The White House
Posted at 12:58pm on Jul. 28, 2007 Bush and History
By Joe Cor
A number of people are saying that the President will be vindicated by “history.” Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, and the President’s own advisors are making this claim. Notably, they site the example of Harry Truman as a president unpopular in his own time who has been vindicated by history. President Truman, wherever he is now, might be amused to see a Republican using the 33rd president to bolster his image. Truman was a very partisan Democrat, and had little or no love in his heart for Republicans.
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Posted at 12:22am on Jul. 28, 2007 Alberto Gonzales: American Hero
By interesterlitigant
On Friday July 27, 2007 a posting hit the top of the Daily Kossack web site. This posting explains better than most how liberals think and how that thought process is absolutely deceptive, and how the use of it leads to self deception: the person is convinced is reality. (And no, liberals: the Administration did not order this article to be written, I am not a conservative blogger, and anyway, they have not responded to me for ...oh, a while. But I'll wait.)
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Posted at 12:40am on Jul. 26, 2007 <Euphemism>It's Time To Take Fredo Out Fishing</Euphemism>
By Pejman Yousefzadeh
No, Alberto Gonzales should not be offed. Let me repeat that: No one should kill, wound, or even try to temporarily inconvenience the life functions of the current Attorney General of the United States. But the man President Bush calls "Fredo"--was a Presidential nickname ever more apt?--should at long last be invited to spend more time with his family. Much more time. He should be a Soccer Dad, a Harry Potter Dad, a Couch Potato, Sleeping Late In The Morning The Better To Avoid Any Senate Judiciary Committee Hearings He Might Accidentally Stumble Into Dad, a Dad who doesn't leave the Gonzales family compound for any reason whatsoever without legions upon legions of intelligent adults accompanying him in a supervisory capacity.
Especially if he suddenly gets a hankering to serve his country once again. In which case, the legions upon legions of intelligent adults accompanying him in a supervisory capacity should move Heaven and Earth to convince Alberto Gonzales that "his country" is Kazakhstan. Or Portugal. Or Libya. Or Greece. Or [INSERT NAME OF ANY COUNTRY BUT THAT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA . . . OH, AND LEAVE OUT THE UNITED KINGDOM; WHAT WITH THE FLOODS, THEY HAVE THEIR OWN PROBLEMS. BESIDES, THEY STILL HAVE TO PUT UP WITH GEORGE GALLOWAY AND GOSH, CAN HE BE A PAIN . . .].
Sorry. Digressing. Anyway, convincing Alberto Gonzales that "his country" is Kazakhstan, or Portugal, or Libya, or Greece, or [INSERT NAME OF ANY COUNTRY BUT THAT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA . . . OH, AND LEAVE OUT THE UNITED KINGDOM; WHAT WITH THE FLOODS, THEY HAVE THEIR OWN PROBLEMS. BESIDES, THEY STILL HAVE TO PUT UP WITH GEORGE GALLOWAY AND GOSH, CAN HE BE A PAIN . . .] should only take about five minutes. Ten minutes tops.
Do you think I am even remotely done with the snark? Oh, mes amis, think again! More below . . .
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Posted at 1:54am on Jul. 24, 2007 If It's Monday . . .
By Pejman Yousefzadeh
It's time for another "George W. Bush is acting like a monarch instead of acting like a President" column.
The latest effort--or at least one of them--comes from Adam Cohen, who is determined to take policy differences and transform them into evidence of the incipient tyranny that threatens us all. Sometimes, I think that as dismal as the Bush Administration's approval ratings are, the Administration feels that it can get by so long as its political opponents overreach. Adam Cohen helps foster this thought and perhaps even gives comfort to the very Administration he seeks to vex.
It is most fascinating to watch and read. Most fascinating indeed. In any event, let's consider Cohen's column and its highlights.
There is a whole lot more under the fold. Read on . . .
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Posted at 6:00pm on Jul. 20, 2007 If a Hostage is Taken in Iran and No One Hears About It…
Shouldn’t the White House be Making a Sound?
By Mark I
For the second night in a row, Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadi-Nejad has paraded his latest trophy hostages on Iranian state television. Iran is holding two Americans of Iranian descent that were in Iran to promote dialogue between the west and the Iranian people. They have been accused by the regime of fomenting strife in Iran and of laying the groundwork for undermining the government of the Islamic Republic.
