Bark Bark Woof Woof: October 2005

Monday, October 31, 2005

William Hutt

I meant to post about this on Friday, but better late than never.

The performance of The Tempest on Friday, October 28, was the closing performace of that production at the Stratford Festival, and it was also the final performance of William Hutt on the Festival Stage. He is retiring after a career that has spanned six decades, most of them in Canada, and most of them on the Stratford stage. As I noted in my postings about my trip to Stratford last August,

I can't count the number of plays I've seen here starting in 1970, and how many plays I've seen with William Hutt: King Lear, The Imaginary Invalid, The Tempest, Twelfth Night, Tartuffe, and even in drag as Lady Bracknell in The Importance of Being Earnest. All of his roles were insightful and met the highest criterion of the actor's craft: he became the character. Last night I didn't think of him as Willam Hutt playing Prospero; he was Prospero.
Shakespeare provided him with a perfect exit in the epilogue of the play as he humbly asks for the approval of the audience for the masque we've just seen:
As you from crimes would pardoned be
Let your indulgence set me free.
Then he turned and slowly walked upstage and through the door and into the comfort and quiet off stage.

It is always good to appreciate a fine craftsman and artist, especially while they are still around to hear it, and so I say thank you to Mr. Hutt for all the magical hours. Enjoy your retirement; you have earned it.

Electrifying Performance

From NBC6.net:

Funeral services are pending for a Texas pastor who was electrocuted in front of his congregation Sunday morning while performing a baptism.

The Rev. Kyle Lake was standing in water up to his shoulders in the baptistry at University Baptist Church in Waco when he grabbed a microphone and was electrocuted.

Jamie Dudley, who is married to one of the church's other pastors, said doctors attending the service performed chest compressions on the 33-year-old minister until he was taken to a Waco hospital and declared dead.

The woman that Lake was baptizing was unhurt, she said.

Dudley said Lake, who had a wife and three children, had been at the church for nine years, the last seven as a pastor.

She said about 800 people attended the Sunday morning service, which was larger than normal because it was homecoming weekend at nearby Baylor University.

He went from being a pastor to a fryer.

So It's Alito

From CNN:

President Bush will nominate 3rd Circuit Appeals Court Judge Samuel Alito for the U.S. Supreme Court, sources told CNN on Monday.

The president is expected to make an announcement at the White House at 8 a.m. ET., sources said.

Alito, a former U.S. attorney who has been a judge for 15 years, is considered a favorite of the conservative movement and is Bush's third pick for Justice Sandra Day O'Connor's seat.

[...]

Legal experts consider him so ideologically similar to Justice Antonin Scalia that he has earned the nickname "Scalito."

In one of his more well-known decisions, Alito wrote the opinion in a case that said a Christmas display on city property did not violate separation of church and state doctrines because it included a large plastic Santa Claus as well as religious symbols.

In another, he was the only dissenting voice in a 3rd Circuit ruling striking down a Pennsylvania law that required women to notify their husbands if they planned to get an abortion.

Did you know that he and Torquemada have the same answering service?

Back to Work

Schools remain closed in Miami-Dade, but they're calling in some of the administrative staff, so I'm going in to see what I can do to help get things going again.

Shorter Paul Krugman

For those of you without TimesSelect, here's the money quote:

Apologists can shout all they like that no laws were broken, that hardball politics is nothing new, or whatever. The fact remains that officials close to both Mr. Cheney and Mr. Bush leaked the identity of an undercover operative for political reasons. Whether or not that act was illegal, it was clearly unpatriotic.

And the Plame affair has also solidified the public's growing doubts about the administration's morals. By a three-to-one margin, according to a Washington Post poll, the public now believes that the level of ethics and honesty in the government has declined rather than risen under Mr. Bush.

So the Bush administration has lost the myths that sustained its mojo, and with them much of its power to do harm. But the nightmare won't be fully over until two things happen.

First, politicians will have to admit that they were misled. Second, the news media will have to face up to their role in allowing incompetents to pose as leaders and political apparatchiks to pose as patriots.

Try One of These

From the Washington Post:

President Bush planned to announce a new Supreme Court nomination today, moving quickly after a weekend of consultations to put forward a replacement for the ill-fated choice of Harriet Miers in hopes of recapturing political momentum, according to Republicans close to the White House.

Judging by the names the White House floated by political allies in recent days, Bush seems ready to pick a candidate with a long track record of conservative jurisprudence -- one who would mollify the Republican base, whose opposition to Miers's nomination helped scuttle her chances. Several GOP strategists said the most likely choice seemed to be federal appeals judge Samuel A. Alito Jr., with judges J. Michael Luttig and Alice M. Batchelder also in the running.

[...]

Bush spent the weekend at Camp David huddled with Miers, who remains his White House counsel and is therefore in charge of the judicial selection process, along with Chief of Staff Andrew H. Card Jr., who originally advocated Miers as the choice to replace retiring Justice Sandra Day O'Connor. As the three talked, White House officials contacted prominent conservatives to test the reaction to various candidates.

One group consulted was the Concerned Women for America, whose decision to oppose Miers last Wednesday became one of the final blows to help kill the nomination. Janet M. LaRue, the group's chief counsel, said it received a call from the White House on Saturday and liked what it heard.

"Alito and Luttig have always been at the top of our list," she said in an interview. "We think either of them would be a supreme pick. There isn't a thing stealthy about them. They've got a long, proven record of constitutional conservatism."

It seems that the president has learned his lesson: don't piss off the Religious Reich and certainly not the Concerned Women of America (that name brings to mind an image of a bunch of blue-haired old busybodies running around with furrowed brows). Forget about this idea of getting a consensus among all sorts of groups; just roll over and raise your ass to the sky to the group that proved they hold the leash. Anything to change the subject off Scooter.

Sunday, October 30, 2005

Scooter's Mug Shot

How could that mean old Patrick Fitzgerald indict this cute little guy?

Scooter of "The Muppet Show"

Next thing you know he'll go after Statler & Waldorf...

Sunday Funny

From the Washington Post (Nick Anderson):

Sunday Reading

Carl Hiaasen on what Jeb! was going to say after Hurricane Wilma.

My fellow Floridians,

Let me begin by taking token responsibility for the delays in delivering supplies to areas hit hard by Hurricane Wilma. The effort could have been swifter and better organized.

But, hey, didn't I warn everybody to keep 72 hours' worth of supplies on hand? Didn't I tell you to build a 150-gallon gasoline depot in your backyard?

Still, I know that millions of you still have no electricity, no food and no fuel in your cars -- and I'd like to assure you that the situation is improving rapidly.

I'd like to, but I can't. The truth is, you're screwed for now.

This morning I spoke with executives of Florida Power & Light, who sounded like they'd been drinking heavily. They said they're awaiting a large shipment of Leggos and rubber bands so that they can repair the substations supplying power to Miami-Dade, Broward and Palm Beach counties.

When I pressed for a timetable, the FPL officials explained that electricity would be restored on a ''grid-by-grid'' basis, using the same giant dart board left over from Hurricane Andrew.

Obviously, these are difficult times. Florida has been through something like 83 hurricanes in the last 14 months, causing approximately $987 jillion in losses -- and that's not including the fraudulent claims.

A major concern is, of course, the fuel supply. The good news is that South Florida has plenty of gas. The bad news is that we can't get it out of the ground.

Apparently, service stations actually need a flow of electricity to operate the gasoline pumps. It would have been nice if somebody had told me sooner.

Next time, I promise, we'll rent truckloads of exorbitantly overpriced generators from politically connected vendors and provide them to gas stations in advance of the storm.

Since I've been getting calls from the travel industry, let me take this opportunity to urge tourists not to cancel their vacations to South Florida. The weather is fantastic, the beaches are gorgeous and the traffic is, for obvious reasons, exceptionally light.

You will need to bring your own siphon, ice, refreshments and possibly a large-caliber handgun to protect yourself from desperate civilians.

Speaking of desperation, many of you are listening to me now in your car, waiting in line for $20 worth of high-octane that'll barely get you home. Some of you may even be trying to put your foot through the radio, you're so pissed off.

All I can say is: Who the heck knew?

Wilma was no Katrina. It was supposed to blow down a few trailers, not cripple the infrastructures of our three most overpopulated counties.

Only days earlier, I'd bragged to a congressional panel about how fabulously prepared for hurricanes we were. Florida knows the drill, I said. Don't worry about us.

Now you turn on the TV -- if you're lucky enough to have juice -- and there's bedlam in the streets. How do you think that makes me look?

A few so-called experts say they aren't surprised that Wilma caused such a mess. They say it was inevitable, with six million people crammed onto the tip of a low-lying peninsula in a hurricane zone.

I'd like to promise that we'll do a better job of managing coastal development in the future, but who am I kidding? We don't have the stones to say enough is enough. We'll let 'em keep on building subdivisions until every last acre is gone.

In other words, you don't want to be around when the Cat 5 hits.

