First Door on the Left

George fought the right and the right won.

Miers Withdraws Under Mounting Criticism

WASHINGTON (AP) – Under withering attack from conservatives, President Bush abandoned his push to put loyalist Harriet Miers on the Supreme Court and promised a quick replacement Thursday. Democrats accused him of bowing to the “radical right wing of the Republican Party.”

The White House said Miers had withdrawn because of senators’ demands to see internal documents related to her role as counsel to the president. But politics played a larger role: Bush’s conservative backers had doubts about her ideological purity, and Democrats had little incentive to help the nominee or the embattled GOP president.

“Let’s move on,” said Republican Sen. Trent Lott of Mississippi. “In a month, who will remember the name Harriet Miers?”

The Houston Chronicle:

Public officials such as Sen. Hutchison do not enhance their stature when they seem to support one standard of justice for officials of the opposing party and another for their own. What was good for the Democratic goose in the Clinton impeachment trial should be good enough for the Republican gander in the Plame investigation.

Amen.

The right-wing blogosphere (most especially Ann-Coulter-wannabe Michelle Malkin) is all up in arms today (so what else is new?) over these two photos of Condi Rice…

The one on the left was published with an article in USA Today. The one on the right is the original.

They are saying the picture on the left, published by USA Today, was “doctored.”

D’oh!

I believe that is quite plain for all to see. I don’t believe that even a Republican would believe her eyes really look like that. (Though I fail to see how she looks less scary in the photo on the right than she does in the photo on the left.)

Just another example of the “liberal media” picking on those poor defenseless Republicans… or…

Happy Halloween!

Update: The squeaky wheel gets the oil. (Too funny.)

As we prepare for the possible indictment of several senior administration officials possibly as early as tomorrow, this somehow seemed appropriate…

According to a CNN/USA Today/Gallup Poll released today, George W. Bush would lose to the Democrat if the election were held today.

Polls are fun. They’ve all been lots of fun lately, what with Mr. Bush polling in the 30s and 40s. I’ve even posted a few of them. I don’t know how much faith I really have in them, however.

Go back to November 2, 2004 (if you have the stomach for it). Note the entry posted at 16:47 on that date (it will be second from the top). I more or less lost my faith in polls on that awful, awful day.

George will be delivering two more speeches on Iraq this week…

The White House strategy will unfold over the next several days, starting with yesterday’s announcement of a new Federal Reserve Board chairman and continuing today with a presidential speech on Iraq at Bolling Air Force Base. Anticipating a barrage of criticism when the death toll hits 2,000, Bush will try to put the sacrifice in perspective by portraying the Iraq war as the best way to keep terrorists from striking the United States again, the official said. He will make the same case in another speech Friday in Norfolk.

You really have to give him credit… he does have a stubborn streak. He simply refuses to learn.

Majority of Americans Say Military Action in Iraq Was Wrong, Poll Finds

A new Harris Interactive poll shows American sentiment about the situation in Iraq remains generally gloomy, with fewer than a quarter of Americans saying they are confident U.S. policies in Iraq will be successful.

For the first time, a majority of Americans (53%) feels that military action in Iraq was the wrong thing to do, according to the survey of 1,833 U.S. adults, compared with 34% who feel it was right.

At the same time, 66% of U.S. adults now say President Bush is doing a “poor” or “only fair” job of handling Iraq, while 32% say he is doing an “excellent” or “pretty good” job. That’s little change from a September Harris poll that found 65% rated Mr. Bush negatively and 34% rated him positively.

Sixty-one percent of Americans say they aren’t confident U.S. policies in Iraq will be successful, slightly higher than 59% who lacked confidence in September. Additionally, only 19% of Americans surveyed believe the situation for U.S. troops in Iraq is improving, while 44% believe it is getting worse.

Also from Reuters:

Record debt is washing over the Treasury Department, recently breaching the $8 trillion mark in money owed to foreign governments, private investors and the Social Security retirement fund used to finance deficit-spending.