As in the previous night's broadcast, the program mixed footage of street demonstrations and revolutions in Eastern Europe with shots of U.S. government officials and statements by the two U.S. citizens being held, giving viewers the impression that all were connected.
Haleh Esfandiari and Kian Tajbakhsh were again seen separately on the program, each speaking to an unidentified interviewer. Neither looked physically unwell or seemed distressed.
Toward the end of the 36-minute program, Esfandiari, who runs the Middle East program at the Washington-based Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, said she had been part of group whose aim was to bring “major change” to Iran.
Tajbakhsh is an urban planner with George Soros’s Open Society Institute.
The White House has demanded the scholars’ immediate release; however, neither that demand, nor the occasion of the hostage taking itself has generated much buzz in the mainstream press. Therefore, it is incumbent on the White House to do more.
Read on…
Hat Tip: Michael Rubin at the Corner on NRO
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Posted at 4:18pm on Jul. 20, 2007 Coming Tomorrow (Saturday): President Cheney (sort of)
(as the President goes under the knife)
By Mark Kilmer
When President Bush has his 2 ½ hour "routine colonoscopy" on Saturday, he will transfer power to the Veep. Yes, for a brief time tomorrow, Dick Cheney will be acting as President.
The President will sign letters invoking the 25th Amendment, which will be faxed to Nancy and Bobby Byrd (senate pro tem), and to Dick Cheney. When it is all done, the President will tell Nancy and Byrd that he is taking his job back. They cannot object, and they would be foolish to do so. ("President Cheney." Yeah, they'd go for that.)
Although the position and title stay with the man who was elected, this is as close as we'll get to a "President Dick Cheney" In our lifetimes, though I am holding out hope that they will freeze his brain, just like they did with Teddy Baseball, so they can thaw him out at some point in our future when the left gains too much power and enacts their scheme of total subservience to the U.N., the Third World, and to whatever climate control bodies are still around.
Read More...
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Posted at 8:55am on Jul. 20, 2007 The US Attorney Kerfuffle Becomes Fun
By streiff
"Like Dead Sea fruits, that tempt the eye, / But turn to ashes on the lips!”
St. Thomas More, martyr
Only a couple of short weeks ago congressional Dems were crowing about "criminal contempt" citations directed at the White House. (Presumably this refers to actual people and not a piece of federal property but when you're dealing with this bunch it isn't good to take much for granted.)
The chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee said yesterday that he will attempt to cite the White House for criminal contempt of Congress if it does not turn over documents related to the firing of nine federal prosecutors.
"If they don't cooperate, yes, I'd go that far," Sen. Patrick J. Leahy (D-Vt.) said on NBC's "Meet the Press." "This is very important to the American people."
[...]
The next step is for the congressional committee chairman to rule on the validity of the privilege claims. If the claims are deemed invalid, the committee can repeat the directive to comply. If the president continues to refuse, the committee can find the president in criminal contempt, and the issue would go to the full Senate or House. If a majority in either chamber approves the criminal citation, the matter is referred to a U.S. attorney with a recommendation to issue an indictment.
Today they have ashes.
Read on.
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Posted at 11:40pm on Jul. 3, 2007 Mr. President, Pardon These Men
By Nathan Nelson
Promoted by Jeff
I don't really have a problem with the commutation of Scooter Libby's sentence, nor am I jumping for joy over it. I find it laughable that those who talk so much about the constitutional separation of powers, checks and balances, etc., are now so up in arms over the President's use of his constitutional "Power to Grant Reprieves and Pardons for Offenses against the United States" - thus checking the power of the judiciary. I also find it laughable that those who have done everything they can to undermine the judiciary by obstructing the appointment of federal judges are now holding this particular judge's decision sacrosanct. Finally, I find it laughable that those who stayed silent while Bill Clinton issued his dubious pardons are now speaking up so loudly against this use of the pardon by President Bush. What I do not find funny is that the mainstream media, as usual, are failing to point out this leftist hypocrisy.
But what I really don't find funny is that, while Scooter Libby - who may or may not have committed a crime - walks free, two of our finest U.S. Border Patrol agents are wasting away in prison, and their lives are in danger, all for doing their jobs.
Read on...
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Posted at 11:22am on Jun. 28, 2007 Reason No. 847 that Mitt Romney will not get my vote
By Heath Chilsolm
This guy actually wants to be President of the United States?
