News Of The Good

I've been slamming the President enough the past couple days, here are a few things that he's recently gotten right.

• Continuing his full restoration as an environmentalist, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar has put a stop to a Bush-era draft plan to allow offshore drilling on the Atlantic and Pacific coasts.

"To establish an orderly process that allows us to make wise decisions based on sound information, we need to set aside" the plan "and create our own timeline," Interior Secretary Ken Salazar announced in a statement.

Alleging that the Bush administration "had torpedoed" offshore renewable energy in favor of oil and natural gas, Salazar said he was extending the public comment period by 6 months.

"The additional time we are providing will give states, stakeholders, and affected communities the opportunity to provide input on the future of our offshore areas," he said.

Salazar also ordered Interior Department experts to compile a report on the Outer Continental Shelf's energy potential — not just oil and gas, but also renewables like wind and wave energy.

I mean, it's just stunning to see sound policy coming out of the federal government again, so we'd do our best to acknowledge it.

• Obama is also looking to keep Patrick Fitzgerald on as the US Attorney for Northern Illinois. This is a merit-based appointment as well as one with an eye to continuity, as Fitzgerald is currently readying his case against Rod Blagojevich. But Fitz has done an excellent job, not only on the Plame case but on cleaning up corruption in the Land of Lincoln. Good move.

• This could be the most striking - a progressive policy choice for the US drug czar.

According to both local and White House sources, President Barack Obama will nominate Seattle Police Chief Gil Kerlikowske as director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy—a cabinet-level position commonly referred to as the Drug Czar—an appointment that could signal a substantive departure from our nation’s current marijuana-focused, interdiction-heavy drug policy, and a more realistic and progressive approach toward the issue of drug abuse in general.

Within the context of career law enforcement professionals, I think it safe to label Kerlikowske a “progressive.” During his ten-years at the helm of the Seattle Police Department and his current term as president of the Major Chiefs Association, Kerlikowske has been a vocal advocate for gun control and community policing, while serving as a prominent critic of the use of intrusive data mining techniques as a tool for combating domestic terrorism. But while he hasn’t been particularly outspoken on drug control policy, Kerlikowske’s relative silence is encouraging in itself, considering the progressive mores and statutes of the city whose laws he has enforced for the past decade.

While Kerlikowske opposed a 2003 citizens initiative making marijuana in Seattle a “low priority crime,” calling the measure vague and confusing (and… well… most initiatives are), he emphasized to local reporters at the time that marijuana possession and use already was a low priority, and in fact, Seattle’s already low marijuana prosecution rate has dropped even further since the measure’s passage, indicating a responsiveness to the will of the voters.

A saner drug policy is one of those third rails of American politics that is much easier to perform through shifts of emphasis than legislation, and perhaps Kerlikowske will signal that shift.

The Good Shit

While today is in general a shitty day, it's not a total crapout. There have been a few victories of the "cleaning up Bush's mess" stripe.

First, Barack Obama signed an expansion of the State Children's Health Insurance Program, a fully paid-for bill that will cover an additional 4 million uninsured kids (11 million will be covered under the program in all). And importantly, he called it a first step to providing comprehensive health care reform.

"As I think everybody here will agree, this is only the first step," Obama said of the bill that reauthorizes the State Children's Health Insurance Program.

"Because the way I see it, providing coverage to 11 million children through CHIP is a down payment on my commitment to cover every single American," he said to applause before turning to the economic recovery bill.

"It won't be easy; it won't happen all at once," Obama said. "But this bill that I'm about to sign, that wasn't easy either."

Next, the Justice Department is righting the biggest wrong of the Monica Goodling era:

Remember Leslie Hagan, who last April was dismissed by Monica Goodling from the Justice Department's Executive Office for U.S. Attorneys because she was rumored to be gay?

Well, the Obama administration has righted that wrong, giving Hagen her job back, reports NPR, which broke the original story of her dismissal.

Hagen served as the liaison between DOJ and the U.S. Attorneys' committee on Native American affairs. In her performance evaluation, she received the highest possible ratings -- "outstanding" -- in each of five categories.

