The hits just keep on rollin'.

It's almost comical when you take a moment to think about it. President Bush has spent most of his presidency swinging around the cudgel that he has the character and the strength to defend the country when his political opponents don't. Now suddenly we learn that all the Democrats he's run against for four years as not tough enough to defend the country actually supported all of these decisions and would have done everything the same way had they been in power. What an extraordinary development.

 

The real answer, I think, is as banal as it is devastating: I don't think they ever gave it much thought -- not in the sense of trying to get to the heart of the matter. A lawyer assembles a case. Whether his client is innocent or not is sort of beside the point. He's trying to get him acquitted. Very similar here. The point was to invade. Non-conventional weapons made it a real possibility. A connection to 9/11 would make it a slam dunk. Some of each might get you just past the goal line. And if that didn't something else might. 

 

Thinking through these points would be and someday will be an important, critical conversation for this country to have. Because it is a toxic approach to governance which has suffused this administration.

Yep.

 

They can't hide anymore:

Q Were you the administration official who talked with Bob Woodward about the identity of a CIA operative?

MR. HADLEY: I have seen press reports that -- and only press reports -- that Bob Woodward has talked about, I guess, three sources from the administration that he had. I've also seen press reports from White House officials saying that I am not one of his sources. As you know, there is an ongoing investigation of this matter. We have all, at the White House, been instructed to cooperate with that investigation, as we are requested to do so, and to not talk about it. And that's all I can say.

And the AP adds this tidbit:

Leaving the room, Hadley was asked if his answer amounted to a yes or a no. "It is what it is," he said.

That, readers, is the single most pathetic non-denial denial I have ever seen.  Bar none.

General Scotty "Little Mac" McClellan was sent into the front lines against the roving marauder Murtha, who called for a withdrawal from Iraq.

Congressman Murtha is a respected veteran and politician who has a record of supporting a strong America. So it is baffling that he is endorsing the policy positions of Michael Moore and the extreme liberal wing of the Democratic party.

But Scotty's problem is that it turns out that approximately 65% of Americans belong to the extreme liberal wing of the Democratic Party:

Newsweek Poll conducted by Princeton Survey Research Associates International. Nov. 10-11, 2005. N=1,002 adults nationwide. MoE ± 3 (for all adults).

"We'd like your opinion of the way George W. Bush is handling certain aspects of his job. Do you approve or disapprove of the way Bush is handling the situation in Iraq
Approve Disapprove Unsure11/10-11/05
30%     65%        5% %  

As Atrios says: We're all Michael Moore now.

Abramoff bagwoman Italia Federici melts in front of the Senate Indian Affairs Committee.

Typical of the many requests Abramoff made to Federici was an e-mail dated Dec. 2, 2002, in which he sought Griles's help in scuttling a casino plan by the Jena Band of Choctaw, a Louisiana tribe seen as competition by his clients: "It seems the Jena are on the march again. if you can, can you make sure Steve squelches this again? thanks!!"

Asked to explain Abramoff's request and what she did with it, Federici responded: "We work with people every day with varying levels of decorum." It was a response that drew a puzzled scowl from McCain, who said at one point: "Your answers are so bizarre."

Federici said she learned later about Abramoff's lobbying practices now under investigation. "I didn't know he was doing the things he was doing," she said.

"I come from a pretty small town, but I think I can spot a pretty big lie," Dorgan told Federici.

The problems go deep on this one:

Much of Abramoff's effort against the Jena tribe involved getting members of Congress to weigh in. At least 33 lawmakers who wrote letters to Norton opposing the Jena casino received more than $830,000 in Abramoff-related donations from 2001 to 2004, according to an Associated Press tally. Many of the lawmakers sent letters within days of receiving contributions from tribes represented by Abramoff or using the lobbyist's restaurant for fundraising, the AP found in its review of campaign records, IRS records and congressional correspondence.

Among those who wrote letters was House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.), who held a fundraiser at Abramoff's Signatures restaurant on June 3, 2003, that collected at least $21,500 for his Keep Our Majority political action committee from the lobbyist's firm and tribal clients. A week later, Hastert wrote Norton to urge her to reject the Jena casino.

