Rove replacements, according to the New York Times.
McClellan: No Comment on Leak Scandal (Except Denials)
Scott McClellan is sticking to his guns and not answering any questions about the leak scandal:
QUESTION: Is the president confident that Cheney did not leak Valerie Plame’s identity?
MCCLELLAN: Again, I appreciate any question on this but, as you know, our policy is not to comment on an investigation while it’s ongoing, and that means any question relating to it. And I’m just not going to comment on an investigation while it’s ongoing.
Except, of course, when there is an opportunity to issue a denial:
QUESTION: You said that you were going to check to see if President Bush or either Cheney had been asked once again to go before the special prosecutor and answer questions after their initial appearance.
MCCLELLAN: No, the president has not. I provided you information when he was interviewed previously. And my understanding is the same applies to the vice president.
As you may recall, McClellan has a lot of experience issuing denials related to the leak investigation. Read more
Cheney resignation
Harriet Miers May Oppose Right to Contraception
Sen. Chuck Schumer said yesterday that Harriet Miers told him she was “not ready to give an answer” on whether the 1965 Griswold v Connecticut case was “settled law.” She also said she “had not taken a position” on the case in a letter to Sen. Arlen Specter. Griswold struck down a law that criminalized the use of contraceptives by married couples.
Coupled with her previous support for a constitutional ban on abortion, Miers’ silence on the case is notable. Even John Roberts, who refused to discuss his position on virtually any past decisions during his hearings, did state his support for Griswold:
I agree with the Griswold court’s conclusion that marital privacy extends to contraception and availability of that.
Miers should make her views on this case known. As the Griswold ruling demonstrates, it deals with fundamental issues of privacy and marriage rights:
The present case, then, concerns a relationship lying within the zone of privacy created by several fundamental constitutional guarantees. … Would we allow the police to search the sacred precincts of marital bedrooms for telltale signs of the use of contraceptives? The very idea is repulsive to the notions of privacy surrounding the marriage relationship.
“Supreme Court nominee Harriet Miers
Supreme Court nominee Harriet Miers agreed in 1989 that she would ‘actively support’ a proposed constitutional amendment that would ban abortion except when necessary to prevent the death of the mother,” the Washington Post reports.
Transcript of live chat with Sen. Tom Daschle
now posted at our sister site, Campus Progress.
Fox News Pushing “Criminalization of Politics” Talking Point
Conservative defenders of Karl Rove and Scooter Libby have settled on their No. 1 talking point: the grand jury investigation into the CIA leak scandal represents the “criminalization of politics.”
In other words, they say, the outing of a covert CIA agent in a time of war to punish a whistleblower is just everyday “politics” — nothing out of the ordinary, certainly nothing criminal. In fact, according to conservatives (as articulated by the National Review), the “criminalizing of politics” is actually “the most dangerous fire of this ordeal.”
To spread this talking point across the nation, the right has received a major assist from Fox News. According to a database search, every single television reference to the CIA leak scandal as the “criminalization of politics” in the last 30 days has been on Fox. Even more stunning: on every occassion, the phrase was introduced into the segment by a Fox News anchor or correspondent, never by a guest.
Below, a compilation of clips featuring Fox anchors Chris Wallace, Sean Hannity, Stuart Varney, Bill O’Reilly, and correspondent William Kristol:
Wal-Mart’s PAC donated $5000 to Tom DeLay
on September 30 — two days after he was indicted.
Plame investigators
Cohen’s Clarification: Not A Serious Matter
In today’s Washington Post, Richard Cohen provides this “clarification” to his October 13 column:
A number of readers, some of them formerly of the CIA, got the impression from my last column that I don’t consider the outing of a covert employee a serious matter. I do.
How did anyone get that idea? From Cohen’s 10/13 column:
The alleged crime involves the outing of Valerie Plame, a CIA operative… Not nice, but it was what Washington does day in and day out…This is rarely considered a crime.
If Cohen thinks outing a covert operative is a “serious matter” he would support Fitzgerald’s criminal investigation. Instead he urged Fitzgerald, before the investigation is even complete, to “go home.” No further clarification is needed.