But Goodling, a Christian fundamentalist, heard a rumor that Hagen was gay. So it was curtains for her.

That's just the right thing to do as a matter of human decency. And the thing is, Hagen won the job on the merits, as part of a nationwide search and after several interviews. It's good to see "on the merits" in reference to a political job again.

Finally, Ken Salazar, showing an unusual partisan edge, is reversing oil and gas leases on federal land in Utah:

Interior Secretary Ken Salazar is canceling oil and gas leases on 77 parcels of federal land in Utah, according to sources familiar with the decision, ending a fierce battle over whether to allow energy exploration in the environmentally sensitive area.

The Bush administration conducted the lease sale in December, but environmental groups went to court to block the winning bids encompassing roughly 110,000 acres near pristine areas such as Nine Mile Canyon, Arches National Park and Dinosaur National Monument [...]

An Interior spokesman declined to comment on the matter, but several sources familiar with the decision said Salazar planned to announce it today, adding that he can reject the winning bids without a penalty because the transactions had not become final and the department has the discretion to accept or reject lease bids that prevail at a public auction.

This was the auction that environmentalist Tim DeChristopher tried to scuttle by buying up millions of dollars' worth of land without the ability to pay for it. Now he won't need to - Salazar cancelled the leases.

These are all all great accomplishments, but they are all backward-looking, fixing mistakes or realizing long-held goals. The forward-looking stuff is finding a much bumpier road.

Forgive Me My "Change We Can Believe In" Gush

I think I've been critical of the Obama Administration where necessary, but on many fronts, they are pleasantly surprising, in particular with cabinet appointments I thought were middling at best. For example, Ken Salazar, who was pretty milquetoast as a Colorado Senator, is burning down the Interior Department, figuratively speaking, as its Secretary.

Interior Secretary Ken Salazar said Tuesday that he was reconsidering a series of controversial energy and environmental decisions handed down in the waning days of the Bush administration, including a move to open federal land near national parks to oil and natural gas drilling.

Opening parts of the Mountain West to oil shale development -- a sensitive issue because of the huge quantities of water required to extract oil from the rock -- will also be reviewed, he said in his first formal news interview since wining Senate confirmation last week.

"I'm very concerned about a number of the midnight actions that were taken by the Bush administration," Salazar said. "We barely have moved in, but we already know enough to know there are many issues we need to revisit." [...]

He stressed the importance of science in agency decision-making, particularly in regard to endangered species. Late last year, the Bush administration said federal agencies would not be compelled to consult biologists about whether government projects such as new roads or dams would harm endangered wildlife or plants.

Salazar said he would reconsider that rule and would work to enhance Endangered Species Act protections for streams and habitat. "At the end of the day, it should be the scientific foundation that drives the decisions," he said.

Calling climate change "one of the signature issues of our time," he also said he was revisiting a Bush administration decision to exclude global warming considerations when acting to protect endangered species such as the polar bear, which is declining in part because of the shrinking polar ice.

In particular the oil shale development is intriguing, because Salazar didn't seem much opposed to that in the Senate. He also outlined stringent ethics standards, which makes sense considering that the Minerals Management Service was a hooker and blow ring, for all intents and purposes, during the Bush regime.

Over at the USDA, Tom Vilsack, who was looked at warily by food policy reformers, is getting decent marks for his work in the first week.

I liked the title of this article without even reading it: Vilsack Reverses Bush Administration Actions. First, he reinstated $3 million in funding for the Specialty Crop Block Grant Program (a program promoting fruits and vegetables) that the Bushies had cut. Second, he extended a comment period on a rule limiting crop subsidy payments by 60 days. (The specific name of the rule is 2008 Farm Bill Farm Program Payment Limitation and Payment Eligibility).

