Something Requisitely Witty and Urbane

Miller Owed Lunch

eRobin brings up a point that is so obvious I can't believe it never crossed my mind before:

Of course we were all way off on the timeline thanks to Miss Run Amok's dogged refusal to expose her pals in the WHIG.  If it hadn't have been for that diversion, Fitzgerald said about an hour ago, he would have been having today's press conference a year ago.  Imagine if this press conference had happened in October of 2004.  The WH owes Miller lunch.

Amid all the speculation about Judy attempting to protect Libby, about if she was asked to do so, and about whether she had received a release of her promise to hold his anonymity, the idea that a reporter, who's entire reputation resided on her previous assertions that Sadaam had WMD, might be further protecting that administration's chances of winning the election is as good as any.

Act Two

Michael Kinsley has one of those great columns that you appreciate at the same time you are jealous that you didn't write it:

Confused? Sure. Who isn't? One entertaining aspect of the story that is expected to reach some sort of climax today is the struggle of the media to summarize or label it. Once upon a time someone went to Niger, which is not Nigeria, and off we go in time and space. Even Fox News has been driven to compound sentences.

Read the whole thing.

Fitzgerald

The internets are about to blow up, I'm sure, as the Patrick Fitzgerald press conference has just ended.  I'll leave the legal ramifications to those more qualified, but my one over-riding thought is simply this: He has more.

Though Fitzgerald was reserved and succinct, it was clear that he felt these crimes were important.  It wasn't so much that he didn't think the crime of leaking a CIA agent's name occurred, it's that he doesn't know because of Libby's obstruction and perjury.

About Fitzgerald, his endearing nervousness mixed with just the right degree of toughness was refreshing.  After this presser, it is going to be difficult for the "overzealous prosecutor on a partisan witch-hunt" meme isn't going to fly.  This is a guy who is doing the job he was asked to do, and is doing it with professionalism.

One thing that became clear to me was that Tim Russert had a much larger role in this, if only that his testimony was partially responsible for getting the perjury rolling.  Tim Russert, today, spoke on the air that he told the Grand Jury that he and Libby never spoke about Wilson's.  This, apparently, directly contradicted Libby's own initial testimony that he found out about Wilson's wife from Russert.

Secondly, Ari Fleisher appears to have testified that he found out, from Libby, about Wilson's wife.  Unfortunately, it appears to have been days before Libby testified that he found out from Russert.

The crimes that Libby has been indicted on (2 counts of perjury, 2 counts of false statements, 1 case of obstruction) are incredibly stupid.  It's yet another indication that, in national politics, you can often get away with the crime but you can rarely get away with the cover-up.

Chris Matthews asked an interesting question just before the Fitzgerald press conference began:

I wanna know a couple of things from the special prosecutor.  One is, I'd like to know why he was able to convince Judge Hogan that he should put a reporter, a top reporter, Judy Miller, in prison.  What was so important to this case: Catching Scooter Libby for Obstruction?

Chris meant this, I think, as an indication that there wasn't much of a case there on the leak charge, but I think it's an important one to think about from the other perspective.  Perhaps it is wishful thinking, but Libby's lies underscore the fact that a cover-up was in full swing, and if there was a cover-up to this degree, what were they covering up?

 

Apropos

Today's Dictionary.com Word of the Day is "malediction", which means "a curse or an execration."  Even better is the quote they chose as an example:

A conspiracy of infamy so black that, when it is finally exposed, its principals shall be forever deserving of the maledictions of all honest men.

The quote is by Joe McCarthy. 

Scriptural Reading

Today's Scriptural Reading is a little different.  The Daily Show pointed out, both in its headlines and its Moment of Zen, Trent Lott's quote, when asked who the President should pick to replace Miers:

I want the president to look across the country and find the best man, woman, or minority that he can find.

Ok... The Trent Lott episode happened before I joined the realm of the blogger, but I know that it is one of the crowning moments which invested import upon the blogosphere.  My only point is, if you are a guy who was so decimated by a controversy surrounding some fairly racist statements, and those statements led to you losing your position of leadership within your party, priority one should be learning to talk about race without sounding like you just returned from a trip to your 1960's Alabama.

The Phrase I Don't Want to Hear About Liberals, Upon Harriet Miers' Withdrawal

"Democrats can't contain their glee."

Pesky Perjury

Just so we're all clear, we've been given a sneak preview of how the Republicans plan to fight whatever comes out of the Fitzgerald investigation this week:

I certainly hope that if there is going to be an indictment that says something happened, that it is an indictment on a crime and not some perjury technicality where they couldn’t indict on the crime so they go to something just to show that their two years of investigation were not a waste of time and dollars.

That was Texas' own Senator Kay Bailey Hutchinson, yesterday on Meet the Press.  We've come a long way from "it's not about the sex, it's about the lying."  The idea that Perjury (helpfully defined here, by TalkLeft) is a pesky and irrelevant little crime is laughable, and a good indication of just how far the Republican Party is will to go to protect Dear Leader.

All The King's Horses

This strikes me as an important story, if only for the fact that I'm sure it isn't isolated, but is rarely talked about.

A soldier in Iraq, who wrote the blog "All the King's Horses", has apparently been shut down.  His last entry says this:

For the record, I am officially a supporter of the administration and of her policies. I am a proponent for the war against terror and I believe in the mission in Iraq. I understand my role in that mission, and I accept it. I understand that I signed the contract which makes stop loss legal, and I retract any statements I made in the past that contradict this one. Furthermore, I have the utmost confidence in the leadership of my chain of command, including (but not limited to) the president George Bush and the honorable secretary of defense Rumsfeld. If I have ever written anything on this site or on others that lead the reader to believe otherwise, please consider this a full and complete retraction.

There's more to the story over here.  I'm not in any way qualified to speak to the legalities involved when it comes to what boundaries there are for enlisted men when it comes to speech, but it should be noted that there are soldiers who are serving, and they aren't sure about their mission anymore.  That those voices are silenced is sad and demoralizing, even if it is legal.

Something I Don't Know

During the always interesting, but rarely important segment, "Tell Me Something I Don't Know" on Chris Matthews' Sunday morning show, David Brooks said this:

If Harriet Miers comes to President Bush and says, "This is too much trouble... withdraw my nomination," Bush has indicated in meetings he will tell her, "No."

This came on the heels of a discussion about how Miers' is a lose-lose for the President.  If her nomination fails, it is an obvious defeat, but if she makes it through, the entirety of the Senate and the general opinion of the American people is that she is incredibly unqualified for the position, and will be an albatross for the Bush legacy.  In other words, Bush has potentially ruined his legacy by merely nominating Miers.

