This morning, ThinkProgress revealed charges of hypocrisy leveled against former Vice President Al Gore by Attorney General Gonzales were completely baseless. Now, the AP has updated its story on the Bush administration’s smear of Gore to include the facts:

McClellan said the Clinton-Gore administration had engaged in warrantless physical searches, and he cited an FBI search of the home of CIA turncoat Aldrich Ames without permission from a judge. He said Clinton’s deputy attorney general, Jamie Gorelick, had testified before Congress that the president had the inherent authority to engage in physical searches without warrants.

“I think his hypocrisy knows no bounds,” McClellan said of Gore.

But at the time of the Ames search in 1993 and when Gorelick testified a year later, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act required warrants for electronic surveillance for intelligence purposes, but did not cover physical searches. The law was changed to cover physical searches in 1995 under legislation that Clinton supported and signed.

Bush’s attorney general, Alberto Gonzales, made the same arguments as McClellan during interviews Monday on CNN’s “Larry King Live” and Fox News Channel’s “Hannity & Colmes.”

The White House responded to Gore’s criticism with a dishonest smear. The media, thankfully, is beginning to understand that.

The larger issue, however, is that the White House doesn’t have an honest response to criticism of their warrantless domestic wiretapping program.

“The White House is refusing to reveal details of tainted lobbyist Jack Abramoff’s visits with President Bush’s staff,” reports the AP.

to the White House.

Today, Sen. Rick Santorum (R-PA) denied that his Tuesday K Street Project meetings were designed to secure lobbying jobs for Republican congressional staffers and other loyalists. Santorum claimed the K Street Project “has not been about putting pressure on people to hire individuals. We never did that. We don’t do that and we wouldn’t do that.” Watch it:

Apparently, he is the only one who is confused about what was going on at his own meetings:

And Santorum’s Tuesday meetings are a crucial part of that effort. Every week, the lobbyists present pass around a list of the jobs available and discuss whom to support. Santorum’s responsibility is to make sure each one is filled by a loyal Republican–a senator’s chief of staff, for instance, or a top White House aide, or another lobbyist whose reliability has been demonstrated. After Santorum settles on a candidate, the lobbyists present make sure it is known whom the Republican leadership favors. “The underlying theme was [to] place Republicans in key positions on K Street. Everybody taking part was a Republican and understood that that was the purpose of what we were doing,” says Rod Chandler, a retired congressman and lobbyist who has participated in the Santorum meetings. “It’s been a very successful effort.”

The first step to recovery is acknowledging the problem. Santorum has a long way to go.

Trent Lott may try to replace Bill Frist as Majority Leader.

Sen. Rick Santorum (R-PA) has been a key player in the K Street Project. After the 2000 election, Santorum began closed-door meetings every Tuesday with “a handpicked group of two dozen or so Republican lobbyists“:

Every week, the lobbyists present pass around a list of the jobs available and discuss whom to support. Santorum’s responsibility is to make sure each one is filled by a loyal Republican–a senator’s chief of staff, for instance, or a top White House aide, or another lobbyist whose reliability has been demonstrated.

It appears Santorum has caught a sudden case of Abramoff amnesia:

The senator does not recall meeting Mr. Abramoff,” [spokeswoman Virginia Davis] said. “He has no recollection of being introduced to Mr. Abramoff, and he does not know him.”

Maybe we can refresh his memory: When Santorum launched the K Street Project in 2001, the first meeting was held with an ultra-exclusive group of D.C.’s ten most influential lobbyists. Santorum can play forgetful now, but back then, he chose Abramoff as one of the ten.

In December, Sen. Conrad Burns (R-MT) promised to return the approximately $150,000 he received from Abramoff, his clients, and his associates:

This is an important step that all public officials should take in order to renew the faith of Montanans, and all Americans, in their government. We can and must set a higher ethical standard.

Burns also added that he “instructed [his] staff to work with the Montana Wyoming Tribal Leaders Council to identify an appropriate Native American charitable entity to which the contributions received directly from Mr. Abramoff and his associates may be donated.”

But instead of working with the Council or returning the money to its original donors, Burns sent $111,000 directly to the Montana Wyoming Tribal Leaders Council, whose lobbyist, Stan Ullman, is a former Burns staffer.

Round and round Abramoff’s money goes, where it stops nobody knows.

“[W]here does this freedom come from that many have died to protect? Our founding fathers recognized that we were endowed with this right by our creator. So I ask, what is wrong with teaching ‘intelligent design’ in our schools?” Apparently the Declaration of Independence doubles as a biology textbook.