Finally, I know some of you were nervous to see my brother fly in last week for a tour of the storm damage. Let me assure you that there will be no repeat of what happened -- or didn't happen -- on the Gulf Coast after Katrina.

So far, FEMA has done a stellar job on the Wilma front. For example, none of the relief supplies set aside for South Florida have been sent to Guam or even Utah by mistake.

Yes, there have been delays, bad information and mass confusion. Too many distribution sites have run short of ice and water, leaving thousands of people angry and empty-handed.

But don't blame the federal government, especially not my brother. Haven't you been reading the polls? Leave the poor guy alone.

You want to blame somebody for Wilma's mess, blame me. Or better yet, blame yourselves for not listening to me. Didn't I tell every homeowner to install an industrial-sized walk-in freezer with a propane-powered ice-making machine?

A long road lies ahead. Just remember that today will be about the same as yesterday, tomorrow will be no different than today, and next week will probably be the same dull, grueling blur.

As your governor and the leader of hurricane recovery, I'd like to urge Floridians not to get too discouraged, depressed or homicidal. I'd like to tell you that, but I can't.

This is the absolute pits. I am so glad to be up here in Tallahassee, you have no idea.

And the best part is that Jeb! can't run for office again, so he doesn't have to act like he actually gives a damn.

Adam Nagourney on the future of the Republicans' agenda.

After "this disastrous year for Republicans," in the words of the G.O.P. consultant Joe Gaylord, some Republicans were suggesting this White House would be lucky to revive the ambitious legislative agenda Mr. Bush presented 10 months ago, much less achieve the permanent Republican governing coalition that many argued began to take shape with the election of Ronald Reagan.

It may be premature to suggest, as some Democrats and historians have, that this ambitious plan is now dashed; these political realignments take place over decades, and typically can be identified only after the passage of time. And surely, until recently, President Bush had done nothing but strengthen his own party. Still, even some Republicans were suggesting that the Bush presidency could set back, rather than advance, the Republican Party as it seeks its goal.

It's unlikely that given Mr. Bush's well-known stubborn streak -- some would say density -- he will change course or restructure his White House. While tenacity is an admirable quality to some degree; after all, he was re-elected by conveying his "steadfastness" versus Kerry's perceived waffling, it can be a debilitating and cumbersome attribute. So notes Dan Balz in this story in the Washington Post.

The president's advisers recognize the reality in which they find themselves. "What the public wants is back-to-basics governance and decision making," presidential counselor Dan Bartlett said yesterday. "This is not a situation in which it changes overnight or that there's a 'Hail Mary' pass that changes the dynamic. . . . There's not a magic bullet."

That assessment comes after one of the toughest weeks of Bush's presidency that included the perjury and obstruction charges against Libby, an embarrassing defeat over the nomination of White House counsel Harriet Miers to the Supreme Court, and the 2,000th U.S. death in the war in Iraq.

[...]

A Republican strategist, speaking on the condition of anonymity to offer a bark-off analysis of Bush's problems, was far gloomier, noting that the situation facing Bush is about as bad as it can get. "What's in front of him are very big structural problems," he said.

Ticking off a list that includes a looming winter energy crisis because of high heating oil and natural gas prices, an immigration fight that could further divide his party, negative perceptions of the economy despite strong growth numbers, and overall pessimism about the direction of the country, he added: "It's not like it's a one-shot deal where they hit bottom and then bounce back. I'm not sure they've reached bottom yet."

Want to get richer quick? In Ohio, it's easy. Just be rich to start with, then give a lot of money to a Republican presidential campaign. The Toledo Blade begins a four-part series on how it works.

They were executives, lobbyists, evangelical Christians, political veterans and rookies, and a rare-coin dealer from Maumee. They bankrolled a president.

Thirty Ohioans collected at least $4.1 million for George W. Bush's re-election campaign last year - exceeding Sen. John Kerry's entire take from the state. They raised $2.4 million more for the Republcan National Committee.

They are Ohio's "Pioneers" and "Rangers," President Bush's most prolific fund-raisers. Most Ohio voters have never heard of them, but the White House knows them well.

They have sat on crucial policy committees and won choice appointments. In the last five years, their firms have conducted more than a billion dollars of business with the state and the federal government.

One was Tom Noe.

Prepare to meet the rest.

The Blade assembled a team of six reporters to investigate how the Bush-Cheney campaign raised millions to win the Buckeye State.

Using raw data, the reporters assembled portraits of each of the top fund-raisers' poltical donations. They also built a database of checks cut by the state over the last five years and mined federal databases to track the state and federal dollars paid to the firms of Ohio's Pioneers and Rangers.

Over the next four days, The Blade will introduce you to the 29 men and women who engineered a fund-raising landslide for Mr. Bush in Ohio and helped deliver him a narrow victory in the state. The series will show:

# How several of those fund-raisers tied their fortunes to government spending, sometimes through unbid contracts.

# How Republican leaders, including future Pioneers and Rangers, built what was a ragged state party into a rich, well-tuned machine. The GOP has dominated Ohio politics for a decade and a half and laid the groundwork for Mr. Bush's 2004 victory.

# How a half-dozen Democratic fund-raisers in Ohio corralled at least $750,000 for Sen. John Kerry's losing presidential bid, and what they stood to gain if he had won.

# How the increased mingling of money and politics raises questions about the electoral process, and what experts call Americans' best hopes for influencing public policy without writing or collecting large checks.

A year after Ohio's 20 electoral votes clinched Mr. Bush's re-election - and only days after a federal grand jury indicted Mr. Noe on felony charges of laundering cash to the President's campaign - a Blade investigation shows the power of money along the Ohio Trail.

Here are the links to today's articles:

Noe's Generosity.
Ohio Bush donors richly rewarded.
Money, morals intermingle in contributions.
GOP finds a partner in charter school CEO.

That should keep you busy for a while.

Saturday, October 29, 2005

Come Out, Come Out...

The ever-alert Shakespeare's Sister noted that the Federal Marriage Amendment is about to resurface again.

The Senate Sub-Committee on the Judiciary will meet about the FMA on Nov. 2 to hold a vote, and then send it on to the full committee, with the hope of its supporters that it will come to a full vote in both Houses of Congress just before the 2006 mid-terms. So once again, we face an election cycle where the GOP tries to hide its heinous agenda and resolute incompetence behind the exploitation of homobigotry. And they say the Democrats have no new ideas?

Boy, if I had a dime for every post I've written in the last couple of years about the Republicans once again trotting out gay-bashing and homophobia, I'd have...well, a shitload of dimes. But it needs to be said again.

What is it with these people? Why can't they get it through their narrow, ignorant, and uptight little minds that they are attempting for the first time since 1919 to burden the United States Constitution with an amendment that restricts the freedom of American citizens? Enshrining bigotry into the foundation of our national government is a quantum leap backwards to a time before the 14th Amendment that guaranteed equal protection under the law to all citizens, not just those who, through no fault of their own, are heterosexual. Passing a Federal Marriage Amendment violates every principle of the "smaller government, more freedom" credo that these puritanical little busybodies so piously say they stand for, and proves once and for all that they have no business monitoring anything larger than a Grade 8 study hall.

Gay marriage won't destroy this country; it will make it stronger. Anything this country can do to make our lives more livable is an act of citizenship, of patriotism, of fulfilling the goals set forth in the preamble of the Constitution -- to form a more perfect union. One of those goals is allowing each of us to find someone to love and spend the rest of our lives with in a union that isn't just between each two people; it's also a union between us and our community that says we are as much a part of this country and that we have the same rights and responsibilities as everyone else.

The Federal Marriage Amendment would deny not just the right to gays and lesbians to be married. It would exclude them from being full participants in being citizens, and that cannot be allowed to happen. It's bigotry, plain and simple, and anyone who tries to hide behind a veil of religion or moral decency is defiling both their religion -- which, by the way, needs no help in that matter -- and their faith in the American system by thinking that such a simple and harmless thing as love between two people can threaten our society.

In the last week two well-known people in American culture came out of the closet: WNBA star Sheryl Swoopes and actor George Takei, best known for his role as Lt. Sulu in Star Trek. Both of these people showed courage to open up to the public; professional sports is notably uncomfortable with openly gay athletes (although with all that butt-slapping in the NFL, you have to wonder), and even in the so-called liberal world of entertainment, being openly gay isn't a great career move (but it does double your chance for a date on Saturday night). But I'm also willing to bet that this week a whole lot of people you've never heard of came out of the closet, too. Maybe they were inspired by Ms. Swoopes and Mr. Takei. Maybe they got tired of living a lie. Maybe they felt they had no choice but to acknowledge who they are; teenagers, twenty-somethings, middle-aged men and women who have hid their feelings for a long time, or those who just got tired of the ache in their gut from denying the truth. The football star or the guy who repairs your car. The assistant manager of the grocery store, the lady who answers the phone at the insurance company, or the man who's been teaching English Lit at the high school for twenty years. Married men or women who have the whole NASCAR dad or soccer mom routine down right to the SUV with the extra seats. Something happened this week to hundreds, perhaps thousands of people who for whatever reason finally told the truth and spoke out honestly and seeking love and acceptance; two concepts that many of those of the Religious Reich know nothing about.

