My bet is Delay will be found innocent and Rove is old news.
Posted By: Really? on 2005-09-29
In Reply to: like watching bullies get theirs - gt
Besides, last time I check we had a system of balances in this country. The time and the law will prevail, I have no doubt.
Complete Discussion Below:  marks the location of current message within thread
The messages you are viewing
are archived/old.
To view latest messages and participate in discussions, select
the boards given in left menu
Other related messages found in our database
If Rove is innocent
why didnt he come forward before now and state what actually went down? Because of his silence, Judith Miller is in jail, Matthew Cooper was threatened with jail, thousands of tax dollars have been spent on a Grand Jury and a special prosecutor and now quite possibly a trial.
More DeLay fun and
AP: DeLay, Blunt Traded Secret Donations
By JOHN SOLOMON and SHARON THEIMER, Associated Press Writers1 hour, 33 minutes ago
Tom DeLay deliberately raised more money than he needed to throw parties at the 2000 presidential convention, then diverted some of the excess funds to longtime ally Roy Blunt through a series of donations that benefited both men's causes.
When the financial carousel stopped, DeLay's private charity, the consulting firm that employed DeLay's wife and the Missouri campaign of Blunt's son all ended up with money, according to campaign documents reviewed by The Associated Press.
Jack Abramoff, a Washington lobbyist recently charged in an ongoing federal corruption and fraud investigation, and Jim Ellis, the DeLay fundraiser indicted with his boss last week in Texas, also came into the picture.
The complicated transactions are drawing scrutiny in legal and political circles after a grand jury indicted DeLay on charges of violating Texas law with a scheme to launder illegal corporate donations to state candidates.
Blunt last week temporarily replaced DeLay as House majority leader, and Blunt's son, Matt, has now risen to Missouri's governor.
The government's former chief election enforcement lawyer said the Blunt and DeLay transactions are similar to the Texas case and raise questions that should be investigated regarding whether donors were deceived or the true destination of their money was concealed.
These people clearly like using middlemen for their transactions, said Lawrence Noble. It seems to be a pattern with DeLay funneling money to different groups, at least to obscure, if not cover, the original source, said Noble, who was the Federal Election Commission's chief lawyer for 13 years, including in 2000 when the transactions occurred.
None of the hundreds of thousands of dollars in donations DeLay collected for the 2000 convention were ever disclosed to federal regulators because the type of group DeLay used wasn't governed by federal law at the time.
DeLay has temporarily stepped aside as majority leader after being indicted by a Texas prosecutor.
Spokesmen for the two Republican leaders say they disclosed what was required by law at the time and believe all their transactions were legal, though donors might not always have know where their money was headed.
It illustrates what others have said, that money gets transferred all the time. This was disclosed to the extent required to be disclosed by applicable law, said Don McGahn, a lawyer for DeLay. It just shows that donors don't control funds once they're given.
Blunt and DeLay planned all along to raise more money than was needed for the convention parties and then route some of that to other causes, such as supporting state candidates, said longtime Blunt aide Gregg Hartley.
We put together a budget for what we thought we would raise and spend on the convention and whatever was left over we were going to use to support candidates, said Hartley, Blunt's former chief of staff who answered AP's questions on behalf of Blunt.
Hartley said he saw no similarity to the Texas case. The fact that DeLay's charity, Christine DeLay's consulting firm and Blunt's son were beneficiaries was a coincidence, Hartley said.
Much of the money — including one donation to Blunt from an Abramoff client accused of running a sweatshop garment factory in the Northern Mariana Islands — changed hands in the spring of 2000, a period of keen interest to federal prosecutors.
During that same time, Abramoff arranged for DeLay to use a concert skybox for donors and to take a golfing trip to Scotland and England that was partly underwritten by some of the lobbyist's clients. Prosecutors are investigating whether the source of some of the money was disguised, and whether some of DeLay's expenses were originally put on the lobbyist's credit card in violation of House rules.
Both DeLay and Blunt and their aides also met with Abramoff's lobbying team several times in 2000 and 2001 on the Marianas issues, according to law firm billing records obtained by AP under an open records request. DeLay was instrumental in blocking legislation opposed by some of Abramoff's clients.
Noble said investigators should examine whether the pattern of disguising the original source of money might have been an effort to hide the leaders' simultaneous financial and legislative dealings with Abramoff and his clients.
You see Abramoff involved and see the meetings that were held and one gets the sense Abramoff is helping this along in order to get access and push his clients' interest, he said. And at the same time, you see Delay and Blunt trying to hide the root of their funding.
