Reidblog [The Reid Report blog]

The arrest of two very young men -- aged 19 and 21 -- and the police search for a third suspect who's just 17, caps the tragedy in the Sean Taylor homicide. The killers apparently were a few young thugs who knew Taylor's younger sister, and who came to Taylor's house for a birthday party. Apparently, you can't open your house to the hood. It's a lesson a lot of brothas who come into money, based on their talent, need to learn. And soon. From today's Miami Herald:

Relatives of Jason Mitchell, 19, told The Miami Herald that he attended a birthday bash for Sasha Johnson, who is Sean Taylor's sister. Johnson dates Christopher Devon Wardlow, 21, Mitchell's family said. His brother, Charles Wardlow, 18, was also being interviewed by Miami-Dade homicide detectives. No one has been charged.

An unidentified 17-year-old was also being questioned at Florida Department of Law Enforcement Headquarters in Fort Myers. Police were looking for two other men, but no one has been charged.

According to Scottie Mitchell, 19, Jason's twin brother, Johnson and Christopher Devon Wardlow invited Jason Mitchell to the birthday party within the past two months. He even did work around Taylor's house, Scottie Mitchell said: ``He cut his grass and everything.''

The Herald also has chilling details of the murder:

Police believe bragging about Taylor's wealth may have attracted the intruders to the NFL star's home. Taylor was shot early Monday by a burglar who surprised him in the bedroom of his Palmetto Bay home.

Taylor wielded a machete as he tried to protect his fiancée, Jackie Garcia, and their 18-month-old baby girl. The two were hiding under the covers as Taylor was shot.

One bullet pierced the wall. The other struck Taylor in the groin, severing his femoral artery and causing massive blood loss. He died at about 3:30 a.m. Tuesday at Jackson Memorial Hospital.

It's a tragic story, and one that a lot of young men launching lucrative sports and entertainment careers should pay attention to. Why do you think so many rappers live in the freaking Hamptons???

or do ... Rudy is beeyatching and moaning about alleged "attacks on his personal life" ... a supposed "hit job," otherwise known as belated journalistic interest in the part of Rudy's record in New York City that predated September 11, 2001. (Photo courtesy of Cox & Forkum).

Well, Rudy, you can crumple up that bald brow all you want. Shag Fund-Gate isn't going away.

Today's installment of "How I Met Your Mother (While I Was Still Married To Someone Else's Mother)" is entitled: "Taxi!" The script, not written by picket-line crossing scabs, is instead penned by Richard Esposito of ABC News' The Note:

Giuliani's Mistress Used N.Y. Police as Taxi Service

Well before it was publicly known he was seeing her, then-married New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani provided a police driver and city car for his mistress Judith Nathan, former senior city officials tell the Blotter on ABCNews.com.

"She used the PD as her personal taxi service," said one former city official who worked for Giuliani.

New York papers reported in 2000 that the city had provided a security detail for Nathan, who became Giuliani's third wife after his divorce from Donna Hanover, who also had her own police security detail at the same time.

The former city officials said Giuliani expanded the budget for his security detail at the time. Politico.com reported yesterday that many of the security expenses were initially billed to obscure city agencies, effectively hiding them from oversight.

The former officials told ABCNews.com the extra costs involved overtime and per diem costs for officers traveling with Giuliani to secret weekend rendezvous with Nathan in the fashionable Hamptons resort area on Long Island.

When the New York City comptroller began to question the accounting, Mayor Giuliani's office declined to provide details to city security, officials told ABCNews.com today.

"The Comptroller's Office made repeated requests for the information in 2001 and 2002 but was informed that due to security concerns the information could not be provided," a spokesperson for the comptroller's office said. ...

Ah, yes, the old "security" excuse...

For the record, former NYC mayor Ed Koch is questioning Rudy's explanation of his billing practices associated with his Hamptons shenanigans with the former mistress who's now the missus... Said Koch of Giuliani's 'splanation of his "routine" police expenses:

Former mayor Ed Koch and current city officials said Thursday that charging travel and security expenses to obscure mayoral agencies was not routine at City Hall before or after Rudy Giuliani took office.

