Discourse.net: Fred Fielding Tries to Save His Reputation?

Michael Froomkin writes:

Discourse.net: Fred Fielding Tries to Save His Reputation?: Heard an interesting snippet on NPR yesterday, and I found the transcript at NPR : Documents Show Justice Ranking U.S. Attorneys. Here’s the key quote:

In a letter Thursday, White House Counsel Fred Fielding told Congress he won’t budge from his original offer — to let Congress interview White House staffers privately, with no oath or transcript.Sources tell NPR that Fielding actually wants to negotiate with Congress about how the interviews will take place. But Fielding has not been able to persuade President Bush to go along.

Assuming this is accurate, the most likely back story to this leak is that Fred Fielding is trying to save his reputation. And that means there’s some really bad stuff lurking behind the stonewall. It also fits the public image of Bush as stonewaller-in-chief. (Shorter GW Bush: ‘Congress, read my lips, no Iraq withdrawal. But come on by for a chat and I’ll be happy to harangue you as long as you listen quietly.’)

An alternate explanation for this story is that someone, perhaps Fielding perhaps someone else, is trying to put pressure on Gonzales or the White House to see reason. But I think that’s less likely here. In previous administrations, leaks like this used to be salvos fired in internecine wars among the palace guard. That’s been remarkably not the case in this administration due to a combination of exemplary message discipline and know-nothing disinterest in both reportage and reality. Then again, Fielding earned his chops in two of those earlier administrations…

Dana Milbank on Alberto Gonzales

Dana Milbank on Alberto Gonzales:

Dana Milbank - The Grand Elusion - washingtonpost.com: Attorney General Alberto Gonzales faced the cameras for all of nine minutes yesterday, but he managed to contradict himself at least four times as he fought off calls to resign over the firing of U.S. attorneys. "Mistakes were made," he said in fluent scandalese, but "I think it was the right decision. ""I am responsible for what happens at the Department of Justice," he posited, but "I . . . was not involved in any discussions about what was going on." "Kyle Sampson" -- Gonzales's chief of staff -- "has resigned," he said, but "he is still at the department." And, finally, "I believe in the independence of our U.S. attorneys," Gonzales maintained, but "all political appointees can be removed . . . for any reason."

He had the look of a hunted man in his appearance at the Justice Department. He wiggled his toes inside his shoes and shifted his feet. He spoke too loudly into the microphone. He arrived 18 minutes late, gave well-rehearsed answers and appeared intent on getting out as fast as he could, ignoring reporters' shouts of "Sir! Sir!....

Schumer said he was unsatisfied with Gonzales's sacrifice of his chief of staff. "Kyle Sampson will not become the next Scooter Libby, the next fall guy." Echoing a phrase used in the Libby trial, the senator continued: "The cloud over the Justice Department is getting darker and darker." Before the day was out, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, Sen. Ted Kennedy (Mass.) and other Democrats joined Schumer's call for Gonzales's head. But Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), giving the news conference with Schumer, was not so bloodthirsty. "I'm more reserved, in general, than my colleague over here is," she said of Schumer....

Reporters were happy to help. They besieged a woman carrying a box labeled "Xerox," elbowing one another to grab still-warm bundles of e-mails. It didn't take much searching of them to find evidence of the political nature of the firings and the White House's role. "WH leg, political, and communications have signed off," deputy White House counsel William Kelley wrote to Sampson and then-White House counsel Harriet Miers in December 2006. Other e-mails, from Sampson, had him "waiting for a green light from the White House" and asking Miers and Kelley to circulate the firing plan to Karl Rove's "shop."...

Even. Sen. John Cornyn (R-Tex.), the administration's most faithful legislator, said "the appearances are troubling" for Gonzales. "I'm concerned," Cornyn said with Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) at his side. "This has not been handled well." The best Cornyn could offer Gonzales: "In Texas, we believe in having a fair trial and then we have the hanging."

Gideon Rachman: How to help the huddled masses through immigration

Gideon Rachman: How to help the huddled masses through immigration

Gideon Rachman's Blog: Next week I hope to visit the US. I will put it no more strongly than that. I have learnt not to take my right to visit America for granted – ever since being ignominiously deported in 2003. When I rang my wife from Dulles airport to tell her that I was being put on the first plane home, she briefly feared that I was about to reveal a double life as an international drug-smuggler or pornographer. Nothing so interesting. I had simply forgotten to get myself a journalist’s visa.

