying and defying, and that we've had six and one-half friggin' years of it...

* from time magazine, october 2006...

"In fact, when it comes to deploying its Executive power, which is dear to Bush's understanding of the presidency, the President's team has been planning for what one strategist describes as 'a cataclysmic fight to the death' over the balance between Congress and the White House if confronted with congressional subpoenas it deems inappropriate. The strategist says the Bush team is 'going to assert that power, and they're going to fight it all the way to the Supreme Court on every issue, every time, no compromise, no discussion, no negotiation.'"

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Let the constitutional crisis/battle over executive privilege games begin

we knew THESE were coming...

re the subpoenas of harriet miers and sara taylor from fred fielding to conyers and leahy...


[...]


re the subpoenas of white house documents related to the firing of the u.s. attorneys from paul clement to george bush...


[...]


ok, congress, the ball is now in your court...

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Political appointees, the Constitution, the rule of law, and the common good

the la times, no doubt reflecting its further-to-the-right ownership (see tribune.com), offers this in today's op-ed section on the alberto gonzales/justice department scandal...

Attempting to resuscitate a rapidly expiring "scandal," congressional Democrats have issued subpoenas to former White House Counsel Harriet E. Miers and former White House political affairs director Sara M. Taylor, demanding their testimony regarding the administration's 2006 decision to replace eight U.S. attorneys. [...] The president, however, should stand firm and refuse to permit his subordinates' compliance. He can, and should, claim executive privilege.

From the start, this affair has lacked legal substance. There is no evidence that firing these U.S. attorneys was unlawful or inappropriate. Chosen for political reasons, they can legally and morally be fired for political reasons: insufficient loyalty, a perceived failure to pursue administration priorities or that someone with better political contacts has come along. Politics is not always a pretty business, and anyone seeking job security should not take a political appointment.

Moreover, there is a core constitutional principle at stake here. Political appointees like U.S. attorneys exercise the president's authority, and they serve at his pleasure.

[...]

The Democratic leadership understands very well that the president was entitled to fire these individuals for political reasons. It knows how little job protection political appointees have; the very same rules apply to congressional staff. The newly emboldened Congress is on a grand fishing expedition, hoping to uncover something to weaken and discredit the administration and the presidency itself.

Because there is no legitimate congressional concern here to weigh against the president's clear interest in keeping White House political personnel deliberations confidential, a claim of executive privilege should be upheld by the judiciary. The president's answer to both House and Senate subpoenas should be "See you in court."

By David B. Rivkin Jr. and Lee A. Casey, [both of who] served in the Justice Department under presidents Reagan and George H.W. Bush.

while i do whole-heartedly agree with the "see you in court" suggestion, i must point out that there are two truly astounding assumption that pervade this op-ed by messrs. casey and rivkin... the first is that appointing justice department officials to serve purely POLITICAL purposes is O.K. and that giving them the ax for NOT serving purely political purposes is equally O.K... the second, equally troubling assumption, is that these appointees serve entirely at the PLEASURE OF THE PRESIDENT... there is absolutely no mention anywhere of honoring the fundamentals of the constitution, observing the rule of law, or serving the common good... none... (and may i point out that the "constitutional principle" of serving at the president's "pleasure" does NOT include negating the OTHER constitutional principles...)

i seriously don't know how any discussion of the ins and outs of presidential appointments could, in all conscience, NOT mention the constitution, the rule of law, or the common good... of COURSE political appointees are expected to follow the policy guidelines set down by the president, guidelines that are, presumably, crafted to serve the common good, observe the rule of law, AND uphold the constitution, but they are also required to do so within the very clear guidelines set forth in that document and the body of law that supports it... when the president's agenda is crafted solely for the aim of accruing more power and money for the political party and financial backers that the president represents, often in contravention of the constitution those political appointees were sworn to uphold and in violation of the rule of law, serving AT THE PLEASURE OF THE PRESIDENT is no longer a valid mandate...

what has taken place in the bush administration is a complete and total perversion of the political appointment process, an abandonment of the principle of serving the common good, and a willful negation of the constitution... THAT'S the "scandal," messrs. casey and rivkin... when you find it in your hearts to point out that our president and everyone in the executive branch must be devoted to upholding the constitution, acting in accordance with the rule of law, and serving the common good, i will be willing to listen... not before...

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Let the constitutional crisis begin

there's another one of these (PDF) with sara taylor's name on it...



from think progress...

These are the first subpoenas delivered to the White House regarding the attorney firings. The House Judiciary Committee issued the subpoena to Miers, and the Senate Judiciary Committee issued the subpoena to Taylor.

[...]

