Reidblog [The Reid Report blog]

In terms of the detainees, we've had thousands of people detained. We've investigated every single complaint against the detainees. It seemed like to me they based some of their decisions on the word of -- and the allegations -- by people who were held in detention, people who hate America, people that had been trained in some instances to disassemble -- that means not tell the truth. And so it was an absurd report. It just is.

In a raid on an al Qaeda cell in Manchester, British authorities seized al Qaeda's most extensive manual for how to wage war. A directive lists one mission as "spreading rumors and writing statements that instigate people against the enemy." If captured, the manual states, "At the beginning of the trial ... the brothers must insist on proving that torture was inflicted on them by state security before the judge. Complain of mistreatment while in prison."

"There are elements within the detainee population that were very effective at getting other detainees agitated about the Koran by making allegations," Mr. Di Rita said. "They particularly focused on the practice of their faith and the Koran being kept from them. So people should not be surprised when detainees come out and make these kinds of allegations. It causes the reactions we've seen."

Kessler, a former Post reporter, believes Throat was Felt because of the far-reaching intelligence powers of the FBI.

Mann believes Throat was an employee at the FBI, most probably Felt, who was fingered by Deputy White House Counsel H.R. Haldeman as a snitch in the 1972 White House tapes.

Chase Culeman-Beckman said Jacob Bernstein, son of Post reporter Carl Bernstein, told him that Throat was former FBI associate director W. Mark Felt. Culeman-Beckman said Jacob Bernstein told him in 1988 when they both attended day-school camp when they were children, and that Jacob Bernstein told him that his father revealed Throat's identity to him. Carl Bernstein denies this occurrence.

Two days after winning reelection last fall, President Bush declared that he had earned plenty of "political capital, and now I intend to spend it." Six months later, according to Republicans and Democrats alike, his bank account has been significantly drained.

In the past week alone, the Republican-led House defied his veto threat and passed legislation promoting stem cell research; Senate Democrats blocked confirmation, at least temporarily, of his choice for U.N. ambassador; and a rump group of GOP senators abandoned the president in his battle to win floor votes for all of his judicial nominees.

With his approval ratings in public opinion polls at the lowest level of his presidency, Bush has been stymied so far in his campaign to restructure Social Security. On the international front, violence has surged again in Iraq in recent weeks, dispelling much of the optimism generated by the purple-stained-finger elections back in January, while allies such as Egypt and Uzbekistan have complicated his campaign to spread democracy.

The series of setbacks on the domestic front could signal that the president has weakened leverage over his party, a situation that could embolden the opposition, according to analysts and politicians from both sides. Bush faces the potential of a summer of discontent when his capacity to muscle political Washington into following his lead seems to have diminished and few easy victories appear on the horizon.

"He has really burned up whatever mandate he had from that last election," said Leon E. Panetta, who served as White House chief of staff during President Bill Clinton's second term. "You can't slam-dunk issues in Washington. You can't just say, 'This is what I want done' and by mandate get it done. It's a lesson everybody has to learn, and sometimes you learn it the hard way."

Through more than four years in the White House, the signature of Bush's leadership has been that he does not panic in the face of bad poll numbers. Yet many Republicans on Capitol Hill and in the lobbyist corridor of K Street worry about a season of drift and complain that the White House has not listened to their concerns. In recent meetings, House Republicans have discussed putting more pressure on the White House to move beyond Social Security and talk up different issues, such as health care and tax reform, according to Republican officials who asked not to be named to avoid angering Bush's team.

"There is a growing sense of frustration with the president and the White House, quite frankly," said an influential Republican member of Congress. "The term I hear most often is 'tin ear,' " especially when it comes to pushing Social Security so
aggressively at a time when the public is worried more about jobs and gasoline prices. "We could not have a worse message at a worse time."

“Frankly, I was offended by it,” Cheney said in the videotaped interview. “For Amnesty International to suggest that somehow the United States is a violator of human rights, I frankly just don’t take them seriously.”

Yes, yes, that's right Mr. Cheney. The nerve of them. We Americans don't violate human rights at all. If you don't believe it, just ask this guy:

If there was ever any doubt, Sen. Lincoln Chafee’s vote Wednesday against the nomination of Priscilla Owen has made it clear that, save for leadership numbers games, conservatives would not be any worse off with a Democrat than with Chafee (R., R.I.) in the Senate. Rhode Island Republicans will have a chance next year to avert that painful choice only if a serious primary challenger emerges — and it could happen as soon as next week.

Getting Priscilla Owen onto the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals is a good thing, but all along the entire judicial battle has really been about the Supreme Court. Especially for the “values voters” who elected George W. Bush and the Republican Congress, this is the most important issue, as they see court after court impose its whim on American voters on issues such as homosexual marriage and abortion.