More goodies could be found in a USDA press release. That said Vilsack stated priorities as including:

* Combatting childhood obesity and promoting health and nutrition
* R&D for biofuels, wind, and other renewable energy
* The environment: Making progress on major environmental challenges, including climate change. Vilsack said it's important that farmers and ranchers play a role with USDA in efforts to promote incentives for management practices that provide clean air, clean water, and wildlife habitat, and help farmers participate in markets that reward them for sequestering carbon and limiting greenhouse gas emissions.
* Providing a safety net to farmers and ranchers - "including independent producers and local and organic agriculture."
* Enforcing the Packers and Stockyards Act!!!!!
* Quickly implementing the 2008 Farm Bill
* "Modernizing the food safety system"
* Food aid overseas
* The Forest Service: Restoring the mission of the Forest Service as a protector of clean air, clean water, and wildlife habitat; a provider of recreation opportunities; a key player in reducing greenhouse gas emissions and carbon sequestration.

If he can win over the reformers, he's got my blessing.

Finally, I don't have anything on HUD Secretary Shaun Donovan yet, but the Federal Reserve is promising to write down bad mortgages to limit foreclosures.

The Federal Reserve on Tuesday took a step toward easing mortgage foreclosures threatening millions of Americans, announcing that it would write down troubled mortgages to keep people in their homes.

Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke said the initiative would specifically include $74 billion of assets held in connection with the bailout last year of Bear Stearns and American International Group.

"The goal of the policy is to avoid preventable foreclosures on residential mortgage assets that are held, owned or controlled by a Federal Reserve Bank," he said in a letter to Rep. Barney Frank, chairman of the House of Representatives financial services committee.

Combine that with the assurances on foreclosure work-outs in TARP II and cram-down making its way through a House panel and there are legitimate efforts to keep people in their homes, which is quite a change.

OK, back to being crabby now that I got that out... :)

Drilled Baby Drilled

You know, the people who said that President Obama said what he had to say during the campaign, feinting to the center and then moving left once in power, is massing a good amount of evidence.

U.S. President Barack Obama may order a hold on a proposal issued in the final days of the Bush administration to expand offshore drilling in previously banned areas, an Interior Department official told Reuters on Wednesday.

Shortly after being sworn in on Tuesday, Obama ordered all federal agencies and departments to halt pending regulations until they can be reviewed by incoming staff.

An Interior official said the department is waiting for clarification from the White House on whether a proposed draft of a five-year plan to lease areas in the Atlantic and Pacific waters for oil and natural gas drilling can go forward.

I think Interior Department Secretary Ken Salazar has argued against oil shale exploration in the interior West in the past.

Now, Obama may not be able politically to reinstate the ban, but he could functionally reinstate it through denying expansion proposals. And considering that miniscule amount of oil available in the US, this won't affect supply and is not worth destroying environmental balance in the process.

Senator Bennet

Some states have significantly less drama around their Senate appointments than, say, Illinois. Take Colorado, where Governor Bill Ritter has engaged in a low-key search to replace incoming Interior Secretary Ken Salazar. The Rocky Mountain News is reporting that Michael Bennet will get the job.

Denver Public Schools superintendent Michael Bennet is expected to be named Saturday as the future U.S. Senate replacement for Interior Secretary nominee Ken Salazar, according to two Democratic sources who spoke on the condition of anonymity.

Bennet was a reformer superintendent in the Joel Klein mold, who instituted a pay-for-performance plan on the city's schools and got the teachers to agree to it. The plan raised starting salaries for teachers and provided bonuses for student achievement. This does move the balance of power in the internal debate between reformers and teacher advocates in the Democratic Party. At one point he was considered a leading candidate for President-elect Obama's education secretary. He was also Denver Mayor John Hickenlooper's chief of staff at one point.

Bennet was very close to being an Obama cabinet member, so one presumes his voting record would line up pretty well with the President-elect. Of course, Ken Salazar IS an Obama cabinet member, so it's unclear whether or not this is an improvement. One worry is that he's fairly unknown outside of Denver and may have trouble in a statewide race in 2010. Two years of incumbency should help that, however.

And of course, this is the complete wrong way to handle a Senate vacancy, which should clearly be done by special election, allowing the people to determine their own representation.

...I'm assuming that the Senate sergeant-at-arms will bar the door and refuse Bennet entry into the Senate chamber, as per current practice.