Senate Democratic Leader Harry M. Reid (Nev.) sent a letter to Norton on March 5, 2002, also signed by Sen. John Ensign (R-Nev). The next day, the Coushatta Tribe of Louisiana issued a $5,000 check to Reid's tax-exempt political group, the Searchlight Leadership Fund. A second Abramoff tribe also sent $5,000 to Reid's group. Reid ultimately received more than $66,000 in Abramoff-related donations from 2001 to 2004.

The lawmakers contacted by the AP said their intervention had nothing to do with Abramoff's fundraising, but reflected their long-held concerns about expanding tribal gambling.

Shouldn't have taken that money.  Its time to shut down the PAC system.  Real campaign finance reform is critical to changing the climate here.  Even the Democrats get hurt.  Even putting the best face on it--that two Nevada senators worked together to shut down the biggest competitors to their state's biggest industry (wrong itself), they should have never taken that money.  Never.  Of course, with McCain, its pot, kettle, black.

From National Review Online's blog The Corner:

GOP SOUR MOOD [Rich Lowry ]
From Hotline synopsis of its new poll:

GOP Cold Front

For months, Pres. Bush has been plagued by polls showing his lowest ever approval rating. But what hadn't faltered was Bush's support among GOPers, until now. The latest Diageo/Hotline poll (conducted by Financial Dynamics) reveals some cracks in the GOP foundation.
-- 60% of voters think the nation is on the wrong track and 41% of GOPers agree; that GOP "wrong track" number is the highest we've recorded. The previous GOPer "wrong track" high was 29% in Oct.
-- GOPers "strongly" approving of Bush's job has dropped to 37%, the lowest since this poll began, in Jan., down from 59% in 3/05.
-- Asked why voters disapprove of Bush, the top reason is Iraq. This is also the top reason among GOPers (34%).
-- Pluralities agree both Cheney (49%) and Rumsfeld (46%) do more to hurt Bush than help, 72% say Rice "mostly helps."
-- This admin-wide disapproval is seeping into Congress w/26% saying they will replace their current Rep., up from 19% last month. Among GOPers alone it increased from 10% to 26%.

Posted at 12:36 PM

That number on changing your current representative is the most chilling wind of all for the GOP.  Dissatisfaction with Congress means very little, unless it is hooked in with a desire to remove your own representative. 

MURTHA BREAKS [Rod Dreher]
Don't know how many of you caught Rep. John Murtha's very angry, very moving speech just now in which he called on the White House to institute an immediate withdrawal of US troops from Iraq. CNN didn't air the entire thing, but as I listened to it, I could feel the ground shift. Murtha, as you know, is not a Pelosi-style Chardonnay Democrat; he's a crusty retired career Marine who reminds me of the kinds of beer-slugging Democrats we used to have before the cultural left took over the party. Murtha, a conservative Dem who voted for the war, talked in detail about the sacrifices being borne by our soldiers and their families, and about his visits out to Walter Reed to look after the maimed, and how we've had enough, it's time to come home. He was hell on the president too.

If tough, non-effete guys like Murtha are willing to go this far, and can make the case in ways that Red America can relate to -- and listening to him talk was like listening to my dad, who's about the same age, and his hunting buddies -- then the president is in big trouble. I'm sure there's going to be an anti-Murtha pile-on in the conservative blogosphere, but from where I sit, conservatives would be fools not to take this man seriously.
Posted at 11:27 AM

Some on the Right are starting to get it.  They know what's coming.  Others, not so much. 

I think a better title for this article would be, "Republicans once again fail to pass budget".  Yes, it is miraculous to watch the Democrats hold their troops in line, but if I'm not mistaken, the Republicans have a majority of the seats in the House.  The real story is that the Republican leadership was unable to get 20 of its own House members to vote for this turkey.

Woodward's source?

A senior administration official said that neither President Bush himself, nor his chief of staff, Andrew H. Card Jr., nor his counselor, Dan Bartlett, was Mr. Woodward's source. So did spokesmen for former Secretary of State Colin L. Powell, former C.I.A. Director George J. Tenet and his deputy John E. McLaughlin.

