The Top 10 Conservative Idiots, No. 283

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The Top 10 Conservative Idiots, No. 283

The Top 10 Conservative Idiots, No. 283

March 19, 2007
Bedtime for Gonzo Edition

Welcome to the 283rd edition of the Top 10 Conservative Idiots. I should note up front that technically there are only eight Idiots this week - it's just that the whole U.S. attorneys/Alberto Gonzales/White House scandal has expanded to such epic proportions that I've decided to combine The Bush Administration into the top three slots. Hope you don't mind. Elsewhere, Peter Pace (4) speaks out on morals and values, Dick Cheney (6) blames the Democrats (yawn), the Concerned Women for America (8) have caught themselves an atheist, and John McCain (9, 10) straight-talks his way out of presidential contention. Enjoy, and don't forget the key!

The Bush Administration

Fallout from the recent firings of several U.S. attorneys hit the Bush administration like a hurricane last week - and shows no sign of abating any time soon. But why is it such a big deal? Let's take a walk down scandal lane.

Clinton Did It Too?

It's been noted many, many, many times this past week that U.S. attorneys "serve at the pleasure of the president" - and this is true. The president can hire and fire U.S. attorneys whenever he wants. It's also true that "Presidents commonly begin their first term by replacing most, if not all, U.S. attorneys. Presidents Clinton in 1993 and Bush in 2001 replaced nearly all U.S. attorneys in the Justice Department's 93 districts nationwide," according to the Associated Press.

But there's one important thing to know about the president's power to hire and fire U.S. attorneys: aside from the start of his first term, he rarely, if ever, uses it. In fact, the Congressional Research Service reported last month that in the past 25 years, only five U.S. attorneys have been forced to resign mid-term.

All of which makes the Bush administration's recent firing of eight U.S. attorneys - and then claiming that they performed poorly when in fact they'd received positive performance reviews - look more than a tad suspicious. According to the New York Times:

The United States attorney purge appears to have been prompted by an array of improper political motives. Carol Lam, the San Diego attorney, seems to have been fired to stop her from continuing an investigation that put Republican officials and campaign contributors at risk. These charges, like the accusation that Mr. McKay and other United States attorneys were insufficiently aggressive about voter fraud, are a way of saying, without actually saying, that they would not use their offices to help Republicans win elections.

So the attorneys were fired because they either didn't investigate enough Democrats, or because they investigated Republicans - and that's the problem. U.S. attorneys are politically appointed, but they are supposed to remain above politics. These firings appear to be, as John McLaughlin said last week, "a shabby and grave departure from good government."

So that's the why - but what about the who, the how, and the when?

Patriot Acting

Let's recap for a moment. Back in January, Sen. Arlen Specter "confirmed that as Judiciary Committee chairman last year he made a last-minute change to (the Patriot Act) that expanded the administration's power to install U.S. Attorneys without Senate approval," according to TPM Muckraker (and see Idiots 275). Shortly afterwards, Alberto Gonzales defended this provision, telling the Senate Judiciary Commitee - under oath, mind you - that, "I am fully committed, as the administration's fully committed, to ensure that, with respect to every United States attorney position in this country, we will have a presidentially appointed, Senate-confirmed United States attorney."

Fine - except it appears that Gonzo was lying. Last December, his chief-of-staff Kyle Sampson wrote an email about that very same Patriot Act provision which said, "There is some risk that we'll lose the authority, but if we don't ever exercise it then what's the point of having it?"

Sampson also plotted with a White House aide to install "a former GOP operative and protege of presidential adviser Karl Rove," Tim Griffin, as a U.S. attorney. Sampson wrote, "We should gum this to death, ask the senators to give Tim a chance ... then we can tell them we'll look for other candidates, ask them for recommendations, evaluate the recommendations, interview their candidates, and otherwise run out the clock. All of this should be done in 'good faith,' of course."