"That this was past practice is absolutely wrong," Koch said. "It didn't happen under me and I don't think it happened with David Dinkins, either."

For the record, the Bloomberg people say that's not their standard operating procedure, either.

This isn't the first time Koch has called Rudy out. Back in April, he told the NY Post's Page Six:

"In my opinion, it would be very harmful to our country if Rudy were to become president. Rudy simply does not tell the truth when it suits him not to," Koch says in a mass e-mail. He's writing a new intro to his book, to be reissued by Barricade. Koch cited four instances where he says Giuliani lied, and, "There will be much more on Rudy's record as he is examined by the national media."

Prescient words, Ed.

BTW, Ed's book on Rudy, which came out in 1999 and is being re-released on the occasion of Rudy's run for czar president, is called "Giuliani: Nasty Man."

Somebody call Larry Craig!

I thought this thing would be boring as hell, but ...

Willard (Romney) just cold cocked Rudy Giuliani on illegal immigration and "sanctuary cities." After Rudy punched back on his Sanctuary City record in NYC by accusing the Mittster of having a "sanctuary mansion" because he allegedly employed illegal immigrants, Romney called Rudy on the carpet by asking a very pertinent question: to paraphrase, "are you telling me that if you hire a company to perform a service at your home, like painting your roof, that you should be responsible for going out and asking any workers employed, not by you, but by the company you hired, and who don't look like you or who have a foreign sounding accent ... are you saying you should go out and ask them to show you their papers?"

Rudy couldn't answer.

Next up was Sleepy Fred, who said he found it interesting that Rudy would attack another candidate based on poor hiring decisions ... ouch. Had he delivered that line while wide awake, it might have been a keeper.

Incidentally, when Rudy tried to hit Romney again, the crowd booed ... and I mean booed Rudy. These guys are debating in Tampa, in what should be the heart of Rudy Country. The mayor is putting all his cards on Florida. Not a good look so far.

Update: John McCain is in the process of boring my husband...

Full coverage of the debate on CNN here.

Update 2: Romney is following up on a good McCain answer on GOP overspending. Romney is still the most polished slick (sorry, I must have been dozing off when I wrote that...) of these losers... I mean, candidates, although pound for pound, I think Rev. Huckabee is the best candidate (no formerly fat joke intended... He's the most authentic and despite being the most fundamentalist, he's also the least wierd, Ron Paul excepted...) Anyway, Rudy just used his first Ronald Reagan. I wonder if any of the Youtubers will ask him about voting for George McGovern (because he wanted to vote for Richard Nixon... but ... forgot ... ?)

Update 3: Okay, these guys are now officially boring me to tears. I guess the first five minutes were a clever Republican deception. Best answer so far, Ron Paul just answered the question about cutting programs by saying cut the Department of Education and bring the troops home from Iraq. Huckabee says get rid of the IRS by switching to the Fair Tax.

Revised: best answer so far -- Mike Huckabee said we should get rid of the IRS because "most people are more afraid of an audit than a mugging."

Update 4: Uh-oh, look at John McCain trying to step up ... McCain just hit Ron Paul on Iraq, saying of his views on Iraq: "that kind of thinking got us into World War II." and he used the "a" word (appeasement). Mick got a few applause on that one, but Ron Paul hit back, saying McCain doesn't even understand the difference between isolationism and non-interventionalism.

Okay, now they're doing their tax cut pledges. Going back to sleep now...

Update 5: waking back up. Anderson Cooper just asked Rudy about his taxpayer paid police detail to the Hamptons in the most dismissive, namby pamby manner possible, not even mentioning that the trips Rudy took were allegedly getaways with his mistress. Of course, Rudy dismissed it, and said he can't discuss his security needs because "there were threats that I don't often talk about..." Oooh, suspense. How un-journslistic of you, Anderson. He even responded to Rudy's answer by snapping, "good."

