Fired US Attorneys

AP/Lauren Victoria Burke

Most of you are well aware of what's been happening with the fired US Attorneys story. If you're not, check out the excellent reporting on Talking Points Memo- Josh has owned this story, and I think without the fine work they've done, this would have been swept under the rug. As it is, it's finally blown up into a big deal, with the White House being forced to back down today. White House bows on attorney reforms. It's not the end of the story, because it never is with this crew, but it is a start.

One of the reasons this is such an important story is that it exposes one of the most insidious activities of the Bush administration. And that's their ongoing effort to infiltrate the entire federal bureacracy with Bush and republican loyalists. The damage they are doing will be felt for the next 30 years. Of course US Attorneys are slightly different, since they're political appointees, and they do serve at the "pleasure of the president." But you can be certain that from the State Department right down to the US Mint, the bushies have been installing the party faithful who can be guaranteed to promote their agenda into the distant future. Many of these people will be protected by civil service collective bargaining agreements and will be extremely difficult to dislodge.

We can't say it often enough. The republican party ALWAYS puts party ahead of their country. Eventually the country will catch on and refuse to ever return any of these jackasses to positions of power.

Other kitties

I have been remiss in posting photos of loyal reader Darryl Pearce's kitties. That's Nova, top, and Caesar. Nova is quite the plushmonster, eh?

Cherry Blossoms

Reuters/Kim Kyung-Hoon

The cherry blossoms are beginning to bloom in Japan. We don't have cherry trees here, though there is a lovely set of trees outside my window that are comletely covered in white blossoms. I'll take a snap for you guys tomorrow.

Afternoon Maddie

Action kitty!!

No Pardon?

Via Newsweek, it appears that Scooter doesn't qualify for a pardon under Justice Department guidelines. Not that that would stop Bush if he had his heart set on it.

But there’s one significant roadblock on the path to Libby’s salvation: Vice President Dick Cheney’s former chief of staff does not qualify to even be considered for a presidential pardon under Justice Department guidelines.

From the day he took office, Bush seems to have followed those guidelines religiously. He's taken an exceedingly stingy approach to pardons, granting only 113 in six years, mostly for relatively minor fraud, embezzlement and drug cases dating back more than two decades. Bush’s pardons are “fewer than any president in 100 years,” according to Margaret Love, former pardon attorney at the Justice Department.

It occurs to me that there's another reason chimpy might not grant Scooter the vindication the right thinks he deserves- Bush is pissed. He's pissed at Cheney and his office for embarrassing him and causing this public relations nightmare. And he might just let Scooter go to prison out of spite, which would completely square with Suzanne Malveaux's reporting yesterday that the WH was, "going to cut Libby loose."

My only regret is that Karl won't be occupying the adjacent cell.

Hat tip to pony-boy Holden.

Morning Maddie

Halloooooooo!!!!

Late Night Maddie

E = MC 2

See? She does too fetch.

One more Maddie photo

If you look really closely, you can see her funny little eyelashes.

Daily Maddie

Why go to Daily Kitten when you can get Maddie here, every single day?

The WAPO Editiorial Board is Dead to Me.

Because of crap like this:

A bipartisan investigation by the Senate intelligence committee subsequently established that all of these claims were false -- and that Mr. Wilson was recommended for the Niger trip by Ms. Plame, his wife. When this fact, along with Ms. Plame's name, was disclosed in a column by Robert D. Novak, Mr. Wilson advanced yet another sensational charge: that his wife was a covert CIA operative and that senior White House officials had orchestrated the leak of her name to destroy her career and thus punish Mr. Wilson.

As Dan Froomkin noted today, the Washington DC press corps was against this case from the beginning. So much so that they seem to be willfully blind to the facts not only produced at trial, but printed in their very own fucking newspaper.

Good god.

Earth to all of you- the CIA referred this case to Justice, not Joe Wilson. The CIA also said that they sent Joe Wilson because they wanted to answer the question the VP's office asked. End of story. None of this is particularly difficult. Neither is the fact that this administration ALWAYS, and I mean ALWAYS attacks the messenger.

Libby was convicted because he broke the law. He did it to save his boss embarrassment that might cost his party a presidential election.

He deserves to go to jail. They all do. And Fred Hiatt should be hounded out of the newspaper business for publishing crap like this.

