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White House urged to 'come clean' in CIA leak case Maryland Democrat tells Bush to honor pledge to fire officials Saturday, November 5, 2005; Posted: 3:32 p.m. EST (20:32 GMT) WASHINGTON (AP) -- President Bush should "come clean" about any White House officials involved in the leak of the name of undercover CIA operative Valerie Plame and "honor his pledge to fire all those involved," Sen. Barbara Mikulski of Maryland said Saturday in the Democrats' weekly radio address. "It's been one week since the vice president's chief of staff was indicted, and there are still very serious questions about how...

NUMBER ONE: Pulls "Cheap Trick" And Shuts Down U.S. Senate:The Washington Post's Dana Milbank: "Democrats Did Not Deny It Was A Stunt: A Brazen Effort To Change The Subject From The Supreme Court Confirmation Of Sam Alito ..." (Dana Milbank, "Mad About You," The Washington Post, 11/2/05) Milbank: "It Was A Cheap Trick ..." (Dana Milbank, "Mad About You," The Washington Post, 11/2/05) CNN's Lou Dobbs: "One Minute This Afternoon The U.S. Senate Was Doing The People's Business, The Next, The Senate Was Shut Down In Absolute Secrecy." (CNN's "Lou Dobbs Tonight," 11/1/05) Dobbs: "The Democrats' Strategy Of Shutting Down...

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Democrats forced the Senate into a closed session Tuesday to pressure the Republican majority into completing an investigation of the intelligence underpinning the 2003 invasion of Iraq. Democrats demanded that Intelligence Committee Chairman Pat Roberts move forward on a promised investigation into how Bush administration officials handled prewar intelligence about Iraq's suspected weapons programs. The probe would be a follow-up to the July 2004 Intelligence Committee report that blamed a "series of failures" by the CIA and other intelligence agencies for the mistaken belief among U.S. policymakers that Iraq had restarted its chemical, biological and nuclear weapons...

Myth: Miers Is Not Qualified To Be Supreme Court Justice:Jonathan Turley, George Washington University Law Professor: "No One That I Know Of Would Have Put Harriet Miers On Any List For The Court. She Just Doesn't Have The Resume To Justify A Position." (MSNBC's "News Live," 10/3/05)Fact: Miers Has Tremendous Legal Qualifications:"In Her Time In The Administration, Ms. Miers Has Addressed Numerous Legal And Policy Questions At The Highest Levels Of Decisionmaking, Most Recently Serving As The Counsel To The President Of The United States." (The White House, Fact Sheet, 10/3/05)"In 1985, Ms. Miers Was Selected As The First Woman...

I've criticized Chris Matthews several times this week, so it's only fair that I give him credit for doing the right thing tonight when liberal Mark Green went off on how corrupt the Bush administration is and started ticking off indictments: MATTHEWS: Can you name a conviction, Mark? GREEN: Hold it, hold it. What I said was — MATTHEWS: Can you name a conviction? GREEN: One second. What I said was that six people — three people have been indicted — by the way Chris, if you and I have been indicted, it doesn't mean we're guilty, but we wouldn't...

Rush transcript of NPR's Neil Conan, speaking by phone with Cindy Sheehan: NC: Very nice of you to be with us today. CS: [cheerfully] Oh, thank youuu! NC: I know that you were, uh, out in California last week because your mother was ill. How’s she doing? CS: Um, she’s doing better. They’re trying to keep her from having another stroke. And if she doesn’t have another stroke, she should be able to recover. NC: That’s good news. Now, tell us, a little bit about your son, Casey. CS: My son Casey was an amazing human being. He was gentle,...

To the editor: One would think that the president of the United States holds the most stressful job ever. Isn't it wonderful that our pompous president is in such excellent condition healthwise? And why not? His eligible daughters aren't in Iraq protecting our country like so many others, more than 1,800 who have given their lives for a war that he started. With a smirk on his face, he says, "We will stay the course." Who is "we?" Not him or his family. Heck no. He's on a month's vacation. If he's so gung-ho about this war, show us some...

Quick: What do you call President Bush’s decision to recess-appoint John Bolton as U.S. ambassador to the United Nations? “Abuse of power,” says Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.). “Abuse of power,” says Sen. Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.). “Abuse of power,” says Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean. The Democrats’ one-note response to the Bolton appointment brings to mind an article that appeared recently in The New York Times Magazine. Reporter Matt Bai looked into the party’s efforts to “frame” the political debate in Washington — that is, to come up with a new vocabulary to make Democratic positions seem more...

As predicted, President Bush’s Supreme Pick, John Roberts, is generating leftist mass hysteria. John Roberts’ nomination to the Supreme Court is being widely acclaimed from the right to the left of the political spectrum because there’s no credible basis for doing otherwise. But then there’s the hyberbolic hysteria coming from the abortion-gay-environmental wing, which has been raising gazillions in order to wage a war against _______________ (fill-in-the-blank). Take for example: An “artfully” worded comment from the Feminist Majority: “I am extremely disappointed that the President did not appoint a centrist woman to fill Sandra Day O’Connor’s seat on the Supreme...