Update 6: the ultimate GOP billboard. Some hickbilly just asked the candidates to describe the guns they own. Never has there been a more irrelevant, backwater question in a debate (okay the UFO thing was pretty bad, too...)

Update 7: Reverend Huckabee is trying to explain how you can be both pro-life and pro-death penalty. The question was, "regarding the death penalty, what would Jesus do?" Huck didn't answer. He just added that "Jesus was too smart to run for public office." Tancredo dropped the ball on the question, too. This is one of those questions that no winger can answer credibly, because it exposes a core hypocrisy of the conservative movement. The answer is that Jesus was in the business of saving people, not killing them.

Now Rudy is answering a pretty creepy Internet guy's question about whether the candidates believe every word of the Bible by saying he doesn't believe it literally, but he "reads it a lot..." His answer was way too long to be credible, although I guess it makes sense since the Bible has stuff in there about not committing adultery.

Another emblematic moment for Republicans and conservatives. Many of their followers are almost robotic in their literalism and lack of complexity. What they want in a candidate is someone with a lot of guns, who believes literally in the Bible, who wants to jail abortion providers (and in some cases, the women getting abortions, too) but who matches being pro-life with a zeal to kill convicts and Arabs. They're so obtuse, they're almost South Park characters...

Update 8: another question Republicans simply can't answer. A questioner act how would you repair America's image in the Muslim world?

Rudy Giuliani - "by fighting the Islamofascist hoarde"

John McCain - "by continuing the surge in Iraq and never letting the Dems surrender!"

Duncan Hunter - "we save your asses when it floods in your God forsaken countries you foreign bastards!

And another - "do you oppose waterboarding?"

Romney - "we don't discuss our torture methods. ... and long live Gitmo!" (Romney also said he wants "what happened to Khalid Sheikh Mohammed to happen to other terror suspects." So ... you want them to be waterboarded?

McCain - "I'm astonished that you haven't found out what waterboarding is, and that you would want that to happen to anyone in our capture. It's torture, it's a violation of the Geneva Conventions ... we're not gonna do what Pol Pot did ... how in the world anybody could think that that kind of thing could be inflicted on anyone in our custody is absolutely beyond me." Finally, someone who can answer the question. Romney is trying to recover, but why?

Wow. Mick just told his base that "I hope that we would understand, my friends, that life is not '24' or Jack Bauer." He just took a firm stand saying we should never allow torture to be countenenanced in our country. Good answer.

Okay, now some mook is blathering on about staying in Iraq forever and ever and ever... how long does this thing go, again ...?

Update 9: On Iraq, Ron Paul just followed up on a boring Fred Thompson shpiel by saying "the best thing we can do for the people of Iraq is to give them their country back." And Mick just missed Paul's point that after we left Vietnam (which McCain seems to think we won...) they became a modern trading partner rather than an enemy. "Vietnam achieved in peace what the French and the Americans couldn't achieve in 20 plus years of war." The troglodytes in the audience just booed him, but hey, they're Republicans...

Update 10: Ha! Rudy just answered a question about whether he's using 9/11 to enhance his political prospects by using the phrase "September 11,2001" four times. Oh, and he touted his record as a federal prosecutor in addition to his role as America's Mayor. Funny thing about that proscutorial record, though ... funny thing... From a July 1989 article in the New York Times:

In the midst of his Republican-Liberal campaign, a review of the Giuliani record, interviews with current and former prosecutors, law-enforcement officials, judges, defense lawyers and law professors, and a long interview with Mr. Giuliani present a profile of a skilled prosecutor who won some exceptional victories.

But the 45-year-old Mr. Giuliani is also coming to be seen by some as an ambitious prosecutor who used questionable judgment in several episodes at the Justice Department, both before and during his tenure as United States Attorney, and whose personal accomplishments may have been exaggerated by critics and supporters alike.

Even as Mr. Giuliani reaches for greater stature, many people - including some admirers - are urging that his larger-than-life image be reconsidered.

''People were caught up in the view of him as a superman or a devil,'' said Burt Neuborne, a professor at the New York University Law School and former national litigation director of the Amer-ican Civil Liberties Union.