Good Faith, My Ass

In fact, the Bush administration had been plotting to fire U.S. attorneys for some time. According to Salon:

A letter written by the Department of Justice in late February informed Congress: "The department is not aware of Karl Rove playing any role in the decision to appoint Mr. Griffin." Despite this categorical disavowal, a sheaf of internal Justice Department e-mails released this week to Congress under subpoena revealed Kyle Sampson, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales' chief of staff, writing in mid-December 2006, "I know getting him appointed was important to Harriet, Karl, etc." Harriet, of course, was Harriet Miers, then the White House legal counsel.

The Justice Department's statement on Karl Rove was simply one part of its coverup. The department's three top officials -- Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, Deputy Attorney General Paul J. McNulty and William E. Moschella, principal associate deputy attorney general -- all testified before Congress under oath that the dismissed U.S. attorneys had been removed for "performance" reasons, not because they had been insufficiently partisan in their prosecution of Democrats or because they would be replaced by those who would be. Yet another Sampson e-mail, sent to Miers in March 2005, had ranked all 93 U.S. attorneys on the basis of being "good performers," those who "exhibited loyalty" to the administration, or "low performers," those who "chafed against Administration initiatives, etc."

Meanwhile, according to CNN:

An e-mail from D. Kyle Sampson to former White House counsel Harriet Miers dated January 1, 2006, read, "You have asked whether President Bush should remove and replace U.S. Attorneys whose four-year terms have expired. I recommend that the Department of Justice and the Office of the Counsel to the President work together to seek the replacement of a limited number of U.S. Attorneys."

On September 13, 2006, Sampson e-mailed Miers lists of federal attorneys "In the Process of Being Pushed Out" and those "We Now Should Consider Pushing Out."

And according to the New York Times:

Late in the afternoon on Dec. 4, a deputy to Harriet E. Miers, then the White House counsel and one of President Bush's most trusted aides, sent a two-line e-mail message to a top Justice Department aide. "We're a go," it said, approving a long-brewing plan to remove seven federal prosecutors considered weak or not team players.

The message, from William K. Kelley of the White House counsel's office to D. Kyle Sampson, the chief of staff to Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales, put in motion a plan to fire United States attorneys that had been hatched 22 months earlier by Ms. Miers. Three days later, the seven prosecutors were summarily dismissed. An eighth had been forced out in the summer.

Ma Mama Weer All Hazee Now

Once the emails were released (more on that in a minute) it became quite clear that despite their denials, the Bush administration was up to their necks in the plot. And suddenly they were having a hard time getting their stories straight. Would you be surprised to learn that the plan wasn't "hatched 22 months earlier by Ms. Miers" after all?

The White House dropped its contention Friday that former Counsel Harriet Miers first raised the idea of firing U.S. attorneys, blaming "hazy memories" as e-mails shed new light on Karl Rove's role. Support eroded further for Attorney General Alberto Gonzales.

Presidential press secretary Tony Snow previously had asserted Miers was the person who came up with the idea, but he said Friday, "I don't want to try to vouch for origination." He said, "At this juncture, people have hazy memories."

Ah, "hazy memories." Isn't it amazing how all these supposedly brilliant people suddenly develop chronic amnesia at the most inconvenient moments?

Mind you, Alberto Gonzales had a different excuse last week, claiming that he was simply too stupid to know what was going on. Gonzales held a press conference to defend himself, and according to the Washington Post:

"I am responsible for what happens at the Department of Justice," he posited, but "I ... was not involved in any discussions about what was going on."

That's right: the attorney general would have us believe that he had no idea his chief-of-staff was coordinating this effort with the White House. Completely incompetent or lying his butt off? You be the judge.

What The Hell Is gwb43.com?

As the emails came to light, astute observers noticed that many of them were sent from "gwb43.com" email addresses. And what is gwb43.com? Strangely enough, the domain is owned by the Republican National Committee, which means that White House staffers appear to have been using RNC email addresses to conduct official White House business. According to Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, this is a violation of the Presidential Records Act:

In light of e-mails released by the House Judiciary Committee this week in response to the on-going U.S. Attorney firing scandal, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) sent a letter today to Chairman of the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, Rep. Henry Waxman (D-CA), asking for an investigation into whether the White House has violated its mandatory record-keeping obligation under the Presidential Records Act (PRA).