CNN’s legal analyst Jeffrey Toobin reports, “The White House has made clear it will cite executive privilege for conversations that took place within the White House on the U.S. attorney matter, and if the people with those conversations happen to have subsequently left the White House, that doesn’t matter. They’re still going to cite executive privilege, and these people are not going to be allowed to testify anytime soon, it appears, if the White House remains as it has been. … Even if they want to testify.”

fine... let's get the goddam show on the road... and this better not end up like condi's subpoena that's been floating around out there, unenforced, since april 25...

On a party-line vote of 21-10, the House of Representatives' Oversight and Government Reform Committee approved a subpoena for Rice, which was quickly issued.

and it, too, was accompanied by the same raft of executive privilege horseshit...

[T]he administration said it might fight the subpoena, citing a legal doctrine that can shield a president and his aides from having to answer questions from Congress.

"Those matters are covered by executive privilege," said State Department spokesman Sean McCormack, moving toward a possible legal showdown with the Democratic-led Congress.

no more screwing around, congress, and that means BOTH of you, patrick leahy and henry waxman... the time for niceties is long gone... we're in a constitutional war and the sooner we face that fact, the quicker we can get on with reclaiming our country...

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The NYT: "It's subpoena time" - but only if they're enforced

as i posted the other day, i don't want to see any more wishy-washy behavior on this from congress... there's still a subpoena floating around out there with condi's name on it that she is completely ignoring... if subpoenas are going to be issued, it's time to put teeth in it, and, if that provokes the long-awaited constitutional crisis, by all means, let's get on with it...

For months, senators have listened to a parade of well-coached Justice Department witnesses claiming to know nothing about how nine prosecutors were chosen for firing. This week, it was the turn of Bradley Schlozman, a former federal attorney in Missouri, to be uninformative and not credible. It is time for Senator Patrick Leahy, the chairman of the Judiciary Committee, to deliver subpoenas that have been approved for Karl Rove, former White House counsel Harriet Miers and their top aides, and to make them testify in public and under oath.

[...]

If Congress is going to get to the bottom of the scandal, it has to get the testimony of Mr. Rove, his aides Scott Jennings and Sara Taylor, Ms. Miers and her deputy, William Kelley.

[...]

This noncooperation has gone on long enough. Mr. Leahy should deliver the subpoenas for the five White House officials and make clear that if the administration resists, Congress will use all available means to get the information it needs.

hey, i'm all for it... but congress had better reach down deep inside and find the guts to go through with it to the end and call this lawless administration into account... and, as for no oath and no transcript, not only no, but HELL NO...!

The White House has offered to make them available only if they do not take an oath and there is no transcript. Those conditions are a formula for condoning perjury, and they are unacceptable.

TOTALLY unacceptable...

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Subpoena Sara Taylor - NOW!

from think progress...

[Sara] Taylor is reportedly intimately involved in the U.S. Attorney scandal. According to Kyle Sampson, Taylor was directly promoting efforts to appoint attorneys without Senate confirmation. The House and Senate Judiciary Committees have approved subpoenas for her testimony.

slap one on her fast and get her in front of the committee while she's still on her six weeks vacation...

Sara M. Taylor, the White House political director and microtargeting guru who has been with George W. Bush from the outset of his first presidential campaign, is the latest staff member to leave the president's employ.

[...]

She says she plans to take off six weeks before going to her new job.

and tell her to bring her flabby-assed former boss, karl, with her...

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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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Subpoena possible for Satan's #2, Sara Taylor

keep plugging away, guys...

The Senate Judiciary Committee announced yesterday that it will likely authorize subpoenas for Karl Rove's top deputy in the White House. The message came as the committee authorized subpoenas for other Justice Department and White House officials, and suggests that interest has grown among investigators in Taylor's role in the firing of 8 U.S. Attorneys by the Bush administration.

can you imagine what it must be like to work for satan's doppelganger, what kind of xylocaine you must have to inject in your values, principles, ethics, and moral scruples before you come to work of a morning...?

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More on WH departures

interesting-er and interesting-er...

Several impending departures from the White House could further complicate life for the hard-pressed Bush administration.

Peter Wehner, the head of strategic initiatives, and political director Sara Taylor are expected to be heading for the White House exits soon, according to a person familiar with the situation. Barry Jackson, a longtime aide to Karl Rove, also is thought to be leaving soon. A White House spokesman confirmed Wehner’s imminent departure, but declined to comment on the others.

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Stove's gettin' REALLY hot, Karl, look out!

i'm eagerly waiting for the day when your fat ass will be sizzling on the griddle...

Multiple sources reported today that a top aide to President George W. Bush's key adviser Karl Rove will soon step down from her job in the White House. The aide, Sara M. Taylor, was identified in yesterday's hearing with a former top Justice Department official as seeking the resignation of a US Attorney in Arkansas.

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