Tag, I'm it.

Miss No-H threw down the gauntlet, and said I wouldn't respond. Like the dutiful belligerent she knows me to be, I'll fall for the reverse psychology.

With a catch - My circle of blogs is pretty small, and I think she's tagged most of the ones I know. So I'll do a tag for each reason, but no way I'll have five.

I'll tag the Oracle before someone else does. That's one.

And Cracked. That's two.

Two's all I got - and all I need - I guess.

Top two reasons why I blog:

1) The obvious reason. Dad.

In the weeks after his death, I was short on clarity and the time to say much of anything. Oh, I'd thought about saying something on many occasions. I just never did. Given my history - I'd plotted out a story arc of me retreating further and further into my own head until one day I'd blow up at somebody for not passing the goddamn salt.

In the years prior to 2005, I had written a few essays for nobody in particular and this blog began as just another collection of words sitting on my hard drive.

It was a few weeks after the accident, and I was a mess. Some time after the boy was asleep, I went downstairs, fired up MS word and started typing. The first word that came out of my head was 'Autopilot.' I was going to type a eulogy, at least that's what I think I was going to do. A few hours later, I realized that I was never going to finish. So I made it into a blog.

I still work on the eulogy some days - most times when I'm in the car on the way home - listening to music I should avoid. I envision myself at the service all over again, only this time I'd step up to the podium and say all the things I should have. I write and rewrite paragraphs in my head until they are hopelessly overwrought or until some traffic mishap jolts me back to the present.

I have a few paragraphs I've burnished almost to the point of posting - a virulent defense of my associating dad's death with Katrina, rather than the freak accident that it could easily be classified as. I say them to myself at least once a week - imagining some hapless critic withering under my words as I drive them home with a pile driver.

-and then I think, "never gonna happen." and then I post something about the government.

2) My only other reason is the same as most, I expect. I like to say what's on my mind, and I'm not sure most people enjoy hearing it. Here, I can scream into the void and people can take or leave it. Given the potential audience of a blog like this, and my infrequent update schedule, I have no illusions about what kind of exposure my thoughts will get - but every once in awhile you get a comment or a tag - and that's pretty cool.

Cheers.

Finally, a candidate you can believe in...

It's a pity this candidate isn't running in any of my local elections... I'd give them a shot.

How do you pick a vampire out of a crowd?

Easy...shine sunlight on the crowd. The one who runs into the shadows is your bloodsucker.

The past few years have spawned a number of political organizations that are overdue for some sunlight therapy.

These are groups that purport to advocate for a popular cause, but their causes are curiously in line with powerful partisan interests.

This by itself isn't such a bad thing - there's certainly no law against being partisan. Any group can organize and freely praise their own or damn the opposition in any forum they can reach.

But isn't it interesting the number of groups who are formed by political operatives who take great pains to hide their affiliations? I am sure this occurs on both sides of the political aisle - but it has been raised to a high art by the current conservative crowd. Remember the Swift Boat Vets? a group of "concerned vets" who just happened to be bankrolled by partisan heavies like Bob J. Perry, the largest single donor to the Texas GOP.

Slate's Richard L. Hasen does a really nice job of shining the light on another bogus group, the American Center for Voting Rights - a group that loudly asserted that voter fraud was a growing national problem. They of course had a solution - rigorous ID and registration hurdles that (oh, by the way) might depress turnout among poor and minority voters - but they assured us they were not trying to depress traditionally democratic voter turnout.

Of course, since the group has tried hard to disappear right after the election was over, its kind of hard to believe they are (or ever were) anything other than just another partisan hit squad.

Read the whole sorry story here.

If they were really doing the work of the angels, why are they so afraid of the light?

This?! This is our government?

This is making the rounds, so this will hardly be news to anyone - but just because it un-fricking believable.

Read the testimony of Frm. Deputy Attorney General James Comey to the Senate Judiciary Committee:

This bit should whet the appetite:

COMEY: In the early part of 2004, the Department of Justice was engaged -- the Office of Legal Counsel, under my supervision -- in a reevaluation both factually and legally of a particular classified program [NSA Wiretapping]. And it was a program that was renewed on a regular basis, and required signature by the attorney general certifying to its legality.
And the -- and I remember the precise date. The program had to be renewed by March the 11th, which was a Thursday, of 2004. And we were engaged in a very intensive reevaluation of the matter.
And a week before that March 11th deadline, I had a private meeting with the attorney general for an hour, just the two of us, and I laid out for him what we had learned and what our analysis was in this particular matter.
And at the end of that hour-long private session, he and I agreed on a course of action. And within hours he was stricken and taken very, very ill...
SCHUMER: (inaudible) You thought something was wrong with how it was being operated or administered or overseen.
COMEY: We had -- yes. We had concerns as to our ability to certify its legality, which was our obligation for the program to be renewed.
The attorney general was taken that very afternoon to George Washington Hospital, where he went into intensive care and remained there for over a week. And I became the acting attorney general.
And over the next week -- particularly the following week, on Tuesday -- we communicated to the relevant parties at the White House and elsewhere our decision that as acting attorney general I would not certify the program as to its legality and explained our reasoning in detail, which I will not go into here. Nor am I confirming it's any particular program. That was Tuesday that we communicated that.
The next day was Wednesday, March the 10th, the night of the hospital incident. And I was headed home at about 8 o'clock that evening, my security detail was driving me. And I remember exactly where I was -- on Constitution Avenue -- and got a call from Attorney General Ashcroft's chief of staff telling me that he had gotten a call...
SCHUMER: What's his name?
COMEY: David Ayers. That he had gotten a call from Mrs. Ashcroft from the hospital. She had banned all visitors and all phone calls. So I hadn't seen him or talked to him because he was very ill. And Mrs. Ashcroft reported that a call had come through, and that as a result of that call Mr. Card and Mr. Gonzales were on their way to the hospital to see Mr. Ashcroft.
SCHUMER: Do you have any idea who that call was from?
COMEY: I have some recollection that the call was from the president himself, but I don't know that for sure. It came from the White House. And it came through and the call was taken in the hospital.
So I hung up the phone, immediately called my chief of staff, told him to get as many of my people as possible to the hospital immediately. I hung up, called Director Mueller and -- with whom I'd been discussing this particular matter and had been a great help to me over that week -- and told him what was happening. He said, "I'll meet you at the hospital right now."
Told my security detail that I needed to get to George Washington Hospital immediately. They turned on the emergency equipment and drove very quickly to the hospital. I got out of the car and ran up -- literally ran up the stairs with my security detail.
SCHUMER: What was your concern? You were in obviously a huge hurry.
COMEY: I was concerned that, given how ill I knew the attorney general was, that there might be an effort to ask him to overrule me when he was in no condition to do that.

