The Political Chase

Leahy Finally Moves on WH Executive Privilege Claim

Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-VT)

Did the rapture come and I missed it? Something finally woke Patrick Leahy up.

Sen. Patrick Leahy, Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, ruled today that "White House claims of executive privilege and immunity in the Senate’s investigation of the mass firings of U.S. Attorneys are overbroad, unsubstantiated, and not legally valid."While it’s not clear to me what legal implications Leahy’s ruling may have other than procedural, at least the issue has been moved from cryogenic storage to a thawing table.

More than five months ago (June 13 and July 26) the Committee issued subpoenas to, amongst others, White House Chief of Staff Joshua Bolten, former White House political director Sara M. Taylor, former White House Deputy Chief of Staff Karl Rove, and White House deputy political director J. Scott Jennings. The White House promptly declared Executive Privilege to everything under the sun and refused to let most of those subpoena even appear before Congress to formally exert their claim. Limited testimony was given by Taylor and Jennings.

Since the White House thumbed its nose at Congress, other than exchanging strong letters and meaningless rhetoric, nothing has been done to challenge the administration’s claims. Of course, some of that inaction is directly related to Alberto Gonzales. The Justice Department is responsible for prosecuting contempt citations, and Bush ordered Gonzales to not allow any prosecutor to pursue contempt charges (iirc).

In his ruling today, Leahy said:

“I have given the White House’s claims of executive privilege and immunity careful consideration,” wrote Leahy. “I hereby rule that those claims are not legally valid to excuse current and former White House employees from appearing, testifying and producing documents related to this investigation. Accordingly, I direct Mr. Bolten, Mr. Rove, Ms. Taylor and Mr. Jennings to comply immediately with the Committees subpoenas by producing documents and testifying or face possible contempt citations.”

According to Roll Call (subscription), the Committee could issue contempt citations for each person that does not comply — including Karl Rove — as early as December 6. The House Judiciary Committee has already approve contempt citations, therefore the next step is for each committee to get full approval of their respective Houses. The House does not require a super-majority vote, therefore approval is all but assured. If a 60-vote super-majority approval is required in the Senate, my guess is Leahy’s citations will be DOA.

Mike Gravel may be president by the time Congress actually gets around to prosecuting anybody.

CNN debates are disgraceful

On a scale of 1 to 10, with 10 being the best, CNN deserves a rating of -10. Quite simply they are next to impossible to watch. I had that impression after watching the last Democratic debate, but decided to hold my opinion until after the GOP debate last night. And while their debates are generally horrendous, Wolf Blitzer’s moderation, as demonstrated in the Democratic debate is on par, at best, with Chris Wallace and Brit Hume of Fox News. I was elated that Anderson Cooper moderated last night’s debate. Not because Cooper’s moderation skills are so high (he doesn’t know what follow-up is), but just pleased that Blitzer was not in charge.

When it comes to debates, CNN has dropped to the pitiful depths of Fox News’ approach to jouranlism. Forget journalism. Ratings and entertainment are far more important.

Last night CNN failed to address the most compelling issues, but instead asked questions that fuel polarization between voters and appealed to only the most radical elements of the Republican party. There was basically no focus on asking questions that would allow a viewer to compare the respective parties and candidates. If you were looking for pure red meat, did not care about the issues facing both parties and wanted to watch a third-party instigate a fight between two candidates, last night’s debate scored 10+.

In Salon, Walter Shapiro provides an excellent analysis:

[W]hat sent me into a free fall of depression was CNN’s instinct for the fatuous in choosing the debate questions. It is a disgrace that in a two-hour debate (it felt longer) there was not a single question about the Israeli-Palestinian negotiations, the powder keg in Pakistan or Iran. The fault is not with the earnest YouTubers who sent in questions. The blame entirely rests with Anderson Cooper (a debate host who seemed incapable of asking a relevant follow-up question) and his CNN cohorts, who seemed more concerned with goosing the ratings than with grasping the world that the next president will inherit.