All of these transactions may have strings attached to them. ... I think you would want to look, if you aren't already looking, at the question of a quid pro quo, Noble said.
Blunt and DeLay have long been political allies. The 2000 transactions occurred as President Bush was marching toward his first election to the White House, DeLay was positioning himself to be House majority leader and Blunt was lining up to succeed DeLay as majority whip, the third-ranking position in the House.
The entities Blunt and DeLay formed allowed them to collect donations of any size and any U.S. source with little chance of federal scrutiny.
DeLay's convention fundraising arm, part of his Americans for a Republican Majority Political Action Committee (ARMPAC), collected large corporate donations to help wine and dine Republican VIPs during the presidential nominating convention in Philadelphia in late summer 2000. DeLay's group has declined to identify any of the donors.
Blunt's group, a nonfederal wing of his Rely on Your Beliefs Fund, eventually registered its activities in Missouri but paid a $3,000 fine for improperly concealing its fundraising in 1999 and spring 2000, according to Missouri Ethics Commission records.
Both groups — DeLay's and Blunt's — were simultaneously paying Ellis, the longtime DeLay fundraiser who was indicted along with his boss in Texas in the alleged money laundering scheme.
The DeLay group began transferring money to Blunt's group in two checks totaling $150,000 in the spring of 2000, well before Republicans actually met in Philadelphia for the convention. The transfers accounted for most of money Blunt's group received during that period.
DeLay's convention arm sent $50,000 on March 31, 2000. Eight days later, the Blunt group made a $10,000 donation to DeLay's private charity for children on April 7, 2000, and began the first of several payments totaling $40,000 to a northern Virginia-based political consulting firm formed by DeLay's former chief of staff, Ed Buckham.
That consulting firm at the time also employed DeLay's wife, Christine, according to DeLay's ethics disclosure report to Congress.
Hartley said Blunt was unaware that Mrs. DeLay worked at the firm when he made the payments, and that she had nothing to do with Blunt's group.
On April 14, 2000, Concorde Garment Manufacturing, based in the Northern Marianas Islands that was part of Abramoff's lobbying coalition, contributed $3,000 to Blunt's group.
Hartley said the donation was delivered during a weekend of fundraising activities by Blunt and DeLay but his boss did not know who solicited it.
Concorde, derided for years in lawsuits as a Pacific island sweatshop, paid a $9 million penalty to the U.S. government in the 1990s for failing to pay workers' overtime. The company was visited by DeLay.
The company was a key member of the Marianas garment industry that the islands' government was trying to protect when it hired Abramoff to lobby DeLay, Blunt and others to keep Congress from imposing tougher wage and tax standards on the islands.
After the November 2000 election, Abramoff's firm billed its Mariana Islands clients for at least one meeting with Blunt and three meetings with Blunt's staff, billing records show. Abramoff's team also reported several meetings with DeLay and his staff on the issue, including one during the presidential convention.
On May 24, 2000 — just before DeLay left with Abramoff for the Scottish golfing trip — DeLay's convention fundraising group transferred $100,000 more to Blunt's group. Within three weeks, Blunt turned around and donated the same amount to the Missouri Republican Party.
The next month, the state GOP began spending large amounts of money to help Blunt's son, Matt, in his successful campaign to become Missouri secretary of state. On July 25, 2000, the state GOP made its first expenditure for the younger Blunt, totaling just over $11,000. By election day, that figure had grown to more than $160,000.
Hartley said Blunt always liked to help the state party and the fact that his son got party help after his donation was a coincidence. They are unrelated activities, he said.
Exchanges of donations occurred again in the fall. Just a few days before the November election, DeLay's ARMPAC gave $50,000 to the Missouri GOP. A month later, the Missouri GOP sent $50,000 to DeLay's group.
___
Associated Press Writer David Lieb in Missouri contributed to this story.
On the Net:
Documents for this story are available at: http://wid.ap.org/documents/delay/index.html
Former Aide to DeLay
November 21, 2005
Former Aide to DeLay Pleads Guilty in Conspiracy Case
By DAVID STOUT
and PHILIP SHENON
WASHINGTON, Nov. 21 - Michael Scanlon, former aide to a powerful congressman and onetime partner of a wealthy lobbyist, pleaded guilty today to a federal conspiracy charge as part of a deal in which he agreed to cooperate with an investigation into possible wrongdoing by some lawmakers.
Mr. Scanlon's comedown from a young and wealthy Washington power-player to disgraced felon, formalized before Judge Ellen Segal Huvelle of Federal District Court here, had been expected. But it still may have sent shivers down Capitol corridors.