The Energy Team

We knew who were on President-elect Obama's energy and environment team, but he officially announced them yesterday. It's an impressive group.

CHICAGO – Today, President-elect Barack Obama announced key members of his energy and environment team, including Dr. Steven Chu, Secretary of Energy; Lisa Jackson, Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator; Nancy Sutley, Chair of the White House Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ); Carol Browner, Assistant to the President for Energy and Climate Change; and Heather Zichal, Deputy Assistant to the President for Energy and Climate Change.

Nancy Sutley is a deputy mayor here in Los Angeles and the first openly gay member of the Administration. Dr. Chu is a Nobel Prize winner and a physicist at the Lawrence Berkeley National Lab. Browner was a longtime EPA Administrator in the Clinton White House. Jackson was environmental secretary and chief of staff to New Jersey Governor Jon Corzine. They are all people who believe global warming exists, who believe we must do all we can to mitigate it and protect the planet, and who view the energy challenge as key to our economic growth.

Which is why I think this New York Times story is so off the mark. It's not that the recession precludes progress on energy; it DEMANDS that progress. Creating a green energy future and promoting efficiency has the potential to create millions of jobs that can't be outsourced. Government must spend to bring the economy into recovery, and there are literally thousands of green projects, from weatherizing homes to building a smart energy grid to high speed rail, that fit the bill. The energy and environmental agenda and the economic agenda are inextricably linked.

One final member of the energy team was chosen yesterday. Sen. Ken Salazar will become the Secretary of the Interior. I don't think he'll do much harm in that position, though he was an annoying moderate squish of a Senator. If Colorado Governor Bill Ritter chooses wisely, this could move the Senate appreciably to the left. Salazar will have plenty of work to do rooting out politicization in the department that led to the squashing of sound science.

On this everyone is united. As Obama said yesterday, "My administration will value science. We will make decisions based on facts, and we understand that the facts demand bold action."

No Timeline, No Funding.

Harry Reid is saying all the right things. The question is whether the caucus will sustain it.

After weeks of suggesting Democrats would temper their approach to Iraq legislation in a bid to attract more Republicans, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid declared abruptly Tuesday that he had no plans to do so.

The Democratic leader said he will call for a vote this month on several anti-war proposals, including one by Sen. Carl Levin that would insist President Bush end U.S. combat next summer. The proposals would be mandatory and not leave Bush wiggle room, said Reid, D-Nev.

"There (are) no goals. It's all definite timelines," he told reporters of the planned legislation [...]

When asked why Democrats won't soften the deadline, the majority leader said he doesn't have confidence Republicans are willing to challenge Bush on the war.

"I think they've decided definitely they want this to be the Senate Republicans' war, not just Bush's. They're jealous," he said with a smile.

As long as he only allows bills to come to the floor with a timeline, there will be no blank check for Iraq. This is a big victory, and I think Sen. Dodd and Sen. Obama had a lot to do with it by throwing their hats into the ring with Edwards and Richardson. Ken Salazar having soldiers telling him to cut off war funding couldn't have hurt, either.

There's a bit of a blogospheric debate about the Congressional politics of Iraq, with some arguing that the Democrats have no reason to end the occupation because then they'd lose the political upside of having Iraq as an issue in the 2008 elections. My take is that you can only go to the voters with that ONCE. After winning in 2006 with a "we'll end the war" messge, it's hard for me to believe that the electorate would fall for that AGAIN in 2008. Politically, the BEST THING the Democrats can do is to hold firm on not accepting any funding without a timeline. It shows toughness and it puts them squarely on the side of the public.

Now this should not be confused with the idea that we'll be in Iraq forever because of the principle of constant interventionism, which is more of a problem with our foreign policy elites. But politically, Reid and the Democrats have little choice. Hopefully they'll keep it strong.