''The truth is he was neither. He was a pretty good prosecutor who made some mistakes,'' Professor Neuborne said.

The Record Major Cases And Recognition

...Several of the most-noticed prosecutions begun in Mr. Giuliani's tenure are not complete. So they cannot be counted as his accomplishments. It is not clear whether the plea agreement Mr. Giuliani approved with Ivan F. Boesky, the arbitrager, will lead, as prosecutors hoped, to a conviction of Michael R. Milken, the former chief of high-yield bonds for Drexel Burnham Lambert.

Because of the ill health of Ferdinand E. Marcos, a Federal judge suspended the Government's case against the former president of the Philippines, and prosecutors have not had to test their charges against him; his wife, Imelda, and others.

The trial of the case against Leona Helmsley and two former aides under another major indictment filed in Mr. Giuliani's tenure has just begun. Attack by Judge

If there were major triumphs, there were also major setbacks, many of them recently. The divorce-fixing prosecution of Bess Myerson for supposedly trying to influence a State Supreme Court Justice ended in December with an acquittal. Shortly afterward, a Federal judge ruled that the Government had failed to prove, as Mr. Giuliani had charged, that the Genovese crime family controlled the main union at the Fulton Fish Market.

In March, another Federal judge threw out the charges against seven of 14 defendants in the Pizza Connection 2 heroin-trafficking case. The judge, John E. Sprizzo, ridiculed the caliber of the office Mr. Giuliani had recently left, calling the prosecutors incompetent and improperly trained.

Behind many headlines Mr. Giuliani generated, there was sometimes less substance than there appeared to be. He speaks frequently, for example, about his ''Federal day'' project, in which a day is chosen occasionally, without notice, when street drug dealers answer charges in Federal, instead of state, court. Because Federal drug enforcement is perceived as more punitive, the aim is to keep drug dealers off balance, not knowing where they might have to appear.

In 1986, the last year for which statistics from the Federal Bureau of Prisons are available, Mr. Giuliani's office sent 351 people to jail on controlled-substance and narcotics charges, including many who would have been arrested on Federal charges even without the special program.

That was 64 more people than were sent to prison by the Federal prosecutor in Brooklyn, who had no special project, and a small fraction of the 67,000 people arrested on narcotics charges in the city that year. Mr. Giuliani said he always warned that the program processed few people. The Image Out in Front When Camera's On.

... Some critics said Mr. Giuliani's flair sometimes overstated his accomplishments. He has long asserted he invented the use of the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, or RICO, to pursue the Mafia commission. In his interview, Mr. Giuliani repeated an account he has told many times about formulating the idea before becoming United States Attorney, when he read a book by Joseph Bonnano Sr. about his life in the mob.

''Using it against the commission,'' Mr. Giuliani said, ''that was an idea that no one had until I developed it and went down to Washington and started talking about it. And I came to the office with it.''

That is flatly disputed by others who suggest the strategy was evolving. Mr. Martin said he had heard the approach discussed by highly placed people in the Federal Bureau of Investigation while he was a prosecutor. Mr. Goldstock of the state agency recalled that before Mr. Giuliani took office, Mr. Goldstock had fully briefed officials on bringing a RICO case against the five families.

Mr. Giuliani said the others' recollections were simply incorrect. ''Absolutely, totally not true,'' he said. ''Those people are now trying to recreate a good idea.''

And one more piece:

Mr. Giuliani's drive and self-assurance may have contributed to his few clear debacles as prosecutor. Campaign opponents question whether his strong commitments were motivated most by expediency.

They have questioned Mr. Giuliani's role as the main defender of the Justice Department policy of detaining illegal Haitian immigrants while he was the third-ranking official in the department in the Reagan Administration, which focused on control of illegal immigration. Human rights groups criticized the detention camps, saying many internees were political refugees trying to escape the repression of Jean-Claude Duvalier.