Mr. Scanlon agreed to pay restitution totaling more than $19 million to the tribes and faces up to five years in prison. He was allowed to remain free on $5 million bond. After pleading guilty, the well-tanned Mr. Scanlon appeared incongruously cheerful. Asked by reporters why he was smiling, he replied, I'm always smiling.
Mr. Scanlon, 35, was accused of conspiring to defraud Indian tribes out of millions of dollars as part of a lobbying and corruption scheme that involved wining and dining of some lawmakers, treating them to lavish trips and contributing to their campaigns.
Representative Bob Ney, an Ohio Republican, who heads the House Appropriations Committee, was alluded to in the indictment (although not by name) as a main beneficiary of largess, in return for helping Mr. Abramoff and Mr. Scanlon with their clients.
Lawyers involved in the case have confirmed that Mr. Ney is the Representative #1 cited in the indictment. The congressman - who has not been charged - has asserted that he was duped by the two and is cooperating with prosecutors, a spokesman for Mr. Ney says.
Mr. Scanlon's lawyer, Plato Cacheris, was asked whether any other members of Congress had anything to fear. I have no comment on that, he replied.
Until recently, Mr. Scanlon occupied a powerful - and lucrative - position at the intersection of political power and lobbying influence. For several years, he worked as a top aide to Representative Tom DeLay of Texas, the Republican majority leader. He left Mr. DeLay's office in 2000 to become an associate of Jack Abramoff, a Republican lobbyist.
Mr. Abramoff and Mr. Scanlon earned more than $80 million representing a few wealthy Indian tribes on gambling issues. Those transactions have been under investigation by the Senate Indian Affairs Committee as well as federal prosecutors.
In an e-mail message made public by the committee, Mr. Scanlon seemed to lust for wealth, and seemed to see the Indian tribes as easy targets. I want all their money!!! he wrote of one tribe in 2002. Referring to the money available from another tribe, he exclaimed, Weeez gonna be rich!!!
Mr. DeLay has been indicted in Texas on charges involving political fund-raising that are not related to the inquiry in which Mr. Scanlon pleaded guilty today. And Mr. Abramoff has been indicted in Florida on unrelated fraud-and-conspiracy charges involving an attempt to buy a fleet of casino boats.
Like Mr. Ney, Mr. DeLay has been named as a beneficiary of Mr. Abramoff's and Mr. Scanlon's generosity. He, too, has denied wrongdoing. Mr. Cacheris, when asked whether Mr. DeLay had reason to worry over Mr. Scanlon's cooperating with prosecutors, said, You'll have to ask his lawyers.
Tomy DeLay just indicted for conspiracy.
It is just one scandal after another with these guys.
Troops die without body armor. Why the delay?
For Lack of Body Armor, Troops Die. Why the Delay? |
|
Paul Rieckhoff on body armor in USA Today: Rieckhoff and other veterans are calling for a congressional investigation. That's justified. Tracking their complaints could save lives in future wars — not to mention this one.
From USA Today
After Army and Marine Corps generals were summoned Wednesday to a closed-door briefing on Capitol Hill, the brass emerged with vows to improve body armor for all U.S. troops in Iraq.
That's good to hear, but shouldn't it have happened sooner?
Members of Congress were reacting to a newly reported analysis by the Armed Forces Medical Examiner, which concluded that 80% of the fatal injuries to Marines in the study might have been prevented by additional armor coverage. Side armor, a special concern, is just beginning to arrive in Iraq.
The armor situation fits a deadly pattern of blunders by the war's architects. The quick invasion of Iraq happened as planned, but — as former Iraq civilian administrator Paul Bremer acknowledges in his new book — the Bush administration didn't anticipate the widespread and lethal insurgency that followed.
The occupying U.S. troops soon found themselves facing deadly new tactics with inadequate armor on both their vehicles and themselves. This tragic miscalculation has had tragic consequences.
To date, 1,510 soldiers and 633 Marines have died in Iraq, many of them killed by rifle shots or explosions in which better armor could have made a difference.
Army generals say the body armor used by soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan has already been improved seven times. All soldiers there have bullet-proof body vests called Interceptors, which have front-and-back ceramic plates. Side panels, which are added to the Interceptors to provide more coverage, are just now being distributed to Marines.
Defending their body-armor decisions, Army spokesmen conjure up images of medieval combatants whose ever-heavier personal armor brought their horses to their knees. A soldier wrapped in armor can't fight in the heat of Iraq, they say.
Maybe not, but the Pentagon owes further explanations to military families and to Congress, which since 2001 has appropriated $302 billion to cover operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. Some of the questions that need answering include:
• Was there proper planning? Thousands of troops arrived in Iraq with old-style flak jackets. Not until January 2004 did all troops have the new Interceptor vests, according to a Government Accountability Office report released last year.