There are those who choose to remain in the closet. For whatever reason they find their lives are more comfortable by keeping their sexual orientation a secret from their friends and family. I have no problem with that; each person must come to grip with their sexuality -- either gay or straight -- on their own terms, and as long as it is doing no harm, I respect their right to privacy. However, there are those who are in the closet who have taken an active role in opposing progress in gay rights either by speaking out against them, working for politicians who support oppression, or as elected officials voting against them. Several of these people, including the mayor of Spokane, Washington and several Republican congressmen, have been exposed (pun intended) by investigative journalists. They have been branded as the hypocrites that they are; campaigning against gay rights in public during the day and cruising Gay.com on the internet at night. I have no empathy for their humiliation; through their cowardice and mendacity they have reinforced the stereotype that being gay is something to be ashamed of and needs to be hidden. By hiding their true identity they have denied themselves the opportunity to advance the cause of a better society -- which is why they are public servants in the first place -- and they have made it that much harder for those who need encouragement to be true to themselves to come out. If forcing them out of the closet causes them pain, they have only themselves to blame. For whatever deep-seated psychological or politically expediant reason they chose to align themselves with people that hate them, and they deserve the shame and derision they will get when they are finally forced out, either by their own actions or that of someone who finally calls them on it. Frankly, I don't care what happens to them then, and they can live their lives in the Hell they've built for themselves. Or, to quote Chris in The Ritz by Terrence McNally, "Screw you, honey. Boy, if there's one thing I can't stand it's a queen without a sense of humor. You can die with your secret... miserable piss-elegant fairy."

The Republicans are going to try to sneak the FMA through while they think no one's looking; while we're all distracted by the CIA leak, the next Supreme Court nominee, or the next episode of Lost. If they succeed in getting it to the House and Senate for a vote, there needs to be a massive campaign to educate the country and humiliate the proponents. As Edward R. Murrow noted in his campaign against Sen. Joseph McCarthy, this is no time for those who oppose the Religious Reich and their methods to remain silent. If we do, this country and what it stands for won't be worth that shitload of dimes.

Lost Art

Garry Trudeau was all set to run a series of Doonesbury strips next week about the nomination of Harriet Miers. Maybe that's why she withdrew her nomination.

But all is not lost; if you'd like to see them, they've been posted at the Doonesbury site. Read and enjoy.

After Wilma

It's been six days since Hurricane Wilma passed by and things are getting back to normal for a lot of us here in South Florida. While some are still without power, including MKH at Hidden City, FPL is reporting that more and more people are coming back on line. I'm happy to report that Bob and the Old Professor got their lights back last night and up in Broward County Beantown Girl got hers back on Thursday.

Coral Gables has done a great job of getting things in order. They've sent out crews to pick up tree debris and even gotten street-sweepers into the action. Stop lights are working again although some are still skewed or have broken bulbs, and cable TV is working in fits and starts; mine came on just in time to watch the Special Counsel's press conference regarding the indictment of Scooter Libby on Friday afternoon and stuck around long enough to let me see Real Time with Bill Maher. The stores are getting restocked, although the local Publix is still out of fresh produce and frozen food. Life's rough without roughage.

I had hoped that Wilma would be the last hurricane to get any attention, but with a little more than four weeks to go in the official hurricane season, we are still on the lookout, and Central America is now taking the brunt of Hurricane Beta. Enough already; I really would like this to be my last hurricane-related post for the next six months, but I doubt it.

Other Than That, Mrs. Lincoln, How Was the Play?

I have to admire some of the conservatives for the brave front they are putting up in light of Scooter Libby's indictment. They're pulling out some of the talking points (see below) and coming up with new ones, including a defense strategy of I-can't-recall being road-tested by Mr. Libby's lawyer. And on TV they're trotting out new strategies, some trying to frame the fact that Karl Rove hasn't been indicted as a victory for the president, while the more earth-bound see it as still not the best news.

Reaction from conservative pundits to the news of "Scooter" Libby's indictment on Friday varied -- some stuck with positive spin, but a number of others struck a somber tone. The coverage on Fox News Channel was somewhat muted from the outset. Anchor Rick Folbaum opened an interview with Bill Kristol, editor of the Weekly Standard, by playing up the news that Karl Rove wasn't indicted. "How much of a victory is this for the president?" he asked.

"Well, we shouldn't kid ourselves," Kristol responded. "It's not a victory ... [This is] awfully bad for the White House."

When the attempt to minimize the charges won't fly -- Tony Snow of Fox News Sunday got hooted down on Real Time for saying that Libby was indicted for "talking to a reporter" -- and the knee-jerk backlash about the Wilsons -- she wasn't really a "covert" agent, Joe Wilson is a grandstander -- prove to be irrelevant to the charges of perjury, it's somehow admirable to see the conservatives still able to muster some kind of blustery front, even if they do occasionally melt down into acrimony and personal attacks when called on their fluidic situational ethics. I know that if this had happened to a Democratic administration there would be infighting, recriminations and personal attacks, all within the party itself while the conservatives sat back and took long pulls on their hookahs of moral superiority.

In addition, the conservatives are all too willing to offer moral support and helpful advice to Mr. Libby, including, from G. Gordon Liddy, how to behave in prison.

"I went in there as someone who was determined to prevail in prison, and I did," Liddy said of his own five-year stint. "You know, it's a matter really of being an individual. You're either a strong person or a weak person. That will be detected in prison almost immediately. And your life will transpire accordingly."

Maybe he should just send him the DVD collection of Oz.

Friday, October 28, 2005

"If I Only Had A Brain"

Brace yourself for the usual Republican talking points, fraught with irrelevancies and strawman arguments:

Joe Wilson lied to the Senate Intelligence Committee. Oh really? That's a federal crime. Why hasn't he been indicted for that?

This isn't a presidential scandal; it's only about the Vice President's chief of staff. Yes, and he was integral to the day-to-day operation of the White House and the planning of the war in Iraq. You're really going to trot out the old I-really-didn't-know-him line?

Libby was indicted on a technicality, not for leaking the name of Valerie Plame. That was the real crime; it's not worth going all ballistic over it. Yeah, tell that to Bill Clinton and Richard Nixon. (Historical note: Al Capone went to prison for income tax evasion.) Better yet, here's what Mr. Fitzgerald had to say on that very point via AMERICAblog:
Fitzgerald was asked about a GOP talking point that the crimes charged are technicalities. He hit it out of the park: "That talking point won't fly." He said described just how serious the charges are against the Chief of Staff to the Vice President of the United States and noted this is a "very, very serious matter."
Patrick Fitzgerald is a partisan hack. Oh, puh-leeze.

There's an interesting irony in the fact that the most famous straw man of all time, Ray Bolger, did a nice little dance to a song that Mr. Bush may be whistling himself: "If I Only Had A Brain..."

Rove Free?

It looks like Karl Rove is a free man. That may be. But does the White House really want a Deputy Chief of Staff who only through the grace of a good lawyer dodged being indicted by a Federal Grand Jury?

Not only that, the longer Karl Rove hangs around the White House, the longer the Democrats will be able to use him as the big piñata for the campaigns of 2006 and 2008, and Mr. Rove's reputation as the political genius of the ages is basically down the crapper. He's going to be as welcome at the next Republican presidential campaign as a wet dog at a wedding.

Stick around, Karl. We really need you.

"Unindicted Co-conspirator"

For those of you who are too young to remember, the term "unindicted co-conspirator" was used by the Special Prosecutor to describe President Richard Nixon's position in the cover-up of the Watergate scandal in 1973. The president wasn't indicted based on the belief by the lawyers that a sitting president couldn't be indicted. I would assume the same legal finding applies today to a Vice President.

Libby Is Indicted and Has Resigned

From CNN:

Lewis "Scooter" Libby, Vice President Cheney's chief of staff, indicted by grand jury on charges of obstruction of justice, making false statements and perjury in CIA leak probe.

Fox News, according to Wonkette, is reporting that he has resigned.

The Office of Special Counsel website is expected to post the entire statement at some point.

Note that Mr. Libby has been indicted, as expected, not for outing Valerie Plame, but for lying to the grand jury and obstruction of justice. The Republicans have already trotted out the dead horse that it's pretty thin soup to only indict for the cover-up when you can't prove the crime. Okay, so then we can expect the Republicans to walk back the impeachment of Bill Clinton for the very same charges and forget the whole thing? I think not.

