Eric Keroack, appointed in November by President Bush to oversee federal family planning programs, has resigned. Keroack was a nationally known advocate of abstinence until marriage who had worked for a Christian pregnancy counseling group that opposes contraception. Planned Parenthood president Cecile Richards responded, “It’s a good day for women’s health. … The Bush administration must replace Keroack with a legitimate, mainstream public health expert who supports family planning and access to birth control.”

UPDATE: Ann at Feministing has more on Keroack’s ethics problems.

The Tuskegee airmen were the U.S. military’s first group of African American fighter pilots, an elite unit that served with distinction during World War II only to return home to face to discrimination and harassment. Today, they received the Congressional Gold Medal, “the most prestigious Congress has to offer.”

But the event was marred slightly by the presentation of House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-OH):

During his short speech to those in attendance, Boehner six times mispronounced the group’s name as the “Tusk-E-gee,” eliciting audible groans from the front to the back of the Capitol Rotunda. One woman standing in front of me leaned to her companion and whispered, “This is so embarrassing, and he’s from my state.”

Perhaps making matters worse, almost all of Boehner’s speech focused on the general accomplishments of American forces in World War II, paying little direct respect to those in the room.

As if to remove any doubt about the verbal kerfuffle, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell took the stage and began his speech by pronouncing the group’s name correctly, while making a clear, if passing, glance in Boehner’s direction. Immediately afterward, the entire crowd broke into applause at the correction.

Watch a montage of Boehner:

It’s been a rough week for Boehner. Yesterday, he was booed by construction workers when he talked about Iraq, and today he accidentally voted in favor of a budget bill that he’s been deriding for the last week.

Digg It!

Fox News tells the story:

House Minority Leader John Boehner was booed on Wednesday at a construction workers’ union legislative forum for saying the United States needs to fight the war in Iraq or face terror attacks at home.

“Who doesn’t believe that if we just pull out of Iraq and come home that the terrorists won’t follow us here and we’ll be fighting them on the streets of America?” Boehner, R-Ohio, said to members attending the AFL-CIO’s Building & Construction Trades Department’s legislative forum.

Apparently, most in the crowd don’t believe it. Boos from the audience grew louder as Boehner continued, “This is a, ladies and gentlemen, this is a serious fight.”

On Fox’s “The Big Story,” John Gibson recycled the well-worn strategy that the right-wing has turned to often whenever they’re in trouble — blame Clinton. To focus attention away from Kyle Sampson’s testimony today, Gibson turned his sights on former White House communications director and current ABC News anchor George Stephanopoulos.

“As partisans and pundits circle the White House like vultures,” Gibson said, “there’s one man keeping his mouth shut — that is George Stephanopoulos.” Gibson claimed the ABC newsman is “not talking about his own personal experience as President Bill Clinton’s White House communications director back when Clinton ordered Janet Reno to fire every single U.S. attorney.” He decried “silent Stephanopoulos” for “sitting back now and letting the public beat up on Bush for doing the same thing Clinton did.” Watch it:

Gibson is grossly misleading his viewers about both the Stephanopoulos record and the Clinton record. Two important points need to be made in response:

1) Unlike pundits at Fox News, it’s not Stephanopoulos’ job to defend President Bush. As an objective journalist, Stephanopoulos hasn’t stayed “silent” on the attorney scandal. He has covered the issue for ABC, even acknowledging on his Sunday show (3/18) that he testified under oath before Congress with a transcript when he worked in the White House.

2) Bush’s purge is unprecedented; not the same thing as what Clinton did. Mass firings are common when a president takes office. Reagan and Clinton fired 89 prosecutors early in their administrations, and Bush fired 88. But as current and former administration officials have confirmed, Bush’s purge of well-qualified prosecutors for partisan reasons is unprecedented.

Transcript: Read more

House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers (D-MI) has reached an agreement with the Department of Justice that “will make available seven DOJ officials for transcribed interviews behind closed doors.”

The interviews begin Friday with Michael Elston, chief of staff to Deputy Attorney General Paul J. McNulty. Elston is the only one of the seven scheduled so far.

The others on the list are McNulty, Associate Deputy Attorney General David Margolis; director of the Executive Office for United States Attorneys Michael Battle; Monica Goodling, the DOJ’s liaison to the White House; acting Associate Attorney General William Mercer; and Assistant Attorney General William Moschella.

Goodling, who is currently on personal leave, announced through her attorney this week that she would invoke the Fifth Amendment against self-incrimination if she is subpoenaed to testify. It was not clear if she would do the same for the transcribed interviews behind closed doors.

CNN reports, “Conyers’ spokesman said the interviews are a first step and not in lieu of a hearing.”

During his opening statement today, Kyle Sampson declared that the decision to fire eight U.S. attorneys was “properly made but poorly explained.”

Some six hours of questioning later, during a tense moment, Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) finally got Kyle Sampson to break down and acknowledge that in fact the decision wasn’t “proper.” It was wrong. “I wish the Department hadn’t gone down this road at all, and I regret my role in it, and that’s one of the reasons I resigned,” Kyle said.

Transcript:

SCHUMER: Do you still think David Iglesias deserved to be fired?

SAMPSON: Senator, looking back on all of this, I wish that we could do it over again.

SCHUMER: So you’re saying you think he shouldn’t have been fired?

SAMPSON: Senator, I don’t know. That was a decision that was made. In hindsight, in hindsight, I wish the Department hadn’t gone down this road at all, and I regret my role in it, and that’s one of the reasons I resigned.

SCHUMER: So if the choice were up to you, just thinking back on that fateful December 7, would you now — knowing what you know now — have put David Iglesias on a list, choice solely up to you if he should be fired?

SAMPSON: In hindsight, sitting here today –

SCHUMER: Correct.

SAMPSON: I would not.

At last, some reporting on Rudy Giuliani’s ties to mobbed-up incompetent Bernard Kerik. Kerik’s ties to Giuliani, and Giuliani’s post-9/11 semi-mythical status almost got this joker a cabinet job.

On March 14, President Bush promised, “Al [Gonzales] was right, mistakes were made, and he’s going to go up to Capitol Hill to correct them.” Fifteen days later, Gonzales has “still has not made it to face Congress. In fact, he’s not scheduled to appear on the Hill until he testifies before Senate Judiciary Committee about the matter on April 17.”