•Was the armor upgraded fast enough? The Marine Corps says it moved quickly to add side armor upon learning the news from the examiner's report. But the Army has yet to supply its soldiers with side protection.
• Do the services have adequate supply systems? Those systems appear hobbled by slow turnarounds and poor reliability. In November, more than 18,000 vests were recalled for failing to meet ballistics tests.
Army and Marine commanders know that no battle plan survives the first contact with the enemy. The question is how quickly the services adapt. The answer in Iraq is tooslowly, says Paul Rieckhoff, who led an Army platoon there protected only by the flak jackets, which can't stop an AK-47 round.
The body armor delays mirror problems with the Humvee. Not until last July did the Army finally replace its soft-skinned Humvees, proven tragically vulnerable to roadside bombs, with a fully armored version.
Rieckhoff and other veterans are calling for a congressional investigation. That's justified. Tracking their complaints could save lives in future wars — not to mention this one. |
Pot meets kettle. You mean like Tom Delay's 2000-2001
We are still dealing with the aftermath. But hey, he was just trying to help out the shrub and the rest of the GOP good ole boys.
rove
So, Karl Rove is the one who outed Ms. Wilson. He should be put in prison for years or better yet, let the people have him, let us tar and feather him..Definitely he needs to be brought up on charges.
Rove
Some of these people could actually witness Rove with a gun in his hand SHOOTING this lady and still defend his actions. Their president can do no wrong, and whatever you do, do NOT confuse them with FACTS. They are a scary bunch.
Rove
Rove's Role
The Boston Globe
Sunday 28 August 2005
 |
 |
Negative attacks have often been at the center of Karl Rove’s strategies.
(Photo: Reuters) |
|
|
Some White House sympathizers have attempted to portray Karl Rove's role in the Valerie Plame scandal as that of a statesman, seeking to provide President Bush with the best information possible on Saddam Hussein's nuclear ambitions so that Bush could set policy based on facts. This has been met with deserved skepticism. Rove's career, even before he became Bush's deputy chief of staff, is rich with reasons to think his motives in helping to identify Plame as a CIA agent were far darker.
After all, Plame's identity was revealed in a Robert Novak column on July 14, 2003, just eight days after her husband, Joseph Wilson, had embarrassed Bush over his Iraq war rationale. And Rove had talked with Novak on July 9.
As John Roberts, the Supreme Court nominee and federal appeals court judge, wrote last month in another context, the fact that sometimes dogs do eat homework is no reason to ignore more-logical explanations.
Rove's record has been consistent. Over 35 years, he has been a master of dirty tricks, divisiveness, innuendo, manipulation, character assassination, and roiling partisanship.
He started early. In 1970, when he was 19 and active as a college Republican -- though he didn't graduate from college -- Rove pretended to volunteer for a Democratic candidate in Illinois, stole some campaign stationery, and used it to disrupt a campaign event. Later, in Texas, he gave testimony in court that was embarrassing to an opponent of one of Rove's clients, even though it was not true, according to the book Bush's Brain, by two veteran Texas newsmen, James Moore and Wayne Slater.
Negative attacks have often been the center of Rove's strategies. In a race between Texas Governor Mark White and his Republican opponent, Bill Clements, Rove wrote in a memo: Anti-White messages are more important than positive Clements messages.
Often Rove has skated on the edge of being identified with certainty as the author of dirty tricks. In 1986, the discovery of a planted listening device in Rove's own office was widely publicized, damaging the Democrats. Many suspect that the source was Rove himself. This was never proven, but Moore and Slater say, Karl Rove remains a prime suspect. In 1989, Texas populist Jim Hightower was damaged by grand jury leaks for which, Moore and Slater say, Rove remains the most likely source.
Again, most of the personal slurs against candidates who had the temerity to run against Rove's clients have not been pinned on Rove personally, but they follow a pattern. George W. Bush ousted Ann Richards from the Texas governor's office in 1994 after a whisper campaign focused on a small number of Richards appointees who were lesbians and even suggested that Richards was gay. Bush himself stoked the fire, saying some Richards appointees had agendas that may have been personal in nature.
In 1990, Hightower's integrity was smeared. A federal investigation of his expenses produced news stories, but no charge, despite Rove's telling Washington reporters that Hightower and several aides face the possibility of indictment.
In South Carolina in 2000, rumors circulated that John McCain was gay, had a black child, had a Vietnamese child, and got special treatment while a POW in Vietnam. In 2004, a direct link was established between the Bush campaign -- of which Rove was the architect, in Bush's words -- and the libels against John Kerry from the swift boat veterans. With such a history, is it possible that Rove encouraged the Catholic bishops who questioned Kerry's fitness to take Communion?