This is an excerpt from the five part series on Romney in this week's Boston Globe and before I hear any carping on how liberal the Main Stream Media is, this series has been generally pretty good to him. This paper was a heckuva lot harder on Kerry when he ran, that's for sure.
"Before beginning the drive, Mitt Romney put Seamus, the family's hulking Irish setter, in a dog carrier and attached it to the station wagon's roof rack. He'd built a windshield for the carrier, to make the ride more comfortable for the dog.
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Posted at 10:58pm on Jun. 27, 2007 MSM Goes After Last Competent Person In The Administration
By Erick
It is increasingly apparent that the last remaining competent person in the Bush Administration is one Richard B. Cheney, Vice President of the United States. While the President seems willing to ignore border enforcement, cave on withdrawal timetables (at least that's the rumor), and ignore attacks while getting bloodied, Cheney does not compromise his conservative principles and he does not yield in the face of attacks.
As a result, the Washington Post has begun a multipart series of attacks on Vice President Cheney. Today's drivel from Jo Becker and Barton Gellman goes to great pains to paint Cheney as a Sith Lord. Witness this bit:
Read on (it gets really funny, unless you care for reporters, then it's just pathetic) . . .
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Posted at 4:21pm on Jun. 21, 2007 White House Blames Big Government on Congressional Republicans
By Jonathan Rick
Neither George Bush nor Karl Rove have been shy about the fact that compassionate conservatism is at odds with limited-government conservatism. As David Keene recently told CBS News, "I've been to no end of meetings where [the president's] chief advisers have said, 'Watch not how much we spend but how we spend it.'"
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Posted at 2:01pm on Jun. 20, 2007 Portman: the vetoes will happen
The President will veto 9 of 12 appropriations bills.
By Mark Kilmer
The vetoes will happen. Rob Portman verifies Bob Novak's story.
On Monday, we discussed the President's pledge to veto nine of twelve Democrat-passed appropriations bills, and how part of what drove him was that his budget director, former Congressman Rob Portman of Ohio, told him that the GOP lost in '06 because of they'd lost the fiscal sanity issue.
On Tuesday, we learned that Rob Portman was leaving OMB. I noted: "I've seen no word that this has anything to do with the veto threat."
Will the vetoes go forward? According to Portman: YEP.
After announcing his resignation, Portman stuck around to speak to a few reporters, and CongressDaily's Keith Koffler reports what was said.
Read More…
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Posted at 2:12pm on Jun. 19, 2007 Portman out at OMB
By Mark Kilmer
Yesterday, I reported that President Bush planned to veto nine of twelve appropriations bills sent to his desk by Nancy and the Nimrods. One of the key movers behind this, Bob Novak had written, was OMB director Bob Portman, who said that the Democratic Party's Congressional victories last November came in large part because Republicans had shed the mantle of fiscal sanity. The GOP will need to restore that, then.
Word is now in that Portman has quit the Office of Management and Budget to try to become the next governor of Ohio (in 2010) or U.S. Senator from Ohio (2012). It comes from the former rep. himself:
Read More...
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Posted at 1:11pm on Jun. 18, 2007 The President will veto 9 of 12 spending bills
Get Ready for this summer's main event.
By Mark Kilmer
In his column this morning, Bob Novak declares that President Bush "plans to veto the homeland security appropriations bill nearing final passage, followed by vetoes of eight more money bills sent him by the Democratic-controlled Congress." Novak calls this "a veto onslaught of historic proportions from a president who did not reject a single bill during his first term."
Indeed, the President will sign only three of the bills in the form in which Nancy and the Dems sent them to his desk. He will veto the homeland security spending bill, the energy-water and interior-environment bills; the labor, health and human services, and education; transportation and housing and urban development; commerce, justice and science; agriculture and rural development; state and foreign operations; and defense spending bills.
He will sign the military construction and veterans' affair spending bill, Novak reports, as well as " those of the legislative branch, where Congress traditionally sets its own funding, and financial services and general government, where the House bill falls short of the administration's request. (According to Novak's Congressional sources, the President will sign the military and VA bill, despite its higher spending increase, in part because Congressman Jeb Hensarling warned him that his veto would be overridden. More on Congressman Hensarling, a star in this scenario, in a bit.)
Why is President Bush doing this? Such a veto spree is way out of character for President Bush, who has never seemed to mind spending money confiscated from taxpayers. Novak says it is the Congressional GOP which wants to retake the mantle of "fiscal responsibility," and they've put the President up to this.
Read On…
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