This strikes me as the best indication we've had yet of the political weakness of the President.  There are, apparently, no options by which he can redeem himself from this situation, and we haven't even made it to the hearings yet.

The political capital is gone.

Fitzmas

It occurs to me that the hemispheric-wide happy dance that is going on the left about the Plame investigation is probably not well-served if all the right has to do is point to our overzealous, and premature, celebration.

"Fitzmas" just makes it seem like Fitzgerald is our own personal attack machine, and that could backfire heavily.

Ecstasy

That's the feeling I have right now.  I don't... I can't... I just sometimes have to be reminded that we do live in a world where bad, bad men can still be caught.  Without further adieu...

The best part, to me, is that you can just imagine, last night, he and his handlers having a serious, and in depth discussion on what sort of facial expression he should have. 

"Maybe I should just not smile, look into the camera, portray no emotion?"

"Well... um.... that might... make you look like you, um, finally got caught... Not that you've done anything wrong, sir!!!"

"Right, but if I smile, don't I run the risk that I'm enjoying myself a little too much?"

Seriously, it's enough to make this little liberal's heart burst out of his chest.

Delay to be Booked

And, it makes a liberal political junkie like myself giddy with anticipation.

We are going to get a Tom Delay mugshot.

It's moments like these that I'm forced to consider the possibility that there has to be a God, because sometimes he is just too good to us.

He Knew

Today, the New York Daily News reporter Thomas DeFrank, highly regarded as having good, deep connections, has made huge waves with his succinct but powerful article which quotes a "well-placed source" (and this isn't the only source quoted in the piece) and drops this tasty little tidbit:

A second well-placed source said some recently published reports implying Rove had deceived Bush about his involvement in the Wilson counterattack were incorrect and were leaked by White House aides trying to protect the President.

"Bush did not feel misled so much by Karl and others as believing that they handled it in a ham-handed and bush-league way," the source said.

This is important, because Bush has maintained that, not only is he intent on finding the leaker, but that he has had no knowledge of who the leaker is.  This article directly refutes that.

This is a real problem for the President.  It is not a crime, most likely, but it is a lie of the highest magnitude: It means that the President, himself, was a party to the attempted (and I think it's just about time to start using that word) cover-up.  A President who's competency is undergoing serious scrutiny with unfavorable results may now have to concede huge and, perhaps, devastating ground on the one aspect of his public image that he's has always relied: his straight-forward honesty.

If the public doesn't believe he can do the job of governing effectively, is forced to concede that he has committed grievous errors in his domestic and foreign policy, and now no longer believes he is trustworthy at all, then there's not much room between where he is and the bottom.

To Fizzle or Not to Fizzle

In a post that I linked to earlier today which provides a good primer about the current state of the Plamegate affair, there is a section which discusses the possible moves that Special Prosecutor Fitzgerald might make.  Based on the limited information we have about what evidence, if any, he has of any crimes, the section ends with this paragraph:

Fitzgerald won't bring a case he can't win, and I don't see any sure bets for him on the table.  My guess is that we will see indictments or a resolution this upcoming week.

The writer seems to think that there are two possibilities. First, Fitzgerald is inclined to stake his entire reputation, and has enough evidence to support the idea that this was a massive conspiracy BEFORE the questions came to light and the investigation began (the "Bush Brute Squad" theory). 

Second is that there were small, unintentional crimes committed, and the cover-up simply made matters worse.  If this were the case, then there would be maybe a few white-collar indictments, some low-level resignations (Libby and lower) and that would be that.

The tea-leaves may be beginning to point, however, to the former and bigger possibility.

As early as two weeks ago, and as late as today, there have been rumors that Dick Cheney may be involved in the investigation (most notable here).

Roxanne mentioned the Raw Story post, which mentions the possibility that someone from within the White House has flipped, and is now aiding the investigation.  Speculation involves everyone from low-level staffers to Ari Fleisher or Colin Powell (both of whom provide tantalizing possibilities).

Then, there's this, from US News and World Report:

Sparked by today's Washington Post story that suggests Vice President Cheney's office is involved in the Plame-CIA spy link investigation, government officials and advisers passed around rumors that the vice president might step aside and that President Bush would elevate Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.

It's a story full of speculation, mostly because (it appears) of a well-run, fairly leak-proof investigation.  This is a story, however, that started in 2001, has had it's ebbs and flows, in regards to the amount of press coverage, but it has managed to gain traction almost every step of the way.  The longer it sticks around, the less likely it is that nothing will come of it.

 

99%

Alright, seriously.  Putting aside the incredible international implications that Iraq now represents, from a pure storytelling point of view, this lacks any genuine sense of nuance.

In some Shiite and Kurdish regions of Iraq, 99 Percent of people voted for the new draft of the Iraqi constitution.  99 Percent.  I'm not making that up.  Does BushCo really expect us to believe that, in a war-torn country with and insurgency that continues to fight the American presence at a high level, that suddenly there is virtual unanimity in some of the more highly populated parts of Iraq?  I'm not the first person to mention that no one has gotten these kind of election numbers since Saddam Hussein faked his own elections.

When trying to perpetrate an international public relations snow job, it would seem that subtlety might be the way to go.  Then again, you might think that you wouldn't put the commander and chief in a flight suit declaring the mission accomplished unless you were 100% sure that the war was over.

State of the Plamegate Investigation

This is as good a summary, in a "here's where we are now" sort of way, in regards to the Plamegate investigation that I've seen.

Let Bush Be Bartlet

Ezra points us to this gossip column gem, today:

THEY'RE saying the President, spending inordinate time working on handling his multiple problems of Iraq, Supreme Court, Karl Rove, gas prices, sliding polls, economy, has begun rehearsing answers to questions that might come up at a press conference. More importantly, he's even watching reruns of "West Wing."

A couch-potato-pajama-journalist can dream, can't he?

Rush Limbaugh's Last Gasp...

This WSJ piece by Rush Limbaugh is meant to be a rallying cry, a reinterpretation of the current Republican Party fissure, but it reads more like a suicide note containing a final attempt to make its readers see it his way.

We conservatives are proud of our philosophy. Unlike our liberal friends, who are constantly looking for new words to conceal their true beliefs and are in a perpetual state of reinvention, we conservatives are unapologetic about our ideals. We are confident in our principles and energetic about openly advancing them.

I do think he's got the Democratic Party pegged, but to say that conservatives or always open and forthwith is as arrogant as it is a denial of the current state of his party.  Perhaps a better time to advance this argument might be when most of the major leaders of your party aren't under investigation or indictment.