Earlier this year, he none-too-subtly bestrode the church-state amalgam that helped elect Bush, telling a sympathetic and enthusiastic audience in Washington that conservatism is the dominant political creed in America. Always on the attack, Rove said just this June that liberals want to prepare indictments and offer therapy to terrorists.
According to Moore and Slater, the strategy of attack has been constant throughout his career. Rove didn't just want to win; he wanted the opponents destroyed.
Rove's connection to the Valerie Plame story was the center of attention in mid-July but cooled fast after Bush nominated Roberts to the Supreme Court on July 19. A LexisNexis search reveals 1,944 stories mentioning Rove in the week prior to the nomination, dropping to 1,111 during the week after. Now, with Bush in Crawford for a prolonged vacation, the story has nearly disappeared -- only 169 references in a late-August week.
Still, more is likely to come out after Labor Day. A special prosecutor, Patrick Fitzgerald, is expected to finish his two-year investigation this fall. His goal was to find the person who leaked Plame's identity as an undercover CIA agent -- a serious offense in the view of Bush's father. He and many other commentators have deplored the idea that the leaker may have been seeking political retribution at the expense of national security.
So attention will inevitably turn back again to Karl Rove, who did talk with Novak and other reporters who wrote the story but who is now being portrayed by some as a neutral researcher in the Valerie Plame case. Yes, and sometimes dogs do eat homework.
Rove
It's not Bush who's frightening, it's his brain, Carl Rove.
Rove gets Bush out of everything!
He got his training as a political operative in the GOP in the Nixon era. He was an accomplished ratf****r.
I think it was Karl Rove
...who just recently stood up in front of the nation and did the broadest stroking of all concerning conservatives and liberals, didn't he? When you have a Republican President whose #1 spokesperson sees fit to denigrate, insult and impugn the integrity and Americanism of ALL liberals (and what the heck is his job title anyway?) - I don't think liberals are going to waste much more time and patience being too touchy-feely about watching their generalizations concerning conservatives. Of course I'm speaking for myself - but if you can give me a good reason why we should put up with that kind of official pig squeeze and be nice about it too, let me know.
Otherwise I like your post, LOL - it is good to be reminded now and then that there are indeed many shades of gray and not everyone feels the same about every issue, even within a loosely coordinated group. This is very true. Happily this becomes very apparent when people take the time to communicate with others one-on-one and really make an effort to stay civil and keep a feeling of good will.
Of course, after the picture of the Liberal Hunting License I saw today, proudly displayed on the back window of a 40-grand SUV next to an American flag decal - well I sort of lose that sense of humor about conservatives that I normally try to maintain. Maybe someone should hang around and try to communicate with that guy in a nice and civil way? How about you?
rove the jerk
ohmygawd! Rove did it? That's what came out of the information that journalist was forced to reveal? I didn't see that on the news -
The Rove issue
From the Christian Science monitor online-- an interesting commentary on the Rove issue.
(I note per the Conservative board that Mr. Wilson is now being vilified.)
|
from the July 15, 2005 edition - http://www.csmonitor.com/2005/0715/p09s02-cods.html
Rove leak is just part of larger scandalBy Daniel Schorr
WASHINGTON - Let me remind you that the underlying issue in the Karl Rove controversy is not a leak, but a war and how America was misled into that war.
In 2002 President Bush, having decided to invade Iraq, was casting about for a casus belli. The weapons of mass destruction theme was not yielding very much until a dubious Italian intelligence report, based partly on forged documents (it later turned out), provided reason to speculate that Iraq might be trying to buy so-called yellowcake uranium from the African country of Niger. It did not seem to matter that the CIA advised that the Italian information was "fragmentary and lacked detail."
Prodded by Vice President Dick Cheney and in the hope of getting more conclusive information, the CIA sent Joseph Wilson, an old Africa hand, to Niger to investigate. Mr. Wilson spent eight days talking to everyone in Niger possibly involved and came back to report no sign of an Iraqi bid for uranium and, anyway, Niger's uranium was committed to other countries for many years to come.
No news is bad news for an administration gearing up for war. Ignoring Wilson's report, Cheney talked on TV about Iraq's nuclear potential. And the president himself, in his 2003 State of the Union address no less, pronounced: "The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa."
Wilson declined to maintain a discreet silence. He told various people that the president was at least mistaken, at most telling an untruth. Finally Wilson directly challenged the administration with a July 6, 2003 New York Times op-ed headlined, "What I didn't find in Africa," and making clear his belief that the president deliberately manipulated intelligence in order to justify an invasion.
