The New York Times reports:

Two years ago, Robin C. Ashton, a seasoned criminal prosecutor at the Department of Justice, learned from her boss that a promised promotion was no longer hers.

“You have a Monica problem,” Ms. Ashton was told, according to several Justice Department officials. Referring to Monica M. Goodling, a 31-year-old, relatively inexperienced lawyer who had only recently arrived in the office, the boss added, “She believes you’re a Democrat and doesn’t feel you can be trusted.” [...]

Ms. Goodling would soon be quizzing applicants for civil service jobs at Justice Department headquarters with questions that several United States attorneys said were inappropriate, like who was their favorite president and Supreme Court justice. One department official said an applicant was even asked, “Have you ever cheated on your wife?”

Ms. Goodling also moved to block the hiring of prosecutors with r©sum©s that suggested they might be Democrats, even though they were seeking posts that were supposed to be nonpartisan, two department officials said.

A new indictment has been filed against the former #3 official at the CIA, Kyle “Dusty” Foggo. Via Atrios:

According to the new indictment, Foggo provided [his friend, defense contractor Brent] Wilkes with “sensitive, internal information related to our national security,” including classified information, to help him prepare proposals for providing undercover flights for the CIA under the guise of a civil aviation company and armored vehicles for agency operations. Foggo allegedly then pushed his CIA colleagues to hire Wilkes’ companies without disclosing their longstanding friendship.

[...]

Prosecutors say that in return, Wilkes offered to hire Foggo after he retired from government service. In the meantime, he allegedly treated his friend to a Scottish golf trip during which they racked up a $44,000 hotel bill at the luxurious Pitcastle Estate.

Today, the Washington Post editorial board gave Iraq war architect Richard Perle a platform to offer a pathetic self-defense against the proof that he was focused on Iraq shortly after 9/11.

Perle responds to criticisms delivered by George Tenet — and reported by ThinkProgress — that he made public statements shortly after 9/11 advocating action against Iraq. Perle writes:

On “Meet the Press” last Sunday, Tenet argued that his version “seems to be corroborated” by a comment I made to columnist Robert D. Novak on Sept. 17 and a letter to President Bush that I signed, with 40 others, on Sept. 20. But my 10-word comment to Novak made no claim that Iraq was responsible for Sept. 11. Neither did the letter to the president, which said that “any strategy aiming at the eradication of terrorism and its sponsors must include a determined effort to remove Saddam Hussein from power.”

Tenet insists on equating two statements that are not at all the same: that Iraq was responsible for Sept. 11 — which I never said — and that removing Saddam Hussein before he could share chemical, biological or nuclear weapons with terrorists had become an urgent matter, which I did say.

While Perle does acknowledge the obvious — that he was advocating regime change in Iraq in the immediate days after 9/11 — he attempts to deceive the reader into believing that he never tried to link the two. He did. Here’s a piece of evidence he chose not to address in his op-ed: On 9/16/01, he said this on CNN:

Even if we cannot prove to the standard that we enjoy in our own civil society they are involved, we do know, for example, that Saddam Hussein has ties to Osama bin Laden.

Watch it:

So Mr. Perle “made no claim that Iraq was responsible for Sept. 11?” It’s just yet another attempt by Perle and Washington Post editorial board to deceive us.

Sen. Olympia Snowe (R-ME) this week “announced legislation that will require troop redeployment if the Iraqi government has not met specific benchmarks.” Snowe, who just returned from Iraq, told CBS News yesterday, “Based on my recent trip, I can tell you, things have not markedly improved.” Watch the report:

Snowe’s impressions were at sharp odds with those of Sen. Kit Bond (R-MO), a Bush ally and war supporter who also toured Iraq:

Bond, whom GOP lawmakers put in front of cameras yesterday after the weekly caucus lunch, described the situation as stable in Iraq and said he was encouraged that the military surge was working. In Ramadi, he described walking around with just a small security force and said that local authorities have reported a boost in those joining the police and military. And overall, he saw positive changes in the nation.

“Obviously this is very early,” he said, “but the signs are extremely positive.”

“Conservative pundit Ann Coulter has been cleared of allegations that she falsified her Palm Beach County voter’s registration and voted illegally — this, after a high-level FBI agent made unsolicited phone calls to the Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Office to vouch for Coulter.”

In the interests of bipartisan comity, let me say that I disagree with those who think “a vote for Romney is a vote for Satan.” Romney is not Satan. He’s a former businessman and a competent manager with a bit of a taste for political opportunism. I have some bad things to say about the man, but he’s not Satan or even in league with Satan and to say otherwise is unfair.

I think it’s too bad that this Mormon business will almost certainly sink Romney’s campaign (this probably won’t help either) since my guess is that he’d be a better president than the other leading GOP contenders. (Link via Chris Orr).

“Vice President Dick Cheney used the deck of an American aircraft carrier just 150 miles off Iran’s coast as the backdrop today to warn the country that the United States was prepared to use its naval power to keep Tehran from disrupting off oil routes or ‘gaining nuclear weapons and dominating this region.’”

Little of what Mr. Cheney said in the cavernous hangar bay of the aircraft carrier U.S.S. John C. Stennis, one of two carriers whose strike groups are now in the Persian Gulf, was new. Each individual line had, in some form, been said before, at various points in the four-year-long nuclear standoff with Iran, and during the increasingly tense arguments over whether Iran is aiding the insurgents in Iraq.

But Mr. Cheney stitched all of those warnings together, and the symbolism of sending the administration’s most famous hawk to deliver the speech so close to Iran’s coast was unmistakable.

(HT: RawStory)

Chris Bowers takes a big picture look at the public polling and sees that after dropping for a while, Hillary Clinton has managed to first halt her slide and then reverse it, and now “Hillary Clinton’s lead has returned to early-March levels.”

Fouad Ajami, a CBS News consultant, repeatedly advocated in favor of President Bush’s war policies and against Congressional action.