The Tank has several video clips of some of the more, er, interesting questions and answers from yesterday's hearing. I think I would have to be seriously medicated to go before congress, but General Petraeus did very well on the composure front.

A transcript is here at CNN, Hotline has a good summary. Certain Democrats will gnash their teeth, but Petraeus will get what he is asking for. The bottom line is that Petraeus put his reputation on the line back in February when he said that if he saw that the Iraq campaign was a waste of time, he would recommend a withdrawal.

Well, here we are with a six month later report and far from testifying that it's been a waste of time, he is reporting that he can send the extra troops home earlier than the surge plan called for. That's into the early part of 2008. Beyond that he won't make any commitments. Smart move considering what's been happening in Iraq.

Democrat John Conyers has issued subpoenas for former Bush administration staffers, Harriet Miers and Sara Taylor, but they are still not talking.

The two former aides are now private citizens, and some congressional officials have argued that it is not clear Bush's executive privilege claim covers them even though White House Counsel Fred Fielding told lawyers for Miers and Taylor that the president was directing them not to answer questions or provide any information about the firings.

...

So opens the latest round in the dispute over the administration's firing last winter of eight federal prosecutors. The congressional probe, now in its seventh month, has morphed into a broader standoff over what information the president may keep private and what details Congress is entitled to receive as part of its oversight of the executive branch.

President Bush has the right to deliberate with his staff without those conversations becoming public knowledge. This is pure common sense. Both Miers and Taylor are upholding this principle and are right to do so.

Not to say there isn't a congressional oversight role here, but the least Conyers could do is tell us what the alleged crime is here. And no, firing a U.S. attorney for political or even arbitrary reasons is not a crime.

I see a court fight ahead.

Yesterday, the House Foreign Affairs Committee passed the Iran Counter Proliferation Act convincingly, by a vote of 37-1. It's remarkable that a bill received that kind of bipartisan support in today's political climate, and shows how seriously members of Congress (and the House in particular) view the threat of Iran. I view the chances of any sanctions program working to stop Iran less than zero, but steps like this must be undertaken before we move towards tougher steps. According to Brian Faughnan over at The Weekly Standard, the bill:

...repeals the administration's authority to waive penalties under the Iran Sanctions Act, blocks the import of all Iranian products, provides for the designation of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps as a terrorist group, and increases funds for the Office of Terrorism and Financial Intelligence.

Sounds like sensible and long overdue steps to take. But the White House opposes it! I usually support the fact that foreign policy is the sole territory of the Executive Branch under any president, but this has the fingerprints of the broken down State Department all over it. Here's their reasoning:

...it's opposed by the Bush administration, which argues that it would undercut multilateral efforts--particularly the sanctions imposed by the U.N. Security Council.

Hmmm. When, exactly, was the last time that the United Nations Security Council, and the UN in general, was successful in anything it undertook, especially a sanctions program? The State Department and the Bush Administration should stop worrying about the United Nations and start worrying about Iran. I hate supporting the House in this, but go Tom Lantos!

Fred Kagen, a constant and long-time critic of how the Iraq war has been waged up until now, testified yesterday in front of the House Committee on Foreign Affairs. He was characteristically blunt about the mistakes made during the past few years, and what really is going on now. The text of his testimony is here.

It is now beyond question that the Bush Administration pursued a flawed approach to the war in Iraq from 2003 to 2007. That approach relied on keeping the American troop presence in Iraq as small as possible, pushing unprepared Iraqi Security Forces into the lead too rapidly, and using political progress as the principal means of bringing the violence under control. In other words, it is an approach similar to the one proposed by the ISG and by some who are now pushing for political benchmarks and the rapid drawdown of American forces as the keys to success in the war. It is no more likely to work now than it was then.

Kagen also provides the most useful quote to date on the reality on the ground in Iraq, why we are conducting the surge, and why the proponents of a redeployment in order to force the Iraqi government to step up (hello Richard Lugar and Carl Levin) are wrong:

Political progress is something that follows the establishment of security, not something that causes it.