We can't forget the larger story behind all of this: people in the Bush administration actively pursued someone who criticized their efforts to get us into the war in Iraq, and in doing so they used classified information to exact that revenge. It's not just about the lying to the grand jury. It's the whole trail of getting us into a war under suspicious circumstances that needs to be investigated, and we also have to ask ourselves whether or not we should really be comfortable having people who do things like this in charge of the government. Some would say that this is political hardball and it's the way they do things in Washington, D.C. and there's a fine line between political retribution and breaking the law. No, there is not. The line isn't fine at all. To anyone with a sense of moral decency the line is a huge flashing neon sign that makes the Las Vegas strip look like a night-light. If you can't see it, you have no business being anywhere near a position of power or being in the position of influencing the agenda of this government.

To the credit of the Bush administration, there has been no proof that anyone got a blowjob in the White House. At least we're safe from moral degeneracy on that point.

Updated at 1:37 p.m.

Bush Seems Relaxed...

From the New York Times:

After weeks of anxiety about possible indictments in the CIA leak investigation, President Bush showed no signs of strain Friday, smiling and joking with aides as he left to make a speech on terrorism in Norfolk, Va.

[...]

Before he left Washington, Bush chatted in the Oval Office with Cheney and Rove. White House counselor Dan Bartlett and chief of staff Andy Card also were in the room. The mood seemed relaxed.

A little Scotch with a Lortab chaser will do that for you. Better living through chemistry.

Not Indicted...Today

So the rumor is that Karl Rove won't be indicted. Today. That doesn't mean he won't get indicted later.

This has to be some kind of exquisite torture for him, and I'm searching my heart to see if I feel any empathy. Hmmm. Nope.

Friday Blogaround

One storm has passed, but another may be about to begin -- Hurricane Wilma is gone, but here comes Hurricane Patrick. Let's see what The Liberal Coalition is saying.

All Facts and Opinions covers the coming-out of Sheryl Swoopes.
archy has -- what else? -- the Carnival of the Cockroaches.
Bark Bark Woof Woof is back after the storm and covering the indictment of another Republican.
blogAmY doesn't go to the prom.
bloggg has the truth on Social Security.
Chris is ready for Hallowe'en.
Collective Sigh on the housing problems in D.C.
CorrenteWire goes on stage.
Dodecahedron wonders where the music went.
Dohiyi Mir has the story on George Takei ("Sulu") beaming out of the closet. (This seems to be the week for celebrities coming out. By the way...)
Echidne reviews Maureen Dowd's new book.
firedoglake keeps the rumor mill wheel grinding, and she even has songs.
First Draft reminds us that more than Rove and Libby are in jeopardy.
The Fulcrum has an idea for energy conservation.
Happy Furry Puppy has some terms he'd like to retire.
iddybud has the low-down on a figure under investigation by Patrick Fitzgerald that you may not have heard of.
Left Is Right on the decline of the middle class.
Liberty Street on the story of a powerful editorial cartoon.
Make Me A Commentator continues with his interviews with...his staff.
MercuryX23 got a reply to his query last week.
Musing's musings bids farewell to Rosa Parks.
Pen-Elayne shows you how to carve your own pumpkin.
Rick updates his poker playing.
Rook finds a Republican who called for the president to clean up his act.
rubber hose has a review of the Arbaic version of The Simpsons.
Science and Politics has a fish tale.
Scrutiny Hooligans says Abu Ghraib was just one of many.
Sooner Thought on the future of the Bush presidency.
Speedkill has the word on hi-tech passports.
Steve Gilliard has been in the news himself. He explains it all for you.
T. Rex has a question for all you conservatives who claim to be opposed to racism.
The Countess keeps up with her writing of erotic fiction.
The Invisible Library reviews Ann Rice's latest.
Wanda post-games the Miers debacle.
WTF Is It Now?? serves up an Italian dish.
The Yellow Doggerel Democrat bids farewell to a jolly voice.
...You Are A Tree looks back.

Things are still getting back to normal here in South Florida; the search for dairy products and fresh produce goes on.

Who Knows?

Rumors are everywhere about the outcome of the Plame leak investigation. Sources tell the New York Times that Scooter Libby will be indicted, Karl Rove won't be, but he remains under investigation.

Lawyers in the C.I.A. leak case said Thursday that they expected I. Lewis Libby Jr., Vice President Dick Cheney's chief of staff, to be indicted on Friday, charged with making false statements to the grand jury.

Karl Rove, President Bush's senior adviser and deputy chief of staff, will not be charged on Friday, but will remain under investigation, people briefed officially about the case said. As a result, they said, the special counsel in the case, Patrick J. Fitzgerald, was likely to extend the term of the federal grand jury beyond its scheduled expiration on Friday.

The Wall Street Journal (HT to TPM) is saying pretty much the same thing.

Karl Rove, President Bush's chief political adviser and deputy White House chief of staff, was informed yesterday evening that he may not be charged today but remains in legal jeopardy, according to a person briefed on the matter. Mr. Fitzgerald, who meets with jurors this morning, has zeroed in on potential wrongdoing by I. Lewis Libby, Vice President Dick Cheney's chief of staff, and is likely to charge Mr. Libby at least with making false statements. The testimony of reporters who have been witnesses in the case has contradicted Mr. Libby's public statements.

Mr. Fitzgerald appeared still to be pondering whether to charge Mr. Rove and has notified the political strategist that he remains under investigation.

Frankly, I'd guess that Mr. Rove is bearing a tad of envy for Mr. Libby; having the indictment in hand means you can put your plan in action and start hitting up all the Bush Pioneers for dough for the legal defense fund. Karl would still be twisting slowly in the wind.

But this is all speculation. Until Mr. Fitzgerald actually appears before the court or the press, your guess is as good as mine.

Thursday, October 27, 2005

Noe Indicted

From the Toledo Blade:

A federal grand jury has indicted Tom Noe — the former Toledo-area coin dealer at the center of a state investment scandal — on three counts for allegedly laundering money into President Bush’s re-election campaign.

The three-count indictment says that beginning in October 2003, Mr. Noe contributed to President Bush’s election campaign “over and above the limits established by the Federal Election Campaign Act."

“He did so, according to the indictment, in order to fulfill his pledge to raise $50,000 for a Bush-Cheney fund-raiser held in Columbus, Ohio, on Oct. 30, 2003,” Gregory White, the U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Ohio, announced at an afternoon news conference

The two other counts were for conspiracy and filing false statements.

“The indictment also alleges that Noe wrote several checks in the amounts slightly less than the maximum allowable amount so as to avoid suspension. All together, Noe allegedly contributed $45,400 of his own money through 24 conduit” donors.

The indictment alleges Mr. Noe’s actions caused false statements to the Federal Elections Commission and defrauded the United States and that he directed his conduit donors to fill out the false statements.

Mr. Noe faces the maximum penalty of five years in prison on each count. The conspiracy and false statement counts carry a maximum fine of $250,000 and the campaign finance violation carries a mandatory fine of between $136,200 and $454,000.

The U.S. Attorney’s office said the Bush campaign had no part in Noe’s alleged misdeeds.

This indictment has no connection whatsoever with the Bush administration or the current investigation over the Plame leak. It has no connection with the indictment of Rep. Tom DeLay (R-TX) for money laundering in Texas. It has no connection with Jack Abramoff, the lobbyist-cum-racketeer of Washington, D.C. and his activities on behalf of the GOP and several other highly-connected Republican figures such as Ralph Reed and Grover Norquist.

On the other hand, the Lucas County GOP and the state party are in deep shit over this, and the state attorney general is looking to see if it goes up as high as the governor's office. Gov. Bob Taft has already pled guilty to several charges of failure to report gifts received from campaign contributors, so his life is about to get a lot more interesting.

Like I said, there's no connection between Tom Noe, the Bush administration, Tom DeLay, and Jack Abramoff other than the fact that they are all Republicans. With the exception of the Plame leak, these scandals all involve money and funny accounting. What I can't figure out is why the Republicans can't have a scandal involving sex like the Democrats?

I guess it all depends on what turns you on. And sometimes a cigar is just a smoke.

So Who's Next?

Harriet Miers withdraws.

Harriet Miers withdrew her nomination to be a Supreme Court justice Thursday in the face of stiff opposition and mounting criticism about her qualifications.

Bush said he reluctantly accepted her decision to withdraw, after weeks of insisting that he did not want her to step down. He blamed her withdrawal on calls in the Senate for the release of internal White House documents that the administration has insisted were protected by executive privilege.

Well, that's a good face-saving move; withdraw your name when the Senate has the nerve to ask you about the work you've done to get to the point where you're the nominee. It has nothing whatsoever to do with the fact that the only qualification you have shown -- as far as the White House is concerned -- is that you worked for the president and that you have Hallmark Cards on your "Favorites" list on your browser.

The big question, of course, is who do they have waiting in the wings? Is it going to be a real red-meat conservative to make the tightie-righties happy, inflame the moderates and set the Senate up for a nuclear war (i.e. filibuster)? I can't imagine that the White House is spoiling for a fight with the Democrats when the administration already has enough shit flying at it from the special prosecutor, the war in Iraq, and the aftermath of the hurricanes. If they had any common sense they'll keep Sandra Day O'Connor on the court for the rest of the term and wait until next summer. What's the rush?