Time to Clip Tweety

Tweety was on Tucker's show this afternoon, commenting on whether LIbby should be pardonned. Here's a paraphrase of what he said:

"So when is the appropriate time for Bush to do the right thing here? I mean this guy didn't rob a bank, didn't hold someone up, he basically was doing the right thing, protecting his boss."

In my humble opinion, a guy who doesn't understand that someone working for the executive branch is supposed to be serving the people of this country, then he has no business being on the air. Chris Matthews seems to think that, well okay, this was technically against the law, but who could blame him for trying to protect his boss?

Guess what? I can blame him. I'm a little sick of so-called "public servants" whose loyalty to party and dear leader come before their loyalty the the American people and the republic. And I'm more than sick of the talking heads who enable them.

Feh. A pox on all of them.

On Libby

AP/Pablo Martinez Monisvais

Check out Froomkin's excellent column today on Bush, Cheney and the LIbby mess. Froomkin argues what everyone on the left knows is true, and what everyone one on the right would love to prevent- that Bush and Cheney finally be compelled to fess up and tell the American people what they know.

The White House yesterday once again trotted out its "ongoing criminal matter" rationale. But that was never much of an excuse and at this point it is utterly pathetic. Any danger of influencing the investigation or the jury pool, to the extent that was ever a legitimate concern, is past. The chances of a retrial are almost nonexistent. In reviewing a conviction, an appellate court cannot look outside the trial record. Fitzgerald says he and his fellow prosecutors are going back to their day jobs.

And there is an enormous public-policy factor here -- something more important than the vague, theoretical possibility of influencing a fair trial. Just for example, no executive of any company would be allowed by his shareholders to remain mum on a top aide's indictment -- not to mention conviction. He'd be fired.

Why are Bush and his aides hiding behind such hollow excuses? Probably because they know that if they did talk, it might just make things worse. Arguably, they still don't think Libby did anything wrong, putting them in the awkward position of disagreeing with a federal jury's verdict. And in explaining what they say really happened, they might risk either exposing more unseemly facts or being caught in a lie.

But the main reason they are hiding behind these excuses is that they can. There's been no public cost to them from not talking.

Let me add that Bush doesn't believe he owes anyone an explanation. In his mind, the public does not have any right to know.

If anyone thinks Bush didn't know what was going on, I've got a bridge out in the parking lot to sell them. Remember that Bush learned the art of dirty tricks at the knee of Lee Atwater. HIs closest aide is Karl Rove. He employs Karl simply because he is so good at trash politics.

Any claims he makes now of being above it all are lies. Lies. The tactic of 'destroying the messsenger' has been SOP for the republican party for many, many years. It's time for the congress to take these liars on. Past time.

We be famous!!

Madeleine made The Daily Kitten. I am so very proud.

The Young Scientist

Well, I promised you guys I'd figure this out. Maddie got her brand new, baby-sized particle accelerator from the nice UPS man this afternoon.

Enjoy.

Even more Maddie

After play comes naptime.

Update: As always, click on the photos to see all the eeeeeep!! worthy details magnified.

More Maddie!!

I promised Maddie palooza and I'm delivering. Not don't get spoiled or anything.

Also, do click on all of these photos, the files sizes are quite large and you'll be able to see every itty bitty hair on her chinny-chin-chin. How delightful!!

Clouds

I happened to glance out the window today to see this odd cloud formation. No, it's not two big contrails, it's actually two clouds that happened to criss-cross each other.

Though I did look around to see if an X-man was flying by.

Or maybe it was god, x-ing out Scooter Libby's future prospects.

More Maddie

There's something I like to see- those healthy pink gums. And the curled up back bugs bunny toesies are pretty hilarious too.

Celebratory Kitten

She's starting to look slightly less surprised. They become jaded so quickly.

The feeties, the tummy, the teddy bears, oh my.

We shall have Maddie palooza all day long to celebrate Fitzmas.

Fitzmas at Last

Scooter guilty on 4 of 5 counts. Libby Found Guilty in CIA Leak Case. Cue a million wingnut trolls wailing about "miscarriage of justice." After all, what's the world coming to when a SAO can't obstruct justice in peace?

I'm sure I shouldn't be cheering that a man is looking at 30 years in prison, but it's about time that someone in the administration was held accountable for something. I only wish they'd have charged him with misuse of office as well.

Kudos to Firedoglake for their excellent trial coverage. Don't click on the link, give their servers a chance to catch up.