Open Threads

Read this account of Specter doing his principled best to rally his demoralized GOP caucus behind the china syndrome at DOJ, and try not to throw up in your mouth a little.

via Steve Benen.

Arlen Specter Shows Why He Became A VerbPost + Comments (30)

Some helpful discussion points:

* Democrats are the party of crazy people like Ward Churchill and Cindy Sheehan.
* Nazis: sort of like Republicans but less evil.
* The Wire – possibly the dumbest waste of electrons since the Pets.com superbowl commercial.
* I invented COBOL and it eats whatever crappy language you’re using for lunch. In fact, why are you here? You should be debugging.
* You’re obviously suffering from some derangement syndrome.
* Your favorite sport sucks.
* It annoys me how easy it is for trolls and spoofs to draw people into stupid arguments.

Have at it.

Open ThreadPost + Comments (75)

Poor Arlen Specter. He isn’t in charge any more so his old tactic doesn’t have quite the same punch.

As it turned out, the Senate judiciary committee didn’t really want to think about the FBI, either. So the senators hijacked their own hearing and talked about the pending subpoena showdown instead. A constitutional crisis pretty much always beats whatever’s on the agenda.

Arlen Specter, R-Pa., urged Democrats to “rethink” the subpoenas they have planned for Rove and Miers. Specter had to do a little dance that demonstrates the difficulty he and other Republican senators find themselves in. On the one hand, he wants Congress—in particular judiciary committee Chairman Patrick Leahy, D-Vt.—to make a deal with White House counsel Fred Fielding, who yesterday said Rove and Miers could testify, but only in private, not under oath, and without a transcript. On the other hand, Specter said that it would be “preferable to have the matter transcribed” and that his “own preference” is for a public hearing. He also said, “It’s obviously indispensable to find the facts about whether the Department of Justice acted properly or improperly” in firing the eight U.S. attorneys who were forced to resign last year.

Specter’s best argument was the long delay he says will ensue if the Democrats reject Fielding’s offer. If the clash over whether the Bush administration can assert executive privilege to defy congressional subpoenas goes to court—where the president said yesterday he’d be happy to take it—Rove and Miers won’t be testifying about anything to anyone for quite a while. “We’ll be looking at 2009, after the end of this president’s term,” Specter foretold, reminding his colleagues of the Clinton-era fight over executive privilege that began in 1995 and ended in a 1997 court ruling. Waiting two years would be bad because the way the Department of Justice dealt with the ousted prosecutors has been “a very very serious problem,” causing “a morale problem” and raising questions about how the U.S. attorneys who have continued in office “are going to function,” which is “of the utmost importance.” Specter seems truly conflicted: He appears to agree with Democrats that the Justice Department and administration behaved outrageously, but in the end he’ll bow to the White House and vote against the subpoenas.

We already know that White House officials lie like they breathe. Part of the trouble that AG Gonzales finds himself in today comes because he and his deputies made flagrantly false statements to Congress about subjects ranging from the US Attorney matter to FBI National Security Letters. They lie to their own press secretary.It’s an ingrained aspect of who they are. The thought that they would not lie to Congress when neither an oath nor a written record exist to prosecute a lie is simply ludicrous.

With that in mind, the White House’s “offer” would give Congress zero information that any reasonable person would consider credible. Either Specter is the kind of moron who accepts an opening bid from someone whose first offer is nothing or his maverick act is just another bit of rightwing kabuki.

Spectering Like It’s <del>1999</del> 2005Post + Comments (61)

Our Irish friends missed Burns Day this year so tonight everybody has to attend their Paddy’s Day party in a kilt.

In honor of the wrong holiday, here is the poem that I read at the last Burns Day.

AE fond kiss, and then we sever;
Ae fareweel, alas, for ever!
Deep in heart-wrung tears I’ll pledge thee,
Warring sighs and groans I’ll wage thee!

Who shall say that Fortune grieves him
While the star of hope she leaves him?
Me, nae cheerfu’ twinkle lights me,
Dark despair around benights me.

I’ll ne’er blame my partial fancy;
Naething could resist my Nancy;
But to see her was to love her,
Love but her, and love for ever.

Had we never loved sae kindly,
Had we never loved sae blindly,
Never met—or never parted,
We had ne’er been broken-hearted.

Fare thee weel, thou first and fairest!
Fare thee weel, thou best and dearest!
Thine be ilka joy and treasure,
Peace, enjoyment, love, and pleasure!

Ae fond kiss, and then we sever!
Ae fareweel, alas, for ever!
Deep in heart-wrung tears I’ll pledge thee,
Warring sighs and groans I’ll wage thee!

Chat about whatever.

St. Paddy’s Day Open ThreadPost + Comments (6)

There are 10 kinds of people in the world – those who understand binary, and those who don’t.

Open ThreadPost + Comments (50)