A lawyer for Karl Rove, the deputy White House chief of staff who has acknowledged conversations with reporters about the case and remains under investigation, said Mr. Rove was not Mr. Woodward's source.

Vice President Cheney did not join the parade of denials.

Do the math.

I'd also like to put this out there--Libby's lawyers and right-wing bloggers see this as somehow having an effect on the case because Fitzgerald was wrong.  They wonder how he couldn't have looked at phone logs, and the like and not seen that Woodward might have gotten passed the information.  Something tells me that he might have had a pretty good idea whose been at the center of this from day one.  First, he was clear about what he knew about the leaks:  

Mr. Libby was the first official known to have told a reporter when he talked to Judith Miller in June of 2003 about Valerie Wilson.

That's right, the first person known.  The first person he could say for sure had leaked. 

Second, he was clear that he would speak on nothing more than the indictment.

 I can't give you answers on what we know and don't know, other than what's charged in the indictment.

I would suggest that this was less of a surprise for him than it was for us.

 

Andrew Sullivan on the Perfesser's willful blindness:

One day, denial and distraction from reality will finally collapse at Instapundit. And it won't be pretty.

That day is coming sooner rather than later.  And the Instapundit won't be the only one who will be affected by the collapse of denial and distraction from reality.  I'm looking at you, Powerline.

It can be hard to tell these days if what you read in ABC News's The Note is true or a failed attempt at parody.

Dan Froomkin on the WaPo website today.

When Rumsfeld attempts to distance himself from it.

I also wonder what kind of message Congress is getting at home when all of a sudden the Republicans are tripping over themselves to act like Democrats.

Arianna Huffington sits down with Ahmed Chalabi for dinner (for real):

My cell phone rang at 12:30 a.m. It was John Cusack, who had come with me to the Council on Foreign Relations to hear Chalabi speak earlier in the day.  "What are you doing?" he asked.  "I'm having dinner with Ahmad Chalabi," I replied (not a line I get to use very often).  I turned to Chalabi and asked if it would be okay to ask Cusack to join us. "He's an American actor," I volunteered.  "I know, I know..." he interrupted, and went on to reel off a list of Cusack's movies, including Being John Malkovich and The Thin Red Line. I was going to offer up Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil but bit my tongue.

You simply cannot make this stuff up. 

Ron Suskind was told by a senior White House official that he was a member of "what we call the reality-based community . . . [people who] believe that solutions emerge from your judicious study of discernible reality.  We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality."

Kinda takes on a whole new meaning now, doesn't it?

Take a closer look at the denials of Stephen J. Hadley, the National Security Advisor in relation to the Niger Forgeries from November 2, 2005.

Q On September 9th, 2002, you met in Washington with Nicolo Pollari, the head of the Italian Intelligence Agency, SISMI. According to the Italian daily, La Republica, Mr. Pollari came to the meeting to discuss an alleged attempt by Iraq to purchase uranium from Niger. Is that claim false?

MR. HADLEY: We'd looked at this issue. We had both looked at our documentary record -- I have -- we have talked -- I've searched my own recollection; we have also talked to other people on the NSC staff at the time who might have a recollection of that meeting. I can tell you what that canvassing has unearthed. There was a meeting in Washington on that date. I did attend a meeting with him. It was, so far as we can tell from our records, about less than 15 minutes. It was a courtesy call. Nobody participating in that meeting or asked about that meeting has any recollection of a discussion of natural uranium, or any recollection of any documents being passed. And that's also my recollection. I have very little recollection of the meeting, but I have no recollection there was any of that discussion, or that there was any passing of documents. Nor does anybody else who may have participated in that meeting. That's where we are.

Look quite closely--Hadley says there was no discussion of natural uranium.  The phraseology is curious, no?  Why is this important?  Because yellowcake is not natural uranium.  It is a milled and processed version of uranium oxide.  Check out this description from the wikipedia entry:

“It is created by passing raw uranium ore through crushers and grinders to produce "pulped" ore. This is then bathed in sulfuric acid to leach out the uranium. Yellowcake is what remains after drying and filtering. The yellowcake produced by most modern mills is actually brown or black, not yellow; the name comes from the color and texture of the concentrates produced by early mining operations.”

