White House Continues to Stonewall

The White House continues to stonewall, and put up roadblocks before the Congress. Mr. Bush's assertion that executive privilege extents to assistants of assistants of assistants is ridiculous. I don't know what is going through Bush's head, but the gerbil has clearly fallen off the wheel. Someone needs to send ole W back to a 8th grade civics class (do we still have 8th grade civics after Leave Every Fucking Child Behind Except the Ones Whose Parents are White and Rich?). It is apparent that this man has never heard of the separation of power and/or checks and balances. I hope that the Senate and the House stand up to this retard and show him what the Constitution really says. The following article is from the Associated Press via Forbes.com.

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Judiciary Pushes Bush Probe
By LAURIE KELLMAN 08.02.07, 10:15 AM ET

WASHINGTON - The Senate Judiciary Committee on Tuesday scored its first public interview with a currently-serving aide to President Bush about the firings of federal prosecutors.

But the session with White House political aide J. Scott Jennings at the outset was yielding little more than an appeal for sympathy and a citation of Greek mythology.

With top presidential aide Karl Rove skipping the hearing on Bush's orders, the committee had to make do with a Rove underling who made clear he was appearing only to signal goodwill and to avoid a contempt of Congress citation.

"I will be unable at this time to answer any questions concerning White House consideration, deliberations or communications related to the U.S. attorneys matter," Jennings, deputy director of Bush's White House political shop, told the panel. He made that assertion after initially noting at the outset that he is only 29 years old.

The committee has heard all of this before.

Jennings' former boss, Sara Taylor, took a similar approach last month when she testified with a lawyer by her side and for several hours tried to pick and choose which questions to answer and which to refuse - citing executive privilege. The results were inconsistent, and Chairman Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., said that he had not yet decided whether a contempt citation was in order.

Like Taylor, Jennings said he would answer questions if a court directed him to do so. But the matter was unlikely to get that far.

What the committee had not heard before was a young political buck quoting Greek literature to its members.

"I hope that you can appreciate the difficulty of my situation," Jennings said in his statement. "It makes Odysseus' voyage between Scylla and Charybdis seem like a pleasure cruise."

Whether Jennings' legal journey bore any resemblance to Homer's Odyssey was unclear.

But committee members were not intrigued.

"Mr. Jennings' appearance shows that the White House's newly minted claim of 'immunity' for White House employees is a sham," Leahy said in his remarks.

Copyright 2007 Associated Press. All rights reserved.

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Oh, truer words have never been spoken

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Rumsfeld Lies Yet Again

I wonder how everyone would have reacted if baby Eichmann had told the truth? The following article comes from Sports Illustrated.

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Rumsfeld claims no wrongdoing in Tillman's death

Posted: Wednesday August 1, 2007 5:27PM; Updated: Wednesday August 1, 2007 5:27PM

by Simon Brown

Washington -- Former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said there was no cover up following the death of NFL star Pat Tillman and that he does not remember exactly when or how he learned that Tillman was killed by friendly fire. "(The investigation) was badly handled and errors were made but in no instance has any evidence of a cover up been presented or put forward," Rumsfeld said in response to questions from a congressional committee investigating the Pentagon's handling of the Tillman case. "I know nothing that suggests that. I know that I would not engage in a cover up; I know no one in the White House suggested such a thing." Rumsfeld testified Wednesday before the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform.

Members asked Rumsfeld and three retired Army generals exactly when they knew Tillman was killed by friendly fire, if there was an attempt to conceal information and how high the knowledge of Tillman's cause of death may have reached. But aside from denial of a cover up by all witnesses, their testimony did not provide definitive answers to these questions. The Army initially said Tillman's death in Afghanistan on April 22, 2004 was the result of combat with the enemy. But the Army recanted its original report one month later, saying Tillman died from friendly fire. "(The Army is) an institution of something like 3 million people," Rumsfeld said. "There are so many things going on in that department in any given year. There are something like 7,000 courts-martial and probably that many investigations going on. It's not possible for someone to know all of the things that are going on."

While Rumsfeld said he did not remember when he found out about Tillman's death in Afghanistan, he had been made aware of Tillman's status as a football star who enlisted in the Army Rangers. According to a letter produced by Rep.Carolyn Maloney, D-N.Y., Rumsfeld wrote to Tillman on June 28, 2002 saying: "I heard you were leaving the National Football League to become an Army Ranger. It is a proud and patriotic thing you are doing."

In another letter dated June 25, 2002, Rumsfeld wrote: "(Tillman) sounds like he is world-class. We might want to keep our eye on him." Further, a member introduced into the hearing record an internal Army communication from Lt. Gen. Stanley McChrystal, who was one of the first to learn that Tillman was killed by friendly fire. In this document, dated April 2004, McChrystal wrote that Tillman's death, though heroic, was likely due to fratricide. He advised President Bush and other leaders against making any potential speeches on Tillman's death "... in order to preclude any unknowing statements by our country's leaders which might cause public embarrassment if the circumstances of Cpl. Tillman's death become public."

McChrystal wrote that he was concerned that the President and others may have been preparing to make statements regarding Tillman's winning of the Silver Star, which is the third-highest military award for valor. While no one on the committee said Tillman did not deserve the award, they sought to answer why eyewitness accounts of Tillman's actions were altered. Each of the witnesses said they did not have the answer, nor did they know who chose to award Tillman the Silver Star.

The hearing shed some light on the question of why Tillman's family was not informed immediately that Tillman was killed by friendly fire. Retired Gen. John P. Abizaid, former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said the delay may have been caused by the accepted inaccuracy of primary combat reports.

"Reports initially of combat action always have some inaccuracies of some sort," he said. "We all know the first report was wrong and we tried to clarify this as quickly as we could." Absent from the hearing was Lt. Gen Philip Kensinger, who was censured Tuesday by Army Secretary Pete Geren for lying about his knowledge of Tillman's death by friendly fire. Some in Congress were not satisfied by the answers given at the hearing, particularly some of the statements made by Rumsfeld. "I think that (Rumsfeld's) comments about not having knowledge of certain kinds of things seems to fall a little short," Rep. Michael Honda, D-Calif. said.

Copyright © 2007 CNN/Sports Illustrated.

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