He Doesn't Recall?

So where are these photos? Why doesn't someone find out why the President can't recall?

Convicted superlobbyist Jack Abramoff influenced White House actions while his firm wooed administration officials over expensive meals and plied them with sports tickets, according to a House of Representatives committee report released Monday.

Abramoff, who's cooperating with federal prosecutors after pleading guilty in an expanding corruption investigation, previously had reported that his firm had more than 400 contacts with White House officials.

After receiving new White House documents and speaking with witnesses, the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform said Monday that staffers had verified 80 of the contacts Abramoff reported and uncovered 70 others despite White House assertions that Abramoff had overblown his administration connections. The report also detailed unreleased photos of Abramoff meeting with President Bush on six occasions. Bush has said he doesn't remember Abramoff.

"The new documents and testimony show that Mr. Abramoff had personal contact with President Bush, that high-level White House officials held Mr. Abramoff and his associates in high regard and solicited recommendations from Mr. Abramoff on policy matters," the committee said.

The committee, however, added that it had "obtained no evidence" that Abramoff lobbied the president directly.

Administration officials have denied repeatedly that Abramoff held any sway over the administration. They asserted that Abramoff's claims of contact, as reported in billing records to Indian tribe clients, demonstrated his propensity for exaggeration.

On Monday, White House spokesman Tony Fratto called the report "warmed-up leftovers" and questioned the news media's interest in it.

Am I alone in wondering how it is that such a thing is possible? I was alive during the 1990s, and if the shoe were on the other foot, the outcry over those photos and the indignation over such a ridiculous "can't remember" denial would be everywhere. As in, on TV, in the newspapers, why, even in them there magazines they used to have. There would be a special counsel appointed by 4 PM in order to get to the bottom of where those photos exist and what the chain of custody of them is in terms of the White House Office of the Special Photographer and all that. There would be teams of FBI agents poring over the South Lawn by dinner time.

Granted, there really wasn't much of an Internet back then, but come on. If this was 1995, we'd hear screaming and chest beating from conservatives to see those photos and to "hear the oval office tapes" of any and all conversations between Abramoff and the President.

Even if there really weren't any...

--WS

Joe Biden Unleashed

Senator Joseph Biden reacts to President Bush:

“This is bullshit, this is malarkey. This is outrageous, for the president of the United States to go to a foreign country, to sit in the Knesset . . . and make this kind of ridiculous statement.”

“He is the guy who has weakened us,” he said. “He has increased the number of terrorists in the world. It is his policies that have produced this vulnerability that the U.S. has. It’s his [own] intelligence community [that] has pointed this out, not me.”

Biden noted that Secretary of Defense Robert Gates and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice have both suggested that the United States ought to find a way to talk more with its enemies.

"If he thinks this is appeasement, is he going to come back and fire his own cabinet?” Biden asked. “Is he going to fire Condi Rice?”

Biden was reacting to this speech, given earlier in the Israeli Knesset.

So What's Wrong With THIS Headline

Yeah. it's Drudge. What are you gonna do?



Wow! There's trouble? In Canyon Gulch? And little Timmy is trapped under a log? And a mountain lion is close to eating him?

Wait--that doesn't make any sense. I just made that up. Well, guess what? So did Drudge. I really can't find any substantive article that indicates there's anything approaching a serious money problem from donors--in fact, people are giving money to Democrats right and frickin' left. If they're threatening Dean, it doesn't show. The DNC is low on cash because it is organizing in ALL 50 STATES. And the primary turnout shows it to be a MASSIVE SUCCESS. There is now a Democratic Party presence in places like Wyoming that has never been seen before, for example.

So Drudge runs this--but, curiously, THIS is what the Hill has to say today:

Here:

The Senate Republican campaign committee’s motto from early on in the 2008 cycle has been “Two Seats” — the net gain it needs in November to retake the majority.

But a resigned National Republican Senatorial Committee (NRSC) Chairman John Ensign (Nev.) said this week that goal is a “very long stretch” at this point, and he conceded that recruitment failures and an unhelpful Senate GOP conference have hindered his efforts in what was already a perilous cycle.

A difficult week on the recruiting front has further prevented the committee from playing much offense in 2008, as wealthy candidates in New Jersey and South Dakota opted out and the window for recruiting top-tier candidates has apparently passed in most of the NRSC’s top-targeted states.

Ensign said about half of the Senate’s 49 GOP members are “not even close” to being on pace to raise the amount of money they are expected to for the committee and fellow candidates. The members are expected to raise between $750,000 and $3 million, depending on seniority and stature.

And here:

The National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC) said Thursday that former Treasurer Chris Ward apparently funneled several hundred thousand dollars to his personal and business bank accounts from the committee’s funds.

The transfers caused the committee to severely over-report its cash-on-hand totals in recent financial reports.

In an update on its internal review of the accounting irregularities that were revealed in late January, the NRCC said the funneling dates back to 2004 and that its cash on hand in its most recent financial report is actually $740,000 less than it initially reported.

Oh, and this is from December, but you get the drift:



WOW! It's a calamity!
The real story is not that there is some kind of "money problem" facing the Democrats. The real story is that the Republican Party is in hysterics and collapse, and Drudge wants to make sure no one notices that.

Hence, the bullshit headlines.

Anbar Aflame

Just days ago, the White House made much hay out of an alliance with the shadiest sheik of them all, Abu Risha, who could not even conceal his contempt for the vacuous moron for the cameras.

Today, Abu Risha is dead, killed by a powerful IED that destroyed his armored SUV as he left his compound. Four body guards were also killed by the blast. No group has yet laid claim to the attack.

Before the keening and wailing starts, Abu Risha was a thug and a highway bandit, and a list of people who would have wanted him dead would not be a short one. He was unpopular even among other Sunnis, having a reputation for corruption and pettiness that was near unrivaled (making him an ideal ally for aWol, when one thinks about it that way...) He was building a militia that was loyal not to the government, but to him. Reliance on people like him is why the so-called "Anbar Awakening" is pure unadulterated bullshit.

In President George W. Bush's trip last week to Iraq, he visited Anbar rather than Baghdad and forcefully directed attention at the security gains the growing alliance between American and tribal forces had brought. Sheik Abdul Sattar was among the tribal leaders who met with him Sept. 3 at Al Asad Air Base in Anbar, the AP reported. He was the latest and most significant of sheiks leading that effort to be killed, and his death comes as Bush prepares to discuss his Iraq strategy in a nationwide address this evening.

Recently the council had begun to reach out to other tribes to bring them into working with the American and Iraqi government, and had met recently with southern Shia tribes.

His death could be a significant setback for American efforts to work more closely with local tribes against Al Qaeda.

The authorities imposed a state of emergency in Anbar Province following his assassination, police officials said. At least one other person escorting him was also killed in the explosion.

"This action makes a crack and makes it a mess for all those who wanted to be aligned with him," Salim al-Jubori, a spokesman for the largest Sunni Arab block in the Iraqi Parliament, said. "I believe there are other leaders who will take this on, but this is not easy."

Word of the attack comes just hours before the Resident addresses the nation tonight, in a last-ditch effort to gain support for his failed Iraqi adventure, that has thus far cost nearly a trillion dollars and is closing in on 3800 American lives.