Some liberal commentators mistakenly view the passionate debate among conservatives over the Miers nomination as a "crackup" on the right. They are giddy about "splits" in the conservative base of the GOP. They are predicting doom for the rest of the president's term and gloom for Republican electoral chances in 2006. As usual, liberals don't understand conservatives and never will.

The Miers nomination shows the strength of the conservative movement. This is no "crackup." It's a crackdown[...]

The real crackup has already occurred--on the left!

That's right, ladies and gents, Rush has mounted what amounts to a verbose version of the, "I know you are but what am I?" defense.  The liberals say that we're falling apart, but we're not.  THEY are the ones who are falling apart!

[The Left's] major spokesmen are old extremists like Ted Kennedy and new propagandists like Michael Moore. Its great presidential hope is one of the most divisive figures in U.S. politics, Hillary Clinton. And its favorite son is an impeached, disbarred, held-in-contempt ex-president, Bill Clinton.

The whole "Clinton was impeached, and therefore despicable" complaint is probably not the best one for a convicted drug felon to put forward.  Oh, and incidentally Rush, you are the Michael Moore of the Right.

If he weren't such a gasbag, I'd almost feel sorry for the guy.

The editorial itself is short, so go ahead and read the whole thing, if only so you can see a formerly epic conservative character who now finds himself in the unenviable position of defending the most unpopular positions of his party, most of which he was a major mouthpiece for.

UPDATE: Andrew Sullivan agrees with me:

Limbaugh's "state-of-conservatism" piece reads like something an aide to Andropov might have written in the waning years of the Soviet Union.

More Plame/Miller Links

I try to stay away from the quoting the major bloggers about major issues, because my assumption is always that everyone's already reading them anyway.

It is sometimes easy to forget, however, that the major bloggers are such for a reason, and today they've been knocking it out of the park when it comes to the Miller pieces.

Andrew Sullivan breaks down some points of interest, including:

Libby's cryptic letter to Miller persuades me, at least, that he was trying to influence her testimony. Even Miller cannot wriggle out of that obvious Occam conclusion. But if Libby and Miller were completely innocent of discussing anything illegal and believed so themselves, why would Libby need to influence her testimony at all? In other words, there are two plausible reasons for Miller's defense of source-confidentiality, even though Libby waivered it. The first is that source confidentiality is sacrosanct, period; and Miller believed Libby was being "pressured" to cooperate. But if neither of them had anything to hide, why was it "pressure"? Why wasn't it a chance to clear the record for good?

Arianna Huffington asks, "Is Anyone Clearer Now about why Miller went to Jail?

And Digby mentions the strange dance being walked by Washington politicians close to this case, as well as Washington journalists, who are closer to this case than they care to reveal:

his story is the weirdest kabuki dance I've ever seen. I thought it was absurd when the news anchors held the exit poll results but winked and nodded all day about the outcome. (That's become so bizarre after the last two elections, however, that their winks and nods will be meaningless in any close election.) But this is ridiculous. We have big time reporters in the Washington press corps who know a lot more about what is going on than they are saying. A number of them have been interviewed by the Justice department or testified. They are part of the story. And yet they pretend that they are "objective" reporters who have no personal knowledge of events and don't even feel the need to issue a disclaimer saying that they had been interviewed or they testified and can't talk about it.

This story is primed to explode, but it's not clear, judging from the performance thus far, how well it will be covered.

Mighty Morphin'

The White House is losing control of their message.  Condi, this morning on Meet the Press:

The fact of the matter is that when we were attacked on September 11, we had a choice to make. We could decide that the proximate cause was al Qaeda and the people who flew those planes into buildings and, therefore, we would go after al Qaeda…or we could take a bolder approach.

Most everyone is pointing out the lunacy innate in this argument:  We knew it was al Qaeda, but that wasn't big enough, so we decided to do something bigger.... which was go after only one country.

But, the biggest thing that jumps out to me here is that this is the newest version of the argument for the war in Iraq (and it doesn't escape this writer's attention that most of them have come out of Condaleeza's mouth).  First, it was that Saddam Hussein's tireless struggle to obtain WMD's had finally paid off, then it was Saddam Hussein's harboring of al Qaeda terrorists, then it was his direct involvement in 9/11.

But, now, it's that al Qaeda, the people who've actually claimed responsibility and that we know for sure was behind it, wasn't good enough, and a bolder approach was needed.

The message has morphed so many times that the American people surely can't be stupid enough to fall for this one, can they?

 

Judy Miller, NYT Coverage

Just in case you've been living under a blog rock the past two days, here is the NY Times' first real coverage of their reporter, Judith Miller, and the Plame leak investigation which she became forever connected.

The Miller Case.

My Four Hours...

UPDATE: In a fairly unimportant aside, I think it's a bad move, in the above article (especially an article which is, in someways, a mea culpa) when recounting the background of the story, the story hyperlinks to Joseph Wilson's original editorial piece which kicked much of this off, but when you click on the link, it takes you directly to the Times' purchase screen.  In order to read it, you can pay 4 dollars or subscribe to TimesSelect.

You would think that this article, a story which has become very much a part of this story, the Times would keep public.  Or maybe I'm just thinking too much like a blog.

That Being Said...

... my post below should not be misunderstood with the idea that deciding how to handle the Miers' nomination isn't difficult.  The Republican Hari-Kari on this issue doesn't mean that the Democrats can't (and might) trip over their own feet.

Opposition to the nomination could very well play into the possibility, real or imagined, that the next nominee could be worse than Miers herself.  It's a strange political game to play: Miers may be completely unqualified to hold such a high position, but opposing her may result in the much, much worse options of Gonzales, Owens, or Brown.

So, you are a Democratic Senator, you back Miers, thereby avoiding a messy and contentions confirmation process of a much more insidious nominee.  The nominee you've confirmed, however, is highly unqualified.

Backing Miers', however, presents another problem: If the Bush Administration is really on the ropes as I claimed in my last post, then confirming Miers gives new wind to the Administration's sails.  The Sunday shows will all lead with, "Supreme Court Victory: Did the President know what he was doing all along?"  The Democrats, by virtue of their support of Miers, remove the biggest obstacle the President has right now: That he is incompetent.

Opposing Miers' nomination is the best option, politically, to keep the ball rolling into the midterms.  Bush continues to appear weak, the Republicans continue to appear splintered, and the Democrats appear in control.  With polls already showing that the American people are strongly supportive of a changing the direction of the country ("Seven in 10 [people polled] said they want the next president to offer policies and programs that are different from the Bush administration's), anything that gives him a modicum of strength is troublesome from a Democratic point of view.

It is a gamble, however.  A contracted fight over another, more contentions nominee could give credence to the tried-and-true "Democrats are merely obstructionists" theme that has played well for Republicans in the past.