The best stories of this sort usually involve the innocent foreigner being shackled or bundled off to the state penitentiary. Not in my case. The officials dealing with me were polite, sympathetic – but implacable. I protested feebly that I was a former Fulbright scholar who had lived in the US for several years. I had written for American journals, I knew important people, Britain was fighting alongside the US in Iraq. None of it cut any ice. As one of the immigration people explained: “We could have made an exception before 9/11, but not now.”

QUOTE OF THE DAY.... From General Tony McPeak

The Washington Monthly: QUOTE OF THE DAY....From General Tony McPeak (ret.): "America has been conducting an experiment for the past six years, trying to validate the proposition that it really doesn't make any difference who you elect president. Now we know the result of that experiment. If a guy is stupid, it makes a big difference."

Brent Budowsky: Why Are We in Iraq?

There Are Now Twenty General Eric Shinsekis and They Are All Being Disrespected BY BRENT BUDOWSKY (posted by SusanUnPC; forwarded from Larry Johnson. Mr. Budowsky is a Contributing Editor to the Fighting Democrats News Service.) The execution of Saddam Hussein, carried out by a government friendly to Iran and dominated by Shiite death squads, with war whooping supporters of the Sadr militia cheering and taunting at the hanging, with the President of Iraq disrespected under Iraqi law while the Prime Minister carried out this execution like a religious vendetta; The execution of Saddam Hussein, on the eve of a major Islamic holiday, under the personal direction of the Iraqi Prime Minister, with years to plan and premeditate the event, after a rushed appellate process that was barely more than a legal sham, was not the conduct of a democratic government seeking a national reconciliation, it was the conduct of a militant and violent faction led a Prime Minister using his "government" to aggressively escalate its sectarian civil war. If anyone deserved to die, it was Saddam, but the way this was done, the length of time given to its planning, only dramatizes exactly what the war policy of President Bush has created, and only dramatizes how disastrous it would be, for American troops and casualties to surge for the cause embodied by a government such as this. "Sadr, Sadr, Sadr" the witnesses war whooped at the hanging personally orchestrated by the Prime Minister of Iraq. President Bush appears poised to escalate for what he calls "victory". What kind of victory, and for whom, would be the triumph of a government that conducts itself like this? When this war was so unwisely initiated, the President disrespected the overwhelming military judgment of our commanders, who advised a far larger force at the beginning of this conflict. Four years later, the President disrespects the overwhelming military judgment of American commanders and the Joint Chiefs of Staff, who advise against a troop surge pushed by a President determined to escalate, regardless of the judgment of commanders he has always (falsely) claimed to follow on military matters. This war from the beginning, was the triumph of an iron willed President who refused to respect military judgment, the submission for far too long of a Congress and Loyal Opposition that lacked the clarity and courage to check and balance this disaster, and the tragedy for our country and troops who pay the price for these misjudgments and derelictions. The worst case is, in real time, the same grave mistakes are made by the same people, for the same reasons, in the same way, with the same results. Days before the election, the President mislead the American people saying Defense Secretary Rumsfeld would remain, running as a wartime partisan, in a wartime election, believing the voters should be deceived about the Secretary in charge of the war. Immediately upon release of Baker-Hamilton, the President who campaigned as eagerly awaiting it, immediately dismissed it, saying he wanted to hear from his generals whose advice he said he always followed. The generals then weighed in against the troop surge, so the President disrespected their advice. The purported rationale for the troop surge then changed daily, as did the original rationale for the war. The Saddam execution was carried out to aggressively wage sectarian war which deliberately escalated the worst result of the policy. Meanwhile Congress returns with reports that the President has definitely decided to push the troop surge but has not decided on the mission. A Senate which in a secret vote would oppose the surge by 80-20, includes many respected Senators who abhor the surge but publicly say they might support it "if the mission is right", despite the fact that most Generals oppose it because they believe there is no mission that would justify it. The American people just voted for Democrats and Republicans who campaigned in favor of deescalation, are now debating conditions of escalation, saying they support commanders, who oppose escalation. At the outset of this war, General Shinseki warned against the consequences of the war plan pushed through, during a rush to war, with one party using war as a political weapon, while the other party supported it because of political fear, and neither party fought with resolve to send