David Brooks - Have Kneepads, Will Travel

Mr. Brooks is still sucking up to the Bush administration for a job in the post-Rove White House.

On Dec. 31, 1986, Robert Novak and Rowland Evans wrote a column with the headline "The Reagan Presidency Is Dead." Halfway into its second term, the Reagan administration was beset by the Iran-contra scandal. Its legislative agenda was in tatters. Morale was low, and the decision-making process was in chaos.

Ronald Reagan had to decide whether to hunker down in the storm or break out of it. Pat Buchanan, who was the communications director, recommended that the president bring a special counselor into the White House to handle Iran-contra and bring an objective perspective to the administration's troubles.

Reagan agreed. David Abshire, then the ambassador to NATO, was hired and given complete autonomy.

[...]

The Bush administration is not in quite the same bind the Reagan administration was in. There is no one big scandal (sorry, Plamegate is not it). But at key moments - Social Security, Katrina, Harriet Miers - the president has been uncharacteristically out of step with the American people. Second-term-itis is setting in.

Remember, every president since Grant has had a miserable second term. Eisenhower called his sixth year in office the "worst of his life."

There are many causes: one's own party gets fractious; management failures that have festered over the years blossom into scandal; people who have failed inside the administration snipe from the outside. But the primary cause is psychological.

[...]

It is thrilling to work in a White House, but it is also psychologically corrosive. In a disciplined White House, one cannot really talk with people outside. There is a tendency to curl inward under the barrage of criticism, much of it ill informed. The sheer busyness of life becomes enveloping and isolating, and slowly an unearned disdain builds for those who are not in the bubble.

[...]

Reagan broke out of the bubble and second-term-itis. It's still possible that Bush, learning from Reagan, can, too.

Actually, I think David has all the qualifications to serve in the Bush White House. He knows how to minimize treason by saying the Plame leak isn't a scandal. (He's right -- it's a felony.) He pushes all the right buttons by invoking Ronald Reagan, citing David Abshire as the savior of the second term (and promoting his new book on sale in the lobby as you leave the theatre), and not trashing James Baker in print.

All David needs is a blue dress and his trousseau would be complete.

The Real Inside Scoop

Paul Begala in a guest post at the TPM Cafe recalls what it's like to be in a White House under seige.

Tom Petty was wrong. The waiting is not the hardest part.

Sure, all of what Eric Alterman dubbed "the punditocracy" has a severe case of indictus interruptus, but for President Bush and his White House staff, the worst is yet to come. To be sure, waiting on a decision to indict is an exquisite form of torture. But what lies ahead is worse. If special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald does choose to indict one or more senior Bush White House officials, they will be the first top White House aides to be indicted in a decade and a half.

This is when a White House staffer earns his pay. The pressure of a federal criminal investigation - especially one in the media spotlight - is bone-crushing. My guess is that the strain is taking a gruesome toll. Already we hear rumors of President Bush exploding at his aides, at the President blaming Vice President Cheney, Karl Rove, and anyone else in sight for his woes.

[...]

Mr. Bush would do well to augment his current staff, a C-Team if ever there was one, with some stronger characters. But to read the Bush-Miers correspondence is to gain a disturbing insight into Mr. Bush's personality: he likes having his ass kissed. Ms. Miers' cards and letters to the then-Governor of Texas belong in the Brown-Nosers Hall of Fame. You can be sure the younger and less experienced Bush White House aides are even more obsequious. The last thing this President wants is the first thing he needs: someone to slap his spoiled, pampered, trust-funded, plutocratic, never-worked-a-day-in-his-life cheek and make him face the reality of his foul-ups.

[...]

When a White House is under siege, no one wants to talk to anyone. Literally, anything you say can and will be used against you. When you're in a meeting and you see one of your colleagues taking notes, you start to wonder how long it will be before you're interrogated based on her notes. Maybe she's doodling. Or maybe she's digging your grave. The mind tries to focus on the task at hand, but the grand jury is never far from your thoughts.

[...]

If the waiting is as painful for the Bushies as I suspect it is, it's only because they know how terrible the toll will be when the truth comes out.

Perhaps David Brooks should give Paul a call.

Hurricane Q & A

Dave Barry is the Answer Man for your questions about the response to the hurricane.

Q. When am I going to get my electricity back?

A. The latest statement from Florida Power & Light is that "we expect to have all power in Miami-Dade, Broward and Palm Beach counties fully restored by, at the very latest, Easter."

Q. Why is it taking so long to restore power?

A. Wilma's unexpectedly strong winds caused major damage to three of FP&L's five longest extension cords.

Q. Is my water safe to drink?

A. Your water is perfectly safe, although the South Florida Water Authority does recommend that before drinking any water or touching it with your bare hands, you should boil it "until the worms stop moving."

Q. How are the levees holding up?

A. We spoke to a spokesperson for the South Florida Levee Authority (SFLA), who assured us that South Florida does not have any levees, but if we did, they would definitely be in bad shape.

Q. I keep hearing that, since the traffic lights are out, I should treat a stoplight intersection as if it were a "four-way stop." What does this mean?

A. It means that, when you reach the intersection, you should do what you normally do at a stop sign here in South Florida.

Q. You mean, ignore it?

A. That is the South Florida way.

Q. Where can I buy gasoline?

A. Vermont.

Q. How will the hurricanes affect the schools?

A. The school year started earlier than ever this year, smack dab in the middle of hurricane season. Incredibly, the school schedule has been severely disrupted by -- you are going to be very surprised -- hurricanes! Who could have predicted such a thing? In any event, our kids have missed a LOT of school. Many 10th-graders no longer remember the alphabet. This could really hurt our standardized-test scores. So the Broward and Miami-Dade school boards have decided to lengthen the school year by adding a new month, to be inserted between November and December. It will be called "FCATember."

Q. You're kidding, right?

A. I don't know any more.

Q. Why are we getting so many hurricanes lately?

A. Climate experts, after studying changes in ocean-water temperatures over the past 50 years, now believe that the recent increase in hurricane activity is being caused by a cracked mirror in the kitchen of my mother-in-law, Celia Kaufman. It cracked a few weeks ago, and since then not only have we been nailed by roughly a dozen hurricanes, but also Celia had a car accident, my brother in-law Steve hurt his back, the Dolphins offensive line has been penalized for 4,752 false starts, and President Bush, apparently without even realizing it, nominated a former Texas State Lotto executive to the U.S. Supreme Court. "This can't all be coincidence," state the climate experts. "Somebody needs to FIX THAT WOMAN'S MIRROR."

Q. So is the mirror being fixed?

A. FEMA is working on it.

Q. So we are doomed.

A. Correct.

Channel Surfing

Gov. Jeb Bush is channeling his brother:

Gov. Jeb Bush on Wednesday took the blame for underestimating the need for emergency supplies in Miami-Dade and Broward counties after Hurricane Wilma struck, and he aggressively defended the Federal Emergency Management Agency, urging critics to call him instead.

"If anybody wants to blame anybody, let them blame me. Don't blame FEMA," he said at the state emergency operations center, with Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff and FEMA Acting Director R. David Paulison at this side.

"This is our responsibility and [overall] we are doing a good job," added Bush, who had promised before Wilma hit that relief supplies would be distributed to victims in the first 24 hours.

South Florida storm victims waited in lines for hours Tuesday at distribution centers, many perplexed and angry that state, local and federal officials seemed to have misled them about when and whether ice and water would arrive. The scenes were televised nationally, adding to FEMA's battered post-Katrina image.

Wednesday's operation was smoother at most of South Florida's distribution sites, but supplies ran out at some places in Miami-Dade and Broward.

"When they run out, that's it," said a frustrated Miami-Dade Mayor Carlos Alvarez. "FEMA cannot tell us when they will be resupplied."

Mayor Alvarez has yet to learn that FEMA's job is to send out officials in polo shirts to stand next to the governor at press conferences and nod their heads.

The governor also took the lead from his mom, Barbara Bush, with a touch of "well, it's their own fault, really."

[...] Gov. Bush and Chertoff pushed some of the blame back at residents Wednesday, saying they should have had supplies at home for three days after the storm. Still, Bush promised before the storm that supplies would be in place within 24 hours. And the state's emergency management director, Craig Fugate, said it would be a "failure" if they weren't.

"Part of the lesson of Katrina is that emergency management officials can't rely on the preparedness of the population, so there will be people with virtually nothing," Waugh said.

U.S. Rep. Kendrick Meek, a Miami Democrat, said Gov. Bush was "insulting the victims of the hurricane in South Florida telling them to be patient and that they should have had what they needed for 72 hours."

"No one is looking at the centers of poverty as a priority," he said, adding that Little Haiti and Overtown still don't have distribution sites.

