From Holden: So now the story is Chimpy was “furious with Karl” when he found out two years ago that Rove was involved in outing Valerie Plame. Funny, Scottie never mentioned the president’s anger at the time. Q All right. Let me just follow up. You said this morning, “The President knows” that Karl Rove wasn’t involved. How does he know that? MR. McCLELLAN: Well, I’ve made it very clear that it was a ridiculous suggestion in the first place. I saw some comments this morning from the person who made that suggestion, backing away from that. And I said … Continue reading Gaggle Flashback

From Holden: Yesterday Dick DeGuerin, one of Tom DeLay’s lawyers, was alll hot and bothered about a plea bargain he said Travis County DA Ronnie Earle offered his client. Today we learn that the deal in question had been proposed by DeLay’s legal team. In a letter filed in District Court on Monday, DeGuerin accused Travis County District Attorney Ronnie Earle of trying to coerce his client into pleading guilty to a misdemeanor last month to avoid indictment and being forced to resign his job as U.S. House majority leader. Yet several sources familiar with the negotiations said that was … Continue reading Dick DeGuerin, Another Liar

Let’s talk about this Plame situation and what indictments may come the way it and they should be talked about. It’s of a piece with everything else done by this administration, in other words, arrogant, pointless, and half a loaf. An administration truly confident in its policies, never mind its politics, would have allowed Joe Wilson to say whatever he had to say, secure that its rationale for war could stand up to any criticism. An administration filled with competent people focused on the truth of the terrorist threat would have, if it deemed war necessary, presented a case for … Continue reading How Did It Come To This?

From Holden: The Washington Post has published a loooong examination of Ohio Republican Bob Ney’s ties to superlobbyist Jack Abramoff. More indictments, please. Continue reading Ney Day

From Holden: Let’s start with the question of the day, shall we? Q Is the President confident that Cheney did not leak Valerie Plame’s identity? [*GULP*] MR. McCLELLAN: Again, I appreciate any question on this, but as you know, Suzanne, our policy is not to comment on an investigation while it’s ongoing. And that means any question relating to it. And I’m just not going to comment on an investigation while it’s ongoing. The President has directed the White House to cooperate fully with the investigation. I would encourage you not to prejudge the outcome of the investigation and not … Continue reading Today on Holden’s Obsession with the Gaggle

From Holden: Poor Fristy is in a heap o’ trouble. Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist said Tuesday he is ”cooperating fully” with federal investigators probing his sale of stock in a large health care company founded by his father, but declined to say whether he has been subpoenaed or personally answered questions in the case. ”I acted properly at every point. I am absolutely confident of the outcome itself,” said the Tennessee Republican, whose decision to order the sale of stock from his blind trusts in June is under review by both the Securities and Exchange Commission and federal prosecutors. … Continue reading Waiting in the Wings

From Holden: I was struck by the phrasing used by the New York Daily News’ source today. “They have got a senior cooperating witness – someone who is giving them all of that,” a source who has been questioned in the leak probe told the Daily News yesterday. Have got. Have got. Dang, I seem to recall that there is one figure in the Plame case, someone “who has been questioned in the leak probe”, who habitually uses “have got” where “have” would be sufficient and correct. Now, who could that be? Continue reading A Case of the “Have Gots”

From Holden: I was struck by the phrasing used by the New York Daily News’ source today. “They have got a senior cooperating witness – someone who is giving them all of that,” a source who has been questioned in the leak probe told the Daily News yesterday. Have got. Have got. Dang, I seem to recall that there is one figure in the Plame case, someone “who has been questioned in the leak probe”, who habitually uses “have got” where “have” would be sufficient and correct. Now, who could that be? Continue reading A Case of the ”Have Gots”

From Holden: Wow, on the heels of Firday’s announcement of the largest surge in consumer prices in 25 years we learn today that wholesale prices increased last month by the larget rate in 15 years. The Labor Department reported that wholesale prices jumped 1.9 percent in September, led by surging prices for gasoline, natural gas and home heating oil after the widespread shutdowns of refineries and oil platforms along the Gulf Coast. Food prices, which had been declining, posted the biggest increase in 11 months as the price of eggs shot up by a record amount. Excluding the volatile energy … Continue reading My Bush Boom Is…. Booming

From Holden: Dick De Guerin, Tom DeLay’s lawyer, is an expert at blowing smoke. Now he’s making a big deal out of a plea offer that was presented in a meeting he did not attend, and those who did witness the offer say he’s full of it. U.S. Rep. Tom DeLay’s lawyer, Dick DeGuerin, lit a fuse Monday by claiming that prosecutors threatened to have DeLay indicted unless he pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor. The only problem is that DeGuerin was not part of those negotiations, and more than one source who was party to the discussions tells a different … Continue reading Smoke