This is precisely where Chafee found Owen unacceptable. On Wednesday, Chafee’s office confirmed that it was Owen’s dissent in a 2000 parental-notification case that pushed Chafee to vote against her. In that Texas supreme-court case, the four-judge majority effectively nullified the state’s parental-notification requirement for minors seeking abortions.

...

If this is Chafee’s litmus test on appellate judges, what will be his test on Supreme Court nominees? It’s not just that Chafee has gone on the record repeatedly voting that Roe v. Wade was rightly decided and ought not be overturned. If Chafee’s litmus test won’t even abide parental notification, having him in the Senate undermines Bush’s stated goal of appointing justices like Scalia and Thomas. If Bush means what he says about the courts — if this hasn’t all been a show to mollify the religious Right — he’ll throw Chafee overboard.

• Ben Nelson (Neb.) has voted yes (end debate)
• Chafee and Hagel: yes
• Nelson of Florida: no
• Thune (SD): yes (contrary to what Chris Matthews and Andrea Mitchell just said)
• Olympia Snowe (ME): yes
• Blanche Lincoln(AR): no
• Salazar (CO): no
• Pryor (gang of 14 member): yes

I'm no professional vote counter, but so far it looks to me like the Republicans have picked up only one out of the six Dems they need to end debate on Bolton. And that includes the most reliable ticket splitter, Joe Lieberman, who stayed with the party... Still developing...

Should I be surprised that Voinovich voted "aye"...?

Final vote: Reid loses only Pryor, Landrieu and Ben Nelson, and cloture vote goes down 56 to 42. (Harry Reid, I think, has proven himself to be one hell of a minority leader, and Mitch McConnell has proved to be a pretty flimsy majority whip...)

Meanwhile, Frist moves for cloture votes on Janice Rogers Brown and William Pryor. And Reid regrets that no vote on Bolton was possible, but it's about the information, and that's not the fault of the minority, it's the fault of the administration. And while Frist tried to characterize this as "another filibuster," the bottom line is that, as I argued in an earlier post, this fight is about the separation of powers. The Senate Foreign Relations Committee believes it has a right to the information on Bolton that it has requested from the administration, and they're going to hold up this nomination until they get it (surprisingly, with Frist's help).

What's less clear is Frist's game. Clearly, he is trying to benefit from the characterization of this vote as another example of obstructionism by the Democrats, which could explain why he called for a vote when he didn't have the numbers. But why is he helping Joe Biden push the administration for the documents? Payback for a lack of WH action to get him his nuclear option? Who knows...

French Fries Protester Regrets War Jibe

by Jamie Wilson in Washington

It was a culinary rebuke that echoed around the world, heightening the sense of tension between Washington and Paris in the run-up to the invasion of Iraq. But now the US politician who led the campaign to change the name of french fries to "freedom fries" has turned against the war.

Walter Jones, the Republican congressman for North Carolina who was also the brains behind french toast becoming freedom toast in Capitol Hill restaurants, told a local newspaper the US went to war "with no justification".

Mr Jones, who in March 2003 circulated a letter demanding that the three cafeterias in the House of Representatives' office buildings ban the word french from menus, said it was meant as a "light-hearted gesture". But the name change, still in force, made headlines around the world, both for what it said about US-French relations
and its pettiness.

Now Mr Jones appears to agree. Asked by a reporter for the North Carolina News and Observer about the name-change campaign - an idea Mr Jones said at the time came to him by a combination of God's hand and a constituent's request - he replied: "I wish it had never happened."

Although he voted for the war, he has since become one of its most vociferous opponents on Capitol Hill, where the hallway outside his office is lined with photographs of the "faces of the fallen".

"If we were given misinformation intentionally by people in this administration, to commit the authority to send boys, and in some instances girls, to go into Iraq, that is wrong," he told the newspaper. "Congress must be told the truth."

© Guardian Newspapers Limited 2005

Monday's surprise deal left two of the party's most prominent potential 2008 candidates, Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (Tenn.) and Sen. John McCain (Ariz.), on opposite sides of an ideological and strategic divide that is likely to widen as the party begins in earnest to hunt for a successor to Bush. Perhaps mindful of the power of social and religious conservatives, other GOP senators with presidential aspirations, including George Allen (Va.) and Chuck Hagel (Neb.), condemned the deal.

The compromise forged by 14 Democratic and Republican senators represented a rare, if temporary, rebuff to religious and social conservatives. Their condemnations, whether from James Dobson's Focus on the Family, radio talk-show host Rush Limbaugh or conservative bloggers, were quick and strong. Dobson labeled it a "complete bailout and betrayal," and Jan LaRue, chief counsel of Concerned Women for America, branded the GOP negotiators "seven dwarves" who had given Democrats the right to filibuster a Supreme Court nominee.