our troops to war with the necessary body armor and equipment until the Marine Corps pathologist said up to 70% of our casualties were preventable. General Shinseki was ridiculed,demeaned, and pressured to leave his post early by an Administration that scorns and removes those who were right, and gives Presidential Medals of Freedom to those who were wrong, under the impotent gaze of a Congress that did nothing to stop this, for four deadly years. And it continues today, an instant replay of those who publicly claim to support our commanders, yet keep their options open to support the very escalation that our commanders risk their careers to oppose. The troop surge is a blunder in search of a rationale. The reason so many commanders oppose it, is there is no rationale. And the greatest disingenuous act of all, is for those who privately oppose the surge to consider publicly supporting, using "the commanders" and "the mission" as their excuse, which is engaging in the same disrespect for military judgment that has created this chaos and carnage for four long years of this. What is the acceptable mission for those who might support the surge? To support the Shiite Prime Minister who pursues sectarian war by masterminding executions with war whooping death squad supporters chanting "Sadr, Sadr"? Is the mission to support one group of Shiites in sectarian wars against other Shiites? Is the mission to support the Shiite militia against the Sunni militia? Is the mission for American men and women to become the Baghdad police? What is the acceptable mission, to those who might support the surge against overwhelming military advice from military professionals and commanders? The one rational mission is what the President apparently is not considering, and does not require a troop surge: substantial upgrade of our training of the Iraqi military and police, and providing them with vehicles and equipment that they desperately need, which can be advanced with redeployment rather than a surge. What is happening today, is that there are twenty General Shinsekis who are being replaced by the President who claims he takes their advice, or threatened by the Administration to toe the line on a policy they abhor, or else. What is happening today is that there are twenty General Shinsekis, now being ridiculed in our newspapers and blamed by the President for his failures, or publicly misrepresented as supporting a surge they advise against, and pressured to say what they do not believe. What is happening today is what happened in 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005 and 2006 with commanders offering their best military judgment that is often ignored, by a President who wades deeper into the quagmire of chaos believing his will can change the realities of war, surrounded by enablers who say words of support for commanders while they do things they know the commanders advise against. After the Baker-Hamilton report was released the Joint Chiefs of Staff met with the President and it has been reported they unanimously advised against the surge. Whatever the truth, it must come out now, before any escalation of this war. Congressional Leaders should call on President Bush to publicly release the redacted notes of this meeting to determine the true military judgment of our military leaders. At a minimum the bipartisan Congressional Leaders and the Chairman and Ranking Members of the proper Committees should be briefed in a classified session of the full discussion with the Chiefs, including full discussion of contemporaneous notes of that meeting. There should be comprehensive hearings with all of the recent and current commanders and Joint Chiefs of Staff where they honorably and precisely state in public their military judgment, advice and recommendations. Distinguished and genuinely good men and leaders such as Senator Warner, Senator Hagel, and Senator Lugar should do what Senator Barry Goldwater did with President Nixon. Go the White House, look the President in the eye, and say: with great respect sir, this must end, now, we must not escalate this war any further, we will not support this surge, there is a better way. It is high time and long overdue that the United States regain its position of diplomatic and moral leadership in the Middle East and bring in former Presidents George Herbert Walker Bush and Bill Clinton to explore the opportunity for progress and work with our friends around the world to create Marhall Plan like program for all (including Iraqis) who implement cease fire agreements. While restoring leadership that has traditionally been exercised by American Presidents since 1948, we can implement some form of troop redeployment in Iraq as proposed Rep. Murtha and Baker-Hamilton, increase training for Iraqi military and police, dramatically upgrade the military equipment, vehicles and armor for the Iraqis and test regional diplomacy with Iraq's neighbors. What we must not to, is again ignore the sound military judgment of commanders, the bipartisan judgements of the Baker Hamiltion Group, the private pleadings of our NATO allies, and the true private opinion of the overwhelming majority of both parties in Congress who must stop enabling, and start doing what they know is right. Today there are 20 General Shinsekis. This time, let's listen to them.