Mr. Giuliani said in the interview he still considered the policy justifiable, considering the problems caused by illegal immigration. McDonnell Douglas Case

Update 11: Mike Huckabee just blew Rudy out of the water on the question of why more African-Americans don't support the GOP. Rudy trotted out some tripe about reducing crime and giving out school vouchers. Huck on the other hand, said that 48 percent of AA voters in Arkansas supported him, "because I asked for their vote." He went on to talk about reaching out by way of appointments to his cabinet, and spending on things like diabetes and low income targeted healthcare.

Mittster and Sleepy Fred just took strong positions against the public display of the Confederate battle flag. Surprisingly un-pandery.

And Ron Paul has a quite good little Youtube commercial.

Sidebar: I'll tell you what, if the GOP had any sense, Huck would be the nominee. He would be the toughest candidate to beat, because shockingly, he comes off like a real "compassionate conservative" who is religious, but not looking to turn the country into a religious police state. What's also remarkable about Huckabee is that he, and Ron Paul, are the only two guys standing up there who seem to actually believe everything they're saying, which is why they don't have to pause or parse their words.

Okay, the debate is over. Rudy just tried to explain rooting for the BoSox.

CNN is focusing on the retired gay general who never got an answer to his question.

File this one under, "I could have told you that..."

The mainstream media finally catches up with a seedy story New Yorkers have known about for years: that Bernie Kerik wasn't the only sleazebag using public resources for his private sexual affairs. Here's the headline from today's NY Post:

REPORT: GIULIANI USED CITY CASH FOR JUDY RENDEZ-VOUS

November 28, 2007 -- America's mayor reportedly dipped into various city agencies' budgets to pay for extra security while kicking off his extramarital affair with now-wife Judy Nathan, a political blog reported today.

The Post reported more than six years ago that the trips were costing New York taxpayers $3,000 a day.

Rudy Giuliani, previously undisclosed government documents show, used funds from small government agencies to pay his tab, Politico.com alleged in a report.

It has previously been reported that Giuliani would sneak off to Hamptons to rendez-vous with then-girlfriend Nathan, and these trips incurred extra costs for the police officers assigned to protect the former mayor.

When the large expenses were found by the city comptroller months after Giuliani left office -- such as $34,000 of travel expenses billed to the New York City Loft Board's account -- the mayor's office simply cited "security," Jeff Simmons, spokesman for the city comptroller, told Politico.com.

The Post indeed did break the story years ago, when Bushie was running for Senator, that he used taxpayer funded security details to protect his then mistress, Judith Nathan, who is now his wife (until he finds something better, of course ... paging the Special Dispensation Cardinal!...) Perhaps the Post could look into who footed the bill for Rudy's rent when his then wife Donna Hanover kicked him out of Gracie Mansion for cheating, and he went to live with those gay guys and their dog...

Oh, sorry, I forgot ... the media doesn't talk about Rudy's private life. It's not relevant...

Anyway, here's the full report from Politico, including these juicy tidbits about the agencies that were paying for Rudy's Hamptons booty calls:

The documents, obtained by Politico under New York’s Freedom of Information Law, show that the mayoral costs had nothing to do with the functions of the little-known city offices that defrayed his tabs, including agencies responsible for regulating loft apartments, aiding the disabled and providing lawyers for indigent defendants.

In other words, Rudy screwed crippled people and indigent folk accused of crimes, in order to get his groove on. Now, here's Rudy acting like George W. Bush:

The expenses first surfaced as Giuliani's two terms as mayor of New York drew to a close in 2001, when a city auditor stumbled across something unusual: $34,000 worth of travel expenses buried in the accounts of the New York City Loft Board.

When the city's fiscal monitor asked for an explanation, Giuliani's aides refused, citing "security," said Jeff Simmons, a spokesman for the city comptroller.

And here's Rudy playing Tax Mooch Cassanova:

But American Express bills and travel documents obtained by Politico suggest another reason City Hall may have considered the documents sensitive: They detail three summers of visits to Southampton, the Long Island town where Nathan had an apartment.

Auditors "were unable to verify that these expenses were for legitimate or necessary purposes," City Comptroller William Thompson wrote of the expenses from fiscal year 2000, which covers parts of 1999 and 2000. ...