If the Democratic leadership believes the Bush Administration is as weak as they appear to be at this moment, that battle is much, much easier than it appeared to have been 6 months ago.

It's all perception, of course, but the reality-based community has badly misplayed the perception game for a long, long time.  Perception is finally on our side and, though it is a risk, going for the jugular might not be a bad thing for a Democratic Party who's ability to fight has been very weak in the past.

Unchristian Opposition

In recent days, we've seen a whole host of comments, from the administration and the Religious Right, regarding the nomination of Harriet Miers. For instance, this press conference with Scotty and the WHPC:

Q Why is Karl Rove calling up religious leaders telling them it's okay, she belongs to an ultra evangelical church?

MR. McCLELLAN: We're calling up a lot of people --

Q Why that?

MR. McCLELLAN: -- to reach out to them and talk to them about the President's selection of Harriet Miers. And what he is emphasizing in those conversations, Terry, is that she is someone who is strongly committed to a conservative judicial philosophy.

Q What is somebody's --

MR. McCLELLAN: Well, why wouldn't --

Q Wait, wait, wait. What relevance does how a person prays have to the judicial philosophy?

MR. McCLELLAN: Didn't say that it did.

Q So why are you peddling it?

MR. McCLELLAN: It's part of her background, Terry; it's part of who she is.

Q But you just said it was not relevant to judicial philosophy.

Which came immediately after Bush said this:

People are interested to know why I picked Harriet Miers.  They want to know Harriet Miers' background. They want to know as much as they possibly can before they form opinions. And part of Harriet Miers' life is her religion.

Yesterday, Pat Robertson said this:

And you just marvel, these are the senators, some of them who voted to confirm the general counsel of the ACLU to the Supreme Court, and she was voted in almost unanimously. And you say, 'now they’re going to turn against a Christian who is a conservative picked by a conservative President and they’re going to vote against her for confirmation?' Not on your sweet life, if they want to stay in office.

For a couple of days, the conversation on the blogs and in the media has tended towards discussions about whether Bush's admission that Miers' religious background played a role in her nomination constitutes the implimentation of a litmus test, which the President said numerous times during the election he would not do.

First of all, anyone who believed him at that time simply lacks the basic skills of human interaction.  He was lying, and all you had to do was look at his face when he said it (*blink, blink).

But, that's a little beside the point.  Bush's insistence that there was no litmus test was one of the most well-worn phrases during his campaign.  Even the most passive of spectators to the campaign process heard Bush say it, and it stuck in their minds.  What, then, would cause the President to be so willing, today, to virtually directly contradict such a well known campaign promise?  Why would he be this ready to imply a litmus test now?

Harriet Miers' nomination is floundering (this is, of course, presuming that the nomination wasn't intended to fail in the first place, allowing Bush to bring in an uber-conservative while appearing to have "given it a go" with a moderate), and you can make an argument that an inability to get Miers confirmed could be the last piece in the lame duck presidency puzzle.  The fact that much of the criticism comes from the Right side of the aisle only strengthens this claim.

Harriet Miers' confirmation is the highest priority for this administration's health.

And so, the administration has begun it's offensive, and it's chosen weapon is this: If you do not nominate Harriet Miers, you are not a good enough Christian to be a part of the Republican party.  Watch, in the days and weeks ahead, as this theme gets more widely used.  Republican Senators, it is hoped, will have to think twice before they oppose the President's nominee, or else their reelection will be at stake.

We saw the beginnings of it during the Terri Schiavo fiasco, but the Religious Right is becoming the instrument by which the Republican Party is splintering itself.  A Party which has gained its power by always being unified in message, by always walking in lockstep with one another, and by never criticising their own, is beginning to watch it's power fade at the hands of internal bickering.

And, for the President that ran in 2000 on the idea that he would be the moderate who would unite Democrats and Republicans ("Just as he did in Texas," they said, despite the fact that Democrats in Texas don't have enough influence to be called an opposition party at all), his legacy is in grave danger of becoming the administration that used religion to divide its own party.

Target

I have no special insight, but would be remiss not to point out this tantalizing tidbit over at HuffPo:

The Wall Street Journal and Bloomberg are working on stories that point to Vice President Dick Cheney as the target of special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald's investigation into the leaking of CIA operative Valerie Plame's name.

That would have little to no meaning for most conservatives if it had led with "The New York Times and the Washington Post...", but WSJ and Bloomberg?

Washington conservatives are sitting in their offices trying to figure out which side of this fight they need to get on.

Evangelical Environmentalism

Ty mentions an article, today, which Richard Cizik, the Vice President of Government Affairs for the National Association of Evangelicals, mentions that the Bible should actually be interpreted as Environmentalist.  The article, a Q&A with Cizik, brings up some interesting points:

Can you explain this term "creation care"? How does this differ from environmentalism?

   

It is simply our articulation of a biblical doctrine, which is that we are commissioned by God the Almighty to be stewards of the earth. It is rooted not in politics or ideology, but in the scriptures. Genesis 2:15 specifically calls us "to watch over and care for" the bounty of the earth and its creatures. Scripture not only affirms this role, but warns that the earth is not ours to abuse, own, or dominate. The Bible clearly says in Revelation 11:18 that "God will destroy those who destroy the earth."

Do you believe that polluters will literally be destroyed by God?

It's very difficult to comprehend the full ramifications of this Bible verse, but I can tell you it's a warning: Destroyers beware. Take heed. It was by and for Christ that this earth was made, which means it is sinfully wrong -- it is a tragedy of enormous proportions -- to destroy, degrade or despoil it. He who has ears, let him hear.

The Bible also says that humans have "dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing." Some in your community interpret this as a license to exploit natural resources.

That is a deeply flawed interpretation. Dominion does not mean domination. It implies responsibility -- to cultivate and care for the earth, not to sully it with bad environmental practices. The Bible also teaches us that Jesus Christ is not only redeeming his people, but also restoring God's creation ... we show our love for Jesus Christ by reaching out to and healing the spiritually lost and by conserving and renewing creation. Christ's call to love nature is as simple as his call to love our neighbors as ourselves.

There's always been a strange disconnect between liberalism and evangelical Christianity. It's funny but, despite it's archaic systems steeped in tradition, the Catholic Church is leaps and bounds ahead of the rest of organized Chrisitiantiy when it comes to social justice. Catholicism, since the Second Vatican Council (well, this was at least true under the past couple of popes), has really sought to apply their religion to the real world, in ways that does good for real people and real communities. In this way, Catholisicm finds its spirituality in the bodies of people.