Not exactly “natural uranium” is it?  So did they discuss yellowcake processed ore? Indeed, look at the denial--it literally says nothing at all.  The question is, is the claim that Pollari came to discuss attempted uranium purchases false?  The answer: (1) I don't remember, nobody else remembers, (2) there was no discussion of "natural uranium" and (3) no documents were passed.

In short, Hadley does not say the published report is false.  Nowhere.

Let's look at a more specific question he answered:

Q Have you or any member of your staff met with Italian intelligence officials elsewhere, outside the White House, or at any other time, when the question of Niger and uranium was discussed? And if not, can you tell us how the fake documents came into the possession of the U.S.?

MR. HADLEY: I would, obviously, in answering a question like that, want to check records and all the rest. I can tell you my recollection. My recollection is, no, not here, not anyplace else. I asked that question on the documents to refresh my own recollection. My understanding is that they came to the State Department after the NIE of October 2002. But again, I don't want to mislead you; that's the answer I got from a staff person a few minutes ago to refresh my memory.

Here the question is (1) have you ever met with Italian intelligence officials at any other time to discuss the questions of Niger and uranium and (2) how did the U.S. get the faked documents?  His answer is (1) let me check my records, I'm not sure and (2) my memory is no--but I looked at the documents to refresh my memory of the meeting, so my answer might not be correct and (3) The documents came to the State Department after the NIE of 2002, but I don't even know that, because I got the answer from a staff person a few moments ago to refresh my memory.

Note:  We now know that the U.S. originally received transcriptions of the documents which the Italians had altered to remove the tell-tale sign that the documents were forged--they changed the names of the Niger officials out of government on the forgeries for the transcriptions--putting in the correct officials.  So when did the originals with the obvious signs of forgery come over?  After the 2002 NIE.  As we are learning now, that NIE was the one which the Congress voted on.  Coincidence?  We report, you decide.  But remember that until the White House got the forged documents themselves, they would have plausible deniability regarding the authenticity of the documents--they could lie with a straight face.

Now let's turn to the President's State of the Union claim:

The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa. 

Now that they have the forged documents which they really can't deny are forged, where is the Niger claim sourced?  Britain.  No mention of Italy, despite the fact that even the British claim is based on those documents.

Three years ago I would have discarded these thoughts as the product of an overactive imagination.  Now I parse every damn sentence that comes out of the White House.  Times have sure changed, haven’t they?  It gets curiouser and curiouser.  With denials like this, who needs Democrats.

Because, irony of ironies--the Plame case at this point actually takes the heat off of Bush.  How low he's sunk.

Now we have at least one more person giving out information identifying Plame to reporters in the White House, according to Bob Woodward, who suddenly appeared before the Grand Jury.  Seems Bob got a subpoena after his source spoke with Fitzgerald very recently.  What's that about White House cooperation?  Problem for Bush--Woodward usually interviews the big boys.  So who was it?

Democrats making sure that everyone knows exactly who was President and who was the majority party at the time we launched the Iraq war.  Republicans trying to make it seem like maybe it was Carl Levin who made the final call to invade and forgot to plan for the post-war situation.

You'll note that not a single word on the specifics of the pre-war intelligence has come out of Bush's mouth in the White House's new rollout campaign.  Nothing.  He doesn't really want to touch the nuts and bolts of the subject.  It's R-A-D-I-O-A-C-T-I-V-E. 

It is pretty much the core of his problem--he won't talk specifics because he doesn't want to be called on it.  Remind you of anything?  That's right--the Social Security rollout battle of earlier this year.  Expect the same results.  Perhaps we will be subjected to hand-picked "townhall" meetings with the words "Didn't Manipulate Intelligence" on a backdrop behind the President.  Regular people will come up to the podium to talk with the President and say "I thought those Niger documents in French were real too, Mr. President.  How was I to know that some of the signers of those letters were out of government over a decade?"

Froomkin, right on target:

President Bush on Friday launched his third presidential campaign -- this one to salvage his reputation, and what's left of his second term.

His goal this time is not to win an election; it's to gain back the public trust.

Amid all the tumbling poll numbers of late, Bush's biggest problem is this: A sizeable majority of Americans -- 55 percent according to the latest Washington Post/ABC News poll -- believe that he intentionally misled the American public in making his case for war in Iraq.

