Will Gelber’s anti-corruption measures get a new look?
Missed by many, including me, pushed literally the day after the recent Miami elections, was a push by State Sen. Dan Gelber, who’s running for attorney general, to pass new anti-corruption rules, including defanging so-called “committees of continuous existance” through which politicians can collect unlimited soft money, and passing a so-called “theft of honest services” law. Gelber hadn’t gotten much traction for his idea before, but his people are pushing the idea anew, in the wake of the recent Miami commission meltdown. We’ll see what happens.
Is Gonzo channeling Dubya against Cheney?
Gonzo and Dubya: BFFs
Alberto Gonzales wasn’t exactly what you’d call a “competent” attorney general. In fact, when he had the job, he seemed to think his role was to be the president’s lawyer, rather than ours. (In his defense, he did used to be George W. Bush’s lawyer, both in Texas, and when he was White House counsel. Maybe he just got confused…) But one thing Gonzo had going for him was loyalty. He was, to a fault, loyal to President Bush, as were an entire coterie of “Bushies” who still haunt the fringes of Washington, insisting that their man was misunderstood. Well have you noticed how few of those Bushies have been out in the hustings defending Bush’s number two? Dick Cheney skipped the Bush staff reunion, and he seems decidedly on the outs with the Bush crowd, and perhaps with Bush himself (hell, he slept through the man’s farewell speech!) In fact, the only two people out defending his zeal for torture, for instance, are himself, his daughter, that cross-eyed Black guy who’s always turning up on CNN and MSNBC, and the on-air staff at Fox News. Why is that? And why would Gonzales, who never seems to say anything that wasn’t first washed in Dubya’s saliva, suddenly piping up, siding with the current attorney general AGAINST his former under-boss over whether CIA torture should be investigated (in a limited, dainty way?)
The political-media complex’s tortured logic
Glenn Greenwald concludes, quite rightly, that the political-media class is too corrupt to really take on torture, at least not above the level of “rogue interrogators” (which I guess means guys who don’t have cushy jobs at Berkely or the power to order the CIA to violate the law…) while Digby relieves me of the duty of watching another tedious “This Week” roundtable on TiVo.
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