... The receipts tally the costs of hotel and gas bills for the police detectives who traveled everywhere with the mayor, according to cover sheets that label them “PD expenses” and travel authorizations that describe the trips. ...

... Many of the receipts are from hotels and gas stations on Long Island, where Giuliani reportedly began visiting Nathan’s Southampton condominium in the summer of 1999, though Giuliani and Nathan have never discussed the beginning of their relationship.

Nathan would go on to become Giuliani’s third wife, but his second marriage was officially intact until the spring of 2000, and City Hall officials at the time responded to questions about his absences by saying he was spending time with his son and playing golf.

So Rudy wasn't above using his son as an excuse to see his girlfriend ... sounds very presidential.
For those on the right, including kooks like Pat Robertson and self-riteous airheads like Glenn Beck, to justify their support for Giuliani by calling his libidinous behavior "irrelevant", I would ask the following question: how can you say that Rudy's affair isn't relevant when it involved the use of taxpayer dollars to pay for security? Just sayin' ... and I don't want to hear the words "Bill Clinton." Clinton never used the Secret Service to shuttle Monica around, and his fooling around had absolutely no connection to his public office. Not so in the case of Rudy, who conducted his affair with the help of New York City taxpayers -- some of the most heavily taxed people in the country.

Even after his term as mayor ended, Rudy continued to receive taxpayer funded security to the tune of $1 million per year, with more than a dozen cops protecting him, his former wife, and his kids (and probably his mistress, too.) The New York press has covered Rudy's marital soap opera for years, and this story is NOT news to those of us who have lived in NYC.

We remember, for example, back in the spring of 2001 when Rudy, in his move to push Donna Hanover out the door, cut her security detail. Note the interesting detail about Judy in this humdinger from the NYT's Elizabeth Bumiller:

Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani cut in half the office staff of his estranged wife, Donna Hanover, yesterday as police officials announced separately that they had reassigned three members of Ms. Hanover's security detail to other jobs.

Mr. Giuliani's actions made it clear that he would continue to use the powers of his office to sever his wife from her public role as the city's first lady and to isolate her as much as possible during his final months in office.

A police official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said three police detectives assigned to Ms. Hanover to make security arrangements in advance of her public appearances had been reassigned on Friday. Ms. Hanover will still be protected, the official said, by an undisclosed number of detectives traveling with her. ''She has an adequate security detail,'' the official said.

Helene Brezinsky, Ms. Hanover's divorce lawyer, said she had no comment. ...

... Last week, aides to Mr. Giuliani said he was stripping Ms. Hanover of her public duties and giving the role of his hostess to Irene R. Halligan, the commissioner of the New York City Commission for the United Nations, Consular Corps and Protocol. Mr. Giuliani filed for divorce from his wife last fall.

... ''To the extent that Donna is no longer performing a function derived from the mayor, she doesn't need a public relations person,'' said a senior City Hall aide.

... The police official added that Judith Nathan, Mr. Giuliani's friend, was no longer receiving security protection. In January, police officials disclosed that Ms. Nathan had been receiving police protection since she was threatened a few days after Christmas, when a man confronted her on the street not far from her Upper East Side apartment. Officials said at the time that it was probable that the man had approached her because of her relationship with the mayor. Ms. Nathan's security protection, the official said, ended a few weeks later.

Mr. Giuliani announced last May that he was seeking a separation from Ms. Hanover and that Ms. Nathan had become increasingly important to him. Ms. Hanover and the couple's two children continue to live at Gracie Mansion, and Mr. Giuliani uses a guest room there. Earlier this month he had his divorce lawyers argue that he should be allowed to bring Ms. Nathan there. A judge disagreed and barred Ms. Nathan from Gracie Mansion. Mr. Giuliani is appealing.

Mr. Giuliani has grown increasingly angry that Ms. Hanover continues to play a first lady role as their marriage has crumbled and he has chosen Ms. Nathan as his public companion.