Gallup: Approve 39 (45) Disapprove 58 (50) In honor of this grand occasion, we’d like to introduce you to Fluffit, the Official First Draft Pony. Say hello, Fluffit! Created specifically for First Draft equine aficionados by the talented Jason Brooks of Good Comics, Fluffit has a lovely blue coat, cotton-candy-pink mane, and an ass emblazoned with a sweetheart depiction of Bush’s continually plummeting poll numbers. Holden got his pony this fall when Bush broke the 40 percent floor in overall approval ratings – now you can get your pony, too! Visit the First Draft Pony Store! Commemorate our preznit’s sinking … Continue reading Holden’s Stable Gets Another Resident!

The Poor Man quotes a guy who claims to have: not only the most notoriously brutal fighting school in the Twin Cities but the only one to ever sweep all the first-places in a major tournament, from gold to black. WOW. The toughest dojo in the whole damn Twin Cities. It reminds me of those signs I see on the freeway heading up to the old homestead: Fleischmann’s – Wisconsin’s Favorite Vodka. In what universe is either of those things an inducement to purchase? Somebody tell me, before I dent the wall with my head. A. Continue reading Hysterical Laugh Line of The Day

From Holden: Well, she is a charter member of the White House Iraq Group. MR. RUSSERT: Let me ask you a couple of questions, domestic questions. Have you testified under oath in the CIA leak investigation? SEC’Y RICE: Tim, I’m not going to talk about an ongoing investigation. I’ve cooperated in any way that I’ve been asked to cooperate. MR. RUSSERT: Including testifying under oath? SEC’Y RICE: I’ve cooperated in any and every way that I’ve been asked to cooperate. Continue reading Is Condi Getting Nervous?

You may notice the site being slow as hell this evening. It’s because Mr. Athenae and I will be cleaning out our sizeable store of porno comment spam in preparation for moving our entire operation over to a set of servers not run by hamsters. Yes, we’re upgrading to chinchillas. BIG chinchillas. More on that in the coming weeks. For now, just know we love you, and we’re removing all references of bondage torture, animal husbandry and free Viagra to prove it.. Oh, and here’s a chinchilla picture. Try to crash a server run by one of THOSE. We dare … Continue reading Do Not Attempt To Adjust The Blog

From Holden: Today’s gaggle opens with Scottie’s new “challenge the questioner” strategy. Q Why did the President feel it’s necessary to invite these former justices, or sitting justices, to the White House to talk about Harriet Miers? Is he trying to change the debate from the religious preoccupation, which was much discussed here last week? MR. McCLELLAN: Much discussed where last week? Q Here in this room. MR. McCLELLAN: Actually, in this room we’ve been discussing her qualifications and her experience — Q Well, you have. Some of us — MR. McCLELLAN: — and her judicial temperament. So that’s what … Continue reading Today on Holden’s Obsession with the Gaggle

From Holden: Dark days at the White House. REUTERS/Larry Downing Continue reading Body Language

From Holden: Sounds like he’s putting the Sunnis in a tight situation. I was pleased to see that the Sunnis participated in the process. The idea of deciding to go into a ballot box is a positive development. Continue reading Your President Speaks

From Holden: OK, Robert Mugabe is more than a bit of a thug, but he knows a fellow fascist when he sees him. [Zimbabwe President Robert] Mugabe departed from his text at a ceremony marking the 60th anniversary of the United Nation’s Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) to accuse Bush and Blair of illegally invading Iraq and looking to unseat governments elsewhere. “Must we allow these men, the two unholy men of our millennium, who in the same way as Hitler and Mussolini formed (an) unholy alliance, formed an alliance to attack an innocent country?” he said. “The voice of … Continue reading Bush Bashing

From Holden: Congratluations, 1976 US soldiers have been killed in Iraq. Meanwhile, the war crimes continue. Helicopters and warplanes bombed two villages near Ramadi in western Iraq on Sunday, killing about 70 people, the US military says. The military said all the dead were militants, although eyewitnesses are quoted saying that many were civilians. Continue reading Happy Bicentennial

From Holden: There’s been a great hullabaloo, justifiably, this weekend over what Judith Miller did and did not tell the Grand Jury and the Times regarding the Plame case. Arianna thinks TIM-eh is due for a little truth of consequences as well. But what about Bob Novak? Although she’s in this thing up to her bangs, Judy Miller did not reveal Valerie Plame’s covert status in print. Bob Novak did. Where is the pressure for Novak, who last time I checked still had a job with the Chicago Sun-Times, to reveal what he told the grand jury? Why is Novak … Continue reading What About Bob?