One can imagine the fury in the White House. We now know from the e-mail traffic of Time's correspondent Matt Cooper that five days after the op-ed appeared, he advised his bureau chief of a supersecret conversation with Karl Rove who alerted him to the fact that Wilson's wife worked for the CIA and may have recommended him for the Niger assignment. Three days later, Bob Novak's column appeared giving Wilson's wife's name, Valerie Plame, and the fact she was an undercover CIA officer. Mr. Novak has yet to say, in public, whether Mr. Rove was his source. Enough is known to surmise that the leaks of Rove, or others deputized by him, amounted to retaliation against someone who had the temerity to challenge the president of the United States when he was striving to find some plausible reason for invading Iraq.
The role of Rove and associates added up to a small incident in a very large scandal - the effort to delude America into thinking it faced a threat dire enough to justify a war.
• Daniel Schorr is the senior news analyst at National Public Radio. |
Rove is going to come out of this smelling like a
Worried about Rove?
Am worried about Roe v Wade, but not about Rove. He is not worry-worthy - way too much effort. I AM concerned that nothing will happen to any of them that are involved in Plamegate unless it is some third-string low-on-the-totem-pole flunkie who will be completely blindsided when he gets blamed/fired/arrested. This shadow administration is far more evolved than the Nixon guys. I predict nothing will happen to them but what is worse, we have been lied to so often for the last 4+ years that most of us won't even care. They are going to do what they are going to do...the end. Here in Florida we voted last election for smaller class sizes and not to build a bullet-train between Tampa and Orlando. Jeb just changed both of those things. We are building the train set up and class sizes stay the same. I wonder why we vote on these amendments at all. What difference does it make? And so it is with D.C. It has not mattered for so long what a great number of us have felt about Iraq and all the lies surrounding it. They just do what they want. And before anyone says "we elected him" as a plausible argument, 51% is not a mandate. One half of this country is on the other side. Our country does not deserve the autocratic theocratic government that has been forced upon us. When the shoe is inevitably on the other foot I suspect you won't like it either.
key Rove (RIP) strategy
Attack your opponents strong points. Read many posts below that ham-handedly attempt to use this tactic. Throw in a cup of "sour grapes" and NOW your cookin'. Go Ron Paul! Split the vote!
McCain and Rove
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB121993561392479859.html?mod=googlenews_wsj
Rove and McCain
for those too busy posting inaccurate opinions to look things up.
Mehlman, Rove boost McCain campaign
By: David Paul Kuhn
March 8, 2008 11:33 AM EST |
John McCain is getting much more than President Bush's endorsement and fundraising help for his campaign. He’s getting Bush's staff.
It’s no secret that Steve Schmidt, Bush’s attack dog in the 2004 election, and Mark McKinnon, the president’s media strategist, are performing similar functions for McCain now.
But other big-name Bushies are lining up to boost McCain, too.
Ken Mehlman, who ran Bush’s 2004 campaign, is now serving as an unpaid, outside adviser to the Arizona Republican. Karl Rove, the president’s top political hand since his Texas days, recently gave money to McCain and soon after had a private conversation with the senator. A top McCain adviser said both Mehlman and Rove are now informally advising the campaign. Rove refused to detail his conversation with McCain.
The list could grow longer. Dan Bartlett, formerly a top aide in the Bush White House, and Sara Taylor, the erstwhile Bush political adviser, said they are eager to provide any assistance and advice possible to McCain.
Rove explained that he and McCain “got to know each other during the 2004 campaign.” In a separate interview, Mehlman noted that “McCain was completely loyal to the president in 2004 and worked incredibly hard to help him get elected.” According to Taylor, “The Bush Republicans here in town are excited for John McCain.”
|
Rove in politics
I think above all else Rove is loyal to the Republian party, above any particular candidate. I don't think McCain was his choice, but that won't stop him from trying to get him elected now that he is the nominee.
Now, say what you will about Rove. I personally think he is despicable, but the man knows politics and voting trends. He said McCain needed to pick Romney as VP to win, so it will be interesting to see whether or not that prediction was right (inferring that not picking Romney means not winning).
Fox said Karl Rove was
working furiously with a ventiloquist as late as yesterday afternoon.
I did not say innocent.........