I haven't read Monica Goodling's testimony today -- I've only seen read and seen clips of her telling the House Judiciary Committee that the primary reason for Paul McNulty lying in front of Congress was... Paul McNulty. Which isn't what the Democrats wanted to hear, since McNulty and James Comey were Chuck Schumer's allies and moles in the Justice Department.

Had the Bush administration had a competent vetting and hiring process, they wouldn't have even had those jobs in the first place, at least not under a Republican president. Come to think of it, had the Bush administration had a competent personnel process, Gonzales wouldn't be Attorney General either. And Colin Powell wouldn't have been Secretary of State, Richard Armitage would have been advising Saudi Arabia, Scott McClellan wouldn't have been Press Secretary, etc. But that's another post.

One comment about the statement that she didn't know if she had broken the law when determining the political allegiance of prosecutors: First, that's not what she said. Second, she was not talking about the U.S. attorneys, the supposed subject of this hearing, as is being alleged by some on the left. Those are political appointments, and although the Democrats cry otherwise, U.S. Attorneys are nominated by the individual state's senior senator of the same political party, and they are expected to emphasize the law enforcement priorities of the president. If they don't, they should be gone.

And it looks like he's going to keep it. Why? Because everyone has lost interest:

Mr Gonzales faced a fresh barrage of question from Democrats over the controversial firing of several US attorneys when he appeared before the House judiciary committee.

But Republican committee members largely supported Mr Gonzales and called for an end to the investigation, easing pressure on one of President George W. Bush's closest political allies.

Democrats have sought to prove that the firings of at least eight US attorneys last year were politically motivated, citing an e-mail by a Gonzales aide that judged federal prosecutors according to whether they were "loyal Bushies".

I'll save everyone a lot of time. Of course they were politically motivated. And so what? The attorneys in question were fired for not following the president's agenda and/or a few for genuine performance issues. The Democrats saw an opportunity to pile on and so they did. Now that it appears that they've milked the last few drops of newspaper headlines from this particular lemon, they've moved on.

As Lewis Black said: "You just can't keep track of these guys. I haven't come up with a name for the Ports scandal and they start talking about bombing Iran, DeLay quits and the Veep shoots his best friend."

In case you missed it in the dismantling of Boy George's best friend and personal lawyer, two congressmen have resigned from key committees in a bid to save their jobs. Rick Renzi stepped down from the House Intelligence committee and John Doolittle quit the mighty Appropriations Committee. Apparently being best friends with Jack Abramoff isn't as much fun as it used to be.

Homes and offices were searched by the FBI and it led to statements like this from Doolittle:

"I understand how the most recent circumstances may lead some to question my tenure on the Appropriations Committee," the conservative nine-term congressman wrote in a letter to House Minority Leader John A. Boehner (R-Ohio). "Therefore, I feel it may be in the best interest of the House that I take a temporary leave with seniority from this Committee until this matter can be resolved."

This from a nine termer who barely won re-election by some 7,000 votes last year. Might be a special election in his district before next year. And Congressman Renzi?

Details of the raid on Patriot Insurance Agency in Sonoita, Ariz., were not immediately available. Renzi's most recent financial disclosure form lists the business as an asset belonging to his wife, Roberta, and valued at $1 million to $5 million. Little is known about the inquiries into Renzi's activities, but according to media reports the Justice Department has been running a two-track investigation into Renzi regarding a land deal, as well as a piece of legislation he helped steer that may have improperly benefited a major campaign contributor.

Let's be clear. These are just two more Republican Congressmen caught doing what their leaders have been showing them how to do. Take bribes. It's about power, it's about corruption and the Republicans in Congress and the Bush administration are full of it. From Halliburton, through Abramoff, through the oil deals, the tax giveaway to the richest 2%, the pharmaceutical giveaway, the amazing, ever-growing national debt, DeLay, Ney, Cunningham, Cheney, Libby, it just goes on and on. Yes, it all pales next to the Worst War Ever and it's just two more bricks in the wall. And before anyone says both parties are the same it's like comparing a shoplifter with a guy who has held up a dozen banks.

There's no comparison, these Republicans are in a class by themselves.

