There are “emerging divisions within the administration over why we went into that war, how we went into that war and what was done to sell it. There are people are out for Karl Rove inside that White House, which makes his situation even more perilous.” (Via AmericaBlog)

stock options, worth $241,498 a year ago, are now valued at more than $8 million. That’s a 3,281% gain.

he created to avoid a conflict of interest, Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist earned tens of thousands of dollars from stock in a family-founded hospital chain,” AP reports. (Via Atrios)

“In two appearances before the federal grand jury investigating the leak of a covert CIA operative’s name, Lewis (Scooter) Libby, the chief of staff to Vice President Cheney, did not disclose a crucial conversation that he had with New York Times reporter Judith Miller in June 2003 about the operative, Valerie Plame.” (National Journal)

The official reason for President Bush’s trips to New Orleans, via Scott McClellan:

The president believes that it’s important to get a firsthand account of the operations that are ongoing to provide relief to the people in need.

The real reason, via Charlee Williamson, who works for the French Quarter restaurant where Bush dined yesterday:

Last Thursday, I got a call from a member of the president’s advance team. She is actually from New Orleans. Her father is one of our best customers at Bacco. And they were looking for a place that had reopened that was a good news story about business coming back to New Orleans.

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Scott McClellan (10/7/05):

The President has a long record of appointing people to the bench who are strict constructionists. That’s what the American people want.

That’s not true.

53% believe the Supreme Court should base its rulings, in whole or in part, on the Constitution’s current meaning, rather than on the meaning of the document when it was originally written. (46% take the original intent view and 1% are unsure.)

63% of the public want a new Supreme Court justice who “will keep the court about the same as it is now” or will “make the court more liberal.” (30% want it more conservative.)

59% of the public are uneasy or unsure about Bush’s picks for the Supreme Court. (41% are confident.)

One more: 65% of the American public believe Bush’s priorities for the country are not the same as theirs.

“brilliant and apolitical,” according to a profile in USA Today.

During an interview this morning on “The Today Show,” President Bush touted Harriet Miers’ credentials:

I would remind those, one, that Harriet is an extraordinarily accomplished woman who’s done a lot. As a matter of fact, she’s consistently ranked as one of the top 50 women lawyers in the United States.

Actually, The National Law Journal ranked Miers among “The Fifty Most Influential Women Lawyers.” The specific designation is significant, because National Law Journal selected her as one of the “most influential” because of Miers’ close, personal relationship with Bush. From the National Law Journal:

1998: “Ms. Miers is a big wheel in the big state of Texas, where she is chair of the Texas Lottery Commission and the personal attorney of Gov. George W. Bush. She was general counsel to Gov. Bush’s transition team when he first became governor.” ["The Fifty Most Influential Women Lawyers In America," The National Law Journal, 3/30/98]

In other words, the National Law Journal recognized that Miers’ benefited from her connections to Bush. Now, Bush uses that designation to argue that she is qualified apart from her relationship with him. It’s the beauty of circular reasoning.

(HT: Salon War Room )

[Ed. note: Stephen Geer works for American Progress and just returned from New Orleans.]

The few people who have returned to New Orleans are just beginning to get their lives reordered. Not a single person I spoke to during my visit had even started paperwork with their insurance companies, let alone registered with FEMA. Until they got back into the city, they didn’t know what to report, and those who had called FEMA couldn’t get through.

Worse, FEMA has a 60-day deadline for individuals to register for relief aid, like loan assistance.

To help push FEMA on this issue, we’ve set up a very simple website — www.extendthedeadline.org — that lets you send a message to FEMA asking them to extend the deadline past the current date, October 28.

This is a battle we can win, and it’s a victory that Katrina victims desperately need. Please take a minute and ask FEMA to ExtendTheDeadline.

– Steve Geer

meant to help allay the extra costs of buying a hybrid car actually “provides greater financial incentives for buying heavy SUVs than more fuel-efficient cars.” (Via Sploid)