Evangelical Christianity, however, has typically found it's spirituality in another plane, and not embodied in the people who inhabit the earth.

Now, when I say this next part, understand that I'm referring to the more politicized sides of Evangelicalism, and not the everyday people who inhabit it.

I think a great deal of the reason that Rev. Cizik's environmental "spin" on scripture will have a difficult time taking hold in evangelical communities is not because of the "you are the keepers of the earth" verse, but the "The meek shall inherit the earth" verse. The meek are the most often left behind by Evangelical Christianity.

Especially in Southern Baptist circles (which, really, feeds the majority of the most politically active of the Religious Right), the emphasis of taking care of the earth around you, of being good stewards as the Old Testament tells us to be, is diminished by the all-consuming mission to "save souls."

It also feeds into the general feeling that has serverd as the adreneline of Evangelicalism for hundereds of years: at any time, we are mere moments from the End of Days. When you live your life under the influence of such a powerful philosophy, stewardship of the Earth is most irrelevant.

Rove to Testify... again

An AP wire report just came out and it's opening paragraph is so specifically written, it needs little remark:

Federal prosecutors have accepted an offer from presidential adviser Karl Rove to give 11th-hour testimony in the case of a CIA officer's leaked identity but have warned they cannot guarantee he won't be indicted, according to people directly familiar with the investigation.

This, to my knowledge (which is far from comprehensive on this issue), is the first time I've seen a quote attributed to an insider intimately related to the case which directly mentions the possiblity of Karl Rove being indicted in the Valerie Plame case.It's even more interesting that it comes on the day after rumors began to circulate that 22 indictments being handed down in the case.  This sounds to me like Karl Rove's last minute attempt to avoid prosecution.

It's entirely possible this case is about to get huge.

O'Reilly's Hysterical Historical Revision

Media Matters brings to our attention a moment in Bill O'Reilly's radio show in which he compared his Irish ancestors who immigrated here to the Africans who "immigrated" here and were enslaved:

All right. But let me counter that, [caller], and you can comment on my comment. That's the prevailing wisdom in a lot of the precincts, is that because blacks were in slavery in the United States, they were never able to develop an infrastructure of education and culture to compete with the white majority. That is the prevailing wisdom in lots and lots of places. Let me submit this to you, and then you can comment on it. My people came from County Cavan in Ireland. All right? And the British Crown marched in there with their henchman, Oliver Cromwell, and they seized all of my ancestors' lands, everything. And they threw them into slavery, pretty much indentured servitude on the land. And then the land collapsed, all right? And everybody was starving in Ireland. They had to leave the country, just as Africans had to leave -- African-Americans had to leave Africa and come over on a boat and try to make in the New World with nothing. Nothing. And succeeded, succeeded. As did Italians, as did -- and I'll submit to you, African-Americans are succeeding as well. So all of these things can be overcome I think, [caller]. Go ahead.(emphasis mine)

Can we all finally agree that Bill O'Reilly can no longer be taken seriously? He really wants us to believe that the Africans which were kidnapped and forced into slavery in America were voluntary immigrants who came here seeking a better life? Well done, Bill. You just gave me all the ammo I'm ever going to need to prove to those who still believe that you are some sort of moderate. I and my liberal friends thank you.

SCOTUS-Blog

Harriett Miers has a blog.  Here's my favorite part so far, from a post entitled "Soooo hung over":

Good morning blog-o-nauts!! Well, I hope its a good morning for you... because over here in the southwest corner of the West Wing, things aren't going so hot. Let me give youa tip: if your ever nominated to the supreme Court,, you don't have to accept every free drink on your first night... I think I need one of those "morning-after" pills!

and then a later update:

UPDATE: OMG not that kind of morning-after pill... I meant like a Tylenol. Okay. I'm going to shut up now. [BLUSHING!!]

Genius.

Harriett Miers

It's often been said that the Bush/Rove machine have proved themselves to bad at just about everything except for politics, which they are very, very good at.  That sentiment has often informed the way I think about this Administration's choices.  I have a hard time not believing that, even when they appear to make a political mistake, that it is actually just a small part of a grand scheme to out-politic everyone.

However, my instinct on Harriett Miers is that the President backed down in the face of the worst and most broadly-based criticism he's received during his presidency.  We all expected a staunch conservative, one that was undeniably Scalia-esque.  But conservatives are upset about this one, and it could be a sign that the President's hold is tenuous at best.

However, I still get worried that, when I hear stuff like this, this, and this, that it really wasn't the plan all along to get Miers thrown out and put Janice Rogers Brown in, instead.

Potemkin

The Photo-op President:

Another White House official involved in preparing Mr. Bush's way noted that with the sun shining so brightly in San Antonio, the images of Mr. Bush from here might not have made it clear to viewers that he was dealing with an approaching storm.

The President's handlers thought the weather was too nice for the American people to really "get" that a storm was coming and the President was handling it.  But, they shouldn't have been worried.  The President made it clear that he was on top of things:

This is a big storm...

I for one, was grateful for the President's leadership.

Vinnie, Eric, Turtle, and Johnny Drama?

Bush: Me and my entourage will not get in the way.

They are all, in fact, sitting on Trent Lott's new porch while Mama twitters uncomfortable, repeating over and over again how scary the poor are.

Increasing the Price of Gas

Matt "Yglesias Award" Yglesias has a post up about the elasticity of gas prices:

...the recent Katrina-related spike in gasoline prices (already ameliorating) seems to have caused a pretty large increase in mass transit ridership even in a country that largely isn't set up for mass transit to serve as a very convenient option for most people. This suggests that, contrary to a lot of what you hear, demand for gasoline actually is pretty elastic -- which is to say responsive to changes in price -- at least one you're in the sort of range we're operating with.This, to me, bolsters the view that the right thing to do with our energy policy is to increase gas taxes and plow a largish sum of the resulting revenue into mass transit projects.

And, while well-thinking Americans can agree on this as a concept, it should be recognized that this would require a Bartlet-esque President to sell it to the American people.  Can you imagine Bush, Gore, Kerry, or Bush I delivering this in the State of the Union?

The price of oil has, finally, gone beyond the point where America, even when calling in all it's favors, can control or subsidize it.  For too many years we've lived under the shelter of inflation-immune prices, and our dependency on foreign oil has finally gotten to the point where every American feels its effects in their pocketbooks.

As Hurricane Katrina showed us, the American people, when faced with staggeringly high gas prices will, despite the arguments put forth in the past, abandon their cars in favor of mass transit or, at the very least, change their lifestyle choices in such a way so as to conserve the gas in their tanks and, subsequently, the cash in their wallets.