It don't stop there, people:

But Bush's argument is deeply flawed. Far from being baseless, the charge that he intentionally misled the public in the run-up to war is built on a growing amount of evidence. And the longer Bush goes without refuting that evidence in detail, the more persuasive it becomes.

Like other Bush campaigns, this one will inevitably feature the ceaseless repetition of key sound bytes -- the hope being that they will be carried, largely unchallenged, by the media -- and virulent attacks by the White House on those who dare to disagree, even going so far as to question their patriotism.

Wow.  He just lays it all out doesn't he?  Where were these people three years ago? 

You can't spend the first half of Bush's presidency crowing that the "MSM" doesn't get it when it comes to how good Bush is but that the polls show that Joe Average totally does get it and then turn around and say that Joe Average doesn't get it because he's being confused by the "MSM's" negative coverage of Bush when the polls drop like a rock.

I was just watching Ben Shapiro debate on Fox regarding censorship.  It came to my mind unbidden that there is a deadly error at the heart of the Bush worldview which has led us down this path--an error which we cannot afford to ignore.

Bush, Cheney, and their ilk believe that our ancient liberties of freedom of speech and thought, of the right to recourse to the law, and our right to choose the nation's destiny based on a full appreciation of the facts make us weak in comparison to our enemies--those radicals, Islamic and otherwise who would destroy the freedoms which each American almost unconsciously believes to be his or her birthright.

To the current leadership, giving those we capture in this fight the recourse to law and freedom from violent interrogation makes us weaker.  They also believe as a matter of course that questioning a leader's decisions in wartime weakens the ability of the nation to fight our enemies.  They want to have the ability to look at what we choose to read when we check books out from our local library--thinking that we are weaker because we allow ourselves the liberty to do what we wish, read and say what we wish, live and love as we wish.  Bush and his administration also apparently believe that our right to see the actual facts upon which a decision to go to war is made and to use those facts to inform our elected representatives of what we think is the best course for the nation is also a weakness which could cause the country to shrink from a fight which they think to be important. 

In this they share a common worldview with the terrorists and others who seek to destroy what we hold dear.  The Islamic radical worldview held by Osama bin Laden and the others who seek to prevent the spread of liberty within the Islamic world holds that allowing people the liberty to make their own choices and to be able to seek redress from the government when we are harmed by that government makes a nation weaker.  I have little doubt that these radicals also believe that any nation which decides that violent interrogation is something beyond the power of the government is weak as well.

It is no surprise, then, that Bush, Cheney and bin Laden share a common method for pressing us to give up our rights and freedoms: fear.  Although the Vice President's references to smoking guns and mushroom clouds are a far cry from the deadly attacks of our enemies, both seek to use the same tool of fear for our own lives to influence us.  By presenting only the data which indicated that the nation was in deadly peril from Saddam Hussein, the Administration thought that they knew better than an informed public what was best for the country.  By hiding from us the techniques used to question those persons captured by our armed forces in this war, they think that they know better than us what is right for the nation--they think the country is stronger for not knowing what they are doing.

I hold a different view from Bush and Cheney and our enemies.  I think our rights and freedoms make us strong.  I see our right to recourse to the law, our right to choose the nation's destiny based on a full appreciation of the facts, and freedom from violent interrogation are freedoms which make us stronger than our enemies.  Because of these freedoms, each individual is more invested in the common good provided by a commonwealth based on rights and freedoms.  That is why we fight.  Our people also feel free to invent new solutions to problems not foreseen by those who would rule us absolutely.  They can draw upon the inherent wisdom a free people have to make the critical decisions about war and peace.  Similarly, our freedom from violent interrogation by our own government allows each citizen to walk free of fear and to do and say whatever one wants--a powerful weapon against those who would impose a monolithic worldview on us all.  Finally, our commitment to a universal application of these rights ensures that they will remain for all, and that those with designs on our liberty will not be able to argue that some among us do not deserve the same rights and freedoms that others hold.

