The Hollywood Liberal

Bush Prods Congress on Iraq

AP
Excerpt:
WASHINGTON – Deadlocked with Congress over Iraq, President Bush begins the week with a message that some good might come from sitting down with his Democratic adversaries. His vice president’s view is more antagonistic: Democrats will ultimately cave.

Dick Cheney says he is “willing to bet” that Democratic lawmakers will back down and approve a war-spending bill that doesn’t call for U.S. troops to leave Iraq. Top Democratic leaders shot back that Cheney has lost all public credibility.

In an interview broadcast Sunday, Cheney predicted Congress will end up passing a “clean” bill that funds the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan without any troop withdrawal timetables. Democrats do not appear to have the votes to override a presidential veto.

“They will not leave the troops in the field without the resources they need,” Cheney said of the Democrats.

Asked what would happen if they don’t back down, Cheney said, “I’m willing to bet the other way — that, in fact, they will.”

“There may be some people who are so irresponsible that they wouldn’t support that,” Cheney said. But the majority will send Bush the bill he wants “once they’ve gone through the exercise and it’s clear the president will veto the provisions that they want in,” he said.

However, the Senate Armed Services Committee’s chairman said Congress won’t relent in winding down the war.

If Bush vetoes a bill calling for troop reductions, Democratic lawmakers would probably come back with a second try that requires the Iraqi government to meet performance benchmarks or face consequences, said Sen. Carl Levin (news, bio, voting record), D-Mich. Iraq’s leadership is struggling to make the progress it has promised on political reconciliation, distribution of the country’s oil wealth and other vital goals.

“We are very, very serious about what the American people said in November,” Levin said, referring to the election that put Democrats in charge of Congress. “They want a change of course.”

Cheney’s blistering criticism of Democrats, the latest in a series of recent speeches and interviews, drew harsh words from Levin.

“He has misled the people consistently on Iraq,” Levin said. “He has misstated. He has exaggerated. And I don’t think he has any credibility left with the American people.”

Cheney hasn’t called Libby since trial

AP
Excerpt:
WASHINGTON – In the nearly six weeks since his close friend and former chief of staff was convicted of lying and obstructing an investigation, Vice President Dick Cheney has not once spoken to I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby.

Why?

“Well, there hasn’t been occasion to do so,” Cheney said in an interview broadcast Sunday on CBS’ “Face the Nation.”

President Bush and Cheney have expressed sadness for Libby and his family, but largely refrained from comment because the matter is an active legal case. Libby plans to appeal.

In the interview, Cheney said he believes deeply in Libby.

“He’s one of the most dedicated public servants I’ve ever worked with, and I think this is a great tragedy,” Cheney said.

Yet Cheney has not spoken with Libby to tell him so directly.

Cheney’s interviewer, Bob Schieffer, was so surprised to hear that news that he asked the vice president about it again.

Why not calls to express your regrets?

“I just — I haven’t had occasion to do that,” was all that Cheney would say.

Libby faces a likely sentencing range of one to three years in prison when he is sentenced June 5.

UK: No more ‘war on terror’

AP
Excerpt:
LONDON – The British government has stopped using the phrase “war on terror” to refer to the struggle against political and religious violence, according to a Cabinet minister’s prepared remarks for a Monday speech.

International Development Secretary Hilary Benn, a rising star of the governing Labour Party, says in a speech prepared for delivery in New York that the expression popularized by President Bush after the Sept. 11 attacks strengthens terrorists by making them feel part of a bigger struggle.

Extracts from Benn’s speech at New York University’s Center on International Cooperation were released by his office.

“We do not use the phrase ‘war on terror’ because we can’t win by military means alone, and because this isn’t us against one organized enemy with a clear identity and a coherent set of objectives,” Benn said.

Ex-Justice Official’s Statements Contradict Gonzales on Firings

Washington Post
Excerpt:
The former Justice Department official who carried out the firings of eight U.S. attorneys last year told Congress that several of the prosecutors had no performance problems and that a memo on the firings was distributed at a Nov. 27 meeting attended by Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales, a Democratic senator said yesterday.

The statements to House and Senate investigators by Michael A. Battle, former director of the Executive Office for U.S. Attorneys, represent another potential challenge to the credibility of Gonzales, who has said that he never saw any documents about the firings and that he had “lost confidence” in the prosecutors because of performance problems.

Battle’s statements, relayed to reporters yesterday by Sen. Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.), came as Gonzales prepares for a make-or-break appearance on Tuesday before the Senate Judiciary Committee. Prepared testimony released yesterday indicates Gonzales will apologize to the fired prosecutors for the way they were treated and will acknowledge that he has been “less than precise” in describing his role in the firings.

Domenici Sought Iglesias Ouster

ABQ Journal
Excerpt:
Former U.S. Attorney David Iglesias was fired after Sen. Pete Domenici, who had been unhappy with Iglesias for some time, made a personal appeal to the White House, the Journal has learned.
Domenici had complained about Iglesias before, at one point going to Attorney General Alberto Gonzales before taking his request to the president as a last resort.
The senior senator from New Mexico had listened to criticism of Iglesias going back to 2003 from sources ranging from law enforcement officials to Republican Party activists.
Domenici, who submitted Iglesias’ name for the job and guided him through the confirmation process in 2001, had tried at various times to get more white-collar crime help for the U.S. Attorney’s Office— even if Iglesias didn’t want it.
At one point, the six-term Republican senator tried to get Iglesias moved to a Justice Department post in Washington, D.C., but Iglesias told Justice officials he wasn’t interested.
In the spring of 2006, Domenici told Gonzales he wanted Iglesias out

Rudy Giuliani in a dress: Will voters care?

MSNBC
Excerpt:
NEW YORK – It is difficult to shock New Yorkers, yet Rudy Giuliani teetered close to the line when he sauntered onto a stage wearing a platinum-blond wig, a face full of makeup, dainty white gloves and a frilly pink gown filled out in all the right places.

His appearance at an annual political roast was exactly 10 years ago, and at the time, the idea of the tough-talking mayor in a busty ball gown raised eyebrows but was mostly accepted as a good joke — adhering to an unwritten rule for the shenanigans that take place at the roast, known as the Inner Circle dinner.

Shortly after winning re-election that year, Giuliani took his feminine side to a national audience. While hosting “Saturday Night Live,” he appeared in one skit as a bosomy, gray-haired Italian grandmother in lipstick and a flowered housedress, with stockings pulled halfway up his calves.

CNN: Dramatic increase in Army desertions

AP
Excerpt:
Phil McDowell joined the military because of patriotism he felt after 9/11, reports CNN. He then served a year in Iraq because he thought he was fighting for a just cause.

“I did believe it was a just cause at the time,” he says. “I thought that was something that, our country was under attack, and [Saddam Hussein] was facilitating these attacks, and he was a threat to us.”

But in light of evidence that Saddam had no weapons of mass destruction and there were no credible ties between Iraq and al Qaeda, McDowell changed his mind and became “disillusioned,” reports CNN.

McDowell finished his tour and tried to leave the military, but was “stunned to learn the rules had changed and he was being called for another tour.”

So, McDowell fled to Canada, part of a growing group of US army deserters