What about the "real" crime?
Amid all the excitement, let's not forget that the larger crime remains unprosecuted: taking the country to war under false pretenses.
Merry Fitzmas, anyway!
Why Judy really went to jail
Not enough attention has been paid to Floyd Abrams' role in the Judy affair. No matter how you feel about her, it seems clear that Abrams encouraged her to go to jail and become a martyr for press freedom, which as a noted civil liberties attorney is his own passion.
Time's Matt Cooper figured that out months ago, fired Abrams and found a lawyer who could keep him out of prison. Judy didn't get out of jail until the Times hired a new lawyer, too. It wasn't Libby who changed his waiver so Judy could get out of jail; it was a new lawyer talking to Libby's lawyer and putting an entirely different interpretation on the same set of facts.
It seems to me that Floyd Abrams put his own interests above those of his client. And you could make a case that the NY Times did the same thing by hiring Abrams and encouraging that same point of view. In my opinion, that's why Judy's the only one who did hard time.
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"May you live in interesting times"
Putting the quag in quaqmire
Just about the only thing the Left and Right agree on in America today is that we can't leave Iraq but we can't stay there, either. Anyone got any ideas? Because the folks who got us in there sure don't. The Bush-Cheney-Rumsfeld braintrust will have to pick its poison: a long, slow drip or a quick, massive bloodletting. Neither will be pretty.
Remember Social Security?
It looks like Bush has finally found an exit strategy from his Social Security fiasco: having it overshadowed by a complete disaster in every other aspect of his Presidency. How do you spell "hubris?" (Hint: It has a "W.") I guess he thought he could safely alienate everybody over 65 -- and everybody who would one day be over 65.
The ticking time bomb
Oh, yes. Just a little thing called "massive deficits." The question isn't whether we'll pay a price, it's when. Up to now, George has apparently assumed it wouldn't happen on his watch -- but given his luck lately, we can probably count on an economic meltdown before he leaves office (unless he's forced to resign soon).
What's next? Conspiracy indictments in the Plame case? War with Iran or Syria? Natural disasters caused by global warming? Outbreaks of bird flu or mad cow disease? Attacks by extraterrestrials? The imagination barely keeps pace with the possibilities.
Unfortunately, while I can't help but enjoy a measure of schadenfreude, my guilty pleasure is tempered by the knowledge that we'll all pay the consequences of these "interesting times" for many years to come.
Back on the Plame front...who would Bush nominate to replace Cheney?
Brother Jeb? Poppy might like it, but a little too dynastic for most Americans.
Dr. Frist? Karl's fave, but hasn't shown himself ready for the big leagues yet.
Texas Tom? Too much dirty laundry.
Coach Hastert? Please.
George Allen? Scary thought.
St. Santorum? God forbid.
Straight-shooter McCain? That would guarantee a Republican successor, because it would help McCain overcome his biggest obstacle, the Republican primary. And Bush owes him one.
Or maybe a governor, in his own image. Who are the likeliest Republican governors (other than Jeb)?
What are your thoughts?
How many foreign policy mistakes can Democrats make?
When something finally goes right in Iraq and the U.S. finds a way to withdraw with honor, Bush will be able to say, you see, I was right all along for staying the course, and all those wishy-washy Democrats showed their true colors when they wanted to pull out early.
No matter how venal and wrong the Iraq war was, the U.S. can't invade a country, turn it into a complete mess and then walk away and wash our hands of it because we don't like the results. As someone wrote before the war, "You break it, you own it." It's our mess now, and it would be an even bigger foreign policy disaster for us to turn our backs on it and not assume responsibility for screwing it up in the first place.
Yes, things can still go right in Iraq. Just as perceptions turned around when Iraqis held a successful election, there could still be a deal on a constitution or a successful negotiation with the Sunni tribes that would drive a wedge between them and the foreign insurgents, and perceptions would change just as radically. This time, if anything at all goes right, Bush & Co. will seize on any excuse to get our asses out of there, and the Democrats will be left with egg all over their faces.
As much as I hated Bush's lying, smirking rationale in last night's speech, I was even more disturbed by the virtually universal Democratic response that we need a deadline or plan or strategy for getting out. We shouldn't allow our disgust at Bush's unnecessary/illegal foreign adventures to get in the way of supporting our military's -- and, yes, our President's -- attempts to gain control of the situation, while still pointing out that we never should have gone in, in the first place.
Once again, the Democrats will end up looking craven and weak on foreign policy, while Bush comes out looking strong and avoids paying the price for one of the most unjustifiable if not shameful wars in American history.
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How long does a "recess appointment" really last?
The conventional wisdom is that a recess appointment of John Bolton will last until the end of the next Congressional session, which starts in January 2006 and officially ends after the Christmas recess in January 2007.
But that doesn't really make sense according to a plain language reading of the Constitution, which says: "The President shall have Power to fill up all Vacancies that may happen during the Recess of the Senate, by granting Commissions which shall expire at the End of their next Session."
The Constitution appears to define "session" as whenever Congress is meeting; i.e., until its next recess. This is consistent with the only other usage of "recess" in the Constitution, which says that if Senate vacancies occur while state legislatures are in recess, the governor can make a temporary appointment "until the next meeting of the Legislature."
The Constitution writes about Congress as if it can be in only one of two states: "in session" or "in recess." By definition, then, a recess comes between sessions and a session comes between recesses. So, a recess appointment should only last until the end of the next time Congress is in session, which will be from the end of the Fourth of July recess until the end of the August recess (i.e., in September).
I'd like to hear what a Constitutional expert would say about this reading of the Constitution. Also, I assume that past practice has been that recess appointments last until the end of the next official session. But that's not what the Constitution says, in my lay opinion.
