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Tuesday, February 14, 2012
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The Washington Times is reporting today that Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy and the panel's ranking Republican, Sen. Arlen Specter, warned yesterday that Attorney General Gonzales "must quickly clarify apparent contradictions in his testimony about surveillance laws or risk a possible perjury investigation or a special prosecutor." Sen. Leahy, on CBS's Face the Nation, warned Gonzales "has a week to correct [his testimony] if he wants. I'd suggest he consult with a lawyer as he does it." And on the CBS Evening News, Sen. Specter was shown saying, "The Department of Justice would be much better off without him." Sen. Leahy: "I think a lot of us Republicans and Democrats were incredulous at some of the answers. I told him, frankly, I don't trust him." CBS went on to report, "Gonzales's critics are focused on his inconsistent answers about a secret terrorist surveillance program ordered by the White House which clears the way for warrant-less wiretap. In 2006 Gonzales told the Judiciary Committee no one in the Bush administration objected. ... But this May his former deputy James Comey disputed Gonzales's testimony saying there had been heated arguments and threats to resign" and, according to CBS, FBI Director Robert Mueller also "disputed" Gonzales's testimony.
USA Today notes that Sunday's New York Times, "quoting unnamed sources, reported that Gonzales' responses Tuesday to the Senate Judiciary Committee were carefully worded to draw a distinction between a program to eavesdrop on phone calls without warrants and one that involves mining a database of domestic phone and e-mail communications for possible terror links." Democrats interviewed yesterday, however, "dismissed suggestions Sunday that apparent contradictions between" Gonzales and Mueller "could be explained by the fact they were discussing two different programs." Sen. Russ Feingold, on Fox News Sunday, alleged Gonzales "has at least lied to Congress and may have committed perjury, and I think we need to have somebody who's able to look at both the classified and non-classified material in a way that he can actually determine whether or not criminal charges have to be pursued." Asked if he thought it possible that Gonzales gave "technically correct testimony," Sen. Charles Schumer, on ABC's This Week, answered, "No, I don't believe so."
USA Today, meanwhile, notes Solicitor General Paul Clement is the person responsible for deciding whether a special prosecutor to investigate Gonzales is warranted. Clement, says the story, "has few rules to guide him." The decision is "governed by regulations created in 1999 by the Justice Department in consultation with Congress after the Independent Counsel Act lapsed and Congress did not renew it, says Neal Katyal, a Georgetown University law professor who wrote the guidelines while he was an attorney at the Justice Department."
"Gonzales's Truthfulness Long Disputed," Says WPost The Washington Post, in a front-page article titled, "Gonzales's Truthfulness Long Disputed: Claims of Misstatements to Shield Bush Stretch Back a Decade," reports that a "series of misstatements and omissions has come to define [Gonzales's] tenure at the helm of the Justice Department and is the central reason that lawmakers in both parties have been trying for months to push him out of his job. Yet controversy over Gonzales's candor about George W. Bush's conduct or policies has actually dogged him for more than a decade, since he worked for Bush in Texas." The Post adds that "whether Gonzales has deliberately told untruths or is merely hampered by his memory has been the subject of intense debate."
U.S. News and World Report's Washington Whispers column reported Gen. David Petraeus "is telling surge troops that they will not be kept past their 15-month tours. That means the troop drawdown could begin in April, when the first troops in the surge will reach their 15th month on the ground."
Petraeus-Malaki Tension Downplayed Asked about Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's reportedly poor relations with Gen. David Petraeus, US Ambassador to the UN Zalmay Khalilzad said on CNN's Late Edition that Petraeus "is a strong leader, and he speaks his mind. And I'm sure when there are discussions with the prime minister on some important issues that there is strong exchange of views." Khalilzad said he did not think Malaki would seek Petraeus' recall to Washington because he "knows that Gen. Petraeus has the full confidence of the President and that he is a great leader."
US Making Progress "In Military Terms" In a New York Times op-ed, Brookings Institution scholars Michael E. O'Hanlon and Kenneth M. Pollack say the Administration's critics "seem unaware of the significant changes taking place" in Iraq. The US is "finally getting somewhere in Iraq, at least in military terms. As two analysts who have harshly criticized the Bush Administration's miserable handling of Iraq, we were surprised by the gains we saw and the potential to produce not necessarily 'victory' but a sustainable stability that both we and the Iraqis could live with."
Rangel: Bush Created Al Qaeda In Iraq Regarding President Bush's insistence that the US must fight al-Qaeda in Iraq, Rep. Charlie Rangel said yesterday on CNN's Late Edition that Bush "created the al-Qaeda in Iraq" and "this whole idea that we got to fight over there to keep them from coming here, there's no relationship with reality and what the President is saying."
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In a syndicated column titled "Bush's Turkish Gamble," appearing in today's Washington Post, Bob Novak writes, "The morass in Iraq and deepening difficulties in Afghanistan have not deterred the Bush administration from taking on a dangerous and questionable new secret operation. High-level US officials are working with their Turkish counterparts on a joint military operation to suppress Kurdish guerrillas and capture their leaders. Through covert activity, their goal is to forestall Turkey from invading Iraq."
Bush Reasoning On Iraq Called Dangerous In his Washington Post column, Shakar Vedantam says that in the "face of mounting public and political opposition to the war in Iraq, recent reports from the White House suggest that President Bush remains serenely confident." No matter "how tough the situation in Iraq, Bush remains confident about his decision to go to war because he believes that things would have been much worse otherwise." Bush's "argument is based on something known as a counterfactual. In his mind, the president has run an alternate view of history -- one that imagines Saddam Hussein still in power -- and has come to the conclusion that deposing the Iraqi leader was better." What is "dangerous about counterfactuals is that while they may seem reasonable, they easily become a way for us to confirm what we already feel."