So, this kind of crap goes down in CorpWorld - person A doesn't like like person B's answer - goes to person C. Happens at home, too. "Mom, can I have X?" "No." "Dad...?"

Except, this is the White House Counsel and the White House Chief of Staff not getting the answer they want from the Acting Attorney General of the United States, so they go to the man who would be Attorney General, were he not incapacitated.

What I especially like is the fact that Ashcroft's wife has attempted to cut off all communication to her husband while he recuperates. The President of the United States calls and informs her that the White House Counsel and Chief of Staff are coming over anyway.

The bonus round is, (and, I know I'm not alone in being surprised by this) Ashcroft does the right thing. He spells out his objections to Gonzales and Card and then tells them what he thinks is irrelevant, since Comey is Acting Attorney General, they should really be talking to Comey.

Gonzales and Card leave without talking to Comey.

Then (and I love this part)

SCHUMER: Right. OK. Let's continue. What happened after Mr. Gonzales and Card left? Did you have any contact with them in the next little while?
COMEY: While I was talking to Director Mueller, an agent came up to us and said that I had an urgent call in the command center, which was right next door. They had Attorney General Ashcroft in a hallway by himself and there was an empty room next door that was the command center. And he said it was Mr. Card wanting to speak to me.
I took the call. And Mr. Card was very upset and demanded that I come to the White House immediately. I responded that, after the conduct I had just witnessed, I would not meet with him without a witness present.
He replied, "What conduct? We were just there to wish him well."
And I said again, "After what I just witnessed, I will not meet with you without a witness. And I intend that witness to be the solicitor general of the United States."

Yes. Andrew Card and Alberto Gonzales want their wiretapping declared "legal" by the AG, who refer them to the Acting AG. Instead of talking to him when he's in the same room, late at night on the day before their approval deadline, they leave. And then summon the Acting AG to the White House.

What a bunch of pussies.

The windout of this sad affair is that mass resignations are threatened by Ashcroft, Comey, possibly Meuller and others at DoJ, so the President relents and asks the Comey to come up with a list of changes to the program so it will be legal. We are to assume this happened, although with this sorry lot, who knows what happened the second Comey was out of the room?

It's just a disgrace. Add to that, Gonzales tried hard to stop this testimony from seeing the light of day - having prohibited Ashcroft's and Comey's from testifying for over a year.

Kinda puts a whole new spin on John Ashcroft, don't it?

---

Now we have Gonzales stabbing his current deputy in the back the day after he resigns.

"I wasn't involved in firing US Attorneys."

"Oh, you have proof I was in those meetings? Oh, then I was in the meetings, but I don't remember doing anything in them."

"Yes, I was the Attorney General - but it's not like I remember every little thing that goes on here..."

"Even though I remember nothing, I'm confident that everything was done properly."

"Now that you mention it, I'm certain that McNulty did all of the decision making there. I just follow his recommendations. That's McNulty, M-C. Got that?"

He even smirked while he did it. What a first-class jerk.

Broken record

It's getting to the point where pretty much anything I read from Glenn Greenwald generates a 400-decibel, from-the-gut "Damn right!"

-so forgive me for quoting and linking to the man yet again, but he's just so freaking spot on:

The Politico: Exhibit A for our broken political press

This week, the Bush administration sought vastly increased powers to spy on the telephone conversations of Americans, and then threatened to begin spying again illegally and without warrants...

Yesterday, it was disclosed that Iraq's government is actually purging itself of anyone who seeks to impede lawless Shiite militias...

...And one of the right-wing's most influential academicians published an article on The Wall St. Journal Op-Ed page explicitly advocating "one-man rule" in America whereby the President can ignore the "rule of law" in order to fight The Terrorists.

None of that -- or virtually anything else of even marginal significance -- was reported by The Politico, an online political magazine founded by some of the nation's most prestigious and admired (in Beltway terms) political journalists. But yesterday, The Politico's so-called "chief political columnist," Roger Simon, published a 674-word article -- prominently touted on The Politico's front page -- exclusively about John Edwards' haircuts, cleverly headlined "Hair today, gone tomorrow."

...The sprawling, glaring, and ever-widening discrepancy between (a) how journalists like [the Politico's] Harris preeningly describe what they do and (b) the empty-headed trash they churn out on a regular basis, is the actual crux of most media criticism.