Talking Points on the Nomination Process The standards for a nominee are clear. A nominee must: + Protect the individual rights and freedoms of Americans, + Judge cases fairly, with an open mind, and without a political agenda, + Protect all Americans, and not side with powerful special interests, and + Meet the highest ethical standards and be free of conflicts of interest. Justices must be committed to the independence of the Court, not an ideological agenda. The next Supreme Court Justice will make decisions affecting the lives of all Americans.  It is important that the decision whether to confirm...

Headline: Houston Chronicle via New York Times: [Britons linked to attacks pious as end neared People in Leeds say tensions are based on culture and economics, not religion] ***....LEEDS, ENGLAND - In the gritty, working-class suburbs of Leeds, Shahzad Tanweer, 22, was the fun-loving, rich kid of the neighborhood, the son of a savvy, Mercedes-driving shop owner. .......Mohamed Sadique Khan, 30, was the grown-up one, with a wife and a baby daughter at home. .........Khan, who was born in Pakistan but reared in Leeds, worked with disabled students, neighbors said........Tanweer, a university-educated cricket fanatic who also excelled in soccer and...

Is anyone else troubled by the basic insanity of the latest Left wing talking point on Terrorism? The basic line you can hear or read from the Leftist talking heads runs something like this. "We have to understand why the Terrorist hate us. We are to blame for terrorism. We propped up oppressive mid East dictatorships during the Cold War. Because of that the Terrorists hate us. Now that we have removed a barabrous, murderous regime in Iraq, the terrorist really hate us. What we must do now is run and hide under our beds and pay the terrorist off...

When I began working in politics in the late 1950s, after the Republicans had been seriously beaten, I attended many meetings the subject of which was the Grand Conspiracy. Speakers, some of reasonable intelligence, tried to make the case that somewhere in Washington [no one knew quite where] was the headquarters of the Liberal Conspiracy. If the Pope made policy for the Catholic Church, and if the President made policy for the United States, there must be a chief liberal who tells all the little liberals what to say. How else could one explain that the NEW YORK TIMES produced...

This time, the hoax was on them. Still gloating over their role in unmasking CBS's faulty National Guard memo story last September, right-wing bloggers launched a new memo-based crusade against the so-called liberal media last month, one that turned out to be completely phony. But unlike CBS and its tarred former anchor, Dan Rather, who eventually admitted their mistakes in the Memogate affair, these bloggers (many of whom were also involved in the CBS campaign) haven't had the guts to apologize for their blunder. When the Terri Schiavo story became national news in mid-March, a curious subplot revolved around a...

AFTER 60 Minutes II broadcast its fraudulent story on President Bush's Air National Guard service on September 8, 2004 holy heck broke loose on the Internet. Virtually anyone with eyes to see the evidence that accumulated during the days after the report came to the conclusion that the documents on which the story was based were fraudulent; yet CBS stonewalled for 12 days before admitting that its story was, well, problematic.Perhaps no event was more instrumental to CBS's undoing than the movement of the inquiry into the fraud from the Internet to the mainstream media in general, and in particular...

From Liberal Blogger Joshua Micah Marshall: "GOP front groups like USANext (the folks now working to uncover the AARP-homosexual world conspiracy) usually change their names every couple years or hive off other outfits just to keep everyone guessing..."

(CNSNews.com) - Both before the election and now, months after it, the Republican Party is making an active effort to reach out to African-Americans. "We still have a lot of work to do in the minority community," Republican National Committee Chairman Ken Mehlman said at a Tuesday night gathering in suburban Maryland. "If you give us a chance, we'll give you a choice," he told a group at Prince George's Community College, right outside the nation's capital. The RNC said its "Conversations With the Community" tour is intended to commemorate Black History Month. Maryland Lieutenant Governor Michael Steele, a Republican,...

NEW YORK As the U.S. military approaches nearly two years in the Iraq conflict, media training for soldiers going into the war zone has been stepped up, becoming mandatory for Army troops since October, E&P has learned. "Talking point" cards for military personnel, meanwhile, are being updated regularly as the war progresses -- often as much as once a week -- to keep up with the conflict's changing issues and the proximity of embedded reporters. Among the current talking points: "We are a values-based, people-focused team that strives to uphold the dignity and respect of all." Soldiers preparing for deployment...

SPEAKING OF PARTY TALKING POINTS As I said ... I've been getting emails for years accusing me of getting a set of talking points every day from the Republican Party. The Wall Street Journal's James Taranto had a rather interesting revelation in Friday's column: Taranto notes that the following letter from one Nic Karlsson of Avondale appeared in Friday's Arizona Republic: "President Bush is endangering my retirement and the retirements of millions of Americans by taking the first step in his plan to dismantle Social Security. Recently, White House sources revealed their plan to cut promised benefits to retirees by...

I used to enjoy watching Bill O'Reilly on his primetime news/opinion program 'The O'Reilly Factor'. In spite of his somewhat pompous demeanor (now that I think about it, I actually like that in a person) he seemed to be genuinely concerned with being fair to his guests and the subjects of his commentary. Sure, he's been known to cut off more than a few babbling nitwits who've refused to answer his questions directly, but for the most part, he's always tried to give everyone their say, and for that I've admired him... or at least I did before last summer....