She opted to have all of the eggs implanted (not the norm and outside ethical responsibility). They erroneously thought she had 7 viable fetuses (the 8th was hidden somewhere.....). The doc should have pushed for selective termination to reduce the number. The fact that she chose to carry them all to term indicates to me that she is short a few fries of a happy meal. I suspect she knew she would make headlines and that would ignite support from all over in the form of gifts, cash, etc., so she could continue her "puppy mill" in relative financial comfort. I still stand by the assumption she's nuts and the doc made a huge mistake.
I know that innocent
people have gone through horrible things when they were wrongly accused, etc. However, there are so many more of them that are guilty. My biggest problem with the death penalty is that it is so expensive. A rope or a bullet is a lot cheaper than lethal injections. I personally feel that if we were harsher on prisoners....more of them would stop doing it. A three strikes your out kind of thing. We have so many prisons that are overcrowded that criminals, rapists, etc. are being send out early risking many more innocent lives that way.
wilson versus rove
Ms. Wilson is Valerie Plame, she is married to Joseph Wilson. She worked for the CIA but Rove gave her name to Robert Novak, thus jeopardizing her life.
Today's latest on Rove
WASHINGTON - The White House is suddenly facing damaging evidence that it misled the public by insisting for two years that presidential adviser Karl Rove wasn't involved in leaking the identity of a female CIA officer. President Bush, at an Oval Office photo opportunity Tuesday, was asked directly whether he would fire Rove -- in keeping with a pledge in June, 2004, to dismiss any leakers in the case. The president did not respond. For the second day, White House press secretary Scott McClellan refused to answer questions about Rove.
_______________
This article says that the White House may have misled the public. And, they apparently pledged to fire anyone who had leaked this information. This has become interesting, hope it doesn't fade right away from the public view.
Rowe, Rove, only one letter
difference, and both words represent betrayal by government in one form or another.
Women who believe in choice will see their rights digress and witness history go backwards. CIA agents have already seen that they can't trust their government in a time of war.
Actually, Karl Rove has a very important job. Because of him and the heat the administration has been taking because of his actions, Bush was forced to actually do his job and nominate a replacement for Justice O'Connor. Very, very "hard work" before he spends the entire month of August in Crawford.
I think soon, though, y'all will see it didn't work. Rove can't escape the heat that easily. I believe you will find that Bush failed in getting the heat taken off of Rove, and he had to rush to do all that "hard work" for no reason at all!
What is sad is the reinvention of pub/Rove campaign...
nm
Better yet vote for Karl Rove nm
nm
Carl Rove has testicles
the size of peanuts. I wish he'd get a real job.
MC (master criminal) Rove........yep.......nm
x
Yes, he was acquitted. But he was not innocent....
we all know that. We saw him commit perjury. National TV. Yes, my fangs are showing. I don't like it when Pres of US flaunts the law and Congress lets him get away with it. Actually, I blame Congress just as much, but sides of the house, because they did not have the integrity NOR the guts to convict him. At least when Nixon was proven to be guilty he still had a modicum of decency and resigned. Clinton did not have enough class OR integrity to do the same. 'Nuff said.
Oh of course....in the land where you are innocent if...
proven not guilty...you are seizing on poor judgment. Don't you think it is poor judgment to consort with terrorists and spend 20 years in an america-hating church? This is not bad judgment? McCain did not cost us anything. Keating, the one who perpetrated the financial debacle...is responsible for that loss.
Innocent people s/m
I hear that there is not a guilty person in prison. Another thing that needs fixed in our government at all levels, justice depends on how much money you have. I really, really doubt that there are that many truly innocent people on death row. I think that before an execution, there should be absolutely no doubt about guilt. Say O.J. and Scott Peterson. Don't you think they deserve the death penalty. Well, I know that O.J. was found not guilty but no doubt in my mind he was guilty as sin.
Good, they might be innocent. sm
They call Americans who quote the constitution or dissent terrorists.
Just like all those innocent folks were
due process. . .preach some of your idiocracy to their survivors.
I do not think that she was an innocent guinea pig....sm
How would you have reacted being informed within a couple of weeks by US that you will deliver not 1, but e i g h t babies, in addition to already having 6 ?
Wouldn't you have asked for a termination?
Do you also defend the innocent
people in our local prisons because I'm sure that there are a few in there who are actually innocent......however, most of them are NOT.
As for me not knowing for sure whether they were indeed tortured or not......how do you know that they were tortured? Were you there? Did you talk to them? Do you have a pin pal at Gitmo, do ya?
I'm sure there are some innocent men at Gitmo but this is war. It was war when the terrorists killed thousands of Americans in one day and then celebrated their actions. We have gone from a 9/11 mentality to a pre 9/11 mentality. We seem to have forgetten that we were attacked and that these people desire nothing more than our death.
these 4 are innocent Gitmos.............sm
' The four were among 17 Chinese Muslims, or Uighurs, picked up in Afghanistan and Pakistan in 2001. They remained at the military detention center in Cuba
even after the U.S. government had determined they weren't enemy combatants and should be released.