Juan Cole: Saddam: The Death of a Dictator

The body of Saddam, as it swung from the gallows at 6 a.m. Saturday Baghdad time, cast an ominous shadow over Iraq. The execution provoked intense questions about whether his trial was fair and about what the fallout will be. One thing is certain: The trial and execution of Saddam were about revenge, not justice. Instead of promoting national reconciliation, this act of revenge helped Saddam portray himself one last time as a symbol of Sunni Arab resistance, and became one more incitement to sectarian warfare. Saddam Hussein was tried under the shadow of a foreign military occupation, by a government full of his personal enemies. The first judge, an ethnic Kurd, resigned because of government interference in the trial; the judge who took his place was also Kurdish and had grievances against the accused. Three of Saddam's defense lawyers were shot down in cold blood. The surviving members of his defense team went on strike to protest the lack of protection afforded them. The court then appointed new lawyers who had no expertise in international law. Most of the witnesses against Saddam gave hearsay evidence. The trial ground slowly but certainly toward the inevitable death verdict. Like everything else in Iraq since 2003, Saddam's trial became entangled in sectarian politics. Iraq is roughly 60 percent Shiite, 18 percent Sunni Arab and 18 percent Kurdish. Elements of the Sunni minority were favored under fellow Sunni Saddam, and during his long, brutal reign this community tended to have high rates of membership in the Baath Party. Although many members of Saddam's own ethnic group deeply disliked him, since the U.S. invasion he has gradually emerged as a symbol of the humiliation that the once-dominant Sunni minority has suffered under a new government dominated by Shiites and Kurds. Saddam was a symbol of Sunni-Shiite rivalry long before the U.S. occupation. In 1991, while he was in power, he had ferociously suppressed the post-Gulf War Shiite uprising in the south, using helicopter gunships and tanks to kill an estimated 60,000. After the invasion, many Shiites wanted him to be captured, while many Sunnis helped him elude capture. When Saddam was finally caught by U.S. forces in late 2003, Shiites in the Baghdad district of Kadhimiya crossed the bridge over the Tigris to dance and gloat in the neighboring Sunni Arab district of Adhamiya, provoking some clashes. After his capture, students at Mosul University, in Iraq's second-largest and mostly Sunni Arab city, chanted, "Bush, Bush, hear our refrain: We all love Saddam Hussein!" and "We'll die, we'll die, but the nation will live! And America will fall!" As the U.S. consolidated control over Iraq, meanwhile, Sunni alienation increased. The American occupiers adopted punitive measures against members of the Baath Party, who were disproportionately though by no means universally Sunni Arab. The army was dissolved, sidelining 400,000 troops and the predominantly Sunni officer corps. Thousands of Sunni Arab civil servants and even schoolteachers were fired. A "de-Baathification" committee, dominated by hard-line Shiites like Nouri al-Maliki (now prime minister) and Ahmed Chalabi, denied large numbers of Sunni Arabs the right to participate in political society or hold government positions on grounds of links to the Baath Party. Sometimes politicians were blackballed simply because a relative had been high in the party. As Iraq spiraled down into a brutal civil war with massive killing and ethnic cleansing, many Iraqis began to yearn for the oppressive security of the Saddam period. After the destruction of the golden dome of the Shiite Askariya mosque in Samarra last February, Iraqis fell into an orgy of sectarian reprisal killings. By the time of Saddam's trial, sectarian strife was widespread, and the trial simply made it worse. It was not just the inherent bias of a judicial system dominated by his political enemies. Even the crimes for which he was tried were a source of ethnic friction. Saddam Hussein had had many Sunni Arabs killed, and a trial on such a charge could have been politically savvy. Instead, he was accused of the execution of scores of Shiites in Dujail in 1982. This Shiite town had been a hotbed of activism by the Shiite fundamentalist Dawa (Islamic Call) Party, which was founded in the late 1950s and modeled on the Communist Party. In the wake of Ayatollah Ruholla Khomeini's 1979 Islamic Revolution in neighboring Iran, Saddam conceived a profound fear of Dawa and similar parties, banning them and making membership a capital crime. Young Dawa leaders such as al-Maliki fled to Tehran, Iran, or Damascus, Syria. When Saddam visited Dujail, Dawa agents attempted to assassinate him. In turn, he wrought a terrible revenge on the