So, I call upon the Congress to pass the Energy Freedom Tax which my administration has proposed.  That bill would add an additional .30 cents a gallon (roughly the amount of increase during Hurricane Katrina's aftermath) in taxes to all gasoline purchases which would then be redistributed into increasing the scope and efficiency of our nation's mass transit systems as well as into new research and development of more efficient, renewable, and alternative forms of energy.

This bill will require a great deal of sacrifice by the American people and will require us to progress beyond our dependency on foreign oil and our unwillingness to change our lifestyle.  It is a sacrifice that I believe our citizens are willing to take, as painful as it may be, for the sake of national security and the type of environmental change that will be required for our us, our children, and our grandchildren.

Reagan might have been able to sell this sort of plan if he'd been interested, and Clinton could have sold it to a great number of people, though his opponents would have labeled it as another aspect of Clinton's tax and spend liberalism.

It's a great idea, and one that needs to be taken, but it is going to take a President with a friendly Congress and an approval rating in the high 60's.  More importantly, it's going to take a President who is able to inspire more than Bush, and more than any of the candidates that the Democratic Party has put forward in the past two elections.

Who's side are you people on, anyway?

I had to work, and then the unfortunate lightning storm which destroyed my cable box and erased my recording of the President's speech, so I didn't get to see it.

But what kind of crazy speech did he give when Donna Brazille fell head-over-heels in love with it and Michelle Malkin  didn't?

Jumping to Conclusions

Just as it was too easy to make "Let them eat cake" jokes after Mama Bush made her now infamous comments, it has been too easy to make jokes about the President and his Potemkin photo-ops, wherein the President attempts to convince us that spotlighting the rebuilding of New Orleans isn't actually an attempt at the rebuilding of his public credibility.

One such story is spotlighted by Brian Williams who, though he can't be separated from the pathetic performance of the mainstream media during this Administration (or Clinton's, for that matter), deserves a great deal of credit for using the online forum to hold himself more publicly accountable, as well as using it to point out stories that might be a bit to one-sided for national telecast.  This from his (semi-) daily blog:

I am duty-bound to report the talk of the New Orleans warehouse district last night: there was rejoicing (well, there would have been without the curfew, but the few people I saw on the streets were excited) when the power came back on for blocks on end. Kevin Tibbles was positively jubilant on the live update edition of Nightly News that we fed to the West Coast. The mini-mart, long ago cleaned out by looters, was nonetheless bathed in light, including the empty, roped-off gas pumps. The motorcade route through the district was partially lit no more than 30 minutes before POTUS drove through. And yet last night, no more than an hour after the President departed, the lights went out. The entire area was plunged into total darkness again, to audible groans. It's enough to make some of the folks here who witnessed it... jump to certain conclusions.

And, to those who doubt that the President is only interested in the appearance of governing, no more proof is needed than the fact that the person appointed by the President to oversee the efforts in New Orleans is Karl Rove (who's nickname is "The Architect", causing one to wonder if the President may have gotten confused about his actual abilities).

Bill Maher is fond of asking if the President knows more than 3 people.  That's the problem when your main concern is your appearance as a strong leader who's in charge instead of actually being in charge and strong: the more people you have involved in the scheme, the more quickly the illusion dissipates.

Fortunately, the American people seem to be catching on.

I Heart Confirmation Hearings

I really do.  I love them.  I get sucked in every time.  Here's why.

SCHUMER: Let me just say, sir, in all due respect -- and I respect your intelligence and your career and your family -- this process is getting a little more absurd the further we move.

You agree we should be finding out your philosophy and method of legal reasoning, modesty, stability, but when we try to find out what modesty and stability mean, what your philosophy means, we don't get any answers.

It's as if I asked you: What kind of movies do you like? Tell me two or three good movies. And you say, I like movies with good acting. I like movies with good directing. I like movies with good cinematography.

And I ask you, No, give me an example of a good movie. You don't name one. I say, Give me an example of a bad movie.

SCHUMER: You won't name one. Then I ask you if you like

Casablanca, and you respond by saying, Lots of people like 'Casablanca.'

(LAUGHTER)

You tell me it's widely settled that Casablanca is one of the great movies.

SPECTER: Senator Schumer, now that your time is over, are you asking him a question?

SCHUMER: Yes.

I am saying, sir -- I am making a plea here. I hope we're going to continue this for a while, that within the confines of what you think is appropriate and proper, you try to be a little more forthcoming with us in terms of trying to figure out what kind of justice you will become.

SPECTER: We will now take a 15-minute break, reconvene at 4:25.

ROBERTS: Mr. Chairman, could I address some of the...

SPECTER: Oh, absolutely. Absolutely.

I didn't hear any question, Judge Roberts...

ROBERTS: I'll be very succinct. First, Dr. Zhivago and North by Northwest.

I gotta say, it's hard not to like this guy.

Spoooorts

From John Roberts' opening statement:

Judges and justices are servants of the law, not the other way around. Judges are like umpires. Umpires don't make the rules, they apply them. The role of an umpire and a judge is critical. They make sure everybody plays by the rules. But it is a limited role. Nobody ever went to a ballgame to see the umpire. Judges have to have the humility to recognize that they operate within a system of precedent, shaped by other judges equally striving to live up to the judicial oath. And judges have to have the modesty to be open in the decisional process to the considered views of their colleagues on the bench.

Ok, I'm not going to try to make too much of this, but can we please have a moritorium on sports analogies?  We are appointing a Chief Justice, and it is much more complex than to try to dumb down the role he is going to play so that Bubba Garland and Joe Bronx can have yet another idiotic talking point to make their friends think "Ah really duh foller pol-e-tics."

Waving M-16's

Unbelievable.

eRobin links to this story about what happened immediatly after Dick Cheney was told to "perform a Leahey" on himself.  It's sad that this sort of things is expected from this Administration.

This does seem like a good opportunity, however, to bring back this, which was written, during the original Cheney/Leahey incident, by Paul Simms:

After Mr. Cheney successfully delivered the epithet and started to walk away, Mr. Leahy—sotto voce—referred to the Vice-President using a term more often heard in taverns and locker rooms than in the august Senate chamber, a term that refers to a sexual act commonly acknowledged as taboo among all cultures that proscribe incestuous contact between a mother and a son.

Mr. Cheney—apparently hearing Mr. Leahy’s remark—stopped, turned, and invited his colleague from across the aisle to engage in a sexual act that is considered a felony in some states, and which involves oral-genital contact.

Mr. Leahy then suggested that the president of the Senate take his gavel and use it to perform an act that, while not technically impossible in anatomical terms, would certainly be considered both unseemly and unhygienic, and which would require an unusual combination of single-minded ambition and physical relaxation.