One email, sent to Justice Department Chief of Staff D. Kyle Sampson from J. Scott Jennings, White House Deputy Political Director, uses an email account, SJennings@gwb43.com, on a server owned by the Republican National Committee. This raises serious questions about whether the White House was trying to deliberately evade its responsibilities under the PRA, which directs the president to take all necessary steps to maintain presidential records to provide a full accounting of all activities during his tenure.

The White House may have been trying to deliberately avoid its responsibilities? Why, I find that almost impossible to believe! These are the people who pledged to return honesty and integrity to Washington, remember?

Stale Rove

But it's okay - Karl Rove has got a perfectly reasonable explanation for all this:

White House adviser Karl Rove lashed out today at Democrats' vocal criticism of the administration's firing of eight U.S. attorneys last year.

Democrats are calling on Attorney General Alberto Gonzales to resign over the Justice Department's handling of the firings, but Rove accused them of trying to create a scandal where there isn't one.

"Now we are at a point where people want to play politics with it," said Rove, "and that's fine."

Curious. The White House collaborated with the Justice Department to fire U.S. attorneys for purely political purposes, but we're only now at a point where "people want to play politics with it?" Methinks Karl Rove needs a new meme. And to think they used to call him a genius.

Bedtime For Gonzo

So what's next? Well, along with many Democrats, several prominent Republicans have called for Gonzales's resignation, and even Our Great Leader has mumbled something about being "not happy." Considering that Bush's strongest criticism of useless public servants is usually something along the lines of, "Heck of a job," or "Here, have this Presidential Medal of Freedom," being "not happy" must be the kiss of death.

Will Gonzo still be Attorney General when the Top 10 rolls around next week? Don't bet on it.

Peter Pace

Last week the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen Peter Pace, said this:

PACE: My upbringing is such that I believe that there are certain things, certain types of conduct that are immoral. I believe that military members who sleep with other military members' wives are immoral in their conduct. ... I believe that homosexual acts between individuals are immoral, and that we should not condone immoral acts. So the "don't ask, don't tell" (policy) allows an individual to serve the country ... if we know about immoral acts, regardless of committed by who, then we have a responsibility. I do not believe that the armed forces are well served by saying through our policies that it's OK to be immoral in any way, not just with regards to homosexual acts. So from that standpoint, saying that gays should serve openly in the military to me says that we, by policy, would be condoning what I believe is immoral activity.

Clearly Gen. Pace is a guy with very high moral standards. Fair enough - after all, the military does screen the "moral qualifications" of potential recruits for the following reasons:

a. To prevent enlistment of persons whose social habits, such as theft, arson, resistance to authority, etc., are a threat to unit moral and cohesiveness.

b. To screen out persons who would likely become serious disciplinary problems in the Navy and Marine Corps, and who would consequently divert resources from the performance of military missions.

c. To ensure enlistees and their parents that the enlistee will not be thrown into close association with criminals.

Just one thing though... I happened to stumble across this San Francisco Chronicle article from late last year which notes that:

In 2004, the Pentagon published a "Moral Waiver Study," whose seemingly benign goal was "to better define relationships between pre-Service behaviors and subsequent Service success." That turned out to mean opening more recruitment doors to potential enlistees with criminal records.

In February, the Baltimore Sun wrote that there was "a significant increase in the number of recruits with what the Army terms 'serious criminal misconduct' in their background" -- a category that included "aggravated assault, robbery, vehicular manslaughter, receiving stolen property and making terrorist threats." From 2004 to 2005, the number of those recruits rose by more than 54 percent, while alcohol and illegal drug waivers, reversing a four-year decline, increased by more than 13 percent.