Someone should let the governor know that it's a little tough to lay in three days' worth of hurricane supplies when you can barely buy regular groceries. Since Miami has one of the highest poverty rates of the large cities in America, it's not like everyone in Overtown or Liberty City can run off to Dean & Deluca in their Hummer and pick up enough foie gras and Bloody Mary mix to make it through the duration.

Jebbie, you're doing a heck of a job.

Wednesday, October 26, 2005

In the Matter of Karl Rove, et al

I'm glad Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald decided to wait until I got my power restored before issuing any indictments in the Plame leak case. That's very considerate of him.

As I Was Saying...

The power came back on about ten minutes ago.

First, thanks to Brian for braving his first trip into blogging on my behalf. It was partially out of my concern to let you know that all was well, and also to make sure that I kept my blogging habit fed, even if I had to do it long-distance to Albuquerque. I've been trying to convince Brian to start his own blog; maybe this will be the impetus.

Second, thanks for all the good wishes and thoughts. It was gratifying to know that you were out there...especially those of you who went through it too or have been through it recently. MKH, I hope you get your power back if you don't have it already, and Bryan, I had a chat with my neighbor about the avocado tree. It is so denuded that the only thing it can throw off now is bark.

I can report officially that I came through the storm with virtually no damage to the house, the Mustang, or the landscaping other than a broken limb on a tree that was easily removed. Most of the damage in the neighborhood was arborial, including my neighobors on both sides who lost trees in front, and to the houses with the Spanish tile roofs; none seemed to escape the wrath of the wind. Fortunately I have flat tiles and they all survived.

As you probably know, the rest of Miami-Dade County got slammed pretty hard, but the worst was reserved for Broward and Palm Beach Counties to the north; Downtown Fort Lauderdale especially took some hard hits as did points north. The damage figures are still coming in, but it's going to be somewhere between $3 to $9 billion for the entire state; this hurricane touched 20 counties, which means basically anything below a line from Tampa to Cape Canaveral got some damage. Getting power back in Coral Gables in less than 72 hours says a lot about the people at FPL; they are saying that they should have full power restored to the 2.5 million that lost it in two to three weeks.

I don't need to go into the minute-by-minute description of the last three days, but suffice it to say that there were some very impressive moments in this experience. The peak of the storm hit about a half-hour after the power went out, and I was able to watch it roar by mainly as a wind event with gusts up to 90 or so recorded at Miami International Airport, which is about five miles north of here. As the eyewall passed around 10:30, I went out onto my front porch, which faces north, and watched the clouds go by; it was like something out of a Steven Spielberg movie with them roiling by like paint spilled in water. ("Close Encounters of the Third Kind" comes to mind.) The most interesting thing was the smell; the bands had come over the Everglades and picked up the scent of the marsh and swamplands and for a while it was like we were in the middle of Shark Valley. After the eyewall passed and went on out to sea the winds turned and came back from the north, hammering the front of the house as hard as they had the back just a half-hour before. Fortunately most the the debris had been pushed away, so the only thing that landed in the front yard was a ton of leaves from the live oak across the street.

By 1:30 p.m. it was over, and by 3:00 I was out in the backyard pulling the limbs and the hundreds of little palm branches and avocado leaves to the debris pile in the alley. The immediate cause of the power outage was apparent; a tree in someone's back yard to the west had fallen south-to-north across the line and blocked the alley as well as pulled the plug. The phones worked the entire time as did my 1976 Panasonic AM/FM/8-track radio with batteries. The cable TV is, of course, whacked, but like during Katrina and the week afterward, no great loss.

Without power, going to bed when it gets dark is about your only choice. I was reading One Fine Day in the Middle of the Night by Christopher Brookmyre (which I heartily recommend), and so I took to bed with the flashlight, something I haven't done since I was 14, and read myself to sleep. Getting up in the morning was easy; the alarm in my head would go off -- that doesn't require FPL -- and I'd lie in bed listening to the ceaseless nattering of the folks at "Hurricane Central" until it got light enough to see. Fortunately there was enough residual hot water to take a Navy shower both Tuesday and today. There was no hot coffee, of course, and none of the local places were open yet, so yesterday I made do with a can of warm Diet Pepsi. Desperate times.... This morning I stood outside Einstein's on the corner of Ponce de Leon and Miracle Mile with a group of fellow caffeine addicts, panting at the sign that said they would open "as soon as power was restored," and that part of Coral Gables got it the night before. After twenty minutes the manager came to the door with genuine fear in his eyes and said they couldn't open until "later in the day" and promptly locked the door again, perhaps envisioning being pelted with paving stones. We found a Cuban restaurant down the street that was selling cafe con leche, and with that and the Miami Herald -- and the crossword puzzle -- I had my morning fix set. We did get some entertainment, too. Some idiot (in an SUV, of course) blew through the intersection of Ponce de Leon and Miracle Mile without making a full stop. The rule is that when the stoplights are out, you treat it as a four-way stop. This numbskull decided he was too important in his big old Ford Exxon Valdez and did what we call a South Toledo Slide; barely tapping the brakes before gunning it through. He did it, however, right in front of a Coral Gables police car. Well, there's $198.50 that asshole won't get back.

The cavalry in the form of two trucks from First Illuminiation -- the power company from Cleveland, Ohio -- showed up at two p.m. today to repair the line. They were greeted with hearty cheers from me and my neighbors and offers of Gatorade. They took it in stride, and as you can see, the power is back, I am back, the freezer is empty, and if I never see another can of Dinty Moore beef stew served cold out of the can again.... But compared to what the other people in harder-hit places like Broward County where they have to boil their water and they're talking weeks to get back their power, I made it through very easily, and I really am counting my blessings.

Life will get back to normal slowly around here. School has been cancelled for the rest of the week in Miami-Dade, Broward, and Monroe Counties, so I will be doing not much other than writing and reading. The local news has carried nothing national, even pre-empting NPR news on the hour for the latest updates on ice and water deliveries.

So. What did I miss?

Tuesday, October 25, 2005

I'll be back!

Hey...Brian here. Got a call from Mustang Bobby, everythings fine, no damage to the house, car, or person, but no power, either, so...when FP&L gets their act together, he'll be back here telling you all about it!

Monday, October 24, 2005

Report from the Inside

This post will stay on top for the duration.

5:04 a.m. - The first band passed by around 2:15 a.m., and I woke up fully around 4:30 when the neighbor's windchimes when into full mode. It's now getting very windy here in Coral Gables with gusts up to 45 mph. The TV is showing the eye, about 70 miles wide, about to make landfall near Naples. Key West is getting slammed right now and they've lost power.

We're not getting a lot of rain; just wind so far.

I'm going to make some coffee while I still have power.

5:20 - The on-scene reporters are still making themselves victims of the storm, standing out there in their rain slickers dodging debris and narrating the obvious -- it's windy out there. I'm not sure what the point of this kind of reporting is, but everyone does it.

5:40 a.m. - There have been a couple of power flickers. Florida Power and Light (FPL) did a very good job of restoring power after the last two hurricanes, so if we lose it, it will be from something falling on a nearby line. My biggest worry is that one of my neighbors has a very big avocado tree in his backyard -- parts of it landed in my yard during Katrina -- so if there's anything that's going to come down nearby, that's it. The rest of the trees in the area have either been trimmed or came down during Katrina or Rita.

5:57 a.m. - Heavy wind gusts right now here in downtown Coral Gables. The wind is coming from the southeast as the bands circulate counter-clockwise around the center of circulation. I'm hearing distant noises of things falling; tree limbs? loose shutters? It's still an hour and a half until sunrise.

The eye of the storm -- now a Category 3 -- is about to come ashore at Marco Island on the southwest coast. National Hurricane Center is saying that the worst of the storm for us in Miami-Dade is between now and noon, and we're on the "dirty" side of the storm. That means the winds will be the strongest in the southeast quadrant as the winds circulate. Add to that the forward motion of the storm itself, which is moving at about 20 mph, and you have a lot of wind.

6:11 a.m. - Looking out my south-facing windows in the sunroom, the wind is really rocking the trees in the back yard and the neighborhood. Everyone still has power. There were occasional flashes of light; I'm not sure if that's lightning or transformers blowing, but I haven't heard any accompanying booms of thunder.

Nothing to do with the hurricane, but why has HaloScan comments chosen this particular moment to go off-line?

6:35 a.m. - HaloScan is back. Weather Underground is showing winds of around 45 with gusts to 60. Not a lot of rain. Power outages being reported in Pinecrest, which is south of here, and there was a loud explosion just now about a block away; I'm guessing that was a transformer. The power has been flickering a little.

6:43 a.m. - Reports are coming in from Channel 6 that Key West got hit pretty hard; there's reports of flooding in the south and eastern part of the island, and they're getting a storm surge from both the north and the south. Another quick look out into the back yard and the sky is lighting up with more electrical flashes.

7:00 a.m. - It's getting really windy now, with reported gusts to 85 mph in the western suburbs of Miami. The center of the storm is now 10 miles north of Everglades City. The bands are tightening up.