These are the distinctions that every citizen should keep in mind in making the critical civic decisions upon which our political life rests.  Abraham Lincoln understood this when he said:  

At what point shall we expect the approach of danger? By what means shall we fortify against it? Shall we expect some transatlantic military giant, to step the Ocean, and crush us at a blow? Never! All the armies of Europe, Asia and Africa combined, with all the treasure of the earth (our own excepted) in their military chest; with a Buonaparte for a commander, could not by force, take a drink from the Ohio, or make a track on the Blue Ridge, in a Trial of a thousand years.

At what point then is the approach of danger to be expected? I answer, if it ever reach us, it must spring up amongst us. It cannot come from abroad. If destruction be our lot, we must ourselves be its author and finisher. As a nation of freemen, we must live through all time, or die by suicide.

When Americans decide what to do about the sad and frightening situation the nation finds itself in, they would be wise to heed his words.

The Washington Post takes us deeper into the background investigation into the CIA Leak scandal and tackles the pressing question--why did Scooter lie?

Why would an experienced lawyer and government official such as Libby leave himself so exposed to prosecutor Patrick J. Fitzgerald?

Libby, according to Fitzgerald's indictment, gave a false story to agents and, later, to a grand jury, even though he knew investigators had his notes, and presumably knew that several of his White House colleagues had already provided testimony and documentary evidence that would undercut his own story. And his interviews with the FBI in October and two appearances before the grand jury in March 2004 came at a time when there were increasingly clear signs that some of the reporters with whom Libby discussed Plame could soon be freed to testify -- and provide starkly different and damning accounts to the prosecutor.

To critics, the timing suggests an attempt to obscure Cheney's role, and possibly his legal culpability. The vice president is shown by the indictment to be aware of and interested in Plame and her CIA status long before her cover was blown. Even some White House aides privately wonder whether Libby was seeking to protect Cheney from political embarrassment. One of them noted with resignation, "Obviously, the indictment speaks for itself."

The difference in recollections between Libby and every single other person in the case is striking.  Take, for example, Libby and Bush's press secretary Ari Fliescher: 

Fleischer reportedly told investigators that, at a lunch on Monday, July 7, Libby told him that Wilson's wife worked at the CIA and confided that the information was not widely known.

Fitzgerald, in announcing the indictment two weeks ago, called attention to this conversation with Fleischer to show how improbable he regarded Libby's account: "What's important about that is that Mr. Libby . . . was telling Mr. Fleischer something on Monday that he claims to have learned on Thursday."

More important is the telling way in which Fitzgerald pressed Libby to explain his story:

But when Libby was called to answer Fitzgerald's questions under oath before the grand jury on March 5 and again on March 24, 2004, he stuck to the story he had given in October. He repeated that he believed he had learned the information from a reporter and had forgotten Cheney had told him about Plame. He explained that he had not thought the material was classified because reporters knew it. But Fitzgerald pressed Libby -- and not so subtly raised the specter of a coverup. "And let me ask you this directly," Fitzgerald said. "Did the fact that you knew that the law could . . . turn on where you learned the information from affect your account for the FBI -- when you told them that you were telling reporters Wilson's wife worked at the CIA but your source was a reporter rather than the vice president?" Libby denied it: "No, it's a fact. It was a fact, that's what I told the reporters."

Anyone who wants to know anything about Fitzgerald and his methods should look at the way he dealt with a high-profile political prosecution in Illinois.  There, Governor George Ryan was accused of wide-spread corruption while holding the offices of Secretary of State and Governor.  The investigation began in 1998.  Ryan was indicted in 2003, five years later.  A single line at the end of the AP story shows exactly how Fitzgerald works:

Ryan became the 66th person charged in the investigation; 59 people and his campaign committee have been convicted so far.

Fitzgerald does not let go.  Ever.

It has been advanced in the comments that Bush's South American trade summit was a success.   Not so, says Robert Novak:

President Bush was furious with the staff preparation for last week's inter-American summit in Argentina where his trade proposals ran into unexpected opposition.

 The president was reported as particularly unhappy with the work by his National Security Council staff in getting ready for the meeting. That added to Bush's distress in Buenos Aires, dealing with violent street demonstrators and hostile fellow presidents led by Venezuela's Hugo Chavez and including Argentina's Nestor Kirchner.