Mr. Cheney wasted no time in informing Mr. Leahy that he should feel free to perform yet another anatomical impossibility—this one involving aviation, a standard sexual act, and a rolling doughnut.

At this point, according to observers, both statesmen decided—by seemingly unspoken mutual consent—to abandon the gutter patois of the common carnival worker and to resort instead to an eminently more quotable (but, to those not versed in the vagaries of hip-hop idiom, more confusing) exchange of viewpoints.

“Oh, it’s like that?” Mr. Cheney queried.

“Whut? Whut?” Mr. Leahy shot back.

“Once again,” Mr. Cheney replied (quite obviously quoting a lyric from Ice Cube’s 1990 album, “AmeriKKKa’s Most Wanted”), “it’s on.”

As a quick-thinking senatorial aide switched on the Senate’s public-address system and cued up the infamous “Seven Minutes of Funk” break, Mr. Leahy and Mr. Cheney went head-to-head in what can only be described as a “take no prisoners” freestyle rap battle.

Most of the rhymes kicked therein cannot be quoted in a family publication, but observers gave Mr. Cheney credit for his deceptively laid-back flow. Mr. Leahy was applauded for managing to rhyme the phrases “unethical for certain,” “crude oil spurtin’,” and “like Halliburton.”

Despite the fact that both participants brought their A-game and succeeded in dropping mad scientifics, the bout seemed to end in a draw.

Unfortunately, as other senators (along with assorted aides and support-staff members) were casting their votes to decide the winner, using the admittedly subjective but generally accepted “Make some noise up in here!” protocols, Mr. Cheney and Mr. Leahy took the proceedings to what one aide accurately described as “the next level.”

Edward M. Kennedy (D.-Mass.) was the first to notice that the two men were circling each other, Mr. Cheney brandishing a switchblade and Mr. Leahy the jagged neck of a broken bottle.

“Oh, snap!” Mr. Kennedy recalls thinking at the time. “It’s getting kind of hectic up in this piece.”

But before either of the aggrieved public servants could bust a potentially injurious move on his rival, cooler heads prevailed: a veteran Capitol Hill security guard pacified the bloodthirsty white men (Mr. Leahy first, then Mr. Cheney) with a shot from a tranquillizer gun. He then had them returned to their cages in the sub-basement of the Old Executive Office Building, where both men are kept and fed during non-business hours under the watchful eye of a volunteer from Washington’s National Zoo.

(In a related story, an AM talk-radio host in Billings, Montana, who expressed his disappointment with the behavior of Mr. Cheney and Mr. Leahy—on the air, he asked his listeners, “Do we taxpayers really have time for this kind of crap?”—was fined five hundred thousand dollars for violating the F.C.C.’s recent, Senate-approved guidelines prohibiting explicit references to human excrement.)

I still laugh.

Michael "You're doing a heck of a job" Brown 'recalled' to Washington

This is the first good news I've heard in a while.

Michael Brown is no longer overseeing the efforts in New Orleans, and is replaced by a Coast Guard General.

"Can you imagine how it would have been perceived..."

Andrew Sullivan linked to this NY Times article today, in which anonymous "administration, Pentagon, and Justice Department officials" give some explanation why the federal response wasn't as swift as it should have been:

"Can you imagine how it would have been perceived if a president of the United States of one party had pre-emptively taken from the female governor of another party the command and control of her forces, unless the security situation made it completely clear that she was unable to effectively execute her command authority and that lawlessness was the inevitable result?" asked one senior administration official, who spoke anonymously because the talks were confidential.

This, to me, sums it all up.  This is a senior administration official completely copping to the fact that perception was the most important thing to the President and his aides while the people of New Orleans (who, as we have now been taught, "were underprivileged anyway," and therefore not important enough to care about as human beings) were starving and dying.

The more I hear, the more I realize that "disconnect" is simply a sanitized way of saying that, "George Bush does not care about black people."

Go Fuck Yourself...

Just wanted to get everyone's attention, because you MUST WATCH THIS.

Dick Cheney get's a little of the "Go Fuck Yourself" treatement turned back at him on live television.

Meanwhile, back in the Batcave...

So, let's sum up...

The President took an extra day or two, stopping to give a speech on the war and play some git-fiddle in front of adoring fans while New Orleans was under water.  Oh yeah, and he had a little cake with John McCain as well.

Condi Rice STARTED her vacation the day after New Orleans was submerged, going shoe shopping and taking in a show, before she was chased back to work by bloggers.

Now, we find out that the Vice-President, who was suspiciously absent during the height of the destruction in New Orleans which spawned rumors of his health, was actually shopping for a new multi-million dollar mansion.

No wonder they are pushing for a quick-repeal of the estate tax.

Hiding the Dead

There are several reasons why I don't have a problem with the administration requesting that pictures of the deceased no longer be shown by the media.  Respect requires that the dead not be sensationalized beyond the point by which their deaths are legitimately sensational.

But, mostly it's because the American people don't need pictures of the dead to understand how horrible this was.  Our imaginations can do the job for us.

We can imagine a Superdome, where thousands went to ride out the storm, only to find themselves trapped inside.  Once inside, they sat in sweltering heat and in their own sewage.  They were told help was coming, and so they waited.  They waited while the very young and the very old died from heat and dehydration around them.  They waited, believing that there was a hope that help was almost there, and that, as bad as this was, they wouldn't have to stay there long.

And then the sun went down.

In total darkness they sat, and they began to hear screams around them.  One volunteer at a Dallas refugee camp recounted what the people who were there told him:

The Superdome: You hear a story once, you're a bit skeptical, you hear it for 8 hours, you become convinced. From the stories I heard, the Superdome was a living hell. It seems that the problems really started when some people broke into the suites on the 2nd story and found them fully stocked with alcohol. This is when the shootings and raping began (I checked in one 16 year old girl that had been raped and one man that was almost trampled to death at the Superdome). The point is, it was a full 4-day riot without any riot control - the National Guard simply left when the shootings began.

And they couldn't see it.  They could only hear it.

There was no order.  The National Guard walked away, fearing for their safety.  This was on the first day.  They endured it for three more days.

And so, if the administration wants to sanitize the tragedy by not showing us the pictures, that's fine with me.  The pictures in my imagination are bad enough.

Besides, I only need one picture to remind me what our leaders were doing while the victims were enduring this.

Yesterday's White House Press Briefing...

... was brutal for Scotty.

Q Well, let's talk about it. Are you saying the President is -- are you saying that the President is confident that his administration is prepared to adequately, confidently secure the American people in the event of a terrorist attack of a level that we have not seen? And based on what does he have that confidence?