Just heard from MKH who runs Hidden City in the northern suburbs of Miami. He lost power at 5:46 a.m. but continues on battery and wireless.

7:14 a.m. - A check out the front (north) side: lights are still on in downtown Coral Gables, and the house is protecting the Mustang; the bushes by the front door and driveway are relatively stationary. Transformers are flashing and banging and the lights are flickering a little, but the cable is still working, the phones are still working, and the sky is getting a little lighter. Sunrise is in ten minutes, although I don't expect to see the sun pop up over the horizon like one of those Chamber of Commerce films.

Frist in Trouble

From the Washington Post:

Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-Tenn.) was given considerable information about his stake in his family's hospital company, according to records that are at odds with his past statements that he did not know what was in his stock holdings.

Managers of the trusts that Frist once described as "totally blind," regularly informed him when they added new shares of HCA Inc. or other assets to his holdings, according to the documents.

[...]

The letters seem to undermine one of the major arguments the senator has used throughout his political career to rebut criticism of his ownership in HCA: that the stock was held in blind trusts beyond his control and that he had little idea of the extent of those holdings.

The extent of Frist's knowledge of the inner workings of his trusts and his family's health care company is related to a recently launched federal investigation of possible insider trading involving the liquidation this summer of Frist's HCA stock. Within weeks of Frist's decision to sell his holdings in June, HCA shares fell sharply because of a weak earnings report. Frist has said he possessed only publicly available and not "insider" information about the company when he directed the sale and, therefore, did nothing wrong.

If the man had any scruples, he'd resign. Oh, I'm sorry -- I'm forgetting -- IOKIYAR.

Sunday, October 23, 2005

Goodnight, Wilma

Here is the link to the current tracking map for Wilma. This link will continue to update until after the storm passes.

As for me, I'm going to pack it in for the night. The winds are expected to pick up later tonight with the big stuff hitting around dawn tomorrow. The TV stations are predicting widespread power failures, so there's a chance I could wake up in the morning to a dark house. Good thing this computer has a battery back-up, and if the phone lines don't go out, I'll be able to get on line and see what's going on.

If not...well, I'll be back when I get the lines back.

Why Am I Not Surprised

The Republican talking points against Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald are already being trotted out. If you can't beat the facts, beat the prosecutor. From the New York Times:

As the White House braced for a decision by Mr. Fitzgerald, Republicans began suggesting that they would pursue a strategy of minimizing any charges as technicalities or the product of an overzealous prosecution.

Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison, Republican of Texas, speaking on NBC's "Meet the Press," compared the leak investigation to the case of Martha Stewart, "where they couldn't find a crime and they indict on something that she said about something that wasn't a crime."

Senator Hutchison said she hoped "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 and so they go to something just to show that their two years of investigation was not a waste of time and taxpayer dollars."

In the first place, Mr. Fitzgerald was appointed by the Department of Justice which was under the leadership of then-Attorney General John Ashcroft. In other words, Senator Hutchison, he was appointed by your guy. Mr. Fitzgerald's record is squeaky-clean, his office has been virtually leak-proof, and he has no interest whatsoever in partisan politics. Compare that with your hero, Kenneth Starr. (See Joe Conanson's article on this point in Salon.com.)

As for the hope that "it is an indictment on a crime and not some perjury technicality," excuse me, but let me refresh your memory, Senator Hutchison; that was exactly what you and your cabal impeached Bill Clinton for. When Mr. Clinton's supporters said his sins didn't rise to the level of impeachment, the Republicans' talking points was all about respecting the rule of law; that perjury was just as much a high crime and misdemeanor as treason.

I can't decide if the Republicans so arrogant as to insult the intelligence of the American people with this patently obvious ploy, or they're just plain too thick to realize that the American people know blantant hypocrisy when they see it. Either way, they don't deserve to get away with it.

What To Expect...

From the Miami Herald:

South Florida's weather will deteriorate through the night and into Monday, forecasters said.

Here are some details for Miami-Dade and Broward counties:

• Sustained tropical storm winds between 39 and 74 mph could begin around midnight and last until 4 or 5 p.m. Monday.

• Bursts of hurricane winds higher than 74 mph could begin around 7 a.m. Monday and last until 1 p.m.

• Four to eight inches of rain are expected, with some areas receiving as many as 12 inches.

• Tornadoes are possible.

• Some causeways in central and north Miami-Dade could flood late Sunday and early Monday.

Here's the 2 p.m. tracking map.

With the constant babbling of the local TV stations, I found refuge in cable TV movies. I really enjoyed Finding Neverland. Well, it's better than The Perfect Storm, and while I love Key Largo, it's a little too close to home at the moment.

An Appeal

Chances are pretty good that tonight's episode of The West Wing will be pre-empted here in South Florida, either by hurricane coverage or by a power failure, depending on when Wilma makes landfall.

I'd really rather not have to wait until next summer -- if then -- to see the re-run. If you live outside South Florida and have the capability of recording tonight's episode on DVD or that old-fashioned method, VHS, let me know in an e-mail and I'll send you my snail-mail address. I will be happy to reimburse you for the cost of postage and the DVD or tape.

It's the little things that drive you crazy at times like this.

Sunday Reading

For those of you without TimesSelect:

Frank Rich reminds us all that the whole Plamegate story goes back to the war in Iraq and Vice President Cheney's obsession with getting us into it. No one was going to get in the way of going to war.

This is what Col. Lawrence Wilkerson, then-Secretary of State Colin Powell's wartime chief of staff, was talking about last week when he publicly chastised the "Cheney-Rumsfeld cabal" for sowing potential disaster in Iraq, North Korea and Iran. It's this cabal that in 2002 pushed for much of the bogus W.M.D. evidence that ended up in Mr. Powell's now infamous February 2003 presentation to the U.N. It's this cabal whose propaganda was sold by the war's unannounced marketing arm, the White House Iraq Group, or WHIG, in which both Mr. Libby and Mr. Rove served in the second half of 2002. One of WHIG's goals, successfully realized, was to turn up the heat on Congress so it would rush to pass a resolution authorizing war in the politically advantageous month just before the midterm election.

Joseph Wilson wasn't a player in these exalted circles; he was a footnote who began to speak out loudly only after Saddam had been toppled and the mission in Iraq had been "accomplished." He challenged just one element of the W.M.D. "evidence," the uranium that Saddam's government had supposedly been seeking in Africa to fuel its ominous mushroom clouds.

But based on what we know about Mr. Libby's and Mr. Rove's hysterical over-response to Mr. Wilson's accusation, he scared them silly. He did so because they had something to hide. Should Mr. Libby and Mr. Rove have lied to investigators or a grand jury in their panic, Mr. Fitzgerald will bring charges. But that crime would seem a misdemeanor next to the fables that they and their bosses fed the nation and the world as the whys for invading Iraq.

David Brooks is positioning himself for a job in the post-Rove White House.

Despite all the mistakes that have been made, it is nonetheless true that Bush has ennobled and saved American conservatism. As the G.O.P. moves forward, its leaders will break into two camps, post-Bush and pre-Bush. The post-Bush conservatives will build on the changes Bush introduced and refine his vision of using government positively to give people the tools to run their own lives. The pre-Bush conservatives will try to go back to the libertarianism and social conservatism of 1995.

The future belongs to post-Bush conservatives. If you want a glimpse of that future, read the speech David Cameron gave earlier this month, which electrified the British Conservative Party conference. Cameron has learned the essential lessons of Bushism. He offered a positive, governing conservatism. He talked about helping moms afford child care and helping the people of Darfur survive. "A modern, compassionate conservatism is right for our times," he declared.

He's right. In some ways future conservatives will be different from President Bush. But they will not succeed unless they absorb the essential lessons that are George Bush's best legacy.

I haven't read such a pathetic offer of a blowjob since I read the personal ads at ManHUNT.net.

Dohiyi Mir finds the lastest in teeny-bopper fashion -- and fascism.

Both Ohio and California have redistricting measures on the ballot in November. Ha. Two states that can really teach us a lot about cleaning up politics. This is the first of three reports in the Toledo Blade.

Michelle Malkin slanders the Quakers. I wear her scorn as a badge of honor. Ms. Malkin demonstrates her complete ignorance of the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers). The fact that the Quakers have a 500-year tradition of opposing war in any form and bringing comfort to the afflicted means nothing to her, even if she knew it. Therefore anything she says is irrelevant and not worthy of consideration.

The Caribbean island of Montserrat is coming back to life.

"Still home, still nice" is no catchy tourism slogan, but for the people of Montserrat, who have faced a trifecta of natural disasters in the past 16 years, it has become a sobering maxim to live by.

Hurricane Hugo came first, hitting the island, a British overseas territory in the West Indies, with fury in 1989. Then, the Soufriere Hills Volcano erupted in 1995 and delivered the final blow two years later when it covered the capital, Plymouth, in up to 20 feet of ash and rock, forcing the government to proclaim the city and the southern two-thirds of the 40-square-mile island uninhabitable.

