I am not sure why our guys are even bothering to go to the White House to talk to Bush.  He does not bother himself with the details of governance - ever.  Didn't do it in Texas, won't do it now.  He truly is the figurehead dick you think he is.  He is not "The Decider" in any real sense.  

So, there is no reason to expect even the slightest hint of compromise if Bush is who our people are talking to.

Had they said that there was a meeting with WH staffers WITHOUT Bush in the room, then maybe...but then again, that is just not how they operate.

Re-vote and re-submit the same bill over and over again and again until he  

Idea to have a little fun at W's expense tomorrow.  

Wed.  11 a.m. at the Omni Shoreham Hotel, Washington DC

2500 Calvert Street NW (at Connecticut Ave.), Washington, District of Columbia 20008

According to the Washington Post (see link below), Mr. Bush will appear before the Council on Foreign Relations (truly an esteemed group of scholars who put out a great quarterly report on the world).  W will speak for 50 minutes.  

Here's the catch - nobody on the council, some of the best minds we got on foreign policy, are not allowed to ask questions.  There is no excuse for the CFR to consent to be used like this without getting their licks in - positive constructive licks that need to be aired.  

Suggestion - if anybody is in the protesting spirit, show up with a placard that simply has a "?" on it or "Questions?".

It is not often that I feel I can come even close to speaking for a small part of the Kos community, but I think I can speak for a lot of people in saying that you will appreciate this fun little site gag at W's expense.  

In light of the recent free fall in the polls

(with apologies to those who have already seen this one):

http://www.planetdan.net/pics/misc/georgie.htm

Please forgive the presumptiveness of this peace, but let me run something by everybody.

Some folks believe in God, and many, like me, frequent this site.  Fine.  

But what about those people who really, really have gotten so wrapped up their faith - the ones that really have set themselves up for a huge, hard fall when they start to realize the George W Bush is indeed a big phony, and that the Christian Right (TM) is a corrupt power-brokering outfit and not the divine voice as advertised?  

Some will see an opportunity to "bring them to our side" and I am all for bringing people to the light, but much worse than that is the prospect of small personal disasters everywhere - I just had a conversation with a friend who wants to drive 3 hours just to hear somebody over the top "Christian" money-maker speak because she is desperate for some kind of guidance.  She practically fell apart on me during the conversation.  

Alright Everyone.  While it is fun to tease Miers apparent self destruction, there is a real opportunity to expose yet more Bush corrupt cronyism (as opposed to the blind faith groupie cronyism which everyone is putting on Miers at the moment).  

Josh Marshall dug up something on October 6 about Miers and her role as the Texas Lottery Commissioner and multi-million dollar contracts passed around.  Bush appointed her for the job and somebody got a contract.  Anybody suspicious yet?

And guess what - we can even bring in old friend Ben Barnes and the Air National Guard story (the story that won't die and should have sunk Bush a long time ago).  

But before we get carried away, check this out for that part of the story:

http://loadedmouth.com/node/2155

This is grim, Everyone, but cannot be overlooked or brushed aside.  

The death toll in New Orleans broke 1,000 today, according to the New Orleans Times-Picayune

(I cannot recreate the headline, so here is the site with a map to all major newspaper headlines.  Simply go to the map and click on New Orleans - an image of the front page will appear).  

http://www.newseum.org/todaysfrontpages/flash/

Lord, have mercy on their souls - and ours.  

I probably ought to start with an "I love Everybody" so as not to tick off too many people, but I wanted to respond to DC 20005s recommended post on Homosexuality.  

In the larger sense, I want to not only respond to it but make the following point:

The Republicans are coming apart at the seams...yet many factions of this site are nitpicking at each other.  We need to attack these guys with as unified of a front as we possibly can.  

The gay issue and how we ALL choose to deal with it has been something of a divisive issue.  I don't have the power to "solve it" or get many thousands of people to agree, but I do want to put some thoughts on the subject out there.   Please consider:  

I apologize for being sentimental, but listen to this song and it is hard for it not to really hit you.  There is a lot in here as to who we are, which makes you realize how little we will be if we let New Orleans simply disappear.

Everybody needs to keep up the good work, keep the good deeds flowing, keep the pressure and keep the spirits up.

Do yourself a favor and read the lyrics.  

The City of New Orleans is a good thing.  

Yeah, Bush is beyond the pale, but that does not help right now.

Right now there are people in need and who will continue to be in need.  

I am going to make an amateur attempt to tap into the demonstrated power of this blog and try to prioritize both needs and voluteer opportunities.  Please feel free to comment and correct as you see fit, but keep the Bush slamming to a minimum - nobody here argues with that.  

(I hope it is ok that I do this, Kos).  

We all heard how the GOP braintrust behind Schmidt in Ohio tried to diminish Hackett as a "staff puke" (I won't even bother with the irony of Rush Limbaugh towing that line - it is no longer funny).  The cynical implication being that unless Hackett was knee deep in gore, he is a wimp.  This after they also tried to call him a liar because some other guy flew a plane in the no-fly zone and didn't publicize it.  