The Politico reported over the weekend that Sen. Charles Schumer "said Friday the Senate should not confirm another U.S. Supreme Court nominee under President Bush 'except in extraordinary circumstances.'" Schumer added that Senators "were too quick to accept the nominees' word that they would respect legal precedents, and 'too easily impressed with the charm of Roberts and the erudition of Alito."
The AP reported over the weekend that President Bush "wants Congress to modernize a law that governs how intelligence agencies monitor the communications of suspected terrorists." In his weekly radio address, Bush said the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act "is badly out of date."
The Hill reported Bush said Congress "should pass the updates his administration proposed before it leaves for recess in August." Bush said, "Every day that Congress puts off these reforms increases the danger to our nation." But Senate Judiciary Chairman Patrick Leahy said this week that the Bush Administration "abuses the current FISA law and should not be granted further powers."
AFP linked the story to the continuing controversies surrounding Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, saying the "amid furor over" Gonzales "handling of the government's secret warrantless wiretap program, Bush urged legislators" to pass FISA update.
Leahy Says He'll Work With Bush On FISA The AP reported that on Chairman Leahy said "he was ready to work with the Bush administration to modernize a law that governs how intelligence agencies monitor the communications of suspected terrorists." Leahy said on CBS's Face the Nation, "It has got to be back to the rule of law. If they need to make changes in our intelligence surveillance act...we'll do that. We've done this a half dozen times already. I voted for every one of them."
Wiretapping Rules Said To Risk US Lives Newsweek reports U.S. intelligence officials "are complaining about the emergence of a major 'gap' in their ability to secretly eavesdrop on suspected terrorist plotters." Intel "czar" Mike McConnell has "argued that the nation's spook community is 'missing a significant portion of what we should be getting' from electronic eavesdropping on possible terror plots." Rep. Heather Wilson "told Newsweek she has learned of 'specific cases where US lives have been put at risk' as a result."
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Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, who lambasted the GOP field last week, changed his tune in an interview yesterday, amid hints he won't enter the presidential race. The Politico reports Gingrich "came a step closer to suggesting he will not run for president as he praised other Republicans on 'Fox News Sunday.'" Gingrich "confirmed he recently had dinner with Fred Thompson, adding that the former Tennessee senator would be a 'very formidable candidate,'" and he "didn't sound like a candidate looking to enter the political fray as he complimented Thompson, Rudy Giuliani and Mitt Romney." Gingrich said, "These three are serious people. They're working very hard, and if they can fill the vacuum, I don't feel any great need to run." The Politico adds Gingrich "also didn't sound too eager to join the debates a necessary precondition if he entered the presidential fray."
Fox News reported on its website that "Gingrich did have praise for some in the GOP 2008 presidential field but said Republicans in general don't realize the extensiveness of 'performance failure of government.' 'I think the great dilemma of America today -- and if we don't solve it, it will become a tragedy -- is that the Republicans don't recognize the scale of the performance failure of government as a system, and the Democrats are living in a fantasy land in terms of their policy proposals.'"
Gingrich also did some prognosticating. The AP reports that in his Fox News Sunday appearance, Gingrich predicted "Democrats will nominate Hillary Rodham Clinton for president in 2008 and Barack Obama will be her running mate."
USA Today /Gannett News Servicereports Sen. John McCain, "no longer burdened by lots of campaign cash and staff," is "stumping for votes the old-fashioned way, trying to remind voters of the maverick personality that won him fans in the 2000 presidential race." Instead of "addressing crowds from podiums at expensive rallies, the Arizona Republican is hitting minor league ballgames, diners and house parties, which aides say are low-cost ways to let McCain talk with voters." The notion that McCain "is now liberated from the pressure and high expectations of being the front-runner" is "a frequently repeated talking point for the campaign's supporters here. And the idea that McCain will break free of the crowded GOP field if he speaks directly to voters as he did in his 'Straight Talk Express' 2000 campaign is key to the new strategy."
The New York Times runs a very positive piece on Barack Obama today, which reports he "did not bring revolution to Springfield in his eight years" in the Illinois State Senate, "the longest chapter in his short public life. But he turned out to be practical and shrewd, a politician capable of playing hardball to win election (he squeezed every opponent out of his first race), a legislator with a sharp eye for an opportunity, a strategist willing to compromise to accomplish things." By the time "he left Springfield in 2004, he had built not only the connections necessary to win election to the United States Senate but a record not inconsistent with his lofty rhetoric of consensus building and bipartisanship."
The Washington Post reports in a front page story today that "among political insiders who closely follow the presidential race and gossip about who is up and who is down in every campaign, Elizabeth Edwards is seen as the hidden hand behind virtually every important decision regarding her husband's second bid for the White House." Four months ago, Edwards, 58, "received a diagnosis of incurable cancer, a finding that would have forced many other people to the sidelines. Instead, she has emerged as the most visible and effective advocate for her husband, the campaign's most provocative personality and newest television star." Edwards' "cancer now helps to define her persona, but making John Edwards president also remains at the forefront of her life. If she is neither a political strategist nor the overseer of operations at Edwards's North Carolina headquarters, her influence on the broad outlines and some details of the Democratic former senator's campaign is without question."
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Jay Leno: "More bad news today for John McCain. John McCain's media team has resigned, yeah. But McCain says he intends to stay in the race, according to the campaign's new media spokesman, John McCain."
David Letterman: "Did you hear about this? Senator Hillary Clinton down there in Washington D.C. appeared on the Senate floor wearing a pink blazer and a skimpy top. Yeah, she looked so hot Senator Ted Kennedy sent over a drink."
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