There are money quotes floating around today. Keepers. And headlines, too. Like this one: ‘Crack in the Dike’: White House in ‘Panic Mode’ Over GOP Revolt on Iraq from ABC News. That’s never a good sign. Take a read…it’s got gems like this:
The official said the White House “is in panic mode,” despite Monday’s on-the-record briefing by White House Press Secretary Tony Snow, who played down any concern over the recent spate of GOP senators who have spoken out publicly in support of changing course in Iraq.
The Republican defections are seen as “a crack in the dike,” according to the senior White House official, and National Security Adviser Steven Hadley is most concerned.
Karl Rove is allegedly concerned as well. Although you’d never know it from defiant speech like this:
Look, I make no apologies,” Rove said in response to a question from the audience about whether he felt personally responsible for the war.
“It was the right thing to do. The world is better off with him gone,” he said, referring to Saddam Hussein. “We all thought he had weapons of mass destruction. The whole world did. He didn’t.”
Rove has more to worry about than the war.
We just got off the phone with Tracy Schmaler, a spokesperson for the Senate Judiciary Committee’s Democratic majority. Schmaler told us it is her understanding that — despite President Bush’s invocation of executive privilege in regards to the testimony of former White House staffers Sara Taylor and Harriet Miers about the ongoing U.S. Attorneys scandal — Taylor will still appear before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Wednesday.
Sara Taylor used to be Rove’s assistant. If her lawyer is telling her to defy the President and talk to Leahy…well…could be trouble.
Things are getting a little touch and go.
Both committees also issued subpoenas last month to White House chief of staff Josh Bolten or the “appropriate custodian of records” for documents relevant to the investigation, raising the question of whether Congress would seek to hold Bolten in contempt if the White House continued to refuse to hand them over.
When it rains it pours. If this wasn’t bad enough, this Thursday Bush is going to issue an Iraqi progress report.
A progress report on Iraq will conclude that the U.S.-backed government in Baghdad has not met any of its targets for political, economic and other reform, speeding up the Bush administration’s reckoning on what to do next, a U.S. official said Monday.
That will no doubt do nothing to staunch Stephen Hadley’s great concern. Neither will the news that the DC Madame has released her client phonelists. Beltway divorce attorneys are turning cartwheels. This could be one of the ugliest scandals in Washington political history. Or…maybe not.
But it might help people not to notice that we’ve reached 4,000 dead soldiers in Iraq. Oh…Iraq. William Kristol has some advice for the President about Iraq:
The best strategy for the president is to hold firm. There is every reason to believe that he can survive the current calamity-Janes of the Republican party (does anyone really imagine that a veto-proof majority will form in the Senate this week or next?). This nonsense will pass, Congress will go on recess, and Petraeus will have a chance to continue to produce results–and the president and his allies will have a chance to gain political ground here at home. Why on earth pull the plug now? Why give in to an insane, irrational panic that will destroy the Bush administration and most likely sweep the Republican party to ruin? The president still has a chance to emerge from this as a visionary who could see what the left could not–but not if he gives in to them. There is no safety in the position some in the Bush administration are running towards.
‘Destroy the Bush administration and most likely sweep the Republican party to ruin?’
That ship has left the port. Sane Republicans would start worrying less about their party and more about our country.
I am listening to Air American and Mark Riley is talking about a group of people that raised enough money in 2 hours to use for a banner demanding impeachment to fly over the stadium hosting the All Star game tomorrow night.
Impeachment is certainly in the air now.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070710/ap_on_go_co/vitter_dc_madam
Another hypocrite revealed…family values and happy endings just don’t go together.
NPR this morning had a rather cheerful thought, that Olympia Snowe is ready to vote with the Dems on ending this war, and that Congress may actually be able to “take the President out of the Iraq policy equation.”
That’s the money shot right there. That’s why we’re seeing nothing less than a full-court wingnut press since the Scooter Commuter decision was made by The Decider(tm).
They’re terrified. And they have every right to be. Because if the President loses enough support in Congress that the GOP stop taking orders, the whole mechanism breaks down.
And after that, things get really ugly.
I think a real bell-weather of how low things go will be the question of what Senator Norm Coleman decides to do. Americans United for Change knows this and is running ads here in MN about Coleman’s position on the war.
Some folks might not know just how involved Bush/Cheney/Rove were in getting Coleman elected. The story about how that all happened is here. The only thing I’d add to the story is that prior to running for Senate, Coleman had been public with his distaste for being a legislator and had talked about how his skills were more suitable to “executive offices.”
When you put all that together, you see just how joined-at-the-hip Coleman is to this administration and why many of us in MN remain suspicious of the circumstances of the Wellstone’s death.
Never mind the foam. Watch for the U-Turn
This is an interesting article out of Israel:
In the Middle East, America’s Exit from Iraq Attracts Less Interest than Gathering War Clouds
Andrew Sullivan notes Two Facts
“Sane Republican” is an oxymoron. Literally.