Warner Watch

One thing I didn't notice before: John Warner voted for Sen. Webb's readiness bill. At one level, this may be just comity with a fellow Virginian's bill. But at another level, this could be a significant crack in the armor. If nothing major is done this time around, obviously these kinds of bills and ideas will be coming back around in September. Sen. Warner, who I always considered the key Senator in the GOP on these issues, has now stated his willingness to vote for - not just talk about - meaningful policy around Iraq. This certainly puts him in a better class than Sens. Lugar and Voinovich and Domenici, who are all talk. Or maybe they're waiting to vote for that supa-awsom "Pretend To Adopt The Pretend Hard Deadlines of the Iraq Study Group" bill and nothing else.

Warner was extremely quiet about this vote, so any Republican looking for political cover wouldn't have known that they could hide behind his vote. He just went out and did it. Didn't make a big speech or a conference call to reporters. Just voted to support the troops. Which is exactly what this quite narrow bill was. To hear it from Sen. Webb:

A clear majority of the Senate—56 Members – sent a strong message today in favor of ensuring responsible deployment cycles for our men and women serving in Iraq and Afghanistan. I regret that we did not reach the 60-vote margin that would have allowed this amendment to prevail. It was offered in the spirit of bipartisanship. It was offered with the intention of protecting the well-being of our troops.

“A Republican filibuster kept this amendment from passing by an up-or-down vote. Americans are tired of this kind of posturing. The troops and their families don’t want to hear about political, procedural maneuvers. What they really care about are results. They are looking for concrete actions that will protect the well-being of our men and women in uniform.

“The question on this amendment is not whether you support this war or whether you do not. It is not whether you want to wait until July or September to see where one particular set of bench marks or summaries might be taking us. The question is this: more than four years into ground operations in Iraq, we owe stability, and a reasonable cycle of deployment, to the men and women who are carrying our nation’s burden. That is the question. And that was the purpose of this amendment.”

The admakers are going to have a field day damning those who voted against this (Sen. Cornyn, I'm looking at you). John Warner's up this cycle and he maybe doesn't want the popular Webb campaigning against him and maybe that's all this is about. But at some point, Warner will have to go public. He did so today, in a small way.

P.S. My prediction is still that this Pretend to Adopt the ISG Report amendment from Ken Salazar and Pete Domenici will end up passing, even though, if the President were to take the unusual step of actually listening to Congress and following through on the amendment's goals, would be the worst possible situation.

Many would like to reduce the U.S. commitment to something like half of today's troop presence there. But it is much harder to find a mission for the remaining 60,000 to 80,000 soldiers that makes any sense militarily....

The more we shift out of combat missions and into training, the harder we make the trainers' job and the more exposed they become. It is unrealistic to expect that we can pull back to some safe yet productive mission of training but not fighting -- this would be neither safe nor productive.

If the surge is unacceptable, the better option is to cut our losses and withdraw altogether. In fact, the substantive case for either extreme -- surge or outright withdrawal -- is stronger than for any policy between. The surge is a long-shot gamble. But middle-ground options leave us with the worst of both worlds: continuing casualties but even less chance of stability in exchange. Moderation and centrism are normally the right instincts in American politics, and many lawmakers in both parties desperately want to find a workable middle ground on Iraq. But while the politics are right, the military logic is not.

David Broder just threw up in his mouth.

Panic! at the Disco.

The White House is worried about the shifting on Capitol Hill around the Iraq debate. Repeat, they're not worried about the SAFETY AND WELL-BEING OF THE TROOPS IN THE FIELD OR OUR NATIONAL SECURITY, they're worried that Congress might come and take their war away.

What the White House ought to be worried about is the fact that the Iraqi government has not hit one critical target that the Congress set up as benchmarks for progress toward a political solution. Zero. Zilch.

(By the way, though there's a lot to be said about the capitulation in May by the Democrats, and I've said a lot, one thing they were able to extract is a mandate for progress reports. The first one has revealed this total lack of benchmark progress, and it comes precisely at the time when the defense budget is up for debate. To the extent that it may accelerate the end of the war, good show.)

What the White House out to be worried about is the 140,000 Turkish troops amassed at the Iraqi border, a potential crisis that they've done absolutely nothing to stop or even slow down.