MR. McCLELLAN: Yes, and that's what he made clear earlier today, that obviously we want to look and learn lessons from a major catastrophe of this nature.

Q Yes, but you're telling us today there will be time for that somewhere down the road. Well, what if it happens tomorrow?

MR. McCLELLAN: We can engage in this blame-gaming going on and I think that's what you're getting --

Q No, no. That's a talking point, Scott, and I think most people who are watching this --

MR. McCLELLAN: No, that's a fact. I mean, some are wanting to engage in that, and we're going to remain focused --

Q I'm asking a direct question. Is he confident --

MR. McCLELLAN: We're going to remain focused on the people.

Q -- that he can secure the American people in the event of a major terrorist attack?

MR. McCLELLAN: We are securing the American people by staying on the offensive abroad and working to spread freedom and democracy in the Middle East.

Q That's a talking point. That's a talking point.

MR. McCLELLAN: No, that's a fact.

Go ahead.

Q No, it's not. And you think people who are watching this think that's -- from what does he derive that confidence, based on the response --

MR. McCLELLAN: David, I'm interested in the people in the region that have been affected and getting them help. We can sit here and engage in this back and forth --

Q The whole country is watching and wondering about some --

MR. McCLELLAN: The time for bickering and blame-gaming is later. The time for helping people in the region is now.

I just realized why I'm so put off by the Bush Administration's talking points: Because they sound like they came from Bush himself.  The phrase "Blame Game" couldn't have come from anyone else.  I can almost picture Scotty leaving the oval office shaking his head and saying, "Seriously? He wants me to say 'blame-gaming?'"

 

Core American Values

Andrew Sullivan, on the slow response to Katrina:

It violated a core American value. This is the second basic American value this administration has violated. The other is humane treatment of enemy prisoners in wartime. Perhaps the reason people feel more than simple frustration with Bush - the reason it amounts to anger - is not "Bush-hatred" (although that irrationality exists), but this president's squandering of so much of what is best about America and his pandering to so much that is worst. I don't fully understand it. I don't think it's malevolence. I think it's a mixture of arrogance and incompetence. But the damage it is doing to some of the core meaning of America - that this is a country that rescues people who are in dire straits, and never, ever abuses prisoners in its military custody - is deeply distressing. And it will take time to restore that kind of reputation and, yes, honor.

Just Read.

Wolcott's series is not to be missed, both for it's original content and the links to the great and not-so-great writing going on about the past, the present, and the future of the country in the wake of Katrina.

New Orleans Died For Bush's Sins, Part I, II, III, IV.

Getting the Press Corp Back

Though one is reticent to try to find silver-linings in the wake of Katrina, there has been one ancillary gain: We got our Press Corp back. 

I've mentioned Anderson Cooper, who's interview with Senator Mary Landrieu set the tone (and I believe ended her career).  She's gotten a bit of praise around the internets, today, for this press release her office sent out yesterday, which says:

Yesterday, I was hoping President Bush would come away from his tour of the regional devastation triggered by Hurricane Katrina with a new understanding for the magnitude of the suffering and for the abject failures of the current Federal Emergency Management Agency. 24 hours later, the President has yet to answer my call for a cabinet-level official to lead our efforts. Meanwhile, FEMA, now a shell of what it once was, continues to be overwhelmed by the task at hand.

Aldahlia, who brought the press release to my attention, is skeptical, and so am I.  Landrieu also mentions that the 17th levee breach that the President visited two days ago appears, now to be staged.  Good for her for bringing it up and all, but this is the kind of spin control which is as obvious as it is offensive.  Many on the Right are pissed at Democrats for politicizing this tragedy.  I've politicized the tragedy because I could watch the news and see more than our leaders were willing to admit was happening.  Politicizing a tragedy by pointing out the DIRECT contributions your political leaders have made which have exacerbated the situation or to be appalled at the apathetic and delinquent response is warranted when you can see people dying on television.  What Landrieu is doing is politicizing the tragedy in an attempt to save her political skin.  It is despicable.

Of course she's not the only one spinning.  Bush's own public appearances have amounted to nothing but a four day press event, meant to combat the image that his leadership has been lacking.   He said he was satisfied, and he has been laughed at.  Times of great tragedy, we're told, are when this President shines. His touted charisma has, however, been replaced with bumbling and insincerity, as if he is struggling to keep up.

That's because he had the wrong goal.  The President wishes to appear to be a leader instead of commanding leadership itself.

And, when it became apparent that he was not in control of any situation, reporters called him out on it. Such was the case in the widely talked about Shep Smith/Geraldo Rivera rants on Fox News.  In regards to that, Jeff Jarvis asks an interesting question:

Haven’t seen Shepard Smith on Fox since he quite rightly vented his anger at Bill O’Reilly and Sean Hannity. Hope they just gave him a day off because of his heroic and nonstop work. As soon as Shep left, the talk turned rosier on Fox.

The Network has brought him back to New York, and he deserves the time off for certain, but his departure from the airwaves immediately after his unwavering depiction of what was wrong speaks volumes about the way the Fair and Balanced network is playing this.

Smith's wails, recounting day after day after day that he went on the air, telling America that the people of New Orleans needed food and water, only to find it arriving five days later has been biggest moment in the coverage on any network, and will be what I remember most.

Now, we can add Keith Olbermann to the mix of journalists who are asking tough questions. With this eloquent and completely on target commentary, he has articulated the reasons why those questions are so important.  Call him partisan (which I'm sure many will), but it's going to be very hard to call him wrong:

For many of this country's citizens, the mantra has been — as we were taught in Social Studies it should always be — whether or not I voted for this President — he is still my President. I suspect anybody who had to give him that benefit of the doubt stopped doing so last week. I suspect a lot of his supporters, looking ahead to '08, are wondering how they can distance themselves from the two words which will define his government — our government — "New Orleans."

Watch the video, but the transcript is also up on his blog.

"There are more important issues to deal with than who's at fault," many have said over the past few days.  To be sure, the number one priority is still to save lives.  While our leaders may not be able to multitask, however, it is important for us to do so because this is an administration who has consistently said, "There are more important issues," or, "There will be a day for looking back," but that day never comes.  The American public have been asking tough questions about Iraq for a long time, just as they did about Ohio during the '04 election, 9/11, and the Florida recount before that.  We're still waiting for the day to come when tough questions about those events will be answered, but that's because the combination of an administration who changes the subject and a Press with a.d.d. have made it so that those days never come.  To get real answers, the questions have to be asked now, while the powers that be can't look the other way.

The Press, it seems, have decided that they aren't willing to roll over this time.