"It's a rebuff of both the president, Senator Frist and the socially conservative base of the party by a handful of senators," said Gary L. Bauer, a former presidential candidate and president of American Values. "The heart of the Republican Party is as unhappy as I can recall."

Not to be left out, the VandenHeuvelians are spazzing out right along with the Freepers. John Nichols in The Nation had this unhappy take:

Thanks to the compromise agreement made possible by seven Democrats who collaborated with Republicans to end the Senate impasse over judicial nominations, Priscilla Owen will now join the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. Four years of successful efforts by civil rights, women's rights, religious and consumer groups to prevent confirmation of the right-wing extremist were undone Wednesday, as the Senate voted 56-43 to confirm a nominee whose judicial activism on the Texas Supreme Court was so wreckless that another member of that court, Alberto Gonzalez, who now serves as the nation's attorney general, referred to her actions as "unconscionable."

The final vote broke along partisan lines. Fifty-five Republicans and one Democrat, Louisiana's Mary Landrieu, voted to confirm Owen. Forty-two Democrats and one Independent, Vermont's Jim Jeffords, voted against confirmation. [Not sure he's got that right -- I think Byrd voted for and Chafee of RI voted nay...] Those numbers are significant because they show that Democrats had the 40 votes that were needed to sustain a filibuster against Owen.

That means that, had Democrats held firm and forced moderate Republicans to reject the unpopular "nuclear option" that Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tennessee, was attempting to impose on the Senate, Owen might very well have been kept off the court.

"I would be hesitant to say yet that it's a win for the Democratic Party," he
said. "It's a real test of whether this is a real long-term agreement. That will
come when we find out if the president consults with the Democrats," he added.

"I don't think the leadership caved, it was a handful of senator who preferred to stay in the Land of Political Indecision," said Tony Perkins, head of the Family Research Council.

This deal is a load of cr@!` It is not compromise, but capitulation. And I say that as somebody who did agree that a certain form of compromise was acceptable.
But this comrpomise treats a couple of nominees, Saad and Myers, as pawns. It
makes them not people, but expendable objects. And that is unconscionable.

This is not a good deal for the U.S. Senate or for the American people. Democrats should have stood together firmly against the bullying tactics of the Republican leadership abusing their power as they control both houses of Congress and the White House. Confirming unacceptable judicial nominations is simply a green light for the Bush administration to send more nominees who lack the judicial temperament or record to serve in these lifetime positions.

I value the many traditions of the Senate, including the tradition of bipartisanship to
forge consensus. I do not, however, value threatening to disregard an important Senate tradition, like occasional unlimited debate, when necessary. I respect all my colleagues very much who thought to end this playground squabble over judges, but I am disappointed in this deal.

He's John McCain's little butt buddy. South Carolinian's should send him packing to massechussets where he belongs.

Tonight the compromise allowed three judges for an up and down and vote. These judges Prior, Owens, Rogers Brown were the most abused by the Democrats, the left wing liberals, and their media whores. These were the most extreme of the extraordinary circumstances of the all President Bush nominees and any future filibuster will be very difficult once these three judges are approved. Moreover, and most importantly, if when there is a vacancy in the US Supreme Court, President Bush can appoint any of these three judges to the SCOTUS and no one can filibuster them. It is over we tricked the Democrats and they fell right in our trap.

Cheer up.

What does the kool-aid taste like?

Finally, and most importantly, the president probably will be unable to get a Supreme Court Justice confirmed this session unless he appoints a moderate. And barring Republican gains in 2006, he probably will be unable to appoint a conservative Justice at all

Republicans Buckle

"Tonight the Senate has worked its will on behalf of reason and behalf of responsibility. We have sent President George Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney and the radical arm of the Republican base an undeniable message: Abuse of power will not be tolerated, will not be tolerated by Democrats or Republicans. And your attempt, I say to the vice president and to the president, to trample the Constitution and grab absolute control is over." -- Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid of Nevada.

"It has some good news and it has some disappointing news and it will require careful monitoring." -- Senate Majority leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn.

"Many of these nominees have waited for quite some time to have an up or down vote and now they are going to get one. That's progress. We will continue working to push for up-or-down votes for all the nominees." -- White House spokesman Scott McClellan.

Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, a Nevada Democrat, embraced the compromise and said it should deliver a message to Bush: "He should have a little more humility."
"We're not looking to pick a fight with President Bush; he shouldn't be out looking to pick a fight with us," Reid said.

"If he does get rolled on this issue, it's going to look a lot less like a gladiator and more like Barney Fife," said John J. Pitney Jr., a professor of government at Claremont McKenna College in California...

By the way, Barney Fife never became president either...