What the GOP effectively was saying was that the staff support in Iraq is of no value.  OUR STAFF SUPPORT SOLDIERS IN IRAQ HAVE NO VALUE.  

Think about that for a moment.   The GOP diminished military service.  We cannot let that go.  Consider:

1.  Everybody in Iraq is in danger;  
   
2.  Everybody there is sacrificing;
   
3.  Our Army is only as good as its support staff.    
   
4.  That support has been corrupted by contractors resulting in ill-equipped soldiers.  

Further analysis after the jump.  

With all due deference for Bill in Portland who included this link in his highly, highly entertaining andd informative Cheers & Jeers...

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2005/7/20/85619/4790

which was borrowed from Think Progress...who took it from the Missouri Freedom of Info Center:

This speech deserved its own diary with the hopes that more people will go directly to it.  

http://thinkprogress.org/2005/07/19/president-reagan-on-leakers/

From Reagan's speech in 1982 celibrating the signing of the Intelligence Identities Protection Act of 1982:

For those of you feeling nostalgic about Watergate in light of the Plame Affair, let me take you back to November 1973 and refer you to Watergate Special Prosecutor II Leon Jaworski's book "The Right and the Power".

As you will see, a WH under pressure will come up with some silly explanations when they are trying to hide something.  

Setting the stage:  Archibald Cox, assigned as Special Prosecutor through the Executive Branch, had been fired for requesting the White House for Nixon's tapes.  Nixon felt that Cox had overstepped his bounds in asking for White House tapes. Cox asserted that he had made an agreement with then AG Elliott Richardson that the tapes were fair game as perjury from WH witnesses was necessitating the examination of the tapes.  

Alright, so the freepers have their talking points, fine.  We can play that game, too, and with fewer linguistic gymnastics as the facts clearly seem to be on our side here.  

My suggestion is to get the concept of an indictment of Rove in people's heads, and do so in an easy to digest way.  

3 questions:

What is the grand jury doing?
What does Fitzgerald now need to indict Karl Rove?
What does an indictment of Rove mean?    

(I don't mean to be lazy, but there are just better qualified people at this site to fill in the blanks.  I know that there have been recent posts on this - I was hoping to put together a short, concise, Harry Reid-esque piece that can be put out there in the public discourse fairly easily).  

Have at it.  

Thanks.  

This is too good not to draw attention to.

From Tom Tomorrow picking up on a John Gibson comment to Bob Beckel about the Plame affair:

http://www.thismodernworld.com/

"Were you ever in any of those receiving lines where Joe Wilson brought his CIA operative wife out into public view in front of cameras to meet the president and such? If he brings her out in public to be photographed by tv, hasn't he outed her?"

Tom gets a few good licks in on this one.  Check it out.  

Yes, yes, I know it is a violation of the diary rules, but it is such a great catchphrase and applicable to the moment.  I want to see it stick.  

Andyes, Tom deLay is off the hook...for the moment...and Duke...and Abrimoff...and Rumsfeld...and Jeff Gannon...and Ohio...

And will at least one WH reporter ask Scottie to explain how leaking Plames name might in theory help capture Osama Bin Laden.  

Please, please, please, God - let the White House press bunch long for a feeding frenzy.  They have wandered through the desert for 5 years without one.  

There was a previous diary by Bibble over the weekend and he/she does a remarkable job in outlining the depths of Karl's horrific nature. Forgive me for breaking the rules, but it really is a good piece and worth keeping in view for everybody to commit all of the facts to memory.

Bibble Diary on Rove

Other sources available listed below, BUT...a word of caution as well as a plea - for too long the press has been much too timid with the guy, even those who cannot stand the man.  

For the love of God, REMEMBER ONE THING - if you say "Karl Rove is powerful" without having the courage or taking the time to point out that he has obtained his position of power through illegitimate means throughout his career...you have effectively legitimized every nasty thing he has ever done to get where he is.  He has in effect won the game.    

Let's stop doing that.  Take the ball from the Plame story and do not stop there.  

You guys may have already put this together, but look more closely at
Ted Boutrous:
 
It  is interesting that Bush's former solicitor general, his
controversial judicial nominee and lawyer for Matt Cooper all worked at
the same firm.  In a previous draft of this post, others have weighed in on the comments below asking "so what", as Boutrous is not necessarily in cahoots with the WH just because he worked at the same firm, and they are right to say so without more evidence. Still, an interesting possible consequence of this
relationship could be that anything that happens to Cooper could have White House
influence. It is perhaps best not to speculate beyond that without evidence, but it does make me wonder, given the history of this administration to not play by the rules.

Would it surprise anyone if the military quietly lowered their recruitment goals this month, and lo and behold, in the wake of the W Dipshit speech, those deflated goals are met which naturally means that our great leader really does have a great touch with the people and can rally us to victory.

Maybe not.  

Sorry everyone - too much Scotch tonight.