The Political Chase

Slow Response Time

Sorry for the site being so slow today. It looks like the problem is a link to Technorati. I hope to have the problem resolved momentarily

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A New Spin

There’s always room for levity.  A reader’s comment that I thought was worth passing along.

“They’re trying to cut a deal where Rove isn’t tortured by Pte. Lyndie England…”

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Guam Prosecutor Demotion

This is good news if the Dems efforts aren’t quashed by Republicans.

The ranking Democrats on three House committees called Thursday for an outside investigator to determine why a prosecutor in Guam was demoted in 2002 after opening a criminal investigation of Jack Abramoff, the Washington lobbyist now at the center of a federal corruption investigation.

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On Karen Hughes…

According to these critics, Karen has some re-tooling to do or else the president needs to find someone with a better smile. In my opinion Hughes probably would not win an award for presentation of a warm and friendly image..

“Preachy, culturally insensitive, superficial PR blitz.” — USA Today.

“Faux Pas Trifecta; saying too much, saying the wrong thing, saying anything at all.” — the Washington Times op-ed page.

“Non-answers, canned message, macabre.” — the Los Angeles Times.

“Fiasco, lame attempt at bonding.” — Slate.com

“Painfully clueless . . . pedestrian . . . vapid . . . gushy.” — Arab News (”The Middle East’s Leading English Language Daily”)

“The marquee clown [in] America’s circus diplomacy . . . total ineptitude . . . total disconnect.” Al-Jazeerah.

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Chatty Cathy Doll

Scott McLellan may as well be a Chatty Cathy Doll, just pull the string and the statements are the same.

Bush spokesman Scott McClellan said the White House would not comment on the probe.

“That’s an ongoing investigation . . . and the president directed that we cooperate fully with that investigation,” he said. “As part of cooperating fully, that means not commenting on it from here.”

The White House press corps might as well give up on even asking certain questions about the matter.  McLellan, unless he royally screws up, will change his response after CNN and MSNBC break the news of what I believe to be the inevitable indictment of Rove.

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Parsing of Luskin’s Words

The Washington Post differs today from the New York Times on Robert Luskin’s statements.  Luskin is Karl Rove’s attorney.  We’ve all been focusing on his exact words attempting to discern what reality is. The Post says:

Rove’s lawyer, Robert Luskin, said in an interview yesterday that Rove has not been notified that he is a target of the investigation, and does not fear testifying despite Fitzgerald’s warning. Luskin declined to say whether he knows the topics Fitzgerald wants to question Rove about. [Emphasis added.]

The Times says, according to Luskin, that Rove has not received a target letter.

Neither paper puts in direct quotes Luskin’s words regarding notification to Rove. So, without benefit of information from other sources, there is a lot of ambiguity generated by the difference in three or four simple words.

I wonder if the reporters for both periodicals have zeroed in on Luskin’s specific words about notification to the extent the blogosphere has?  This could be a matter of semantics rather than a lawyer’s parsing of words.  For now, I’m hanging on the latter.

Target Letters and whatever else

Between dynamic news dissemination and my own foul ups (spelling errors after posted - unacceptable),  updates on top of updates seem to be the priority at the moment.

Re: Target Letters 

As more people pour over US Attorney manuals (thank God I elected to not undertake that task), the consensus has changed since I discussed them earlier.  Josh Marshall and TalkLeft researched the requirement for target letters and it is their conclusion the letters are not required as far as Rove is concerned. 

Josh cites specific code/statue(s) along with consultation from a lawyer, to support his opinion.  TalkLeft updates his earlier position and cites a different section of the US Attorney manual, but draws the same conclusion as Josh - target letter is not required.

It seems as if these dedicated researchers have dealt a striking blow to the diversionary babble of Robert D. Luskin, Esquire.  Expect revised verbosity from Mr. Luskin tomorrow.

If the genie would grant me three wishes, my first would be access to the Grand Jury room when Mr. Rove takes the stand.

Until tomorrow. 