From Holden: The Lead Editorial in today’s Washington Post calls out the Republican Party for their lack of support for Sen. Carl M. Levin’s proposal to create an independent commission to investigate the treatment of detainees since 2001. In the process the editors call Bush a war criminal. Administration officials frequently assert that prisoner treatment has been investigated by a number of military or Pentagon-appointed panels since the photos of abuse at the Abu Ghraib prison surfaced last year. What they don’t acknowledge is the lack of independence of those probes or the very wide areas they have overlooked. There … Continue reading The WaPo Does Shrill

Judith Miller owes everybody who’s ever slipped a piece of paper under a reporter’s door, left an envelope under a car windshield wiper, or called up a reporter on an answering machine in the middle of the night with some information that reporter couldn’t get any other way, the deepest and most abject of apologies. I’ve been defending Judith Miller since she went to jail, from bloggers, from people who insist there’s no reason for anonymous sources ever to be used, from people who called her a whore and worse for being friendly with administration officials. I’ve been defending her … Continue reading Journalism

An oldie but a goodie from the Onion: The agony never ends. I can’t even sleep, because, every time I try, Zach starts beating on his bongos, while some other unwashed bozo tries to play some crappy didgeridoo he made out of some PVC pipe. And if I hear one more hippie fumble through the bridge of “Sugar Magnolia” on Zach’s untuned acoustic guitar, I’m going to squeeze my head between the bars of my cage and twist until my neck snaps. I’m a ferret, goddamn it! I have a very acute sense of smell! Day after day, I am … Continue reading Life With Ferrets

The stupid. IT BURNS US. NEW YORK – American Girl, manufacturer of a highly popular line of dolls and children’s books, has become the target of conservative activists threatening a boycott unless the toy maker cuts off contributions to a youth organization that supports abortion rights and acceptance of lesbians. The protest is directed at an ongoing American Girl campaign in which proceeds from sales of a special “I Can” wristband help support educational and empowerment programs of Girls Inc., a national nonprofit organization which describes its mission as “inspiring girls to be strong, smart and bold.” American Girl, whose … Continue reading Hey Miss American Girl

From Holden: Ooooh, tricksey gagglers, asking about an indicted White House staffer in order to fool poor Scottie. Q Scott, the departure of David Safavian from the Office of Management and Budget would seem to indicate that this administration has no tolerance for employees who face indictments. Is that an accurate assumption? MR. McCLELLAN: I appreciate your question and I think you’re asking that in the context of some of the current events, and I’m not going to even jump in to try to speculate on those matters. Q Given the time that Karl Rove would need to spend preparing … Continue reading Today on Holden’s Obsession with the Gaggle

From Holden: I believe it was at this point in time that the fifth Whiskey Sour started to kick in. I told the Ambassador that — reminded him what I told President Musharraf — I said — once talked to him, I said Pakistan is a friend, and America will help. Continue reading Your President Speaks!

From Holden: WaPo: Investigators at the Education Department have contacted the U.S. attorney’s office regarding the Bush administration’s hiring of commentator Armstrong Williams to promote its agenda. The action was disclosed by Sen. Frank Lautenberg, D-N.J., who has pressed for a criminal fraud investigation focused on questions about whether Williams actually performed the work cited in his monthly reports to the Education Department. Continue reading We Won’t Stop Until Every Republican Has Been Indicted

From Holden: Hmmmmm. Looks like Chimpy considered biting the hand that feeds him. Two months before the invasion of Iraq, President Bush told Prime Minister Tony Blair of Britain that he “wanted to go beyond Iraq” in dealing with the spread of illicit weapons and mentioned Saudi Arabia and Pakistan on a list of countries posing particular problems, according to notes taken by one of Mr. Blair’s advisers cited in a new book. Mr. Bush’s comment, in a private telephone conversation on Jan. 30, 2003, could be significant because it appeared to add Saudi Arabia and Pakistan to a list … Continue reading The Other Axis of Evil

Because there’s been an abundance of Stripe lately, here’s a Fox, hiding behind the crap literature shelf to avoid the camera. A. Continue reading Friday Ferretblogging: Fox Edition

From Holden: A draft GAO report confims our assumptions. A long-awaited report on the 2004 Food and Drug Administration decision to reject an application to allow easier access to the “morning after pill” concludes that the decision was highly unusual, was made with atypical involvement from top agency officials, and may well have been made months before it was formally announced. The draft report by the Government Accountability Office, requested by Congress in the summer of 2004, is to be finalized and made public by the end of the month. But some congressional staffers have been briefed on its conclusions … Continue reading You Could Have Knocked Me Over With A Feather