His foreign policy is reaping the whirlwind.

On another note, the thing that really stands out about these last three months is that the facts surrounding Bush's abysmal record and lying have always been out there.  Those closely following the Iraq war shill operation are well aware of what happened with the National Intelligence Estimate shenanigans.  Its been part of the public record for three years. 

But no one called Bush on it.  Reporters, patriotic like us all, didn't want to trip up the leader of the country while we prepared for the biggest military operation since Vietnam, the conquering of an entire country of twenty-five million people. 

But now, the collective judgment appears to be that Bush himself is dangerous and bringing him down to earth and to a more focused and reasonable foreign policy is more important than any negative consequences that might exist

A second judgment is also part of this view.  The idea is that by punishing Bush now, we are making the country better in the future because future leaders will think twice before treating the President's most important task, war leadership, as a political football to be carried accross a goal line to create a permanent majority for his own party.

It is this sentiment which is most dangerous, because it is exactly what led to Richard M. Nixon's impeachment.  The idea of Bush as an object lesson to future leaders gives much more credence to the idea that his removal or resignation is the most appropriate course of action.

Should the current new-found fascination with the old lead the press to more damning evidence, such as any evidence that the Vice President, the President or other members of the Administration were very much aware on any level that the Niger documents were forgeries, yet presented them to the people and Congress as authentic evidence of a nuclear weapons program Saddam did not have, such a scenario is far from fantasy.  Time will tell.

The news just doesn't get better for Bush.  A Newsweek poll sees him plumbing the depths at 36% approval rating.  More troubling must be the wording, showing that the press sees him as vulnerable and has become willing to treat him like other presidents before him:

In the wake of the bombings in Jordan by suspected followers of Iraq’s Al Qaeda chief Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the indictment of top White House aide I. Lewis (Scooter) Libby and the withdrawal of Harriet Miers’s nomination to the Supreme Court, President George W. Bush is sinking deeper and deeper into political trouble, according to the latest NEWSWEEK poll. Only 36 percent of Americans approve of the job he is doing as president, and an astounding 68 percent of Americans are dissatisfied with the direction of the country—the highest in Bush’s presidency. But that’s not the worst of it for the 43rd president of the United States, a leader who rode comfortably to reelection just a year ago. Half of all Americans now believe he’s not “honest and ethical.

Only 42% of Americans see him as honest and ethical.

Troubles also loom for Alito:

The good news for the White House is that 40 percent think Samuel Alito should be confirmed. Twenty-six percent oppose Alito and 34 percent remain undecided.

I guess they had to spin something as positive. 

America sees the CIA Leak Scandal as important and negative to Bush:

Fifty-two percent of Americans believe Cheney “deliberately misused or manipulated pre-war intelligence about Iraq’s nuclear capabilities in order to build support for war,” including 22 percent of Republicans and 54 percent of independents.

Most worrisome for the White House: the base seems to be cracking. When asked whether anyone in the administration “acted unethically” in the case involving the leak of CIA agent Valerie Plame’s name, a 54-percent majority of Americans said they did—and 30 percent of Republicans said they did. And 45 percent of Americans believe someone in the “Bush administration broke the law and acted criminally”—including 22 percent of Republicans.

Wow.

Dumber than a rock.  Don't stop Mr. Bush, you're sure to win back the trust of Americans by starting a big national discussion on whether you manipulated the Iraq war intelligence.  And get the Washington Post to publish articles like this:

Bush and his aides had access to much more voluminous intelligence information than did lawmakers, who were dependent on the administration to provide the material. And the commissions cited by officials, though concluding that the administration did not pressure intelligence analysts to change their conclusions, were not authorized to determine whether the administration exaggerated or distorted those conclusions.

There were doubts within the intelligence community not included in the NIE. And even the doubts expressed in the NIE could not be used publicly by members of Congress because the classified information had not been cleared for release. For example, the NIE view that Hussein would not use weapons of mass destruction against the United States or turn them over to terrorists unless backed into a corner was cleared for public use only a day before the Senate vote.

Keep talking, buddy.