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NYT Updated “Rove Summoned” Article

Update: The New York Times made significant changes to the article I referenced in my post “Quicksand Around the White House.” The changes were published at approximately 12:30 am.

The updated article is here. The original article is here if The original article has been removed, click here.

Quick Sand Around the White House

Late update: Click here for an important update regarding this article.

In an article, published this evening, the New York Times employs slightly different language than what I have noticed most of the media use regarding Karl Rove’s return to the Grand Jury.

The special prosecutor in the C.I.A. leak case has summoned Karl Rove, the senior White House adviser, to return next week totestify to a federal grand jury in a step that could mean there will becharges filed in the case, lawyers in the case said today. [Emphasis added.]

Most of what I have heard MSM state is they did not know if Rove volunteered testimony. Summoned is not volunteering. If Fitzgerald summoned Rove, what does that say about the speculation that Rove or Luskin, Rove’s attorney, initiated the additional testimony to mitigate Rove’s risk?

If NYT’s wording is accurate, I see this as a more ominous sign than if Rove had pulled out his groveling rug. Furthermore, it sounds as if Fitzgerald may have already given notice (”target letter”), to some of the parties that they are targets rather than subjects.

The prosecutor, Patrick J. Fitzgerald, has held discussions in recent days with lawyers for several Bush administration officials suggesting that that he is considering whether to charge them with a crime over the
disclosure of an intelligence operative’s identity in a 2003 newspaper column.

But some of the lawyers said Mr. Fitzgerald indicated that he had not yet made up his mind about whether to accuse anyone with wrongdoing and would use the coming weeks before the grand jury expires on Oct. 28 to decide the issue.

Mr. Fitzgerald’s conversations with lawyers since late last week have left an ominous cloud hanging over the inquiry, sweeping away assurances from a number of officials and their lawyers that Mr. Fitzgerald was
unlikely to find criminal wrongdoing.

Target letters are not specifically stated, and are a requirement if a person is a target of the investigation rather than a subject. TalkLeft has the specifications on notification if a witness is a target and an example of a target letter. Luskin keeps barking that Rove has not received a target letter yet. I believe those are weasel-words at best — Luskin is still trying to play dodge ball, but the guy has two left feet.

At this juncture, I don’t think it is a debating point whether “they” have received a target letter or not. I think Rove is on the chopping block — indictment waiting to be made public. And, he is not going to be alone. I’m not ready to say, without
doubt, that Scooter Libby is sunk too, but his boat seems to be filling up rapidly.

My burning question is, is Cheney on the wanted list? I have nothing concrete to base this on; just gut instinct. I don’t think Cheney is going to walk away from this unscathed. I believe he is going to be compromised to the point that Bush may have to make decisions about his future.

Rove is scheduled to testify tomorrow morning. Will the boy be sporting a bright orange suit by Monday? Saturday Night Live definitely has a bundle to work with for this weekend’s show.

Quicksand Around the White Hous

The link for this post has changed. Click here for the proper page.

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Incorrect Posts

Correction:  Based upon information published at The Huffington Post, I noted earlier today that President Bush announced Alan Greenspan’s replacement.  I have removed the two posts related to the inaccurate information.

First, I sincerely apologize to anyone that may have deemed credible the misinformation in two of my posts. I hope I did not place anyone in the position I find myself in – being duped and passing the same information on to others as credible.

In the same manner as many other bloggers, I take the content published here quite seriously. Without doubt, there are many posts on this site that have satire, cynicism, etc. incorporated with factual content, but it is easily discernible.  This site will never intentionally publish a single post where the entire content is knowingly false, nothing but a joke, intentionally misleading and is presented as fact.

Unfortunately, President Bush’s history readily allows one to believe the unbelievable. The President often times makes decisions and takes action that I find to be incredible and downright laughable, but they are real – nothing surprises me. Add that to the disclosures and events surrounding the White House the past few days and anything seems possible.

In the future, I will make every effort to insure sheer stupidity does not enter into the content of this blog as it did today.  Like the president said himself, I take full responsibility.

Again, my sincere apologies for misleading anyone.

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