I do not breathe your politics

"Comment is free but facts are sacred." (C.P. Scott)
Tuesday, May 16, 2006

Rove update (2)

*sigh*. Well, according to Rove's attorney, Robert Luskin, quoted on TalkLeft, the Leopold story is untrue. Now, Luskin will gladly game the media, use sophistry, parse words, etc., and that is is why Rove hired him (even though Luskin is a Democrat). However, he's not going to lie to them. He has been questioned himself by Fitzgerald, as I recall, and I don't think he'd want the extra heat when he could simply have made a simple boilerplate denial. So, it looks like it won't happen, folks. Either that, or Luskin is engaged in some serious brinksmanship to protect Rove while Rove is in the process of seriously expanding the narrative to save his own skin... we can dream, I suppose.

posted by Michael at 5/16/2006 03:17:00 AM 0 comments  

Monday, May 15, 2006

ABC News being monitored by the US government?

Check out this ABC reporter's blog. If you really want to be terrified at the state of the world... read all the comments too.

posted by Michael at 5/15/2006 09:02:00 PM 1 comments  

Rove update

Hmm, some confusion here. To date, none of the mainstream US media has repeated Jason Leopold's assertion that Rove has told his bosses he'll be indicted. The New York Sun (Hollinger-owned, I think) is reporting that it's untrue that Rove has been told he has been indicted. Now, could this just possibly be sophistry? Could Rove have been told he will be indicted, not that he has been indicted? According to a blog comment on Think Progress:
I heard Jason Leopold being interviewed on the Pacifica Radio Sunday program Background Briefing - with Ian Masters yesterday. Leopold told Masters that he has a multiple sources that he has agreed to keep private and these sources are aware that if they lie or mislead him they know he'd reveal their identities. It's Leopold's contention that the mainstream news media is too afraid to touch the story until it's a done deal.
So we will see, I guess...

posted by Michael at 5/15/2006 08:49:00 PM 0 comments  

Sunday, May 14, 2006

Oh please, let it be true

According to the (recently fairly accurate) Jason Leopold at TruthOut:
...Fitzgerald served attorneys for former Deputy White House Chief of Staff Karl Rove with an indictment charging the embattled White House official with perjury and lying to investigators related to his role in the CIA leak case...
He also says that it is suggested an obstruction of justice charge is likely. It seems to me that the latter, unconfirmed charge is necessary, if only so those die-hard 29% can't prattle on about how there are no 'substantive charges', which was the talking point after Libby was charged. But throw into the mix this little story: Cheney Notes Surface in Fitzgerald Probe, and things get a little more interesting. This is evidence of Cheney's involvement in the affair, with respect to the Libby case. All very intriguing. Please let it be true.

posted by Michael at 5/14/2006 12:16:00 AM 0 comments  

Friday, May 12, 2006

Developments (of the non-photographic kind)

So, back to politics, for a few little thoughts. First, the mendacious and alarming Dr John Reid is in the place his jackboots fit best - the Home Office. Now we can put a face to the owner of the endlessly stamping Orwellian boot. Second, Jack Straw (who I am now convinced was a dove over Iraq, but who accepted cabinet collective responsibility) seems to have been ousted from a job that he wasn't actually that bad at. If Margaret Beckett does not find a way to step back from Straw's comments about invasion and the nuclear option w.r.t. Iran, I will be most surprised. We're going to war with Iran, folks. Third, the Plamegate grand jury is apparently meeting tomorrow. (OK, today by the time you read this). Could it finally be Karl's turn? It seems to me that if Rove is indicted, Bush is faced with a problem that will definitely come back to him after the midterms. If the democrats win one house, there will be committee proceedings leading to impeachment. If the republicans narrowly hold onto both houses, expect them to get rid of him themselves. People forget that Libby was also assistant to the president. Rove (who has been somewhat demoted recently) is more directly the president's man, and if he is indicted, the cries of "what did the president know and when did he know it?" are going to get pretty noisy for Mr 29%. One way or another, the midterms are going to be a political bloodbath, and I now really feel that there are no positive outcomes for the united states. 29% of the electorate are still completely unconvinced of this man's incompetence and corruption. Why should we expect them to deal rationally with the pendulum swinging back to the democrats? Fourth, and to me no less significant in terms of moral victories, the High Court has done a great deed in slapping down the government's use of orders in council against the Chagos islanders' right to return to Diego Garcia. This is not a good week for High Court popularity in Downing Street. You know, curse their insistence on applying the law. It's so inconvenient.

posted by Michael at 5/12/2006 04:27:00 AM 0 comments  

Wednesday, May 03, 2006

3 a.m. lyric of the moment

From 'Getting Over You', as performed by Willie Nelson on the 'Across The Borderline' album. Sums up how I feel about the world at large at the moment:
But there's a vantage point and it takes some time to find Where you can see how all the pieces fit as you watch 'em fall apart
As an aside, the title track is also apt; a brilliant Ry Cooder/John Hiatt/Jim Dickinson song about Mexican immigration, that I vividly remember seeing performed, way too long ago, by the Ry Cooder/John Hiatt/Nick Lowe/Jim Keltner supergroup, Little Village:
And when you reach that broken promised land All your dreams slip through your hand You have learned it's just too late to change your mind Cause you paid the price to come this far Just to wind up where you are And you're still just across the borderline
This album brings to mind a universal truth in music: lend a song to Willie Nelson, and it comes back different. Marvellous stuff - the most eerie of the lot is Willie's cover of "Don't Give Up", sung with Sinead O'Connor (one of the women in Peter Gabriel's past). The combination changes the song into something quite different.

posted by Michael at 5/03/2006 03:16:00 AM 0 comments