Their fate was in limbo for months while courts and nations debated their future.'
Did anyone else see a headline/story this morning about Rove?
I saw it briefly this morning and then it disappeared. It said that Rove himself found out about Plame's undercover status from Novak, not the other way around! The article made it sound like this affair was resolved, Rove was the good guy that we all know him to be, ha-ha.
Well, I suppose I can just wait to see if it reappears. Seemed surprising, but stranger things have happened.
I checked that "other" board to see if they were crowing about it yet but na-da, nothing so far. Maybe I misinterpreted it.
Karl Rove, Bill O'Reilly, et al. sm
Hilariously shows how the hipocrasy knows no bounds:
http://www.indecision2008.com/video/index.jhtml?videoId=184086
This above is a link to the Daily Show with John Stewart. I love his show, and Stephen Colbert's. I'm not a political junkie (yet) so I need a *lot* of comic relief with my politics in order to stomach it.
Both sides are hypocrites, it's true. But I swear, the Republicans are so much funnier. The mental gymnastics they're having to go through in order to claim SP has "experience" alone is a sight to see. (Watch the clip above if you don't believe me. Oh, and you can see S. Palin making a good point near the end of it for all of you who are fans of hers.) In fact, Jon Stewart said he's putting "county first" in supporting Obama, because McCain being the pres. would make his job (as a comedian) so much easier... 
Oh, and have no fear, anyone. I balance out the political comedy with a healthy dose of serious political coverage too. The most serious I can find lately is the stuff on PBS. You know, the calm, old-style journalism type, free of the crawl at the bottom of the screen, free of all the hype and wild graphics at the bottom of the screen, free of people shouting because they actually take turns letting each other talk. Anybody else miss that kind of reporting, where it's kinda boring to watch and you have to actually listen and pay attention to more than sound bites? Ah, well. I'm rambling...
Karl Rove -- why isn't this moron in jail yet? (sm)
Yep, he has refused to show for yet another subpoena, this time because Bush seemingly wrote a letter 4 days before leaving office saying he didn't have to show up? Give me a break! This guy is such a crook and needs to be put under the jail. I hope they fry him. I wonder what would happen to any of us who refused to show up for a subpoena.....about 3 or 4 times, that is.
http://www.newsweek.com/id/182240/?gt1=43002
I'm not talking about innocent people
I'm talking about people who raping, pillaging, setting fires, shooting rescuers, and stealing ambulances. I have heard of no one but you defending this though I'm sure there's a minority fringe like you who are such as Molly Ivins etc. I think your post revealed to me how out of the mainstream of thinking you are.
By the way, New Orleans had one of the highest crime rates in the country before the hurricane. There are people from that city who are freely admitting that there were places you didn't want to be caught dead in.
Honestly you don't believe there is evil in the world. I really feel sorry for you for that, because one day you will most likely be a victim and then you will be very confused....
That's *innocent* until proven guilty...sm
I don't know which way it will go, but when you tell the truth your story never changes - his did over and over and over.
Yes, this is an innocent child. What if it ISN'T true?
What does this do to that 16-year-old? What about that?
JM is totally innocent of this same charge?
publically stepped up and appealed to his supporters to rein it in. O at least tries to do this when he sees tings getting out of hand.
I too am for defending innocent animals
People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals. ALL animals should be treated in a humane fashion.
I am offended that people will defend wildlife and endangered species but they think nothing of eating meat and animals that have been treated cruelly.
How can you say it's cruel to hunt animals, but you don't think it's cruel how chickens, cattle, pigs and other animals are treated before you (no, not you personally because I don't know if your a vegetarian) but people who are not vegetarians will think nothing and don't care how the animals they are eating are being treated.
what about those folks we swept up who are entirely innocent?
nm
Many of them are innocent and should be sent home to their families.
You should be more frightened of the American prisoners than the alleged terrorists that we have illegally held in Gitmo and tortured with the permission of George W. Bush and his cronies.
I am guessing Fort Leavenworth was there before you took up residence. If you don't like living near a prison, you are free to move.
They're ALL innocent...ask 'em!
x
WHAT is GOOD about that? Especially if the prisoner is innocent.
Even the guilty ones might just confess to ANYTHING, just to stop the torture that often goes so far as to cripple a human being for life.
I defend all innocent people....nm
nm
99% of the Abu Ghraib detainees were innocent....sm
and were tortured!
UPDATE yourself!
|