town's young men. Current Prime Minister al-Maliki is the leader of the Dawa Party and served for years in exile in its Damascus bureau. For a Dawa-led government to try Saddam, especially for this crackdown on a Dawa stronghold, makes it look to Sunni Arabs more like a sectarian reprisal than a dispassionate trial for crimes against humanity. Passions did not subside with time. When the death verdict was announced against Saddam in November, Sunni Arabs in Baquba, to the northeast of the capital, staged a big pro-Saddam demonstration. They were attacked by the Shiite police that dominate that mixed city, who killed 20 demonstrators and wounded a similar number. There were also pro-Saddam demonstrations in Fallujah and Mosul. Baghdad had to be put under curfew. The tribunal also had a unique sense of timing when choosing the day for Saddam's hanging. It was a slap in the face to Sunni Arabs. This weekend marks Eid al-Adha, the Holy Day of Sacrifice, on which Muslims commemorate the willingness of Abraham to sacrifice his son for God. Shiites celebrate it Sunday. Sunnis celebrate it Saturday –- and Iraqi law forbids executing the condemned on a major holiday. Hanging Saddam on Saturday was perceived by Sunni Arabs as the act of a Shiite government that had accepted the Shiite ritual calendar. The timing also allowed Saddam, in his farewell address to Iraq, to pose as a “sacrifice” for his nation, an explicit reference to Eid al-Adha. The tribunal had given the old secular nationalist the chance to use religious language to play on the sympathies of the whole Iraqi public. The political ineptitude of the tribunal, from start to finish, was astonishing. The United States and its Iraqi allies basically gave Saddam a platform on which to make himself a martyr to Iraqi unity and independence -- even if by unity and independence Saddam was really appealing to Sunnis' nostalgia for their days of hegemony. In his farewell address, however, Saddam could not help departing from his national-unity script to take a few last shots at his ethnic rivals. Despite some smarmy language urging Iraqis not to hate the Americans, Saddam denounced the "invaders" and "Persians" who had come into Iraq. The invaders are the American army, and the Persians are code not just for Iranian agents but for Iraqi Shiites, whom many Sunni Arabs view as having Iranian antecedents and as not really Iraqi or Arab. It was such attitudes that led to slaughters like that at Dujail. In his death, as in his life, Saddam Hussein is managing to divide Iraqis and condemn them to further violence and brutality. But the Americans and the Shiite- and Kurd-dominated government bear some blame for the way they botched his trial and gave him this last opportunity to play the spoiler. Iraq is on high alert, in expectation of protests and guerrilla reprisals. Leaves have been canceled for Iraqi soldiers, though in the past they have seldom paid much attention to such orders. But perhaps the death of Saddam, who once haunted the nightmares of a nation, will soon come to seem insignificant. In Iraq, guerrilla and criminal violence executes as many as 500 persons a day. Saddam's hanging is just one more occasion for a blood feud in a country that now has thousands of them.

Paul Krugman: A Failed Revolution

[Republcan] apologists have settled on a story line that sounds just like Marxist explanations for the failure of the Soviet Union.... [T]he noble ideals of the Republican revolution of 1994 were undermined by Washington’s corrupting ways.... [D]efeat was a good thing, because it will force a return to the true conservative path. But the truth is that the movement... was always based on a lie.... As long as people like Mr. Armey, Newt Gingrich and Tom DeLay were out of power, they could run on promises to eliminate vast government waste that existed only in the public’s imagination — all those welfare queens driving Cadillacs. But once in power, they couldn’t deliver.... Unable to make good on its promises, the G.O.P., like other failed revolutionary movements, tried to maintain its grip by exploiting its position of power. Friends were rewarded with patronage: Jack Abramoff began building his web of corruption almost as soon as Republicans took control. Adversaries were harassed with smear campaigns.... Without 9/11, the Republican revolution would probably have petered out quietly... Instead, the atrocity created ... four extra years gained by drowning out unfavorable news with terror alerts, starting a gratuitous war, and accusing Democrats of being weak on national security.... In the end, Republicans didn’t shrink the government. But they did degrade it.... Is that the end for the radical right? Probably not.... Still, the Republican revolution of 1994 is over. And not a moment too soon.