Only the facts:

In the late summer of 2002, Graham had requested from Tenet an analysis of the Iraqi threat. According to knowledgeable sources, he received a 25-page classified response reflecting the balanced view that had prevailed earlier among the intelligence agencies--noting, for example, that evidence of an Iraqi nuclear program or a link to Al Qaeda was inconclusive. Early that September, the committee also received the DIA's classified analysis, which reflected the same cautious assessments. But committee members became worried when, midway through the month, they received a new CIA analysis of the threat that highlighted the Bush administration's claims and consigned skepticism to footnotes. According to one congressional staffer who read the document, it highlighted "extensive Iraqi chem-bio programs and nuclear programs and links to terrorism" but then included a footnote that read, "This information comes from a source known to fabricate in the past." The staffer concluded that "they didn't do analysis. What they did was they just amassed everything they could that said anything bad about Iraq and put it into a document."

Graham and Durbin had been demanding for more than a month that the CIA produce an NIE on the Iraqi threat--a summary of the available intelligence, reflecting the judgment of the entire intelligence community--and toward the end of September, it was delivered. Like Tenet's earlier letter, the classified NIE was balanced in its assessments. Graham called on Tenet to produce a declassified version of the report that could guide members in voting on the resolution. Graham and Durbin both hoped the declassified report would rebut the kinds of overheated claims they were hearing from administration spokespeople. As Durbin tells TNR, "The most frustrating thing I find is when you have credible evidence on the intelligence committee that is directly contradictory to statements made by the administration."

On October 1, 2002, Tenet produced a declassified NIE. But Graham and Durbin were outraged to find that it omitted the qualifications and countervailing evidence that had characterized the classified version and played up the claims that strengthened the administration's case for war. For instance, the intelligence report cited the much-disputed aluminum tubes as evidence that Saddam "remains intent on acquiring" nuclear weapons. And it claimed, "All intelligence experts agree that Iraq is seeking nuclear weapons and that these tubes could be used in a centrifuge enrichment program"--a blatant mischaracterization. Subsequently, the NIE allowed that "some" experts might disagree but insisted that "most" did not, never mentioning that the DOE's expert analysts had determined the tubes were not suitable for a nuclear weapons program. The NIE also said that Iraq had "begun renewed production of chemical warfare agents"--which the DIA report had left pointedly in doubt. Graham demanded that the CIA declassify dissenting portions.

In response, Tenet produced a single-page letter. It satisfied one of Graham's requests: It included a statement that there was a "low" likelihood of Iraq launching an unprovoked attack on the United States. But it also contained a sop to the administration, stating without qualification that the CIA had "solid reporting of senior-level contacts between Iraq and al-Qaeda going back a decade." Graham demanded that Tenet declassify more of the report, and Tenet promised to fax over additional material. But, later that evening, Graham received a call from the CIA, informing him that the White House had ordered Tenet not to release anything more.

We report.  You decide.  This isn't going away. 

Josh lets out what may eventually turn into a bombshell in the Niger Forgeries story.  As you may know, one of the reasons the IAEA was able to determine the Niger documents were crude forgeries was that the persons whose signatures appeared at the bottom of the phony "Yellowcake deal" letter were persons who had been out of government in Niger for at least a decade.  For a while now, the Italian intelligence agency SISMI has put out conflicting stories about whether it ever touched the now-radioactive forgeries.  The latest claim is that they did not.

However, American sources say otherwise.  We now know that the evidence of the fake "yellowcake deal" first came to the U.S. from reports from SISMI which contained a transcription of what was actually written on the documents themselves.  Josh indicates that the Italian newspaper La Repubblica has revealed that:

The report sent over from Italy removed the out-of-date names (one of the key reasons they were spotted later as forgeries) and replaced them with the correct names. In other words, there seems to have been a conscious effort to cover up the fact that the documents were bogus, to clean them up, as it were.

That's right, the Italians knew the documents were forged when they sent the information over to the U.S.  Now why would they do that?  Italy had no agenda against Saddam and no reason to fake documents other than to get in good with the Bush Administration. 

It is also highly improbable that the Italians would send over deliberately fake material to the Administration without letting them know first that it was coming from forgeries.

You can start to connect the dots.  They lead to a government building just seven blocks from here.  1600 Pennsylvania Ave. N.W.