In June, the Chicago Sun-Times reported that, under pressure to fill the ranks, the Army had been allowing into its ranks increasing numbers of "recruits convicted of misdemeanor crimes, according to experts and military records." In fact, as the military's own data indicated, "the percentage of recruits entering the Army with waivers for misdemeanors and medical problems has more than doubled since 2001."

(snip)

Another type of gang member has also begun to proliferate within the military, evidently thanks to lowered recruitment standards and an increasing tendency of recruiters to look the other way. In July, a study by the Southern Poverty Law Center, which tracks racist and right-wing militia groups, found that because of pressing manpower concerns, "large numbers of neo-Nazis and skinhead extremists" are now serving in the military. "Recruiters are knowingly allowing neo-Nazis and white supremacists to join the armed forces, and commanders don't remove them from the military even after we positively identify them as extremists or gang members," said Scott Barfield, a Defense Department investigator quoted in the report.

Fascinating.

Let me repeat part of Gen. Pace's quote. He said, "I do not believe that the armed forces are well served by saying through our policies that it's OK to be immoral in any way, not just with regards to homosexual acts. So from that standpoint, saying that gays should serve openly in the military to me says that we, by policy, would be condoning what I believe is immoral activity."

Therefore, since Pace is so keen on not condoning immoral activity by keeping certain people out of the military, we can presumably make a list of what he considers to be moral based on who the military is actually recruiting these days.

CURRENTLY CONSIDERED MORAL BY PETER PACE
Aggravated assault
Robbery
Vehicular manslaughter
Receiving stolen property
Making terrorist threats
Illegal drug use
Being a neo-Nazi

STILL NOT CONSIDERED MORAL BY PETER PACE
Two men kissing

Well, I'm glad that's cleared up.

The Pentagon

While we're on the subject, I wonder if Gen. Pace considers this to be moral?

As the military scrambles to pour more soldiers into Iraq, a unit of the Army's 3rd Infantry Division at Fort Benning, Ga., is deploying troops with serious injuries and other medical problems, including GIs who doctors have said are medically unfit for battle. Some are too injured to wear their body armor, according to medical records.

Just curious.

Dick Cheney

But never mind all that. Last week Dick Cheney revealed (again) who is to blame for low troop morale in Iraq. Can you guess who it is?

"When members of Congress pursue an anti-war strategy that's been called 'slow bleed,' they are not supporting the troops, they are undermining them," he said.

Yes, that's right! It's not the Pentagon's new recruitment policies that allow neo-Nazis into the ranks, nor is it the Pentagon's latest plan to return injured troops to the battlefield, nor is it the recent revelations that the Pentagon leaves wounded troops to rot when they return home. Nope - the people who are really undermining the troops are anti-war Democrats who want to get them out of the Iraqi meatgrinder altogether.

The White House

Perhaps the most interesting piece of testimony from last week's Congressional hearing on the Valerie Plame affair came not from Plame herself - although she certainly had plenty to say - but from Dr. James Knodell.

Cast your minds back for a moment to the early days of the Plame Affair, when Scott McClellan said, "The President has made it very clear that the leaking of classified information is a serious matter, and he takes it very seriously. That's why he is saying that we need to get to the bottom of this, and the sooner, the better." That was about a week after George W. Bush said, "I want to get to the bottom of this," and, "if there is a leak out of my administration, I want to know who it is."

Clearly the White House were trying really hard to discover the truth behind Plame's outing, because two years later Scott McClellan was still saying, "No one wants to get to the bottom of it more than the President of the United States."

So what does this have to do with the White House Director of the Office of Security? Well, according to Think Progress, he testified under oath last week that, "to his knowledge the White House has never ordered a probe, report, or sanctions as a result of the outing of covert CIA operative Valerie Plame."

Oops.

Concerned Women For America

Last week, Rep. Pete Stark (D-CA) revealed that he is a "Unitarian who does not believe in a Supreme Being." According to the San Francisco Chronicle, this makes him "the highest-ranking politician in America who was willing to admit he doesn't believe in God."