Republicans, who also control the White House, have now presided over an increase in $2 trillion to the national debt over four years or so, despite contending that they are the only U.S. political party that practices fiscal discipline.

Eight years of Democrat Bill Clinton’s presidency resulted in around $1.6 trillion being added to the U.S. debt, but with the possibility of paying it all off by 2015.

As I was perusing the day’s news I happened upon this Reuters article which claims that George W. Bush is taking the investigation into the leaking of Valerie Plame’s identity very seriously.

I noticed the pictures that accompanied the article and something about two of them caught my eye. First, take note of the relative positions of Bush and Michael Chertoff in this first photograph…

Now, notice Karl Rove’s position relative to that of Mr. Chertoff. Recall from the first photo who is sitting just to Chertoff’s right, which would seem to make him the target of Mr. Rove’s gaze.

Look at Mr. Rove’s facial expression and the look in his eyes. That is definitely not a look of admiration. It’s more an expression of “I’d kill you if I had the chance.”

Just an observation (aside from Mr. Rove’s apparent inability to dress himself).

Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison (Republican – Texas) on February 12, 1999:

The edifice of American jurisprudence rests on the foundation of the due process of law. The mortar in that foundation is the oath. Those who seek to obstruct justice weaken that foundation, and those who violate the oath would tear the whole structure down.

Every day, thousands of citizens in thousands of courtrooms across America are sworn in as jurors, as grand jurors, as witnesses, as defendants. On those oaths rest the due process of law upon which all of our other rights are based.

The oath is how we defend ourselves against those who would subvert our system by breaking our laws. There are Americans in jail today because they violated that oath. Others have prevailed at the bar of justice because of that oath.

What would we be telling Americans — and those worldwide who see in America what they can only hope for in their own countries — if the Senate of the United States were to conclude: The President lied under oath as an element of a scheme to obstruct the due process of law, but we chose to look the other way?

I cannot make that choice. I cannot look away. I vote `Guilty’ on Article I, Perjury. I vote `Guilty’ on Article II, Obstruction of Justice.

Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison (Republican – Texas) on October 23, 2005:

I certainly hope that if there is going to be an indictment that says something happened, that it is an indictment on a crime and not some perjury technicality where they couldn’t indict on the crime so they go to something just to show that their two years of investigation were not a waste of time and dollars.

Why the difference? The only explanation is that the President in 1999 was a Democrat and the President in 2005 is a Republican. Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison (Republican – Texas) is a partisan hack and a hypocrite.

Hutchison

Barbara Ann Radnofsky for U.S. Senate 2006.

Dr. Dean is still hitting them where it hurts, and they’re not liking it one bit…

Dean calls for end to ‘culture of corruption’

Howard Dean

The Bush White House is the most corrupt administration in U.S. history since President Warren G. Harding’s, said Howard Dean during his first visit to Maine as chairman of the Democratic National Committee. Dean’s comments Saturday came as top White House advisers are being investigated for their roles in the outing of a CIA operative and Tom DeLay, the former second-ranking Republican in the House of Representatives, faces conspiracy and money-laundering charges.

“The first thing we’re going to do is we’re going to have ethics come back to Washington again,” said Dean, the keynote speaker at Saturday night’s annual fundraising dinner for the Maine Democratic Party at the Lewiston Armory.

To deal with the “culture of corruption,” Dean said, there needs to be an ethics code in Congress and stronger campaign finance laws…

Dean said if the Democrats were to regain power, the party would be strong on national defense. He said the party never would send troops abroad without telling them the truth about why they were going, and without adequately arming them.

Dean said that Democrats also would make sure every American has access to health insurance.

“If 40 industrial nations can do it and balance the budget at the same time, it’s time to have somebody in the White House who can chew gum and think at the same time,” he said…

Dean said Republicans should not have interfered in the Terri Schiavo right-to-life case.

“I’m tired of the ayatollahs of the right wing,” Dean said. “We’re fighting for freedom in Iraq. We’re going to fight for freedom in America.”

Also see: “Excerpts of Democratic National Committee Chairman Dean on ‘This Week’“