Update: Wolf Blitzer actually covered the story. Just teased it on CNN. Wow. Next thing you know Chris Matthews will be paying attention...

Every so often, something happens -- sometimes big, sometimes small -- that forces you to contemplate the possibility that George W. Bush isn't a stupid as he seems to be. ... that somehow, he actually does know what's going on around him, and that worse, he is in on it. This used to happen to me with Ronald Reagan from time to time -- those moments when you got the feeling that he may have only seemed senile, but in fact, was the mastermind behind all the bad things being done in his name (Iran Contra was such a moment, but looking back, I'm leaning more toward his being used by people like Ollie North and Elliot Abrams...)

This is that kind of moment for GWB, and it comes courtesy of a doughey, sweaty little Texan named Scott, who used to work at the White House... Today, the company that's publishing his "tell all" book issued a couple of tantalizing paragraphs related to Scott's role in the cover-up following the outing of CIA covert agent Valerie Plame. Bloomberg picks it up from there:

Former White House press secretary Scott McClellan writes in a memoir that he unintentionally misled the public about the leak of a CIA operative's name because of misinformation given to him by President George W. Bush, political adviser Karl Rove and other top officials.

A three-paragraph excerpt from the book released today by the publisher doesn't give details of what the president told McClellan. The case eventually led to the indictment and conviction of Lewis ``Scooter'' Libby, Vice President Dick Cheney's former chief of staff, on charges of perjury and obstruction of justice.

``I stood at the White House briefing room podium in front of the glare of the klieg lights for the better part of two weeks and publicly exonerated two of the senior most aides in the White House: Karl Rove and Scooter Libby,'' McClellan, 39, wrote. ``There was one problem. It was not true.''

McClellan wrote that he ``unknowingly passed along false information. And five of the highest-ranking officials in the administration were involved in my doing so: Rove, Libby, the vice president, the president's chief of staff, and the president himself.''

The White House, through its current flaks, has of course denied that Georgie would EVER ask anyone to lie, much less about the leaking of classified information -- something he claimed back in 2003 he knew not a thing about. As for McClellan -- the White House is implying that "he thinks the paragraphs were taken out of context." How Dana Perrino knows what Scott McClellan thinks is not explained, unless of course Dick Cheney is somewhere in a secret location, to which poor Scott has been dragged, bound and gagged, and is now telling him what he thinks.

What's intriguing about the McClellan eruption is that it brings us back to the fundamental question that Patrick Fitzgerald was never able to answer for us during the Plame leak investigation, because of the sand thrown in his eyes by the perjurious Scooter Libby: namely, who inside the White House knew that Scooter Libby was peddling classified information that the White House hoped would discredit Plame's husband, former Ambassador Joseph Wilson, who had blown the whistle on the Bush administration's foreknowledge of the emptiness of their charges about Iraq and yellowcake from Niger. Who knew, and who may have ordered Libby, and perhaps others (Newsweek's new golden boy Karl Rove comes to mind... kudos to the editors at Time, by the way, for having higher standards...) to leak Plame's identity, outing and endangering her and anyone who worked with her, and blowing years of weapons intelligence that had been gathered by her through the CIA front company Brewster Jennings.

Fitzgerald's indictment of Libby clearly suggests that he believes that the vice president was involved -- perhaps even the key player in the treasonous game of hardball. But McClellan's little paragraphs open the door to the possibility that the culprits in the unprecedented betrayal of a covert agent by her own government -- something brand new in American history -- may have gone all the way to the top.

Funny, that.

A reporter on MSNBC tonight suggested that the book is "Scottie's revenge," and says that McClellan left the White House bitter and angry at having been misused by the White House in the Libby affair. David Gregory disagreed with the revenge thing (he would, he doesn't often go out on a limb when it comes to politics...) but he did agree that McClellan left the White House a bitter man. He certainly seems to be putting some distance between himself and the 22 other administration officials involved in either the leak itself, or the cover-up. ... including one rather dim, but maybe not-so dumb ... George W. Bush. More on the case against Bush in the Plamegate affair from Thinkprogress here.