that slams labor unions who criticize Wal-Mart. Turns out the paper forgot to mention that the author of the op-ed works for a nonprofit whose main funder is the Walton Family Foundation, the charitable arm of Wal-Mart founder Sam Walton.

but it’s tough to argue with numbers like these. “The five named tropical storms recorded in July were the most on record for that month, and worldwide it was the second warmest July on record,” AP reports.

It wasn’t too long ago that Ken Mehlman, former political director at the White House under Rove, was heaping praises on Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald during “Meet the Press”:

I have tremendous confidence in Pat Fitzgerald. He’s a career prosecutor. He’s a tough prosecutor. That’s why he was put in charge of this case, because people want to get to the bottom of it. And that’s why it is so outrageous that these partisan smears would occur this past week. The question is this: Do the people that are smearing Karl Rove not have confidence in Mr. Fitzgerald? Do they not think, in fact, he’s going to get to the bottom of it? Or would they rather, than getting to the facts, try to make political gain?

Host Tim Russert then asked Mehlman the obvious questions: “If, in fact, he indicts White House officials, will you accept that indictment and not fight it?…Will you pledge today, because you have tremendous confidence in him, that you will not criticize his decision?” Despite the urgings of Russert (and Center for American Progress CEO John Podesta), Mehlman would not take that step.

Bob Dole’s attack today on Patrick Fitzgerald may quite possibly be the first warning shots of a coming right-wing campaign to undermine Fitzgerald. Is someone in the White House getting nervous?

Bob Dole has an op-ed in the New York Times that, perhaps inevitably, begins the right-wing attack on Patrick Fitzgerald. (Former White House political director Ken Mehlman had a chance to declare Patrick Fitzgerald off limits a few weeks ago and demurred.) Dole’s argument against Fitzgerald’s approach hinges on his analysis of the Intelligence Identities Protection Act of 1982. Dole may have been a co-sponsor of the law, but he completely distorts its terms. Here is what Dole says:

Thus the act was drafted in very narrow terms: our goal was to criminalize only those disclosures that clearly represented a conscious and pernicious effort to identify and expose agents with the intent to impair America’s foreign intelligence activities.

Dole is wrong. The law does not require the exposing of an undercover CIA agent to be “pernicious.” And there is no requirement of an “intent to impair America’s foreign intelligence activities.” The LA Times explains:

Nowhere does this statute require proof that the defendant “wished to harm” an undercover agent or jeopardize national security. The reason why someone disclosed the information — whether for revenge, to prevent the publication of a story or to harm the U.S. — is an issue of motive, not intent.

The purpose of the law, is not merely to protect the nation’s “foreign intelligence activities” but to protect the agents themselves. In a 1983 Washington Quarterly article, Sen. Barry Goldwater (R-AZ), then chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence wrote:

The act sends out a clear signal that U.S. intelligence officers will no longer be fair game for those members of their own society who wish to take issue with the existence of CIA or find other motives for making these unauthorized disclosures.

We know that Karl Rove declared Valerie Plame, an undercover CIA agent, “fair game.” Whether it was a “pernicious” effort to “impair America’s foreign intelligence activities” or not, Rove may have violated the law. Dole should stop attacking Fitzgerald for doing his job.

– Mipe Okunseinde and Judd Legum

President Bush said Supreme Court nominee John Roberts has a “profound respect for…the liberties guaranteed to every citizen.”

But in a 1984 memo, Roberts argued wasn’t anything wrong with the fact that women earned 60 percent of what men did for the same work. He trashed a letter written to Reagan by then-Rep. Olympia J. Snowe (R-ME), then-Rep. Claudine Schneider (R-RI) and Rep. Nancy L. Johnson (R-CT) urging the administration to accept a federal court ruling prohibiting women from being paid less because of their gender:

[The letter] contends that more is required because women still earn only $0.60 for every $1 earned by men, ignoring the factors that explain that apparent disparity, such as seniority, the fact that many women frequently leave the work force for extended periods of time. I honestly find it troubling that three Republican representatives are so quick to embrace such a radical redistributive concept.

Roberts, then accused the three female member of congress of embracing Marxist dogma:

Their slogan may as well be, “From each according to his ability, to each according to her gender.”

Roberts problems with women demanding equal treatment are longstanding. In 1972, in his high school newspaper, he explained why his all-boy academy shouldn’t go co-ed:

I would prefer to discuss Shakespeare’s double entendre and the latus rectum of conic sections without a [b]londe giggling and blushing behind me.

But remember, Roberts’s views are irrelevant. He is really nice guy who mows his own lawn and eats chocolate chip ice cream and that’s all that counts.