Two-thirds of the 12,000 inhabitants fled to find new homes abroad after the eruptions, and tourism left with them. Yet today, Monserrat's 13-square-mile "safe zone" - beyond the threatening grips of the volcano - is on the rebound. With British support, the $18.5 million Gerald's Airport opened in July with at least four daily flights from neighboring Antigua on a 19-seat twin-engine turboprop. Plans for a new capital city and a nine-hole golf course are in the works, and construction continues to rebuild the tourist infrastructure.

The Montserrat Volcano Observatory, in Flemings, www.mvo.ms, (664) 491-5647, serves as the hub for investigating the still-fuming dome, with a veranda looking out at the 3,000-foot monster and its plume, best seen on a clear day. Resident volcanologists lead hourlong tours of the observatory at 3:30 p.m. Tuesday and Thursday for $4 , and a larger interpretive center with photos, videos and models will open in the coming months. To get a closer look at the destruction, call police headquarters in the commercial center, Brades, (664) 491-2555, to arrange an escorted tour of the abandoned streets of Plymouth, billed as a present-day Pompeii, for around $55. Only a church steeple and the roofs of homes break above the solidified ash in one part of town; in another, sneakers line the racks of a shoe store as if customers will return tomorrow.

First inhabited by former Irish indentured servants in the mid-17th century, Montserrat conjures images of the other Emerald Isle thanks to 50 to 80 inches of annual rainfall, and a number of hiking paths criss-cross the lush, mountainous interior.

The Oriole Walkway is a popular route, meandering through three miles of rain forest full of darting black and yellow orioles. To avoid getting lost and to learn about the kaleidoscope of flora and fauna, book a guide through the Montserrat National Trust Olveston, (664) 491-3086, for $20 an hour.

Just off the handful of pearl gray beaches of the northwest coast is prime snorkeling and diving ground where green turtles and southern stingrays swim in the year-round 80-degree waters. Before the destruction, Montserrat had developed a niche as a haven for jet-setters and rockers like Eric Clapton and Paul McCartney with its get-away-from-it-all atmosphere.

Even with all of the rebuilding and limited space within the Safe Zone, the island maintains the same persona. There are no stoplights and just one ATM, and traffic jams are limited to herds of goats roaming freely. Open-air restaurants - like Jumping Jack's in Olveston, (664) 491-5645, where grilled wahoo and tuna snapper make regular menu appearances - dot the string of villages on the west coast. Next door, the Vue Pointe Hotel, (664) 491-5210, has 18 rooms and is one of only two hotels on the island. It has views of the volcano from each self-contained cottage starting at $100 (double occupancy). A number of guesthouses and private villas are returning to the rental pool as well.

"It feels kind of like small town U.S.A.," said Betty Dix, who visited from Chicago in 1978 and never left. That sense of place comes with a view of the Caribbean framed by mango and palm trees. It's what made Montserrat famous before the destruction, and as the locals like to say, it's "still nice" today.

In 1993 my ex and I spent a week on Montserrat at the above-named Vue Pointe Hotel and fell in love with the island. We went back the next year and planned to return in 1996, but the volcanic eruption put the kibosh on that, but I still harbor a desire to go back to that little island, and now it looks like I can. By the way, Montserrat figures prominently in the novel Bobby Cramer, thinly disguised as the lush tropical island paradise of St. Edmund.

Football: The Dolphins played Friday night in advance of Hurricane Wilma and lost to Kansas City. The Lions play the Cleveland Browns. I'm not even sure that there will be football on TV here in Miami, what with the wall-to-wall hurricane coverage.

Prepped and Ready

Here's the latest tracking map of Wilma (link updates automatically with every new map). All of South Florida is under a hurricane warning, and the cone of probablility is moving a little north of Miami-Dade County, but we're still going to get high winds and rain. The strike probability says that Miami has a 30% chance of being within 65 nautical miles of the center of the hurricane. It's expected to make landfall around sunrise on Monday as a Category 2 or 1 on the southwest coast near the Naples area; about the same place that got hit by Hurricane Charley last year.

I have a good stock of food and water -- the same that I had for Katrina and Rita, and I didn't need it then -- and the flashlight and radio are in working order. I don't have shutters; my landlord doesn't provide them, and I've made it through the last eight storms, including Katrina, withouth them. The Pontiac is in the garage, and the Mustang is parked in a fairly protected area; the same place it was during the last storms when the winds were a lot higher than what we're expecting. I did my weekly shopping -- the store opened early today -- and picked up my usual supplies. I debated about getting my usual stock of frozen foods (Lean Cuisine for lunch at work, etc.) and decided to go ahead; if I lose power I'll still have food, and if I don't, well, I'm set. The lawn furniture is stacked against the wall and the new back door seals tight.

My only nagging fear is that there will be so much hurricane coverage on TV tonight that they'll pre-empt The West Wing.

Saturday, October 22, 2005

Hurricane Names - Starting Over

Now we have Tropical Storm Alpha. We've gone through the 2005 hurricane names list from Arlene to Wilma and so the National Hurricane Center is starting with the Greek alphabet.

As of the five p.m. update, all of South Florida is under a hurricane watch for the approaching Wilma. If the storm follows the current track, Miami will get heavy winds and rain, and the hurricane will move through very quickly. That beats the alternative -- a slow-moving direct hit -- but on the whole, I'd rather it would just go away.

I just got the official word: Miami-Dade County Public Schools will be closed on Monday, including administrative offices. So, barring a power outage or other damage it will be like riding out Rita last month or Charley, Frances, Ivan, and Jeanne last year: moments of terror and excitement followed by hours of boredom. At least I'll be able to catch up on my writing.

T. Rex on the Move

Kenneth Quinnell, who blogs at T. Rex's Guide to Life, has revamped his place and has a new URL. Please adjust your links accordingly.

You should be reading him every day.

That's Just Sick

From the War Room at Salon.com.

No one knows exactly where Hurricane Wilma is headed just now, but the same charming folks who celebrated Katrina's destruction of New Orleans are praying that the latest Category 4 storm strikes hard into the heart of Florida.

In an e-mail message, Columbia Christians for Life -- the group that saw a six-week-old fetus in the satellite images of Katrina -- says "Christian patriots" should "consider praying, imprecatorily, that God might be pleased to use His Hurricane ... to destroy some of Florida's 73 child-murder-by-abortion centers."

In a sign of moderation, however, the group seems to be advancing a sort of reverse-neutron-bomb theory of divine retribution, advising its followers that they "can pray for God to destroy the bricks and mortar of these government-protected death camps without praying for harm to human life."

Sick bastards.

No Love Lost

Judith Miller misled her editor at the New York Times her role in the Plame case. This according to a story by Howard Kurtz in the Washington Post.

New York Times executives "fully encouraged" reporter Judith Miller in her refusal to testify in the CIA leak investigation, a stance that led to her jailing, and later told Miller she could not continue at the paper unless she wrote a first-person account, her attorney said yesterday.

The comments by Robert Bennett came as Executive Editor Bill Keller accused Miller of apparently misleading the newspaper about her dealings with Vice President Cheney's top aide, signaling the first public split between Miller and the management of a newspaper that had fully embraced her in the contentious legal battle.

[...]

"Until Fitzgerald came after her," Keller wrote, "I didn't know that Judy had been one of the reporters on the receiving end of the . . . whisper campaign" against Joe Wilson, the husband of CIA operative Valerie Plame. "I should have wondered why I was learning this from the special counsel, a year after the fact." Citing a 2003 conversation with Miller that was recalled by Washington bureau chief Philip Taubman, Keller wrote: "Judy seems to have misled Phil Taubman about the extent of her involvement."

Further, Keller said, "if I had known the details of Judy's entanglement with Libby, I'd have been more careful in how the paper articulated its defense and perhaps more willing than I had been to support efforts aimed at exploring compromises."

The way I see it, both the Times and Miller used each other. The Times, in an effort to keep their credibility intact after the Jayson Blair episode, stood behind Miller as long as it appeared that she was in the right, both on her Iraq stories -- what, the government was going to dispute her backing them on the WMD line? -- and as long as they could hold her up as a First Amendment case when she went to jail for refusing to reveal her source. As far as Miller was concerned, she was on the gravy train with her suck-up stories about the build-up to war and she had further ingratiated herself with her inside sources by standing up for her right to shield her sources. She used them, they used her, and as long as everything was status quo, everyone was happy. Happy, that is, until she found out that life in jail without her masseuse, her martinis, her steak, and her Scooter was no bed of roses, and until the New York Times found out through other reports and a big dose of reality that she had been less than candid and accountable.

If the New York Times could dispense with Jayson Blair as brutally as they did -- not that he didn't deserve it, mind you -- why can't the same be done for a reporter who also showed that she can't be trusted to do her job withing the confines of the ethics and standards of basic journalism?

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