Oh well. When you can't govern, then investigate. In a story at The Politico that would be humorous if it were not so pathetic, Henry Waxman, chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, is requesting that all e-mails to and from the White House and the Republican National Committee be turned over to him. Let's see, the Bush administration is Republican (marginally) and so is the RNC. Seems to me like there would be quite a bit of communications between the two, and that those communications would be by their nature "partisan." Seems to me that that isn't against the law. Imagine the media outrage if Orrin Hatch requested the same from the Clinton White House and the DNC...

House Oversight and Government Reform Chairman Henry A. Waxman (D-Calif.) has asked the Republican National Committee to provide his committee with copies of all the e-mails sent by administration officials "for partisan political purposes."

Waxman, who is traveling in the Middle East this week with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), sent a letter to RNC Chairman Mike Duncan on Wednesday requesting his political committee to provide the government reform panel with e-mails that are still stored on RNC servers.

This purportedly is a response to a possible violation of the Hatch Act, which prohibits federal employees from participating in certain partisan activities while on government time.

Last week Rosie O'Donnell berated the use of the phrase "Global War on Terror", claiming that it divides the world into good and evil.

Why yes Rosie, it does. And it's also accurate. That's because terror, in this case, is defined as creating a sense of fear and panic by indiscriminately murdering as many innocent civilians as possible in the name of Islam. And per their world view, either all apostates (non-believers in their form of Islam) convert or they die. That means us, people. The war is being fought in Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran, the rest of the Middle East, Indonesia, Europe, Latin America, the United States, Russia - you know, the whole world. That is evil, just as it would be evil if the Vatican were doing the same thing today under the guise of Roman Catholicism. Personally, I would prefer the term "Global War on Islamic Fundamentalism", thus identifying the enemy by name as opposed to tactic, and separating the enemy from the majority of Muslims who are neither terrorists nor our enemy. But Global War on Terror will do just fine, thank you. And I don't have to spell-check it.

The circus in the House continues. Lou Dobbs of CNN testified before the House Subcommittee on Terrorism, Nonproliferation and Trade today on "Trade, Foreign Policy, and the American Worker", one of his pet populist isolationist peeves. Remarkable. Can you imagine the uproar from the media (especially CNN) if say, Bill O'Reilly testified before a Congressional Committee when the Republicans were in charge?

Dobbs tossed in a bit of brown-nosing for good measure at the end:

I salute and commend you, Mr. Chairman, and this committee for beginning the process of achieving that understanding, and for the first time in a very long time, I am encouraged that this branch of our government is looking upon the United States first as a nation and secondarily as an economy, and is choosing to represent Americans first as citizens, rather than consumers or units of labor.

I've always thought that the manufacturing job solution for our country was fairly simple, although hard for some people (unions) to accept. We have (or had, until our educational system fell apart under the NEA) the smartest and most efficient workers in the world. We are extremely good at coming up with new technologies and inventions. Concentrate on that. Develop new products, manufacture them using workers at relatively high wages for one or two cycles, and then accept and welcome the fact that the products can and will be able to be produced faster and cheaper overseas. Then move on to developing and manufacturing the next "new" thing.

Representative Henry Waxman is responsible for the tax-money wasting circus sideshow that was Valerie Plame's testimony. The case is settled, "Scooter" Libby is going to jail and the actual leaker -- Richard Armitage -- is not. It doen't matter that Plame was or was not covert, she was not outed by Rove, Libby, Bush or any other part of the administration. She was outed by a bitter State Department employee who is no friend of the president.

Waxman, in his finite wisdom, decided that he wanted to milk this non-issue for all it was worth and to get his mug on TV for a few hours.

Enter Victoria Toensing, the woman who helped write the law that Waxman is adamant someone, anyone, in the administration broke. Watch the video and note that Waxman would not allow Toensing to answer even one question:

First and most lasting impression - if Plame (and her appendage Joe Wilson) are examples of the type of people the CIA and the State Department have handling our national security, we are all doomed.