I found it almost impossible to watch all of the last Democratic debate on CNN. Not because Blitzer generated answers that differed from my views, but instead it was the manner in whiich he framed the questions, the pressure he put on candidates in follow-up questions when they didn’t give an answer he wanted, and the lack of follow-up to answers that should have been probed more. For example, when he asked Hillary Clinton if she supported giving drivers license to undocumented workers, she said “No.” Blitzer did not ask her why she changed her position from the MSNBC debate two-weeks earlier and why did it take her two weeks to make a decision. When asking Barack Obama the same question he pointedly grilled Obama for a simple yes/no answer and refused to accept Obama’s attempt to explain his answer.

Matthew Yglesias captured it perfectly:

Wolf Blitzer’s main interest is in asking questions designed to put Democrats on the wrong side of public opinion, even if those questions are about things like driver’s licenses or “merit pay” for teachers that aren’t really under federal purview. Efforts to reframe those questions by putting those topics in the larger context of immigration policy more generally or education more generally are derided as cowardly dodges. The point, after all, is to force a choice — piss off an interest group, or say something that could be used in a GOP attack ad.

Rep. Henry Hyde Dies

Former Rep. Henry Hyde (R-IL), who lead the Republican’s failed political coup d’etat against former President Clinton, died today at age 83.

Huckabee and the GOP Debate

I have only watched about half of last night’s Republican debatet, but based on what little I saw and the tidbits I’ve picked up this morning, Mike Huckabee appears to have hit a home run. He’s very conservative, which the GOP base is finally figuring out and seems to be making a difference in the polls. If he did as well on all of his answers as he did when asked if he believed every word of the Bible, his opponents don’t stand a chance. His answer on the bible was incredibly good. I’ll get the exact words later.

A new Iowa poll that came out just hours before the debate has Huckabee ahead of Mitt Romney 28 - 25, and Giuliani at 12. Fred Thompson rings in at 11 and based on what I have seen of the debate thus far, I would be surprised if that doesn’t drop.

Here are a few things I picked up this morning.

Josh Marshall:

Mike Huckabee is super conservative, believes in biblical literalism, doesn’t believe in evolution. But, man, that answer to the Bible question was good. Just judging in pure political terms, he knocked that one out of the park.

Made Rudy and Mitt look like idiots that wanted to be anywhere else but on that stage.

Ex-WH adviser David Gergen:

"On style, I think that the most presidential tonight were John McCain, who has found his voice again. … And I thought Rudy Giuliani. But the candidate I think that the spotlight was shining on tonight and who really emerged as the most authentic and human was Mike Huckabee. Huckabee continually responded to questions with a compassionate, sort of human quality that I think will appeal to a lot of people in their homes"

Hotline:

Huck gave clear, thoughtful answers to questions about the death penalty, the Bible and immigration. He also had the funniest line of the night, per the WWJD? death penalty inquiry. "Jesus Was Too Smart to Ever Run for Public Office, Anderson." Huckabee also looked more the statesmanlike than his frontrunner counterparts, who sniped about sanctuary cities, illegal workers and more.

Jane Hamsher: Huckabee — good debate prep

Huckabee Hound:

Each candidate had an ad they submitted to the debate — and oddly enough, Fred Thompson used his ad to simply attack Romney and Huckabee — with nothing said of himself. Funny — it just shows that his campaign is in desperate mode. Thompson seemed like through the whole debate he was unable to string together coherent thoughts. He definitely missed his cue cards tonight!

The Washington Post’s article on the debate seems to be more driven by what the national polls reflect than by the content or substance of the debate. After the opening sentence, they dedicate the first 387 words of their 1,397 piece (28 percent) to Giuliani and Romney. If you don’t believe the article was poll driven check this out. This is how many times each candidate’s name appears in the article.

Romney - 16
Giuliani - 12
McCain - 9
Huckabee - 8
Tancredo - 4
Paul - 3
Thompson - 2
Hunter - 1

The New York Times plays a ratings game, but not nearly as bad as the Post. The first 70 words of their 1,215 word article (six percent) are dedicated to Giuliani and Romney. Mike Huckabee is mentioned in the third sentence. Here’s the name-count breakdown.

Romney - 18
Giuliani - 13
Huckabee - 8
McCain - 7
Thompson - 4
Hunter - 1
Tancredo - 1
Paul - 1

I’ll watch the rest of the debate a little later, but the consensus seems to be Huckabee won hands down last night.