What the White House ought to be worried about is the 12 billion dollars a month that this country is spending on wars that are not making any significant progress, and are in fact backsliding into catastrophe. You can bet that the Democratic Congress is worried about that.

What the White House probably does not have to worry about is the behavior of Senate Republicans, who will huff and puff in public but in the end never commit to one amendment that sides with the Defeatocrats.

With the Senate taking up the Defense Department authorization bill during the next two weeks, Senate Republican Conference Chairman Jon Kyl (Ariz.) said Monday that recent GOP statements urging Bush to change his war strategy likely would not translate into many votes for Democratic proposals to redeploy or withdraw troops from Iraq by early next year. Kyl added that most Republican Senators believe September remains the appropriate time to judge the success of the U.S. efforts to stabilize Iraq.

"We are quite unified as a Conference on most of the amendments and the big issues," Kyl said. "Some in the Republican Conference might join some of the Democrat amendments, but, by and large, our approach will be consistent with the administration."

Kyl could be wrong, but I don't think he is. If I had to guess, I'd gather that the Salazar-Domenici "pretend to adopt the pretend Iraq Study Group recommendations" will pass, and the President will make a big show out of saying "We always embraced the Iraq Study Group report," and they'll set a vision for withdrawal if they hit a triple bank shot and everything goes just perfectly (because everything ALWAYS goes perfectly in Iraq), and of course it'll be bullshit and a complete rejection of earlier rhetoric and that will generate fearsome Think Progress blog posts, but beyond that nobody will really care, and the punditocracy will call it a great triumph for sensible centrism, the Republican kind, and nobody will bother to point out that the Salazar-Domenici bill is nonbinding and has no force of law, and in the Office of the Vice President, Fourthbranch and his staff will be high-fiving each other and getting out the maps for Tehran.

Harry Reid, prove me wrong.

The War At Home On Iraq Policy Begins

Today Democrats in the Senate got down to work, with the unassailable Jim Webb in the forefront:

“Now in the fifth year of ground operations in Iraq, this deck of cards has come crashing down, and it’s landing heavily on the backs of soldiers and Marines who have been deployed again and again while the rest of the country sits back and debates Iraq as an intellectual or emotional exercise,” Webb said. “We’ve reached the point where we can no longer allow the ever-changing nature of this Administration’s operational policies to drive the way our troops are being deployed. In fact, the reverse is true. The availability of our troops should be the main determinant of how ground operations should be conducted.”

This is a rerun of Jack Murtha's "readiness strategy," which would have worked if House Democrats were committed to it. And it's only one of a series of proposals which will be attached to the defense authorization bill. There will also be a return of the Feingold-Reid legislation to cut off funding after a date certain, Levin-Reed to set a withdrawal date, a de-authorization of the resolution for war submitted by Hillary Clinton, and the Salazar-Domenici "Let's pretend we're doing something" bill, which unsurprisingly has the greatest chance of full passage:

How It Would Work: Sens. Ken Salazar and Domenici put together a bill that would commit the Bush administration to implementing the recommendations of last year's bipartisan Iraq commission led by James Baker and Lee Hamilton. Though the commission had over 70 points of advice, functionally, the strategy set by the commission looks somewhat similar to Levin-Reed. While it wouldn't call for a troop pullout after April 1, 2008, the commission did recommend that the U.S. end its combat mission by then, leaving U.S. troops to train Iraqi security forces, fight al-Qaeda and protect themselves.

Likelihood of Passage: If it gets into the bill, its chances look very good. The Salazar-Domenici plan is the only truly bipartisan potential amendment. It is the plan most likely to attract Republican votes, since it doesn't embrace withdrawal. And as Bush has pivoted lately to embracing the Iraq Study Group after initially scorning it, the White House will find Salazar-Domenici the most palatable measure on offer in the senate.

Political Purpose: An acrimony-free bipartisan abandonment of the war without an abandonment of the U.S. commitment to Iraq. Quite possibly the best option for the GOP to argue that it's winding down the war without repudiating it, because it would allow GOP senators to back away from combat operations in Iraq without committing themselves to withdrawal. While Democrats wouldn't get withdrawal from Salazar-Domenici, they would be able to claim that they successfully won over many Republicans -- perhaps leading to a bipartisan withdrawal bill during the next legislative fight.

