The Bush administration has been reluctant to release John Roberts’ work from his time as deputy solicitor general. John Roberts’ role in redefining the position of the solicitor general — which actually dates back to his work in the Reagan administration — may be why.

Since 1870, when Congress passed legislation officially creating the solicitor general’s position, it has been widely accepted that the solicitor general has but one client: the U.S. government. Historically, the office has always been respected for its nonpartisanship: “For example, no modern presidents were more partisan — or more politically opposite — than Lyndon Johnson and Richard Nixon. Yet former Harvard Law School Dean Erwin Griswold served as solicitor general for both these presidents.”

“It was not until the Reagan presidency that the office was first truly politicized.” Read more

Here’s what Bob Novak just told Candy Crowley on CNN:

NOVAK: “I can’t — I can’t tell anything I ever talked to Karl Rove about, because I don’t even think I talked to him about anything, even the time of day, on the record.” [CNN, Inside Politics, 7/26/05]

Oh really?

Bob Novak op-ed, The New York Post, May 3, 1999

“According to Iowa sources, Rove asked for cancellation of this year’s vote. Iowa Republican Chairman Kayne Robinson declined, though voting this time will be limited to Iowans. Rove, however, told me he definitely made no cancellation request and merely joked about busing in Texans.”

Bob Novak op-ed, The New York Post, June 18, 1999

“Bush campaign manager Karl Rove told me his candidate wants ‘judges that share his philosophy, and this (the ’96 platform language) is his philosophy.’”

UPDATE: See Crooks and Liars for the video.

President Bush will release most of the documents related to Roberts’s work in the Reagan administration but not those with “national security implications”

Today in the White House Press briefing, a reporter asked a very good question about this issue:

QUESTION: Can I just ask a quick follow-up on that? Do you consider Iran-Contra a national security issue?

MCCLELLAN: I haven’t even thought about that, to tell you the truth.

This really goes to the larger question: is the White House’s quixotic selective disclosure policy designed to cover-up damaging information?

John Roberts and the White House are still refusing to explain why Roberts first denied having ties to the right-wing Federalist Society.

Yesterday, Newsweek said “the episode illustrates just how far the Bush administration is going to portray Roberts as an ideological blank slate, in hopes of shielding him from questions about whether he is too conservative from Democrats seeking clues to his judicial philosophy.” The Boston Globe added that the stonewalling has conservative groups “worried that the White House had created a stigma that could attach itself to many leading conservative lawyers.”

Now, today, more evidence of Roberts’ role in the Society. A 7/19/99 report in The Recorder, a daily legal newspaper, refers to Roberts as a “prominent member” of the organization.

Advocates of limiting federal powers and expanding states’ prerogatives cheered this term’s [Supreme Court] federalism rulings, which were issued in a jam-packed, tension-filled courtroom on the justices’ final business day before leaving town for their summer recess.

“The court once again reiterated that states are serious players in our system of government,” said John Roberts Jr., a lawyer with Washington, D.C. ‘s Hogan & Hartson and a prominent member of the conservative Federalist Society.

It’s time for Roberts to come clean.

“We can’t have leaks of classified information. It’s not in our nation’s interest.” – President George W. Bush, 10/9/01

President Bush’s defiant statement came in the immediate weeks following 9/11, as the administration clamped down on the information it provided to Congress. President Bush issued an order limiting access to classified intelligence only to 8 members of Congress — the Speaker of the House, House Minority Leader, Senate Majority Leader, Senate Minority Leader, and chairmen and ranking members of the House and Senate intelligence committees.

What precipitated this course of action?

Gannett News Service reported on 10/1/01 that Bush was restricting information because, “The Washington Post reported last week that various lawmakers had been told there would be more terrorist attacks if the United States retaliated.”

Here’s what the Washington Post reported:

Asked whether more terrorist attacks are inevitable if the United States retaliates, [Sen. Richard] Shelby said, “You can bet on that.” U.S. intelligence officials have told members of Congress there is a high probability that terrorists associated with Osama bin Laden will try to launch another major attack on U.S. targets here or abroad. [Washington Post, 10/6/01]

So at this slightest whiff of evidence that information was being leaked, President Bush pulled classified intelligence access for 92 senators. There was no ongoing criminal investigation nor was there evidence that all the members who had their access limited had leaked information. And now he refuses to hold Karl Rove and Scooter Libby to anywhere near the same standard, despite confirmation of their involvement in the leak of an undercover CIA agent’s identity.

Bush’s intel order

Lance Armstrong’s future as a politician (Texas governor? President?) is the talk of the town, and Armstrong has told Time magazine that he hasn’t ruled out the possibility now that his cycling career is over. Luckily, as this quote from yesterday’s USA Today suggests, Armstrong has his priorities in order:

“Funding [for cancer research] is tough to come by these days,” he says. “The biggest downside to a war in Iraq is what you could do with that money. What does a war in Iraq cost a week? A billion? Maybe a billion a day? The budget for the National Cancer Institute is four billion. That has to change. It needs to become a priority again.

“Polls say people are much more afraid of cancer than of a plane flying into their house or a bomb or any other form of terrorism. It is a priority for the American public.”

(via LeftI)

Earlier this month, the Bush administration delayed the release of its Iraq progress report to Congress. When the documents were finally released, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld decided to keep “one of the main measures of progress” — “the readiness and performance of U.S.-trained Iraqi security forces” section — classified from the American people.

Now the inspector generals of the State and Defense Departments have come forward to reveal that “insurgents and other criminals have infiltrated Iraqi police ranks due to poor screening procedures by U.S. forces.” Furthermore, the joint report does a dual pronged attack on President Bush’s constant harping on the number of Iraqi forces that have been trained.

The report reiterates “the difficulty in defining the number of police who are trained and equipped.” It then goes on to state, “This emphasis on numbers overshadows the attention that should be given to the qualitative performance of those trained. There is a perception that training programs have produced ‘cannon fodder’ — numbers of nominal policemen incapable of defending themselves, let alone the Iraqi public.”

The administration is already pushing back against the findings with Pentagon officials trying to paint the report as outdated — “a snapshot from two to three months ago” — and that “police recruiting has been improving.” Yet, at the same time they are calling the report old news that is already being resolved, officials are admitting that Rumsfeld has yet to have been briefed on the report’s findings…even though a draft copy has been available since May.

Most people, including lawmakers from both parties, know the immigration system is broken and that we need real reform. But some right-wingers, including Rep. Tom Tancredo (R-CO) and former House Speaker Rep. Newt Gingrich, keep holding on to the fantasy that we if we just conduct a massive police action to arrest, try and deport every undocumented worker in every factory and every farm in America, we can solve our immigration problem in a snap.

Well, the Center for American Progress today released the first-ever cost assessment of a mass deportation policy for the 10 million undocumented persons currently in the country and the 500,000 that successfully cross the border each year. And guess what? It would essentially drain the Treasury. The data analysis estimates the cost to be at least $206 billion over 5 years ($41.2 billion annually), and could be as high as $230 billion. We arrived at this number even after assuming that 2 million of the 10 million would leave on their own–a pretty large assumption.

To put $41 billion in perspective, that would exceed the entire annual budget of the Dept of Homeland Security ($34.2 billion) and more the double the annual cost of the war in Afghanistan ($16.8 billion).

Most reasonable politicians have rejected mass deportation as costly and ineffective measure that would do little to improve our security and could devastate key sectors of our economy. This study puts the nail in the coffin for the “just deport ‘em” crowd.

We need real immigration reform, not rhetoric.

- Raj Goyle