This news came as something of a shock to the Concerned Women for America. Last week they released a statement which read in part:

"It is unfortunate in a society that is going down the path of godlessness and making right wrong and wrong right, that we continue down this path by celebrating one member of Congress who denies that God exists altogether," Concerned Women for America Director of Legislative Relations Mike Mears told Cybercast News Service.

"The founding fathers ... founded this country on godly principles," Mears said. "Fifty-one of the 56 signers (of the Declaration of Independence) had a Christian worldview and (Stark) wants to change that and celebrate - basically - godlessness."

Oh my! One of the 535 members of Congress doesn't believe in god. Call the cops.

John McCain

News from the Straight Talk Express: John McCain is talking straight out of his ass. Last week, while travelling through Iowa with reporters, McCain was asked whether "U.S. taxpayer money go to places like Africa to fund contraception to prevent AIDS." Here's how the conversation played out:

McCain: "Well I think it's a combination. The guy I really respect on this is Dr. Coburn. He believes – and I was just reading the thing he wrote– that you should do what you can to encourage abstinence where there is going to be sexual activity. Where that doesn't succeed, than he thinks that we should employ contraceptives as well. But I agree with him that the first priority is on abstinence. I look to people like Dr. Coburn. I'm not very wise on it."

(Mr. McCain turns to take a question on Iraq, but a moment later looks back to the reporter who asked him about AIDS.)

McCain: "I haven't thought about it. Before I give you an answer, let me think about. Let me think about it a little bit because I never got a question about it before. I don't know if I would use taxpayers' money for it."

Q: "What about grants for sex education in the United States? Should they include instructions about using contraceptives? Or should it be Bush's policy, which is just abstinence?"

McCain: (Long pause) "Ahhh. I think I support the president's policy."

"I think I support the presiden't policy." Gosh, that John McCain is such a maverick!

Q: "So no contraception, no counseling on contraception. Just abstinence. Do you think contraceptives help stop the spread of HIV?"

McCain: (Long pause) "You've stumped me."

Er, what? John McCain doesn't know that condoms can help stop the spread of HIV? He must have gone to the same medical school as Bill Frist.

Q: "I mean, I think you'd probably agree it probably does help stop it?"

McCain: (Laughs) "Are we on the Straight Talk express? I'm not informed enough on it. Let me find out. You know, I'm sure I’ve taken a position on it on the past. I have to find out what my position was. Brian, would you find out what my position is on contraception - I'm sure I'm opposed to government spending on it, I'm sure I support the president's policies on it."

Q: "But you would agree that condoms do stop the spread of sexually transmitted diseases. Would you say: 'No, we're not going to distribute them,' knowing that?"

McCain: (Twelve-second pause) "Get me Coburn's thing, ask Weaver to get me Coburn's paper that he just gave me in the last couple of days. I've never gotten into these issues before."

Okay, you get the picture. The guy is totally clueless.

John McCain

And finally, did I just say John McCain is totally clueless? I'm sorry, I meant he's TOTALLY CLUELESS! Earlier that day, McCain had to issue an apology after a speech in Cedar Falls. The offending portion of McCain's speech occurred thusly:

In response to the question, Mr. McCain said that he was not going to take a position that it was proper "to declare divorces invalid because of someone who feels they weren't treated fairly in court; we are getting into a tar-baby of enormous proportions and I don't know how you get out of that."

McCain follows conservative stalwarts Mitt Romney and Tony Snow who have previously had to apologize for using the term "tar baby." Just in case you're unclear on this slur, The Maven's Word of the Day says, "The expression tar baby is also used occasionally as a derogatory term for black people (in the U.S. it refers to African-Americans; in New Zealand it refers to Maoris), or among blacks as a term for a particularly dark-skinned person. As a result, some people suggest avoiding the use of the term in any context."

But not our John! As I said, totally clueless.

See you next week!

-- EarlG