I highly recommend Spencer Ackerman's rundown of the legislative options.

In addition, Americans Against Escalation in Iraq is moving swiftly to make this summer hell for wayward Republicans and to move the nation on a course to ending our involvement in this occupation. It's a coalition of some of the strongest organizations in the progressive movement. It's already impacting things in Kentucky.

The public is unwilling to let the Congress off the hook for this for much longer. Republicans clearly sense that the walls are caving in. The goals for anyone who wants to end the war is to get out the messaging on that sham Salazar bill. Because that'll be the safety valve where Republicans will flow. If that's not seen as good enough, the pressure can be racheted up (or maybe as a prelude for the next fight, although my sense is that nobody in the public wants a next fight).

Meanwhile, we have an embassy where people are getting sick from the formaldehyde smell that is a symtpom of the construction problems there. Just thought you'd like to know. Oh, and this guy warns of great chaos if we leave Iraq. Chaos like the stuff that happened this weekend, I guess:

Mr. Zebari was speaking after a violent weekend in which more than 220 people were killed in Iraq, including 150 by a truck bomb in one of the deadliest single attacks since the American invasion in March 2003 [...]

Mr. Zebari’s comments came after some Sunni and Shiite leaders called on Iraqi civilians to take up arms to defend themselves, amid frustration that Iraqi security forces had failed to halt the deadly suicide attacks.

Good thing it's not so CHAOTIC now.

Sen. Domenici, If We Could Have A Word

The Senate Ethics Committee practically doesn't even exist, but what Sen. Domenici did to David Iglesias was so egregious that even this all-but-defunct body is opening an investigation:

The Senate, thanks a resolution it just adopted, has confirmed that Sen. Pete Domenici (R-N.M.) is the subject of "preliminary inquiry" over his involvement in the firing of former U.S. Attorney David Iglesias.

The Senate just adopted a resolution (S. Res. 153) stating that "for matters before the Select Committee on Ethics involving the preliminary inquiry arising in connection with alleged communications by persons within the committee's jurisdiction with and concerning David C. Iglesias, then United States Attorney for the District of New Mexico, and the subsequent action by the committee with respect to that matter, if any, the Senator from Colorado (Mr. Salazar) shall be replaced by the Senator from Ohio (Mr. Brown)."

Salazar is personal friends with Patricia Madrid, who was running for the seat occupied by Rep. Heather Wilson that Domenici attempted to insert himself into by calling Iglesias and pressuring him to bring about Democratic indictments. So that's why he recused himself. Which is a heck of a lot more honorable than what Domenici appears to have done. We'll see what happens here.

Indeed, the Judiciary Committees are moving on a number of fronts with regard to USA-gate. The Justice Department failed to comply with a subpoena from the House for various documents, so now John Conyers is considering legal options. Conyers is also warning the RNC not to let the White House review emails the committee has requested related to the case. And COnyers wants to speak with a variety of sitting USAs, including the infamous Rachel Paulose and Mary Beth Buchanan, USA for Pittsburgh, who may be more deeply involved in the case than anyone suspected:

The Justice Department consulted with U.S. Attorney Mary Beth Buchanan in Pittsburgh when it was drawing up a list of prosecutors to be fired, a former top aide to the attorney general told investigators, and now a House committee wants to interview her.

Attorney General Alberto Gonzales' former chief of staff, Kyle Sampson, told Senate investigators Sunday that Buchanan was one of the senior officials he consulted about which U.S. attorneys should be asked to resign, according to a Senate Judiciary Committee aide who read a transcript of the interview. The aide requested anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue.

At the time she was consulted, Buchanan was also serving as director of an office that provides administrative support to U.S. attorneys -- a job she had from June 2004 until June 2005.

Buchanan is already under suspicion for prosecuting an inordinate amount of Democrats in her jurisdiction.

There are a lot of phones ringing off a lot of hooks in Republican law firms tonight.