I'm actually waiting for a transcript on Waxman's show trail, but figured I might as well jump into this now. I was watching as much of the testimony as I could and was struck by several things. I simply don't believe Henry Waxman because he said several different things at different times and the terms he used all have very different legal meanings. In his opening statement Waxman said that Plame was 1. undercover, was 2. covert, and was 3. classified. The "covert" statement is the most troubling, since that is the term that was first thrown about by David Corn, and is the subject of the law that Plame and Wilson claim was broken. Unfortunately, after a few years and several million dollars, Patrick Fitzgerald was unable to find out that a "covert" agent was "outed," even though he knew that Richard Armitage had told Novak about her.

I have no doubt that at one time Valerie Plame was covert -- a long time ago. It is a published fact (in the New York Times and elsewhere) that Plame and her cover, Brewster & Jennings, were blown -- but way back in 1994. Who tells us that? Liberal blogger Kevin Drum and liberal New York Times columnist and friend of the Wilsons Nicolas Kristof (they went to a Democratic Policy Committee meeting together in May 2003, according to Vanity Fair -- a strange thing for a covert agent to do). They inform us that Aldrich Ames had given Mrs. Wilson's name to the Russians before his espionage arrest in 1994. In addition, also during the 90s, the CIA sent Plame's name and information, among other secrets, to the U.S. Interests Section of the Swiss Embassy in Havana. Cuban Intelligence read it all. So her status as a covert agent, in any reasonable definition including legal, ended in the mid-90s when she was called back to Washington by the CIA for her safety, who acknowledged that her cover had been blown. She could never be used as a covert agent again.

This will be a bitter pill for some conservatives to swallow. CIA Director Michael Hayden personally reviewed and okayed Henry Waxman's opening statement for Valerie Plame's testimony today. Furthermore, Hayden took pains to set the record straight: Plame was indeed a covert agent up until the day Robert Novak revealed as much to the public.

You see, many on the right (including some here at The Stump) have spent a lot of time trying to convince us otherwise. They never fail to use quotation marks when referring to the administration's "outing" of Plame so as to suggest that no such undercover status ever existed. While Patrick Fitzgerald may not have believed he had enough evidence to prove that a crime was committed, there was really never much doubt that Plame had covert status.

In fact, Plame's testimony proved illuminating on a number of fronts. Under oath, articulate, and forceful, she laid to waste a veritable forest of myths that the right has erected against her. No, she wasn't a mere pencil pusher, she'd undertaken undercover missions to foreign countries over the past five years. No, she hadn't been the one to select her husband to go to on his fact-finding mission to Niger. No, she didn't talk to Nicholas Kristof (or others in the media) about her job at the CIA. But most importantly, in the words of the man who now heads the CIA, she was very much a covert agent.

A Washington Post article this morning has important information about the federal prosecutors that were fired by the Bush Administration. Coincidentally, I'm sure, that issue is also going to be the subject of the first of a series of show trials conducted by Rep. Henry Waxman in the House Judiciary Committee this week. U.S. attorneys serve at the pleasure of the President, so he has the authority to replace them at will. The Democrats have been screaming that they were political firings (duh!) of a sinister nature (oooohhh!). Much has been made of several of the U.S. Attorneys running political corruption investigations. Democrats typically cite the case of fired U.S. Attorney Carol Lam of San Diego, who prosecuted Republican Duke Cunningham, and allege that the firing was payback from the administration for that indiscretion.

Rep. William Jefferson (D-LA) is the embodiment of how seriously the Democrats are in eliminating the "culture of corruption" in Washington. In short, they're not - they're only interested in cleaning the Republicans' house, not their own. Jefferson is a target of the Feds in a corruption investigation that has already seen one of his former aids, Brett M. Pfeffer, plead guilty to aiding and abetting the bribery of a public official and conspiracy (sentenced to 8 years). Another Jefferson confidante, Vernon Jackson, has also plead guilty to bribery of a public official and conspiracy to bribe a public official, receiving 7 years. In both instances the person being bribed was Congressman William Jefferson! There's alot more to this story that I'm not even going to get into ($90,000 cash found in Jefferson's freezer, for instance) - suffice to say that if you Google the Congressman you can find out all about him - and that even the Democrat-friendly mainstream media thinks that the investigation is going to end up in Jefferson's indictment and conviction.